My latest metro column
was up today, a familiar tale for regular readers, but one with a few embellishments. I was particularly proud of the Wilfred Owen reference. Who said my O level English coursework had no practical application in real life?
Tonight I went to the Tricycle Theatre to see
Mark Thomas in Bravo Figaro, an engaging and moving piece about his relationship with his opera-loving builder father. It resonated with me because my grandad Don Hannan had also worked in the building trade and happened to be a big fan of opera too. I remember him telling me that his workmates thought he was being pretentious and that he couldn't possibly really like that music. But Don didn't bow to the pressure to conform or buy in to working class suspicion of education. His dad once caught him reading a book and threw it into the fire. He was supposed to know his place in the world and reading was not for the likes of him.
Don was a self-educated man, whose conclusions I didn't always agree with, but he was clever and funny and had he been born at a different time would surely have gone to University. I often compare my life to his and wonder how he'd feel about the opportunities that I've been given and the life I've led. He'd be pretty bamboozled I am sure. I feel angry on his behalf that he didn't get to explore the world or his own brain in the way that my cushy life has allowed me to. But he lived to see two of his grandchildren go to Oxford University, which I hope would have been a thrill for him. It's amazing how much changed in two generations, though in a world increasingly concerned with celebrity fripperies rather than knowledge and where it costs so much to go to college I am not sure that it's a progression that will necessarily continue.
Mark's story was a personal one and admirably in its candour - he admits that his dad was a difficult man (and that's not the term he uses, which is a bit more earthy) and it's well worth catching
on tour if you can make it. It whisked me back a quarter of a century to my grandparents' house in Benson Street in Middlesbrough and also to the comedy circuit on the late 80s, where I caught the tail-end of the kind of acts that Mark remembers in the show as well. I wondered what all those crazy acts and political comedians were up to now. There aren't too many of us from that time still doing the job, but good to see the noble/idiotic few doing stuff like this
So for me particularly this was a show that propelled my head back into the past, but I think it will do this one some level for most people.
