Back in July I talked about
the magical properties of the Westfield Pret a Manger, which acts like a more sandwichy version of Cilla Black in Surprise Surprise bringing together people who haven't seen each other for a while. I've been in a couple of times this week to have a coffee and try and work on my script and both times I have met a friend. Yesterday the not so long lost Al Murray (I last saw him last Monday) blundered up behind me saying, "Is this seat taken?" It took me a couple of seconds to realise who he was. I remarked on how many people I bumped into in this place and we chatted for a while. He said that from behind I looked like an old woman. Maybe it's time to get my hair cut/dyed.
More excitingly, today, another person blundered up behind me asking if the chair next to me was taken. My bag was on the chair and he was pretty insistently going to sit down and so I said, "Hold on" in a slightly annoyed way. The man was looking right at me expectantly but again it took a few seconds for me to work out who was playing the old "is this seat taken?" trick on me. It was Paul Reynolds from off of Press Gang and Punk's Not Dead, my mid-90s play. Aside from a few grey hairs he looked just the same. I thought I hadn't seen him since the 20th Century, but then I remembered that he had been in an episode of Time Gentlemen Please so it was in fact only just over a decade since we'd last spoken. It was good to see him, but I was freaked out by the magical portal that is the Westfield Pret a Manger. Who will I see in there next?
Fruit flies like a banana though, and though Punk's Not Dead seems like only yesterday, Paul's daughter (who was born a few months after we were doing that play) is now 15. There's nothing like a rapidly growing human being to make you realise how old you are and how much time has been frittered away. We reminisced but soon we went our separate ways. One of the disconcerting things about this business is how a play or a TV show or whatever throws you together with people who you become very close to, but then at the end casts you adrift to different shores. Sometimes you keep in touch for a while, very occasionally you make a friend who you see all the time, but generally you lose touch as the next project (or just life) engulfs you.
Tonight we went to see Shappi Khorsandi at the Soho Theatre in her show "Dirty Looks and Hopscotch", a very enjoyable, very funny and very open look at her recent relationships.
Recommended.
We then came home and watched "My Dinner with Andre" which I'd never seen before. There aren't enough 110 minute films which are more or less just two men talking at a table. And this one discusses some big and mind-bending topics. I think I might need to watch it about three more times to understand even a half of it, but it was great to see something so different and at least now I more fully understand the many comedic references to this film in popular American comedy. Congratulations to David Mitchell on the production design on this film, even more impressive given he must have been seven years old at the time.
Gareth Davies who set himself the goals of running more regularly, watching his Dexter DVD box set and catching up with the Collings and Herrin podcast has got in touch to say he's largely failed on the running aim (though he regularly plays squash), has not yet watched Dexter, but is up to date on C&H, so one out of three isn't bad. Hold on, in this case one out of three is terrible. You can easily watch Dexter in the next four weeks Gareth. Come on. One last push.
The rest of you remain silent, maybe because you're waiting until the actual deadline or perhaps because you are embarrassed by your failure. Don't be embarrassed. Try again, fail again, fail better.
