Thrilled beyond words to see Dame Maggie last night - one of those rare nights in the theatre when you feel honoured to be there. I skipped past the long queue for returns (not a chance!) unable to believe my luck that only a few days ago I'd spotted a tranche of £15 tickets on the website. I was resigned to the fact that my 'restricted view' seat would probably mean peering around a pillar ... but what a wonderful surprise, the cheap seats are the best in the house - for this performance at least - and I was about 10 feet away from Dame Maggie, as intimately engaged as if I were sitting across the room   listening to her reminiscences of life as Goebbels' secretary.
She was astonishing ... 1hr and 40 mins onstage, alone, and you could feel every eye in the theatre was riveted on this 84 year old. I wondered if it would be my last chance to see her perform live - but maybe not, because she looks in fine fettle! Standing ovations are easy-come-easy-go with today's excitable audiences ... but this was a standing ovation with 900 people on their feet! I looked at some of the young people and wondered if they realised that this was probably one of the ten best performances that they'd ever see in their life.
It was incidentally an excellent play by Christopher Hampton - because even a fine actress is only as good as the writing! (See below.)
Then I skipped (well, creaked, dodgy knees, mentally I skipped) across Tower Bridge, back to the tube station, admiring the view and thinking, 'Wow, what a night!')



Saturday night was another one-woman performance: Avalanche: A Love Story. Now, I admit, a play about IVF doesn't exactly scream, 'Saturday night out' ... but it was Maxine Peake, so I thought I'd give it a go. Aaaarrrggh ... it was like listening to someone's medical notes. A fine actress let down by mediocre writing. I nodded off, bored - woke with a jerk and she was still only on her fifth round of treatment and I just didn't care enough about the character to want to know if she succeeded. I realised I was far more interested in the cynicism of the Bentley-driving doctors who spin a 2% likelihood of conceiving and present it as  40%. Dame Maggie held me enthralled for an hour and a half. Avalanche, alas, had me wondering if it would ever bloody be over. Maxine Peake deserves better.