I'm feeling quite glad of a night in tonight - but during last week's burst of energy I took a train ride to Reading to see this adaptation of The Night Watch. (I think you probably do need to have read the book; years since I read it but it came back to me.)
It was my first visit to The Hexagon at Reading, as cheerlessly municipal/unatmospheric as a theatre could possibly be. Its saving grace is a lovely little allotment garden outside where you can bring your interval drink on a sunny afternoon.
It was an excellent adaptation, I thought - and the set design really captured the drab exhaustion of 1947, when the story opens, and the horrors of the Blitz. It was a real shame that there was only a smattering of people in audience. (It was a weekday matinée.) The play continues on tour.



Richmond Theatre, on the other hand, is like sitting in a lovely old-fashioned box of expensive chocolates- and that's where I was the following night. And this time the theatre was packed. I'd never seen A Woman of No Importance before - so I hadn't twigged that it's such a very dull play! The West End cast - with Anne Reid - might have dragged it up a notch (or maybe not) but the current cast is very lack-lustre. (Usual cheers from the Richmond audience ... can they all be somebody's mum or second cousin? I always wonder how they'd respond when something is actually good?) Also on tour, but honestly I wouldn't bother.