I survived the bike in, just. Very windy and the elements had fetched lots of branches down off the trees but the only thing that got in my way were car drivers. I didn’t have to climb over any fallen trees but I almost had to climb over a woman in a white Corsa. She was so far over the give-way line at the roundabout that it seemed that almost my only option but in the end I waited in the middle of the road, risking the Stuntman Mike's of the world, until she moved. Obviously she thought it was all my fault.
Daughter wants to go see Hard-Fi. I'm not keen but L seems willing to go. The other problem is, it's at the hellhole that is the Ice Arena. Suppose I have to go really, open mind theory and all that and they were quite good once. L tries to walk to the Arena to get tickets but aborts when she gets drenched in a hailstorm. Strange. Divine intervention perhaps. It's sunny here in Derby.
Bike home, still no hail, I'm almost disappointed.
At home I multi-task, by trying to read emails, exercise Doggo in the garden and change my brake pads on my bike, all at the same time. Naturally none of my tools fit the odd shaped screw they've used to secure the pads. I manage to change one of the four but I'm unable to get the screws out of the other three. So now I have one new pad and three old ones.
Then the three of us, Daughter as well, head off to see a (cough) musical, The Hired Man at the Djanogly Theatre, which is at the University's Lakeside centre. I purchased the tickets on line only this afternoon. I'm impressed that not only is there no charge for paying by credit card but also there's no admin fee either. Our seats are rather good too, on row C, which is bizarrely the front row.
We soon find out why they have no need to charge any extra fees when we find how eye wateringly expensive the wine is. Although L seems to get a cut-price deal when she goes to the bar. I would have accused her of fluttering her eyelashes to get a reduction but it was a girlie who served her.
The Hired Man is performed by New Perspectives, who are a local theatre company. It is based on a novel written by Melvyn Bragg. It was written as a tribute to his grandfather, a farm labourer, and keen amateur musician. The play opens with a layer of mist covering the stage, suggesting a Cumbrian Fell. For practical reasons I guess they had to omit the Lakeland rain. The setting is Cumbria because that is where Bragg was born. The time period is around the turn of the last century, period costumes are provided by Nottingham's Lace Market Theatre.
The story revolves around hiring fairs, where farm workers used to seek work on the land. It focuses on a young married couple and their family, as they struggle to make a living. The husband, John Tallentire, finds that he is unable to make a decent wage from farm work and eventually ends up working down the coalmines instead. His wife, Emily, who is yet another wayward married woman, indulges in a bit on the side with his employer's son, Jackson.
The tale encompasses, among other things, the start of the union movement and the First World War. The simple set is resourcefully reused to also suggest mineshafts and the battlefields of the Great War.
Musical accompaniment is nicely minimalist, usually just a piano but sometimes accompanied by trumpet and violin. I like a musical that isn't all signing, I find that having no dialogue can make the story hard to follow, as this play mixes both dialogue and songs, it is perfect. A sign of a good musical is if you come away humming the tunes. So I suppose this one works. The songs are good and often livelier than the tale because if you like an uplifting, feel-good drama then you'll be very disappointed with this play. It's a rather bleak affair about the couple's dashed hopes, with a fair amount of death thrown in. Emily gets a right rough deal. Their son dies in the war, along with her bit on the side. At which point she seems to declare her love for John. Which is a bit rich, now that her preferred shag in dead. Then she herself dies. The daughter finds her dead mother, and John comes home to find his wife dead. Oddly at this point he decides to go back to working on the land. Bit late mate. I think several members of the audience, L included, were welling up at this point. I love an unhappy ending.
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