How the Other Half Loves

 

Another night out at a period play, this time from 1969.  This domestic farce is still very funny, operating like clockwork as it should.  The premise is that Frank (Roger Allum), an ineffectual but well meaning man, decides to intervene when his wife explains that she missed their anniversary as someone in his work team is having an affair.  Being the genial, if incompetent boss that he is, and totally misunderstanding the situation, he tries to help resolve the perceived marital difficulties of Mary and William, Bob and Theresa, causing highly entertaining chaos.  The play is in the round, with the set ingeniously split between the overlapping homes of the Featherstones and the  Phillips. which enables  some excellent scenes where the couples have phone calls, conversations and even more entertaining, two concurrent dinner parties, without noticing the others are there.

It is definitely funny, but some of the relationship dynamics are really dated, although they are still really strong archeypes that are far too recognisable.  There are some jarring parts though, but this has been overcome by treating it very clearly as a period piece.  The women don't work and the men are ineffectual, a cad and a bully. It's very sharp on class too, and although the details might have changed, that is another area where, depressingly, things are much the same.  Regardless, our sympathies are with the women whether you view it as a period piece or not; nowadays it would be a bit of a tragedy if they stayed with these men, but here it’s a happy comedic ending. 

The cast are fabulous and this was a lot of fun.  We had good seats in the stage dress circle which is a new seating area for me at this theatre.  I only just found out that over 60’s get discounts in lots of the seats at the Old Vic which meant we could upgrade a bit!  

Julio le Parc: Light. Colour. Action.

Earlier in the day we went to see this exhibition at Tate modern.  It was a lot of fun with most of the exhibits designed to be interactive in some way.  The moving light pieces were often very soothing to watch, a bit like an aquarium, but one or two of the flickery ones made my head ache.  I couldn't really get good pictures of them though.   

There were others that were just fabulously old skool with buttons to press to get some kind of action, so I'm glad we went when the schools are back so we didn't have to elbow too many children out of the way. 

 And this visual illusion reminded me simultaneously of Sue White from Green Wing and Harry Worth.  

le Parc uses mathematical formulas to create his work and the coloured images were a lot of fun too, using just 14 colours to create different visual experiences depending on how near or far you are.

I really enjoyed the Blue Spere which took up a whole room and responded to the slightest breeze in the room, making me feel satisfyingly powerful - my own video isn't much good so I recommend visitng the exhibition yourself, or at least the website here to see it properly.