fly poo '

So on Wednesday night I got outdone by an apostrophe!

After confidently buying my £5 ticket to a preview of Saturn's Return at the Finborough Theatre, I set off for the theatre around two hours early ready to face whatever diversions the tube strike could throw at me.

... two hours later (actually it wasn't really that bad, some of the lines were back up and running a light service by the evening) I arrived at the Finborough Theatre in Earl's Court. As I walked down the street towards the popular pub theatre that was actually undergoing a huge refurbishment and was almost entirely covered in scaffolding, I was given warm handshakes and knowing smiles by the resident Aussies as they welcomed me 'home'.

The Finborough Theatre prides itself in programming new international work and so I was excited to be taking the opportunity to see Australian playwright Tommy Murphy's play that was commissioned by STC recently. It wasn't until I negotiated the scaff and climbed the narrow stairs to reach the box office and I was offered a program for Saturn Returns  by Noah someone or other that I realised my mistake! I stared at the program for a while and the woman behind the counter got a bit nervous I think!

Anyhoo, once I'd adjusted to the fact that I was in for a completely different evening to the one I was expecting, I settled in as well as I could on the unsympathetic bench seating to watch Saturn in the act of Coming Back. The play wasn't that bad though it was always going to struggle to get the casting right: the play calls for an actor who appears to be in his late eighties. Finding a good actor that age who is actually still acting and willing to work in a fringe production for little or no money would have to be quite a challenge! The actor they did find was passable but not believable enough to give the play real gravity. The actor who played the same character as a young man however had me close to tears!

So I'm still yet to see The Comeback for Saturn but I have learned an important lessons about the possessive, the consequences of wearing an Aussie flag bandanna in Earl's Court, and casting older actors in fringe theatre.

The End.