Incident in Islington

This evening’s performance was at the King’s Head Pub and Theatre in Islington. 

I went via the tube as I could travel directly rather than have to change tube lines in peak hour. What is it with those underground connections where you walk miles underground up and down stairs, around corners this way and that? I didn’t pay to walk there.

As I re-entered the surface world in Islington I was accosted by a woman with an Irish accent who wanted my to sign a petition to get rid of Therese May. I’m not sure who she was petitioning. She also tried to sell me some Socialist rag. I almost had to perform an excorcism to get away. Quite an off-putting introduction to Islington as I understood it was being gentrified. She could have to go for a start.

It was a bit of a walk down to the pub but I had booked on line. Everyone appeared to have done so. Loved the reusable laminated ticket. I wondered if they ever wiped them down with disinfectant and why they felt the need  to reinforce their green credentials as if I was from the recycling police. I bought a carry bag as well – it is ‘made using 100% Organic and Fairtrade certified cotton’. Almost put me off, but I’m sure the locals can sleep smugly despite the fact that the accreditation probably means someone in a third-world country is out of a low paid job so as to fund accreditation and now more improverished than ever.

The theatre is actually a large room behind the bar. It would be hideously crowded if you squeezed 110 people in there. Thankfully there were only about 70.

Up close and personal with the cast again for this production of Arthur Miller’s ‘Incident in Vichy’, apparently based on a story told to him by his dentist. Following a visit to a concentration camp after the war, he wrote this play. 

Note the elaborate set design. It hasn’t been performed in London for 50 years and I am reliably informed is not considered one of his better plays. However I thought it was very topical. “Everyone wants to be a victim nowadays”. It definitely needed a small venue. It would have been lost on a large stage. The cramped set added another dimension to the text.

It was well acted. The ‘Old Jew’ not shown above didn’t say a word but was totally in character throughout. I think it is an important play to revisit.

Exit stage right.