October 28th, 2012

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The autumn leaves are falling and election fever in the good ol’ US of A is reaching its climax. I for one really hope that they keep that black American man in the White House. Even if the thought of little black American children running around playing hide-and-seek in it is a source of profound irritation to the ultra-right-wing, mainly white Christian fundamentalists who like to shoot powerful weapons on weekends to let off steam. In fact, I hope they keep that black American man in the White House just to make their collective jugular veins bulge and tighten against their shirt collars.

Brits love sweets. So do Americans. The obese blobs wobbling about our shopping malls can’t have failed to catch your eye. Yanks, though, also love weapons. Preferably very powerful weapons and the bigger the better it seems. A much-loved gun is the AK47 assault rifle. The US market is flooded with cheap Chinese copies of the original Russian model. Don’t’cha just love Free Enterprise folks?

Can these weapons really be for hunting purposes? Or do these American boys just like to play with big toys? There were 31,337 fatalities caused by firearms in 2009 in the US. Compare that number to the 2,012 American casualties from the War in Afghanistan to date. Fact.

Less factual, but more fragmental, are my earliest childhood memories: picking winkles on a rocky beach; shaving my head at the age of four; a picnic at a Highland Games gathering and wondering how it was possible for men to have such white and hairy legs; and my mother telling me that she broke her nose running into a lamppost during a night-time air raid during the Second World War.

And then, of course, there were the sweets. Lucky Bags, Rhubarb and Custards, Sherbert Lemons, Sherbert Dips, Wagon Wheels, Walnut Whips, Spangles, Curly Wurlys, and my personal favourite: Aztecs. Yummy! I can see Ye Old Tucke Shoppe and the jars of sweets in the window as if it were yesterday.

I’m working on a play called ‘Old Times’ by Harold Pinter right now. It’s a fragmented and at times very funny love story by one of Britain’s best wordsmiths.

An East-end Hungarian Jew who the Fates and his talent decreed would one day receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Please remember to put a note in your diaries to come and see it, anytime from 24 October until 24 November. Book your tickets at www.billetten.dk. See www.that-theatre.com for more info.

This week’s Coming up Soon features details of a chance to listen to Harry Burton talk about Pinter, the subject of his recent documentary. Email info@that-theatre.com for tickets or buy them at the door.