Rainy First Night

Invited by Madeleine to the first night of The Captain of Kopenick at the National. The weather was truly vile, wet and windy. Anthony Sher was playing the lead and was particularly good in the second half during the period of his brief transformation into the Captain. The sets I liked, but the introductory choir sang so loud you could not hear the asides spoken by the prisoners. There was an awful lot of marching and singing and banging of percussion of various kinds, despite which I found myself almost nodding off, as the production did seem very long drawn out, and the jokes were so feeble, but this may have been some kind of commentary on the German sense of humour for all I know. Anyway the second half perked up a bit, but the message did seem a bit laboured and muddled. Again this may be due to incipient dementia on my part. There was a huge crush afterwards but we moved with a certain alacrity to obtain plates of food and a glass of wine, after which Madeleine very kindly dropped me home. I really enjoyed the opportunity to go to a first night, which is always fun, and very different from my usual quiet life. Today I babysat the exhibition at the Waterloo Gallery with Del. I put another painting in the exhibition, Waterloo Zeitgeist, which makes four now, and one hopefully sold. Our nemesis, a woman who had previously spent some considerable time wandering around the exhibition on another rainy day, fortunately hovered just outside. This was lucky, as on her previous visitation she had proudly and loudly announced that she had been evicted from her flat in Peckham and was staying at a nearby hostel. Rather unwisely, as it turned out, Del asked her why she had been evicted, and she replied that she had been awarded an ASBO for selling crack cocaine and prostitution. Waxing rather voluble on the subject of prostitution: 'We've all been there' she announced - our one thought was to get her out of the gallery before she ruined the prospect of any more sales, having already accosted a rather nervous young man. We do see life in SE1. We have had quite a number of visitors, a few sales and some very positive comments from the visitors. The eclectic nature of the works ensure that there is 'something for every one' which I see as quite positive, and yet somehow all of the work manages to look OK together. Found a fist sized hole in the plaster downstairs where it has blown, so may purchase some Polyfilla tomorrow. The painted trunk is looking good. When the weather and finances improve I must get the fence pole fixed or replaced. Did a sketch or two today in the gallery.