One Week With John Gulliver - Dream of a Dog gets rave reviews

Published: 17 June, 2010

I LEFT the theatre on Saturday evening emotionally drained after an extraordinary, intense performance by Ariyon Bakare in a South African drama, Dream of the Dog.

I reckoned it was one of the best performances I had seen in the West End for years.

On came the actors for their well deserved bow, including Janet Suzman, whose performance was equally good – but where was Bakare?
Not there. More applause and on came the cast for the second bow – and still no Bakare.

I was surprised to hear no muttering from the audience as we trooped out of the small, cosy Trafalgar Studios in Whitehall.

I must have seen at least a thousand West End performances and never once has the lead actor simply not appeared for the applause.

A member of the theatre staff told me she thought Bakare had disappeared because of a “personal” reason.

Well, I thought, she would say that, wouldn’t she? I mean what did it amount to?
Then yesterday (Wednesday) the puzzle was solved.

Janet Suzman, who lives in Hampstead, told me that Bakare had had to go off suddenly to attend a wedding.

An amused Janet added: “He wanted to be the best man but couldn’t because of the show, but he suddenly had to dash off to Longleat where his cousin was getting married to the Marquess of Bath!”

I assume a marriage went ahead in some form, though I gather the Marquess leads a polygamous lifestyle about which he freely writes.

• The final curtain comes down on this play on Saturday evening – see it.

Here’s a soundbite: we can confirm Britain is not broken

SEDUCTIVE soundbites such as “broken Britain” have flown through the years from politicians in the search for votes.

Do readers remember Mrs Thatcher’s soundbite – “There is no such thing as society!” – which was turned into its opposite by David Cameron as “the great society”?

As I sat in Our Lady of Hal Church in Camden Town at a recent service the Tory soundbite “broken Britain” seemed foolishly inapt.
Broken Britain?

Britain seemed far from broken as I looked around the crowded pews at the hundreds of faces and the long line of young teenagers waiting for their confirmation.

Rowdy youths, bored teenagers, boozed up youngsters on street corners – no doubt you will find them.

But what about the other youngsters?

So little is written about them in the mainstream media. Even this newspaper isn’t innocent in this respect.

Yet there they were all around me. Quietly talking, absorbing the spiritual atmosphere.

This, I thought, is the other Britain and is, perhaps, representative of the majority of young people.

Let confused, stumbling youngsters make a hash of things and end up on drink or drugs, thieving or even worse, and the headlines jump up.

But for the youngsters I saw, the spiritual blessing they sought at Our Lady of Hal was a serious exploratory adventure.

Bear in mind that many of them will not be regular churchgoers but are drawn willingly into a ceremony they feel is of significance to them.

I gather that June is the month when Catholic churches in Camden hold their confirmation services, and that scenes similar to those I witnessed can be found at St Dominics in Gospel Oak, St Aloysius in Somers Town, the Sacred Heart  in Quex Road, West Hampstead, and Our Lady Help of Christians in Lady Margaret Road, Kentish Town.

Hundreds of adults and teenagers will attend these services as part of an ancient ceremony.

I write as an agnostic, but one who recognises the spiritual message of Christianity that falteringly feeds through our values.

The scene I met at Our Lady of Hal reflects, I am sure, the other side of “Broken Britain” and one that gets too little publicity.

The immortalised Virginian abolitionist

I HAVE often wondered about the name of that great hall of debate – Conway Hall, in Holborn.

This week I discovered it was named after Moncure Daniel Conway.

Conway’s righteous denunciation of slavery was so incendiary in the Civil War he was forced to flee his native Virginia for London, where he became a big draw as a lecturer at the South Place Ethical Society.

Later, the great hall was named after him.

A man of action, Conway personally liberated his own father’s slaves.

When he died in 1907, Conway was no less disaffected with his countrymen, and today, he remains an uncelebrated figure.

Dr Ellen Ramsay, a writer, will give a lecture on Conway on Sunday at 3pm at, of course, Conway Hall.

Bohemia or billionaire pads, this community survives

IT’S difficult to believe as you look around the grand period houses in Regent’s Park Road, now with a price tag of several million pounds, that a few years ago Primrose Hill was known as a bohemian working-class district.

The other day I met a cabbie who said he often drives past his old home at 114 Regent’s Park Road – now a period house worth millions – where he lived with his parents and siblings until the 1970s. Somehow his father’s wage as a butler kept the home going.

Today, tabloids put celebrities and Primrose Hill together. But life remains very mixed in Primrose Hill – alongside the fancy homes lie council and housing association estates, and blocks that have become sheltered homes for the elderly living on a state pension.

You could see the mixture at the annual fair held in Chalcot Square on Saturday – a fair that tells you there is still a real community feeling in Primrose Hill, even though one half has gone up in the world.