Thursday I went to London to meet up with Row, Lise and Ann to see the Harold Pinter play The Dumb Waiter with Jason Isaacs and Lee Evans.



We met at Waterloo and had afternoon tea in the National Theatre before walking over the river to Whitehall. We found the theatre then had dinner at the Spaghetti House. The place got packed and the service was not great and when we got the bill we thought it was low at £11 each then realised they hadn’t included the drinks!! Years ago I would have queried something like that but now we just legged it!!

We waited in the bar of the Trafalgar Studios and spotted comedienne Jenny Éclair coming in on her own. I also spotted some actor who looked familiar but he disappeared before I could point him out to the girls. Then Lise decided she could see actor Michael Cashman, it so wasn’t Michael Cashman that we started to get the giggles (after a couple glasses of *free* booze anything gets amusing!).

The play was set to start at 7.45pm and they opened the doors at 7.30pm. We all trooped in. The theatre is small and very steep. We came into the auditorium right at the front of the stage and were practically in the set. It was a really sordid cellar room with a bed either side at the back, the walls covered with filthy broken tiles with the dumb-waiter in the middle. I then realised the beds were occupied!! Jason Isaacs was lying on the left hand side and somebody was curled up with their back towards us on the other one. It was a very strange feeling seeing them there whilst the audience all did their usual sitting down and getting straight stuff. I wonder if they got overtime!!? Every so often they’d stretch or roll over.

Basically the two characters Gus (Evans) and Ben (Isaacs) are hit-men waiting for some unknown person to arrive and they have a routine to kill them. Gus is virtually manic, continually prattling on, tying and retying his shoe laces whilst Ben is the one in charge, reading inane articles out of his newspaper and generally ignoring Gus’ verbal diarrhoea.
Suddenly the dumbwaiter starts to arrive with requests for meals! They aren’t even in a proper kitchen, what’s going on? Well this is Pinter and although a comedy you can’t really expect to know quite what’s going on!
The one-act play lasts an hour and we are spellbound to the riveting end.

L & A are big Jason Isaacs fans so Row and I are honour bound to do the stage door thing with them (rude not to, really…;). Small problem! There doesn’t appear to be a stage door! We are out on the pavement, everybody has gone and there are no alleys alongside! We set off in one direction take a left and look down a side road and see a small group of about fifteen people standing around! The stage door! This place is Whitehall, there are security men lurking and large iron gates everywhere but we decide to give it half an hour.

After about twenty minutes the door opens and Lee Evans emerges. Most of the people waiting are men and I am sure some are professional autograph seekers. We hang back and I take a few snaps then Jason comes out. The girls pounce and I take the requisite photos! Some guy has a large glossy photo of Mr. Malfoy he wants signing. J asks “This isn’t for eBay is it?” The guy swears it isn’t and says he can dedicate it to him if he likes which he does. I make a smart comment along the lines of “Oh, is that you then?” to which he remarks “Yeah, the nose gives it away” The girls get their autographs and pix and I wander around between Lee and Jason. Lee is signing a lot of stuff but keeps saying “I got to go, I need a wrap from Tescos” The girls finally come over to Lee and he autographs stuff for them. I tell him I’m too old for autographs! LOL He then asks us where we are all from! We tell him and he wants to know how we know each other. Somebody says “on-line” and this gets him interested! “What on-line?” He asks. “Oh have you got a site for him?” He asks pointing at Jason! “ No!” we answer but feel disinclined to disclose the nature of Row’s site LOL.

I must admit that I have never been a fan of Lee’s manic slapstick comedy routine, he reminds me too much of Norman Wisdom who may be big in Albania but managed to scar my childhood! However Lee came over as a thoroughly nice guy, quiet and thoughtful and genuinely pleased when I told him I had enjoyed the play and thought he’d given a fantastic performance (which he had). He posed for a picture with the girls and still muttering about his Tesco’s wrap he said goodnight and set off with his little backpack and flat cap in to the night. As we left we spotted him disappearing into the distance around Trafalgar Square with passers-by completely oblivious of who he was.
I think I became a fan!!

We then walked back to Waterloo stopping at a café under the arches at the Festival Hall for a much needed juice and tea. We giggled stupidly over the photos and after some people left A asked L “Did you see who was sitting next to you?” None of us had - "Paul Gambaccini!" so I think we had just about O’D on sleb spotting for the night and headed for the station.










Ann, Lee and Lise:





I can't resist showing the comic strip that Row made of the evening (bearing in mind that Lise has "previous" in getting into as many sleb photos as possible eg HERE and HERE)

Tags: play, review