Tag: Covent garden

MEDITATION 84

As I sit here beside my candle, while the day dissolves into an early winter twilight, I am thinking about ivy. This is not connected with the traditional Christmas Carol ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ as you may be thinking. Perhaps I should be thinking about fir, pine or spruce at this time or about laurel, in honour of dear Marcus Aurelius, who is the inspiration for these meditations. Emperors were after all crowned with laurel leaves.

Actually I am thinking about The Ivy, the famous show business restaurant in West Street in the heart of London’s West End. A recent conversation has brought back memories of my occasional, indeed rare visits there. Of course I have always enjoyed my visits there with friends because of the theatrical ambiance. So many theatre stars have dined there since it first opened its doors in 1917. Photos of some of them adorn the walls. There is still also the possibility of spotting a celebrity or two, which adds a frisson to the occasion. It is also a very comfortable restaurant as there aren’t too many tables. The restaurant has a distinctive Art Deco decor including dark green leather seats (to represent ivy) and Art Deco stained glass panelling and the original cocktail bar.

I haven’t been there for quite a long time so I was quite excited when a friend said he would try to book a table as a late birthday and thank you gift combined. Unfortunately the restaurant was booked out: well restaurants are always busy between Christmas and New Year. So we have settled for one of The Ivy’s branches in Covent Garden. For quite recently The Ivy has become a chain or rather its branches have spread, as real ivy does. Not only are there several branches in London and its environs but now across the country in major towns. Sadly though you can replicate the menu, you can’t replicate the atmosphere of the original. Dear me, I am sounding ungrateful and snobbish perhaps. I don’t intend to be. I am sure my friend and I will have a wonderful evening and it is very kind of him. It’s just that there are occasions when I become rather ‘grand’.  Sometimes it makes me sound unintentionally churlish.

This was the case on a visit to the York branch a few summers ago. I remember the restaurant was packed as it was a Friday evening. The York branch is in a square, St Helen’s Square, and there were some tables outside the restaurant on the pavement for drinks if I remember rightly. My friends and I dined at a corner table with a window looking out onto the square. I must admit it was genuinely rather cramped inside as there were too many tables, unlike the original Ivy. I mentioned this and became rather grand again, commenting that it’s not like the original or words to that effect. It became a kind of joke.

Looking out of the window I noticed that a mobile soup kitchen for the homeless was setting up in the square. Several people were beginning to queue up, waiting for it to open. I have a feeling that the soup van was a fixture in the square before The Ivy was established there . Those drinking at tables outside were virtually an arm’s length away from those queueing up for food. While I was eating, my eyes kept returning to the window and the mobile soup kitchen. Needless to say, the view quietened me down. From playing grand I felt quite small. 

My view out of the window was poignantly incongruous. Here were we in the restaurant, eating and carousing along with all the other diners there, effectively feasting, while others outside were patiently waiting for food. The contrasting scene was worthy of Dickens. I think I said something to that effect to my friends.  A moment from a movie flashed through my mind. It was a scene from David Lean’s marvellous version of ‘Oliver Twist’: a scene early in the film in the Workhouse where Oliver is born. The child paupers are huddled together at a window, their noses enviously squashed against the window panes. For the window looks down on the managers of the Workhouse feasting from a table laden with a magnificent banquet of food.

When we are enjoying our festive celebrations or our Christmas meal, although it is highly unlikely that we will be able to see a mobile soup kitchen through the window or the envious faces of ragged urchins with their noses up against the window pane as in some Dickensian scene, perhaps we should spare a thought or, even better a penny or pound or two for those less fortunate than ourselves, of which there are likely to be many more than usual this Christmas.

We should also remember that at the heart of our frenetic festivities is the stillness of the Christmas story, at the centre of which are parents with a new born child who are homeless for a while and because of a life-threatening political situation, become migrants from their own country.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

PS: While I have been blogging, Henry Riley, who posts these Meditations for me, has been jogging! He is in training for the London Marathon on Sunday April 23 (Shakespeare’s birthday) . He is running for Global’s Make Some Noise, which supports hundreds of small charities across the UK – everything from food banks, to mental health and domestic abuse helplines, to carer support, and much more…

If you would like to support him here is the link:

LINK: https://2023tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/henry-riley

It is quite a while since I sat here beside my candle to write a meditation. I have not had much time to be reflective as, like Marcus, I have been on a campaign and like him I have been in Pannonia for a while. Except I have not been leading a military campaign but a theatrical one and to modern day Pannonia, that is Hungary. The time has come around again for our annual school Drama tour to Budapest. Like Marcus, once again I watched the sun come up over the Buda hills, though not from a military tent (as he would have done) but from my hotel room a week or so ago.

The sun has come up, or rather, gone down on my final tour. It is hard to believe that it is thirty years since the first one in February 1990. As I sat in my hotel room the other morning and gazed through the window at the sun over the Buda hills, a dazzling disc in the clear early morning winter sky, many memories inevitably flooded in. Now that I am home again I am sure many more will stream into my consciousness and perhaps into this blog too.

But on that particular morning there was little time for nostalgic reverie. It was the morning of my final performances at the Kolibri Theatre and I had to be breakfasted and out of the hotel early with the technical crew so we had time to set up the production before the cast arrived. My final production there was ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ and we were giving two performances: one at 2 in the afternoon and the other at 6 in the evening. I was too busy to be sad or nostalgic that day. But I did take lots of photos of backstage, the auditorium and the beautiful foyer. As the theatre is a children’s theatre, it is painted like a jungle with tigers, monkeys and exotic birds peeping out of the foliage. I had hoped to have a little time alone on the stage while everyone went to lunch but it didn’t happen.

Strangely it did last year, when we were performing ‘A Christmas Carol’. Somehow we had set up quickly and efficiently and when everyone else went to lunch, I did find myself sitting alone on stage in the stage lights looking out to the empty auditorium. There is an alert stillness about an empty theatre, especially when the stage is set and the performance will soon begin. There is an atmosphere of anticipation, an air of expectancy. As I sat there I felt the warmth of that lovely theatre seep into my bones. Memories flooded in more potently than in my hotel room just now. That is because the stage is where it’s at, not a hotel room. And so, as I sat there, it was then that I felt sad. And yes I did shed a tear because I knew that either then or a year later would be the end.

Prior to the tour, the 30th anniversary was celebrated at the school with a Gala Performance,which the Consul General of the Hungarian Embassy here in London and the Mayor of Kingston attending along with ex-Drama students who had been on the tours over the years and colleagues and ex-colleagues and friends too. Several friends, ex-students and colleagues attended the other two performances as well. So many people to see and so little time to talk to them all. The memories streamed in with them. A heartfelt thank you to all who came along!

I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs – it was in connection with ‘A Christmas Carol’ last year – that, as in Ancient Greek Drama, the director and actors’ aim is to create an invisible circle between the performers and the audience. Experiencing Wagner’s Ring Cycle of four operas at the Royal Opera House in autumn 2018 had reminded me of this. It is easier, of course, to create this circle in a small studio theatre than in a large auditorium like the opera house at Covent Garden. Nevertheless, it is a magical thing when it happens, like the magic ring at the centre of Wagner’s operas. I am pleased to say that it did happen, both in the school’s studio and the Kolibri Theatre.

During those performances at school and at the Kolibri, another circle appeared as if by magic as I watched the performances from the wings. For these were my final performances. My career as a teacher and director had come full circle. And all those students, the past ones in the audience and the present ones on stage, were part of that circle, that golden round, which extended to a country a thousand miles away. My heart was almost bursting with as much pride and excitement as when I watched our first ever performance in the school by Lake Balaton from the wings 30 years ago.

At the beginning of the second performance at the Kolibri Theatre, Janos Novak, the theatre’s director, made a presentation to me. It was a plaque: oblong in shape and of polished wood. It had a wooden marionette attached to it. There is a brass citation underneath in recognition of our 24 year creative friendship and officially making me an honorary member of the Kolibri Theatre Company. I do feel greatly honoured and very moved.

The marionette is very appropriate as because Kolibri is a children’s theatre, puppets are often used in performances, even for older children and young people. The puppet on the plaque is a Harlequin and is beautifully carved and painted in a delicate cream. The large diamonds of Harlequin’s costume are a contrasting peach in colour. He wears an orange hat and brown shoes. Harlequin is one of the oldest characters in European Theatre, first appearing as one of the stock characters in the Italian Commedia dell’arte plays, which began before Shakespeare’s time. So I am doubly honoured. Although I am too short and slightly too rotund to play the slim Harlequin!

The marionette is attached to the plaque by a piece of wire at the back of the head. Therefore the arms and legs are able to move. They clattered about in a plastic bag when I carried the plaque back to the hotel after leaving the theatre. Dear old Harlequin reminds me of how my life has been in semi-retirement. Like the puppet on the plaque, my hands and feet have been free to move but I have still been attached to the school through productions and the drama tour.

Now I am totally unattached. I am like Pinocchio: ‘I got no strings!’ But like Pinocchio when he first tries to walk without them I am a little wobbly on my legs. Losing his strings was a big deal for Pinocchio and it is for me. The fear of freedom threatens to blow me over. However, once I find my feet I am sure I shall be fine.

Like Pinocchio the marionette has a slender nose. His features are carefully painted onto his wooden face. Sometimes when I look at him, his mouth appears to be smiling, At other times he looks sad, as if he saying farewell. Perhaps he represents the theatre’s farewell. His eyes smile sometimes too, and at other times look wistful and sad. He appears to be a marionette with mixed emotions.

As have I.

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius