"Absolutely Entranced"

I HATE ironing, but there ARE compensations.

Monday's compensation was watching The Afternoon Play on BBC TV while ironing.. ( Doesn't Life Get Exciting??)

And after five shirts, the ironing board stood alone and unaccompanied...

Afternoon Plays also appeared on Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri (that's IF you switched on TV and IF you felt inclined to recline on sofa with one cat, several chocolates, whatever took your fancy...)

I so loved Monday's offering that I reclined again on Tuesday ( plus TWO cats, actually and the ironing still in its basket) ) but other stuff (teaching, shopping, a friend) happened other days so that was the end of The Afternoon Play for me... but catching 2/5, I think, was pretty good going.

Monday's play," Johnny Shakespeare" starred Greta Scaachi and James Cartwright. Scaachi played beautiful neglected talented middleaged academic Diane ( phew, that was an effort..) and Cartwright played beautiful popular talented teenaged out-of-work Johnny. Johnny gate-crashed Diane's drama class; Diane spotted his potential ( in more ways than one) and well, guess the rest. ..

And although this was sugary silly in places, I was entranced by this; absolutely entranced at two thirty on a Monday afternoon.The music was good, the directing fine and the supporting cast worthy of any production anywhere.

Scaachi (soon-to-be-past-it beauty, living in book-lined middleclass comfort) and Cartwright, ( illiterate teenage stud, living with alki gran in seedy council house) were superb together. There was no wild passion, just shared humour, a touching of fingers, glances lasting seconds longer than necessary...but we ( cats and me) knew the passion COULD have been wild and that it WOULD have been in another time, another place. And we were glad, we were very glad...