Phew. The sun is shining and despite a frosty start, for the first time I think this year, I am not wearing 14 layers. I think, maybe, just maybe, spring is on its way. But who knows. Next week might see blizzards and white outs. So I’m not getting my hopes up. But anyway. We have had some incredible weather for our first week of rehearsals, which has made it a joy travelling the couple of miles from Ludlow to Pentabus HQ, and has really shown Shropshire in its most beautiful light. It has been a pretty joyful week all round actually-getting to grips with the play, the world, the characters, and working in Pentabus’s light and airy rehearsal space. Having our set has really given us a head start in understanding the space and working out how it might work in creating the many locations that the Viner family experience throughout the play.

After the first day of introductions, orientation, logistics of accommodation etc, James took us through his ideas for costume for the numerous characters, many of whom drop in and out of the action for a matter of seconds, never to be seen again. So the emphasis is on finding quick and efficient ways of demonstrating a different character, hats, glasses, scarfs, things that are quick to put on and take off. James throughout the week would disappear into the streets of Ludlow, Hereford, Shrewsbury for hours on end, trawling every charity shop, every boutique, every shop containing clothes that the people who appear in the play might wear. He would return to top up our increasingly full rail of clothes, and there would be trying on sessions to check how his purchases would look. some hilarious options that I’m not sure will find their way into the play (some very tight trousers for Owen, a bizarre flap cap which made the wearer look like he had a weird head extension, a tight pink t shirt for Iain (he plays one of Brian’s children Eleanor) that was just too tight to be appropriate in any way. Trial and error will continue, so that we ensure that costumes are authentic and truthful.

A highlight of the week was Wednesday afternoon, which was devoted to visiting some of the locations that feature in the play, namely Leominster, Docklow manor itself, the Kingsland Auction and the Kings Head. We had an hour in Leominster, so we all scattered throughout the town, dipping in and out of bookshops, antique shops, cafes, vegetable shops, soaking up the Leominster atmosphere and tuning our ears into the many different dialects that floated through the streets. Before returning to the trusty van (not me driving fortunately, Titch has taken on much of the ferrying around, which is quite brilliant. Not sure how I would handle driving a big old van crammed with actors. Titch meanwhile has it sorted.) I had a brief but strange encounter in a vegetable shop. I paused briefly outside it to look at their vegetable boxes (in the play, Owen has a ‘local produce’ stall and I just wondered what kind of boxes he might have and how vegetables might be displayed. serious stuff.) and I heard a voice say from inside ‘well dont just stand there, come inside’. I wasn’t planning to actually go in, but I kinda thought I had to, so went in and earnestly looked at some apples. There were about 6 men, all over 60, just standing in the shop, arms folded, or leaning on the counter. One of the men was just shouting at the others, while they looked on half amused, half incensed by what he was saying (which I tried my best to work out, but his accent was so thick I had no idea what he was getting so upset about). I decided to buy some apples, to justify my visit, which meant walking into the group of men to get to the till. The man kept shouting, I did my very London thing (I’m ashamed to say) of acting as if everything was completely normal, then leaving as quickly as possible. The man didn’t stop shouting once. Next, was a trip to meet Brian and Jane at Docklow Manor. I cant begin to think how weird it must have been for them, having 5 actors, 2 of whom will be playing Brian and Jane, rock up and wander around their house. But however surreal it must have been for them, they hid it very well as they were extraordinarily warm and welcoming and generous with their time. It was brilliant to fit the events in the play into the reality-to see the views,the chickens, the beautiful architecture of the house, really get a sense of why they had fallen in love with it. Great stuff to take back into the rehearsal room.

Next, the auction. An amazing place filled with the most incredible mix of people of all ages, all intent on finding a bargain. Rows upon rows of furniture, machinery, tools, boxes of miscellaneous objects ranging from the bizarre to the ridiculous and some so random I just could not imagine why anyone would buy them. (a toy dog in a welders mask anyone?) But what do I know. People munched on chips and sausage and kept warm by sipping hot chocolate and builders tea as the auctioneer began his patter, selling these weird and wonderful objects with a terrifying speed. There is an auction in the play, and we want to try and achieve a sense of the ritual and procedure of the event and it was great to get a flavour of how these evenings operate. We only stayed about half an hour (any longer and I might have made a bid on the dog in the welders mask) but I imagine that as there were literally hundreds of lots, it would go on well into the evening. We rounded off the evening with some food and a drink in the Kings Head, the pub nearest to Docklow Manor.

Back in rehearsal, we started from the beginning and the rest of the week was spent feeling our way through, getting the broad brush strokes of how the action might work, something which we can build on, expand, experiment with in order to find a way of telling the story in the clearest, most entertaining way.

A busy, exciting and productive week for all involved. Excited to hear that tickets are selling well for our opening night……

First day of rehearsals. Beautiful sunshine. Pentabus rehearsal room. The whole team gathered around a huge table. Hobnobs and tea. James, Rob, Titch and Orla were been busy all last week prop buying and set building and visiting locations/events mentioned in the play, so we shared the room with the basic structure of the set and a variety of odds and ends that might be useful to play with once we start getting the play on its feet. After some introductions and a top up of tea, the actors read it through for the first time. A fantastic first read, getting a sense of the broad range of characters, accents and locations and the rhythm and pace of the piece. James talked us through the model box, describing how the structure of the set can be adapted to work in fully equipped theatres, and also tiny little village halls. The play follows Brian and his family getting ready to hold a fete and there is an idea that as local produce and white elephant stalls are assembled, the random objects you might find at a fete are used to create the many different locations as we chart the journey from Crouch End to Docklow Manor. James and Alex have some brilliant ideas about using light and colour to change the atmosphere and Benet, a Ludlow based musician is coming up with some original music.

After lunch, a production meeting, and a bit of discussion about Herefordshire, Docklow Manor, London vs rural, the politics of the country…. Then another readthrough, this time stopping every time anyone had a question to ask Nick. A field trip has been arranged for Wednesday, we will go to an auction, to visit Brian at Docklow Manor, and then round things up with a (research based) drink in the Kings Head.

A very productive and exciting first day. Everyone disappeared off to continue to aquaint themselves with the delights of Ludlow (basically Tescos as nothing else is open in Ludlow beyond 6pm). I attempted to cycle back in the dark, with lights that did not really live up to their name (completely rubbish) and decided that I would not do that again.

Brian Viner: ‘It’s a weird experience watching actresses audition to be your wife’

Thursday, 21 January 2010

There are probably experiences weirder than sitting in a rehearsal room just off Tottenham Court Road watching actresses read for the part of your wife while the high-spirited singing of what sounds like a group of munchkins carries through from the room next door, but it was hard to think what they might be.
I had dropped in to the Drill Hall in Chenies Street at the invitation of Orla O’Loughlin, of the Pentabus Theatre Company. Orla is directing Tales of the Country, the new play based on my book of the same name, which in turn was based on the column of the same name (the forerunner of “Home and Away”), about our move out of the metropolis eight years ago in search of the elusive rural idyll. The play is due to open in Shrewsbury in April, then tours for seven weeks, mainly in the Welsh Marches. The tour ends up in London, with a run at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington. And after that, who knows? The Palladium? La Scala? A Peter Jackson film trilogy?
I’ve had no creative input into the project apart from having written the book, which has been adapted – brilliantly – by Nick Warburton. Nick is a hugely experienced writer for stage, screen and radio whose credits include episodes of EastEnders. That proves what a versatile fellow he is: murder, rape, abortion, adultery, armed robbery, incest, and now cowpats.
Anyway, back to the Drill Hall. In the casting process, Orla and her associate director, Kate, have had to whittle 600 CVs down to around 50, and on Tuesday they were looking for someone to play Jane, my wife, and one actor to play 16 assorted characters, including all three of our children. I’d never been to an audition before, and never leafed through actors’ CVs either. They make absorbing reading. Most of them specify ‘voice character’ and ‘voice quality’ – which got me wondering how I’d define my own voice.
One of the actresses who read for Jane had “assured” vocal character and “clear” vocal quality, but that seemed a little dull next to the woman who claimed “earthy” and “velvety”. I know Jane would like to be earthily and velvetily represented on stage. In the event, of course, I had nothing to do with the casting decisions, but just sat there relishing the weirdness of the situation, which got weirder when the munch- kins started up next door (although Orla told me they’d had an aria to contend with the day before). For a non-theatrical, it was fascinating to see how these things work, not least because several of the actresses auditioning for Jane had just come out of panto, and were still ever so slightly in thigh-slapping mode.
There followed a succession of eager young men trying out for the multiple-character part. Orla got each of them to read the scene in which my daughter Eleanor begs me for a puppy, and it was interesting to see how differently they did it: one of them made her like Violet Elizabeth Bott, one made her like Lolita, and one made her borderline autistic. The same actors also had to play a scene in which a policeman stops a motorist for speeding.
From the CV of one of them I noticed that his range of accents included: “Birmingham, Black Country, Bristol, Cockney, Geordie, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Yorkshire, American (West Coast), American (New York) and American (Deep South)” and impressively there were traces of most of these contained in the highly idiosyncratic accent of his Herefordshire copper. Still, at least he seemed like a reasonably benign copper. Another interpreted the character more like a Stasi officer with toothache – and you’d be very unlucky to come across one of those on the A44.
But I really don’t mean to belittle their efforts, which on the whole were excellent, and heaven knows it must be a hard and often unrewarding business to go through these auditions. Eleanor, who is now 16, is currently thinking of pursuing an acting career, and yesterday’s experience makes me wonder whether to discourage her. Either that or I’ll send her down to the Drill Hall. She knows better than anyone how she asked for that puppy.
Meanwhile, the search goes on for a Brian. They thought they had one, but he’s landed more lucrative telly work instead. So back in London next week they’re seeing 25 Brians. I might give that session a miss.

Brian Viner: ‘What’s it going to be like in a theatre, seeing actors grappling with being me?’
Thursday, 10 December 2009

Last week Jane and I were invited to a read-through of the play based on my book Tales of the Country. Jane especially went with trepidation. She doesn’t mind me opening our lives to public scrutiny in a weekly newspaper column, or even in a couple of books, but a play’s a slightly different matter. At least until now it’s been my own interpretation of our family life, not a playwright’s, and we don’t sit there while people read about us, listening to their reactions. What’s it going to be like in a theatre, with actors pretending to be me and her and even the children, metropolitan émigrés grappling with life in rural Herefordshire?
If the first read-through is anything to go by, it will be unnerving and exciting at the same time. The excellent Pentabus Theatre company is based in an old school building just north of Ludlow, which is where we went for the reading. We sat round a big table with half a dozen actors, the director Orla, and the playwright Nick. On the table was a cafetière full of good coffee and a plate of chocolate brownies. It was a bit early in the day for double vodkas, although I dare say we could all have done with one; Nick, Orla and the actors were no less aware than we were of the weirdness of the situation. They all introduced themselves. “I play Brian,” said a nice young man, rather better-looking than me. “And I play Jane,” said a pretty dark-haired woman.
Ever since Pentabus first approached me for permission to adapt the book, Jane and I have joked about who might play us, if not on stage, then in the Sunday-night television version which is more or less, possibly with emphasis on the less, bound to follow. I think Pierce Brosnan and Pauline Quirke, she thinks Catherine Zeta-Jones and Timothy Spall. Anyway, we were both more than satisfied with our alter egos at the read-through, although Orla made it clear that she hadn’t yet cast the play, so these might not be the eventual stage actors.
Around the table, though, they did a fine job. As had Nick in adapting the thing. He is a hugely experienced writer for stage and screen, with numerous Radio 4 plays and episodes of Holby City and EastEnders in his locker, so I never doubted his expertise, but I still wasn’t sure how he would fashion my literary meanderings into a tightly-crafted play. He has done so brilliantly, and very funnily, albeit that much of the comedy is at my expense.
In the book I told the story of my clergyman friend, who was once summoned to the home of a very grand lady, but reached the garden gate to find a large snarling dog barring his path. He was about to turn tail when an upstairs window opened in the house, and the grand lady called out: “Don’t worry, vicar, he won’t hurt you, you just have to kick his balls.” My friend stood rooted to the spot. “Go on,” she called imperiously, “kick his balls. He likes it. They’re at the back!” Hesitantly, my friend shaped up to do as he had been bidden. “What on earth are you doing,” she shouted. “I said kick his balls. His footballs. They’re at the back of the lawn.”
By a stroke of cosmic misfortune, this story appeared in my column in The Independent, which had been written a week in advance, the very day after precisely the same anecdote appeared on the property pages, presented as the personal experience of a Stratford estate agent. And in the book I described how, a few days later, I was sent both cuttings through the post by some ill-wisher, with an arrow pointing at my byline picture and the single old Herefordshire word “Twazzock!” As far as I can recall, the word “twazzock” appears only once in the book, but in the play Nick uses it liberally, to convey my status in the eyes of the locals. Only gradually do I stop being a twazzock.
Still, if I can manage to sit on my pride, the play should be quite an adventure. It starts in Shrewsbury next April, then tours for six weeks around the Welsh Marches before winding up at the Pleasance Theatre in London for a few nights. After that, who knows? I suppose it might depend on Timothy Spall’s commitments. Or Pauline Quirke’s.

Brian Viner: ‘Tolstoy and I deal with similar themes – love marriage, death, moles…’
Independent

Orla O’Loughlin, artistic director of the Ludlow-based Pentabus theatre company, e-mailed me on Tuesday to say that they have now engaged someone to adapt my book Tales of the Country, about my family’s first year in north Herefordshire after leaving north London, for the stage. His name is Nick Warburton, and he has an illustrious track record in writing for the theatre, as well as for radio and television. He is certainly a man of impressive versatility, with a stage adaptation of Tolstoy’s complex novel Resurrection on his CV, as well as episodes of EastEnders.
Orla has suggested a meeting later this month between her, Nick and me, and I can’t wait to find out what his visions are for the stage version of Tales of the Country, which doesn’t on the surface have much in common with the works of Tolstoy, although I like to think that Count Leo and I dealt with similar sweeping themes: love and marriage, age and death, the irrationality of human behaviour, the place of the individual in history, whether urinating on a molehill will stop the mole coming back, what to do with an ailing chicken, that sort of thing. Jane, meanwhile, is wondering whether Nick’s pedigree as an EastEnders writer might influence the way he dramatises our trials and tribulations in Herefordshire. “Bleedin’ moles! Bleedin’ place is full of ‘em! Ain’t they got nowhere better to go?” Or, “‘Ere, I ‘eard you got a chicken giving you problems? I know this geezer who can get rid of her for yer, no questions asked.”
I suppose the pub is the only way in which Docklow, where sheep outnumber people by about 100 to one, can be compared to Albert Square in the fictional London Borough of Walford. Not that the King’s Head much resembles the Queen Vic, although a change of ownership is a seismic event here, as it is there. The King’s Head changed hands last month – for the fourth time since we moved here seven years ago – and is now run by Paula and Tony, an amiable couple who had been living in rural France for a decade or so. I confess that the Gallic connection caused Jane and I some excitement when we heard. We wondered whether confit de canard or crêpes suzette might perchance find their way onto the King’s Head menu, especially when we heard that Paula, a Lancastrian, had been to cookery school. But it turns out that she learnt to cook not in Nice, Nancy or Narbonne, but Nelson, making her a hotpot and jam roly-poly specialist, which on reflection is precisely what the King’s Head needs.
After all, out here in sheep country, continental influences are quite often regarded with suspicion. At the bar of the King’s Head a couple of nights ago a local farmer, Tim, told me in disbelief that he’d just had a vet round, sent by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to check on the welfare of his animals, and that said vet came from quite a lot closer to Benidorm than Bromyard. “What do the Spanish know about animal welfare?” Tim asked me, rhetorically. “Their national sport is bloody bullfighting.” Not a man known for hiding anything under a bushel, Tim added that he’d raised precisely that paradox with the vet, who’d responded rather chippily – and on slightly shaky ground, it has to be said – that our national sport is fox hunting.
So much for European union. Indeed, I am often reminded on such occasions of the final some years ago of the pan-continental TV quiz show Going for Gold, hosted by the great Henry Kelly. The two finalists were a woman from Ireland and a man from Norway, and after they had finished with level scores, they stood side by side facing a tiebreaker question, with the winner to be the person who first blurted out the correct answer. “Name an American state beginning with the letter V,” said Kelly. “Visconsin,” said the Norwegian, quickly, and lost.
In other words, the semblance of European unity will always be undermined by linguistic and cultural differences, as was discovered by the Spanish vet inspecting Tim’s livestock. Still, Tim is a hard-working fellow committed to the principles of responsible farming and I’m sure that even after their snippy exchange, the vet gave his animals the thumbs up, or whatever the Spanish equivalent of thumbs up might be. I just hope it’s not a two-fingered V-sign.

Brian Viner: ‘The play will tour village halls – and perhaps even be staged on Broadway ‘
The Indepependant
Home And Away
Thursday, 5 March 2009

One of the perils of writing about your life in a national newspaper is that people rush to judgement about you. And not only that, they know how to find you. This column in a previous incarnation was titled Tales of the Country, and in 2003, about a year after I started writing it, I got a letter from a fellow who lives three miles away, which, in this neck of the woods, counts as practically a next-door neighbour.

“It is a pity you do not restrict your contributions to The Independent to your sporting interviews,” he thundered, “as your Tales of the Country are exceedingly trite and patronising.” He went on in a similar vein for a few more sentences, vigorously lambasting me on all sorts of counts, and then he wrote, “Hey ho, on a positive note I cannot believe the number of times you appear to have emptied your septic tank. Something is wrong. We have emptied ours twice in 22 years.” The key to the whole exercise, he advised me, “is the nitrification tile or perforated plastic pipe which takes the septic tank’s effluent. It must be of sufficient length (150ft-plus) and surrounded by coarse/medium gravel. Yours sincerely…”

As I wrote at the time, this marked a new stage in the evolution of the poison-pen letter, someone not sending me his own effluent in the post but considered technical advice on what to do with mine. I was almost touched.
Anyway, I hope that Mr Effluent will be duly outraged to learn that those Tales of the Country columns, which inspired a moderately successful book of the same name, are now to be adapted for the stage. A theatre company called Pentabus, based in Ludlow, approached me a couple of months ago to ask whether they could make a play of the book, and the plans are for it to tour village halls around this time next year, and perhaps even for it to be staged on Broadway. Sorry, I meant in Broadway. I’m told that the United Reformed Church Hall on the High Street is a smashing little venue.

In our house, however, we are already getting ideas above our station. Jane wonders whether we might be able to interest Andrew Lloyd Webber in a Saturday teatime BBC1 reality show, in which women will audition for the chance of a lifetime to play her at Pudleston Village Hall. They could call it Wife of Brian. Failing that, she hopes Pentabus are aware that Julie Christie lives not far away over the Welsh border, and might be tempted to tread the boards again, albeit the boards of Clun Memorial Hall rather than the Royal Court. As for who should play me, Daniel Craig might fancy a break from the rigours of James Bond movies, although Jane thinks that Richard Griffiths could better capture my essence. Whatever, I do hope that there will be a role, or at least a mention, for Mr Effluent.

It’s all very exciting, but also rather alarming. It’s one thing chronicling my life in print, whereby one can only picture people reading about my family and me, but sitting in a darkened auditorium among a paying audience as actors recreate the pratfalls with which our first year in the country was replete, is a different matter entirely. And what about those theatre critics, whose pens spill even more acid than Mr Effluent’s? So far I’ve had to withstand only the barbs of literary critics, a slightly less savage breed, although they can be hard enough.

My latest book, a memoir about growing up in front of the telly in the 1970s, has been widely and on the whole generously reviewed. Unfortunately, I have never quite learnt to do what Laurence Olivier advised young actors: that if you laugh off the bouquets, you can more easily shrug off the brickbats. Consequently, I was thrilled with a marvellous review of my book in The Mail on Sunday, but aghast when it was slated in the Daily Express. It was also reviewed in this newspaper, I should add, by a former colleague of mine called William Cook who suggested that I have built my career on “cheerful bonhomie” and wrote that another colleague once described me as “a journalistic Val Doonican”. I dropped William a note saying that I didn’t know whether to laugh or croon.
Either way, I might be laughing, or crooning, on the other side of my face on Tales of the Country’s opening night.

Hello. Just a small update. It is the end of the week. Casting for ‘Tales of the Country’ has been in full swing. The wonderful Jenny and Thomasina in the office had arranged a couple of jam packed days for us in London, where we saw over 40 people for the roles of Brian’s wife Jane, and for the children, who will be played by a single actor. No mean feat to play not one, but three children, and also another 15 parts on top of that! With very little time, we had to assess how comfortably actors could switch from playing a laconic Herefordshire Policeman to an intelligent 10 year old girl asking for a puppy! Orla and I were joined by Nick on the first day, who sat in on the afternoon session, and then by Brian on the second day. After spending months reading his columns, his books and of course the different drafts of the play, it was so great to finally meet Brian in the flesh, making him more than just a character on a page! I couldn’t stop thinking as we heard actors read scenes with Brian and his children how utterly surreal this must be for Brian; to watch his life transmute into something that he kind of has no control over, but that ultimately aims to represent his experiences over the last 7 years.

Not only did Brian join us to observe who we might be casting in the play, but he wanted to write about the experience in his weekly column. It kind of makes my brain hurt to think about it, but his book is being adapted by a writer, which is then being interpreted onto the stage by the company, which is being written about by Brian in his column, which is in turn being written about by me on this blog! We waited on tenterhooks until yesterday, when his article about our auditions was published. What would he say? Did he enjoy it? I’ll put the link to it here so that you can see for yourself, along with links to previous articles which give Pentabus a mention……

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/brian-viner/

We saw some fantastic people and next week sees our hunt for Brian Viner himself.

Yesterday we had our first production meeting in London, where we all got to say hello to each other, and begin to discuss the nature of the project. James, who was the fabulous designer on ‘Origins’ has created another cracker for ‘Tales’, with a simple but beautiful set that can be put into the various spaces that the play will travel to. Along with Alex, the lighting designer, they have to work to create an interesting playing space that can be adapted to play in both tiny village halls and a 400 seater studios. Everyone seemed really focused on getting things going, which is very exciting, and plans have been made to begin props buying and set building… watch this space!

We go into rehearsal in 6 weeks or so, much to be done between now and then and a great team to do it. Maybe Brian will pop along to casting next week to catch some people reading to play himself…or maybe that will prove too weird for him, who knows!

Hello. I am writing this the day before Christmas Eve. Rather weirdly, Christmas is upon us. How did that happen? I realise it has been a fair few months since I blogged for Pentabus. Kinda terrifying how quickly time has gone. Anyway. I thought I would write a final blog for 2009, just before the new year (and decade) kicks in. Things have been very busy in the Pentabus offices, with lots of planning and tour bookings being made for ‘Tales of the Country’. A few weeks ago, Orla ran a few days of r and d with 5 actors and Nick, to workshop the current draft, time well spent as many important and exciting discoveries were made, and Nick is now well on his way to a final draft. Brian Viner and his wife came to the read through at the end of the workshops, and he then wrote some very excellent things about us in his column, a great signal of his approval. Hurrah. I am coming on board as Associate Director on the project, which I am utterly thrilled about and can’t wait to get cracking in 2010. Elsewhere, Pentabus has commissioned Tim Price, one of our fantastic PIGS writers, to write a full length play for our future programme, which is brilliant.

And most importantly, the company got together for a bit of a Christmas feast last week. I travelled up to spend a few days with Pentabus, and spent most of the time eating, supping wine, and nosing around the shops in Ludlow, many of which were beautifully filled with tempting Christmas treats, and had decked out their shop windows in the most theatrical of ways. Selfridges eat your heart out. Lovely. One highlight for me on this particular visit was a meal at La Becasse, the restaurant where the writers on our PIGS writers week, spent an afternoon each in their kitchen. I had never been before, so was quite excited to actually experience the taste sensations that I had heard talk of far and wide. I was not disappointed. Orla and I booked a table for 1pm, and we didn’t leave until nearly 5pm. It was a freezing, misty and proper wintery day, and I couldn’t have imagined a more warming and comforatable haven than the restaurant. We were treated to some of the most extraordinary dishes, and once Will (the Michelin star head chef) found out orla was in the house, he sent out a few more surprise dishes, which were very welcome! Every time a new dish was brought over (yes, every time, we had 8 courses!) a detailed description was given, but I was always too busy staring in awe and wonder at what was now in front of me to pay attention! And each time I would try to guess exactly what was going in my mouth, savouring every mouthful, and telling myself that next time a course was brought to me, I would actually listen! I didn’t. But it was kinda fun identifying the different flavours. Highlights for me included a perfect horseradish ice cream with smoked salmon, and a little chocolate er….thing (sorry Will) served with different flavour sorbets. Over tea and petit fours (funnily enough still had room to eat them. all.), Will popped out to say hello, which was pretty excellent. I had never met him before, and while Orla and him chatted away, I felt more than a bit star struck.

So. If we weren’t sure we had eaten enough at la becasse, the next day was Pentabus’s official Christmas celebration at the Clive, a lovely restaurant across the road. More delicious food, a spot of wine, some rubbish cracker jokes, dodgy hats, and talk of imminent Christmas celebrations. After a final round of ‘happy christmas’, I hopped on a train back to London. very full.

Happy Christmas to everyone, am keeping my fingers crossed for a white christmas…… see you in 2010!