The Isolation Diary

Monday March 23^rd

Light entertainer Boris Johnson put on a sad face and told the nation we have to stay in. To not to go out. To essentially have no contact with anyone, other than the people you live with. My wife looked ashen. Her face seemed to say, ‘For inside, For outside, was not in the wedding vows.' Despondent, she took to her bed.

Tuesday March 24^th

I set some school work and did the marking. The system ran seamlessly. Maybe I can work from home from now on and get the parents to administer the detentions. After the work was done, I sat with The Girl to watch Mindhorn on iPlayer; a film written by and starring Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barratt. Barratt is Richard Thorncroft, a washed up actor in need of a wash. His heyday was in the 80’s where he appeared as the titular in a successful cop show. Now in the present he is called in by the police to help with a murder investigation: the suspect, believing the character to be real, will only talk to him. The film is a lovely bit of silliness. I can’t watch the news at the moment. Jeremy Vine might as well be doing the mortalitymeter, running up a live total of what people have fallen to coronavirus in what constituencies. The best way to cope is to watch things that make you laugh.

Later, we finished watching Mae Martin’s All4 sitcom, Feeling Good. It’s Roxy Music’s ‘Love is a Drug’ put to punchlines. A story about an addict trying to have a healthy relationship with love and life shows how comedy has become more dramatic. It’s hardly Hi-De-Hi! is what I’m saying. 

Caught Boris on the news before bed. He’s looking a bit peaky. I guess having to be concise and clear is getting to him. The withdrawal from long words is starting to show on his face.

Wednesday March 25^th

The kids are still doing their work. Online work means I get to type my comments. It’s probably why they’re doing so well. In normal life I respond in red pen with a level of handwriting a doctor would deem illegible – this is maybe why they’re succeeding: it’s the first time they’ve ever been able to interpret my feedback.

The afternoon film today is Man Up on iPlayer, a romcom featuring Lake Bell and Simon Pegg. The premise? Lake Bell is a Bridget Jones type: a beauty in schlubby clothing. She hasn’t been on a date in years. Through a series of circumstances she ends up - accidentally - stealing someone else’s date. Her suitor: Simon Pegg. The date tracks them in real time across London. It’s a bit like Linklater’s Before Sunset, only written by someone whose got the book ‘Romcom cliches’ by their side. It was fun though and Lake Bell is a great lead.

Later we watched quiz shows: Tenable, The Chase and House of Games. (These are three separate quiz shows. Not one: that title would never get commissioned.) Warwick Davis hosts the first with competitors having to get ten answers relating to a topic. One of the rounds was ‘First ten words of five letters or longer in Bohemian Rhapsody.’ Even if there was a phone a friend option and you could contact Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon, there still would be no hope in hell of getting that answer right. Better is Richard Osman’s House of Games that takes the Taskmaster approach of having reoccurring guests and building lovely competition between them. I’m quite something on the Answersmash round.

Boris is still looking a bit pale. Why doesn’t he just say the word ‘magniloquent’? Going cold turkey from bombastic language isn’t doing him any good.

Thursday 26^th March

Get up. Turn the computer on. Mark. Set work. Have lunch. I’m getting into quite a routine here. If things go on for much longer, I’m going to be institutionalised like Brooks from Shawshank Redemption.

Today we don’t watch an afternoon movie. It’s Netflix and Babies instead. We’re expecting a child soon. (That sentence sounds like we're expecting a parcel to come through the letterbox. On second thoughts maybe that is an apt simile for the birthing process. Hopefully my wife doesn’t read this; she’ll only wince.)

Later, we watch Tenable, The Chase and House of Games. My wife is mad about quiz shows. If she ever left me - which she can’t do at the moment because she would be told to go home by the police, failing that she would have to pay a £30 fine; refusing that she would be forcibly returned, but if she ever left me - it would definitely be for a quiz show host. He could ask her General Knowledge questions all day, which would satisfy her in a way I never could.

In the evening we finished watching The Trip to Greece. Although I finished This Country this week, which in my eyes is the best sitcom in the past few years, I felt the final ever episode of The Trip was one of the great moments of tele. All the tiny assaults between Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan were suspended as the comedy collapsed into poignant, beautiful pathos. The direction of Michael Winterbottom was sublime. The show from beginning to end has been a delicious melange of comedy, literature, food and scenery.

Still no colour in Boris’ cheeks. Someone at least should let him look at a thesaurus. He can’t go on with this clear language for much longer.

Friday 27^th March

Woke at 7 and did the whole school thing up until lunchtime.

Watched Breeders with a bowl of soup. (That’s not a nickname for my wife. It’s what I was eating.) Like The Trip, it’s on Sky One. Again, such a shame more people can’t see it. Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard are the parents that would die for their children, but would quite like to kill them too. It’s a bit like Outnumbered, but instead of Hugh Dennis raising his eyebrows, it’s Freeman telling his kids to ‘fuck off.’ The outbursts recede over time and it becomes more rewarding- perhaps like a child?

Watched quiz shows with pizza and a beer. It was my first beer of the week. I always have a beer on a Friday. So I had one today to remind me what day it is. I never have caffeine in the week. Only ever have it on the weekends. So I must remember to do that tomorrow. It’s important to have some kind of calendar to our lives isn’t it? Otherwise we’re no more evolved than cavemen looking at the sun – or whatever they did to tell the time.

Today’s movie is Thelma and Louise on Netflix. We’ve had it on our list for a long time. Man, it’s good. It’s #metoo thirty years before it began. Two female leads. Sarandon and Davis. Both beautiful. But never once does director Ridley Scott linger on their bodies. It’s the female gaze from a male director. A feminist re-working of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where the women run from the law because they can’t trust it to protect them. A classic, important, influential movie.

Turns out Boris has coronavirus. That explains the paleness.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Before the curtain came down on the West End, The Girl and I went to the theatre to see Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. It was one we meant to see for a while, particularly because Rich, a friend of ours, is its Musical Director.

We first became interested in going when we saw Rich accompany Rebecca McKinnis on BBC’s Children In Need. The Carpenters chords are rounded by wondrous vocals of hum and belt. It’s Someone Like You for parents. The simplicity and majesty of it is spellbinding. The lyrics too perfectly encapsulate what it means to be a parent. Just this week, for instance, I was watching Sky One's new comedy, Breeders, where the Martin Freeman character says of his children, ‘I would die for those kids. But often, I also want to kill them.’ This intensity of feeling – good and bad – is conveyed in the song with the mother referencing, ‘my pleasure, my pain,' a ‘perfect mistake.’ The twisty language, these oxymorons, show Tom MacRae is quite the lyricist. I would have wanted to go anyway because Rich was in it, but that performance really sold it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06s1www

So how did everybody come to talk about Jamie? Well, its origins lie way back in 2011 in a BBC3 documentary, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16. Teenager Jamie Campbell wrote to the BBC with an idea for a documentary: him. The synopsis was simple to explain, but difficult to execute: he wanted to go to his prom in a dress. Remember this is nearly ten years ago: RuPaul is not yet a household name; gender is a two-party state; people are slowly getting round to the idea of men liking men, but can’t fathom why a man would want to dress like a girl. Things are fine if you stay in your lane, but any attempt to cross will cause a tailback of disapproval. As a comprehensive teacher, I can say now there would be zero issue if a boy wanted to go to prom in a dress. Staff would encourage it, many students too; dissenting voices would not be tolerated. This is now; it was not then.

In the documentary Jamie wrestles with his identity, struggling to assert his femininity outside the home. In a symbolic moment, he struts the wall of the front garden. Despite his heels being skyscrapers, he is cowed: he can't bring himself to go over it. He is walled in. Walled by narrow definitions. By snide comments. By hatred. Fortunately, there is a demolition team on hand to help. His mum is unwavering in her loyalty. So too her friend. Dress it up how you like, Jamie is their boy. But for every brick they knock down, there’s his dad; his school; his peers to put one, two, three back up. Like the end of Tetris, when things go a bit mad, it’s a battle to see who will out: brick or player.

The doc it was based on.

The musical arrived six years later in Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre. With music by The Feeling’s Dan Gillespie Sells and a book by Tom MacRae it took the city by storm. And if The North shouts loud enough, eventually London will hear. Nica Burns, a powerful theatre producer, was impressed; she wanted to bring the show to The West End. It has now been there for the past few years; it has just gone on tour (sadly, this will be postponed) and should head to Australia. With a film starring Richard E. Grant and Sharon Horgan due to arrive at the end of the year, it will only get bigger. More and more people will talk about Jamie.

It’s easy to see why the musical is such a success: the mother’s numbers invoke Carole King and Dusty Springfield, whilst Jamie’s have the showstopper pizzazz of Robbie and Beyonce. It’s old and new. Ballad and dance. Tradition and irreverence. A musical has to be more than the music though. The plot and script is the washing line that the dress hangs on. And boy can MacRae write. With a background in television, he does a remarkable job at turning his talents to composing pop lyrics. Take ‘Over The Top’ for example. With Jamie going through an existential crisis, a drag queen offers him a rallying cry:

Over the top my friend
Unto the breach my friend
Rend the unending nightYou've got your armour onYou've had your warpaint doneAnd you'll be a man my son So get out there and fight.

Now that is smart writing. There’s reference to Shakespeare’s Henry V (‘unto the breach my friend’) and Kipling’s If (‘And you’ll be a man my son’), which coalesce to form an extended war metaphor. And war is what we’re dealing with here. This is a cold war, neither about guns and bombs, but confidence and bluster. If Jamie can look down his enemy and give them ‘fuck you’ eyes then the land is his. Nor are we dealing with hyperbole here. People have been beaten for what they wear. Killed for their free choices. MacRae shows the struggle that it takes to be yourself.

Not only are the lyrics sharp, the script is on point too. As a teacher, I’m qualified to judge the classroom scenes. The way the students talk and banter is true to life. Think Bad Education, only written by someone whose been to comprehensive school. The wit, vulgarity and stupidity is all there. When a student doesn’t know who Emmeline Pankhurst is, the reply: ‘she's the Beyonce of her day.’ Another lovely line is when the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is replaced by Kylie and Jason: an invocation to the Gods of camp. It’s a real achievement how the writing manages to be subtle and brazen.

It’s a shame Jamie’s drag race will be stalled for a bit. But the lad has his mojo now. He has leapt the wall and entered the public’s hearts. His eye lashes will only shine brighter when they're worn again.

Jamie: Drag Queen At 16 is on Amazon Prime.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie will be at London’s West End when it reopens.

Talking Heads

Alan Bennett is an easy man to impersonate. His stock-in-trade is specificity, documenting an English universe of rhododendrons, pantries and chicken in lemon sauce. Combine that with a soft Yorkshire accent and you’ve got a simple caricature for comics to run with. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon rally 'their Bennett' back and forth in The Trip; Harry Enfield does him as Stalin; and Stewart Lee, in his current tour show, closes the first half by having Alan read Sharknado. Putting low-key Bennet in a high-stakes situation is, of course, very funny. 

This, however, is a two-dimensional view of Bennett. A lot of people confuse his titles for the work. ‘A Chip in the Sugar,’ ‘A Cracker under the Settee,’ ‘The Lady in the Van.’ Wholesome names. Understated. Small. Reserved. Peculiarly British. But like the nation's preserve, marmalade, the sweetness comes from bitter oranges.


I’m talking about Bennett because this week my mum and me went to Talking Heads at Watford Palace Theatre. The show was originally written for the BBC in 1988 and 1998, but was soon adapted for stage. Many people are aware of it because they’ve studied it for GCSE or A Level. It’s perfect for analysis because it’s the very embodiment of ‘show don’t tell’ writing. In a dramatic monologue a character speaks their thoughts aloud; consequently it’s full of digressions, non-sequiturs and minor details. They’re not – it’s important to state - confessional booths. The character does not want to reveal themselves- typically they’re proud and private- but in time they expose themselves. Robert Barrett Browning’s 1842 poem My Last Duchess is an early example of this.

In tonight’s performance we see three monologues. The first is ‘A Lady of Letters,’ performed by Jan Ravens. Irene Ruddock appears to be a pleasant kind of nuisance. Her raison d'etre is the composition of complaint letters. She writes to funeral directors, local councils and even Buckingham Palace. (The dog mess outside is appalling!) There’s a feeling that it empowers her, gives her agency in a world where she has none. She is isolated and alone. (It’s revealed her mother died recently.) It all seems very harmless though with Ravens playing the punch-line, ‘So I wrote a letter’ for hearty laughs. However, Bennett is a devious so-and-so. At drawn-out intervals, he drops in lines about the family across the road. (‘See we’ve got a new couple that have moved in opposite. Don’t look very promising. The kiddie looks filthy.’) At first, Irene seems a simple curtain-twitcher, someone requiring distraction from the humdrum of life. Over the course of the monologue though this drip-drop of information becomes a rushing tap that engulfs. Ravens, a comic performer in Dead Ringers, brilliantly rings out the comedy whilst retaining the horror that lies beneath.


The second ‘A Bed Among the Lentils’ is performed by Julia Watson. It begins with the line, ‘Geoffrey’s bad enough, but I’m glad I wasn’t married to Jesus.’ Soon we learn that Susan is a Vicar’s wife. The opening brilliantly establishes how she’s in a loveless marriage with God and her husband. When you marry a Vicar you’re entering into a trinity – a trinity Susan does not wish to be a part of. She too wears a dog collar, but unlike her husband hers doesn’t empower, but shackles. For him, his job affords him a status. Each week he stands and delivers his thoughts. These sermons are lapped up and licked clean. He is the star attraction. For Susan, she isn’t even secondary: she's well behind God and the flock. As a result, she finds communion in the bottle. Her Jesus is the blood of grapes or the grain of wheat – vodka is quite nice. Again, just as in ‘A Lady of Letters’ we discover her issue quietly. (‘The woman served me. Didn’t smile. I can’t think why? I spend enough.’) With Bennett it can be just the odd line, the moment where the character’s guard drops. From then on, the levee breaks and the truth gushes forth. In time, it isn’t just booze that exposes Susan, but an off-license owner too. Hindu: he isn’t a man of God, but Gods. The bed she finds among the lentils is Susan’s spiritual awakening; a union that brings her more pleasure than marriage and God. Julia Watson’s ascension from defeated wife to reclaimed woman is incredible. A bravura performance.

Watson (left) and Ravens (right)

The final monologue is ‘Soldiering On’ with Ravens returning to stage. Muriel is upper-class and cut-glass. She is mourning the loss of her husband. However, her grieving is typically British. With a lip stiffer than a corpse, she ‘nip(s) into the pantry to staunch the flow.’ To be seen to cry would be to admit defeat. In Bennett’s work the women are tough. They may be drowning, but want to appear waving. He was writing strong women long before other dramatists woke up and realised they’d existed. Even with further setbacks, Muriel soldiers on and keeps on going. 


At 85 and surviving cancer, Bennett seems to have gained inspiration from his creations (his recent collection was called Keeping On Keeping On). Let’s hope that happens; for he is one of the greatest dramatists we have. One ripe for parody and pastiche, yet whose genius can't be imitated.


Talking Heads is at Watford Palace Theatre until 29^th March.