Friday 14th December 2012

Last Saturday Prince Dmitri Hersov collected me in the Porsche and we thundered to Swadling, a Kentish village, where the Blond Multi’s brother’s children were to appear in the Swadling Dramatic Society’s A Christmas Carol.

‘Where are all the Christmas parties?’ the Blond Multi has been saying for some time now. The Multis, so very delicate, so very rich, have been low. They’ve been feeling bruised and uninvited. Too often money is thought to take the place of humanity, but, no, it doesn’t. So much anxiety. Even £27.50 was agony. I owed them £27.50 for the Swadling outing and another planned for January. Could I transfer it straightaway to their bank account? Couldn’t bear to wait a few days for a hand-over in person. The Blond’s retired, you know, at only 50. No income stream. I don’t know what happened to all the money. There were millions. Seem to have evap. Down to the last £27.50.

Anyway, settling at the tables in the Swadling village hall (it was to be dinner-play experience), the Multis bucked wonderfully.  ‘Just like Glyndebourne,’ the Photo said. They’d Ariana Chronicopoulos with, over from Athens. She’s tremendously liberating, lives entirely for pleasure and behaves in unheard of ways: seizes the Photo Multi’s phone and deletes photos there from, has no fear and was dangerously pre-occupied with keeping warm. She insisted on having the heating up to max in all the Multis’ flats, even those unoccupied. No hesitation in bringing ruin to hosts.

So, we were in the village hall of Swadling. The hair was very good indeed and a coat came in with shiny plastic patches. Designer. To be fair, it’s one of those villages where a lot of the residents go up to London to get money. All the same. Mellifera, the Blond’s sister-in-law, explained that she had rendered her children’s costumes for the play from old Donna Karan. The little boy had a real Edwardian silk smock of considerable elaboration.

Oh, we couldn’t have loved it more. A very good chicken pie was offered, plus a vegetable array, supplemented by fine wines from the Multis and a top-drawer cheeseboard from Mellifera, finished with the world’s greatest chocolates, Multi-bought. The play was really very good, excellent acting and clever staging with limited resources and hardly any space.  The Blond Multi’s nieces and nephew were enchanting: all 5 took parts, 2 had many lines, well-delivered. A thought-provoking script too: Scrooge was an orphan, violently insecure from childhood hence miserly. I don’t remember that from the original. Terrified of loss. Clinging on.

‘Where are all the Christmas parties?’ the Blond was asking. We had the answer: right there, in Swadling Village Hall. Always the best, the sudden joy, not expected. A £500 gala evening at Cliveden wouldn’t have come within a million miles of it.

Swadling Village Hall: the Dinner-Play ‘A Christmas Carol’

The Swadling Feast: An Excellent Dinner

Shiny Patches: Styling Feature Seen at Swadling Village Hall

High-end Costumes for ‘A Christmas Carol’: Mellefera’s Son Shows an Edwardian Silk Smock