{"id":899,"date":"2010-02-09T18:47:28","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T18:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=899"},"modified":"2010-02-11T23:58:12","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T23:58:12","slug":"at-love%e2%80%99s-habit-with-lord-arrowby-laura-malcolm-and-esme-manning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=899","title":{"rendered":"At Art\u2019s Habit with Lord Arrowby, Laura Malcolm and Esme Manning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday 9th<\/sup> February 2010<\/p>\n

Actually it\u2019s The Habit of Art<\/em> by Alan Bennett, at the National Theatre, London, England. Anything less Poor Little Rich Gay would be hard to imagine, full of middle-classes, in sensible clothes, smugly eating sensible all-in-one baguettes , all the better to hurtle sensibly back to the suburbs directly after, from whence they came.<\/p>\n

No Ivy for them.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I encountered by slight acquaintance a well-known actor, who said, \u2018I must meet my friend.\u2019 Friend turned out to be Anna Massey. Also present were Esther Rantzen \u00a0and Richard Briers.<\/p>\n

Esme, herself of the stage and screen, as you may recall, with Laura Malcolm and myself in Normandy last summer, was not best pleased that I had omitted to blog what she insists on calling her 50th<\/sup> Birthday party which took place about a month ago. I can\u2019t think what came over me. I sat with a man from the Daily Mail,<\/em>who told me all the dripping gore of Andrew Marr\u2019s activities in the High Court (veiled, I know, but it has to be). Charis Cameron, also in Normandy last year, thank goodness, has got out of that awful flat with the bed bugs and evil cash-only landlady.<\/p>\n

Then there were Esme\u2019s presents. She got a whole fur coat …and an astonishing pendant, among other things \u2013 see graph below. All unwrapped before the assembled, with superb aplomb, as an entertainment, by Esme.<\/p>\n

Now the play.\u00a0 The main attraction for me was that tickets were hard to come by. \u2018Fuck off, Alan Bennett,\u2019 was Lord Arrowby\u2019s verdict. Laura Malcolm was incensed, Esme also. Flabby, rambling effort. Astonishing that it\u2019s sold out for months and raved over by critics. Just can\u2019t be good. About Auden and Britten. \u2018Be yourself!\u2019 Auden says to Britten, or something like that.\u00a0 Which seemed to mean that Britten should display his passion for 14-year-old boys, giving not a damn for the opinion of Aldeburgh neighbours. No particular exploration of that nor of Auden\u2019s unconventional sexual activities. Many other avenues confusingly opened up but not gone down \u2013 the virtue of biography but the work of the subjects more important, then music better than words, but what about the minor characters such as rent boys left out of great lives and finally Frances de la Tour offering hymn of praise to the National Theatre itself.<\/p>\n

The real purpose was to titillate the quiz-minded and easily shocked culture-vulture middle-class audience. \u2018Tristan,\u2019 a woman behind whispered when that music was heard on stage. Earlier: \u2018Who\u2019s that actor? He\u2019s awfully well-known.\u2019 Then shrieks of delighted embarrassed laughter if someone said \u2018Suck off\u2019 or \u2018Dick\u2019. Even so, if they hadn\u2019t been so flattered that it was about two frightfully famous figures with whose work they might have some acquaintance, they\u2019d have been bored to death.<\/p>\n

Lord Arrowby and I had great fun sneering but later in the restaurant I made a silly, naughty remark about what he might do with \u00a37.75. Lord A absolutely incandescent. It wasn\u2019t Mr Darcy, it was Mr Knightley. Box Hill all over again. I begin to wonder what it would be like, were we ever to be an item. \u00a0I think\u00a0 I would be always sobbing in a carriage in one of those horrible sprigged muslin frocks with the waist hitched up under the bosom and a basket-work bonnet crammed on the head.<\/p>\n

\"Esme

Esme Manning's Exceptional Pendant<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\n
<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday 9th February 2010 Actually it\u2019s The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett, at the National Theatre, London, England. Anything less Poor Little Rich Gay would be hard to imagine, full of middle-classes, in sensible clothes, smugly eating sensible all-in-one baguettes , all the better to hurtle sensibly back to the suburbs directly after, from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrain-edge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":903,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}