Going in search of Shakespeare

Just a week into my marathon challenge and I’ve decided to go on holiday!

So far last night I consumed half a pizza, swilled down with Prosecco followed by a couple of glasses of Pinot Grigio and a cheeky Peroni. Nothing beats an Italian theme to dinner. As we are spending a few days in Stratford-upon-Avon, and seeing as Shakespeare had a love of all things Greco-Roman, (to the point of plagiarism some might say), I’m sure the old bard would have approved.

This morning, we have started the day in more English fashion with bacon sandwiches and pain chocolate to set us up for some serious sight-seeing later, which I’m sure is likely to include some kind of sumptuous lunch and perhaps an ale or two.

So, in terms of sticking to a rigid diet and exercise plan, things have gone more off course than a Prospero-induced shipwreck in the Tempest. But as this is likely to be the last holiday until the Spring, it seems only right to enjoy things before everything goes flax seed and fresh veg.

I’m also looking to source some inspiration for my own theatrical performance, coming up in Bristol in November. As part of the St Paul’s Players, I get to play a pompous, bigoted, gently corrupt barrister, a QC no less, in David Hare’s Murmuring Judges.

It is a great play and I’ve been a big fan of Hare’s work ever since being younger and more angry about the world than perhaps I am now. One of my favourite Hare plays is Skylight, which I saw while at university starring Bill Nighy, before he became the global megastar he is now.

It’s a simple piece centring around the complicated love lives of a restaurant owner and his lover, which I remember mostly took place in a kitchen while somebody made a Bolognese sauce. It may be telling that the food is the thing that I remember mostly, but actually I loved it for the fantastic performances, vibrant dialogue and sense of place, seeing as at the time I was in London myself and aspired to that kind of lifestyle. (It was a couple of years afterwards that I fell in love with Bristol instead).

So, for that reason and a few others, I’m really looking forward to our production and I get to have enormous fun playing out all those latent prejudices that I’m acquiring as I get older in any case, mainly due to an unhealthy addiction the Mail Online.

Performances of Murmuring Judges are November 15, 16 and 17, at St Paul’s Church, Southville.

For ticket info, go to: www.spptheatrecompany.org.uk