Travels With My Aunt?

Oh, I've been neglecting you again. Well, before you start moaning, you should consider what a life I have. It's crowded beyond measure! My life is more crowded than the recent rally outside the BBC to silence the odious Nick Griffin; more crowded than the lynch mob camped outside the home of the even more odious Jan Moir; more crowded even than the party to celebrate the launch of Jordan's new breasts; and certainly more crowded than the mob scene we saw at this Sunday's Hockley Hustle (what a party that was!). Crowded indeed.

The main reason that I have so little time is because I have to go to work every day. This indeed is an inconvenience that most people I know don't suffer. It makes me feel so terribly normal all the time; I can't explain how difficult it is fitting such a tiresome pastime as full-time work into my crowded life. I'm expected to party like it's 1999, yet I still have to get up at 5:15 every morning and drag myself off to a full day of useful commerce. A tall order, let me tell you.

I went to the theatre on Saturday to see an adaptation of Graham Greene's 'Our Man In Havana'. I read the book 35 years ago and so couldn't remember too much about it, but by the time the first half had finished, I was beginning to wonder: What is the point?? The actors were trying so hard with an absolutely awful script (written by Clive Francis), but the whole production was apparently missing the point completely. There was no plot; no characterisation; no tension; no drama. Not exactly a good recipe for a successful stage play (in my opinion). As we sipped our interval drinks, I was ready to give up on the will to live. But then, like a football match, this bizarre production (which had the audacity to call itself a play) became a production of two halves. Suddenly, in the second act, the penny dropped. This wasn't a play at all – it was a pantomime! And as a pantomime – as an absolutely surreal and meaningless farce – it began to work.

Once I'd abandoned the idea that I needed to find real meaning in this somewhat manic adaptation of Greene's famous novel, I felt relaxed and satisfied. The novel was certainly comic (in parts), but it certainly wasn't farce. The humour in Greene's work was subtle and ironic (as you would expect), yet the writer (or director Richard Baron, perhaps) had decided that this should be translated into pure, unadulterated slapstick. And as such, it worked. So finally, I saw the point.

I understand that the same team also adapted Greene's 'Travels With My Aunt' which I also remember as being a splendid novel (although I think, unfinished). I'd have liked to have seen that – but then again, I have enough horrid reminiscences of travels with my aunt, that perhaps it was a good thing that I missed it. Hmm, maybe I should write a play.