My Little Treasures

28th December

My Little Treasures

A knighthood for Iain Duncan Smith…for services to killing off the poor and disabled and for fighting back against the prejudice shown toward those who like to pick their nose in public.  (Google it if you didn't know about his campaigns in the area).

Isn’t it time that the honours system was overhauled so that politicians were exempt from getting a gong?  I mean they get well paid, they have expenses, they even get a huge lump sum payment if they lose their seat in an election. Why do they need a title?  Other than The Right Honourable Odious Toad.

Mini rant over.

On to more serious topics and the theatre year past and the year ahead.

All over social media people are choosing their top five shows of the year so I thought I might as well jump on The Band Wagon, starring Fred Astaire & Cyd Charisse.

I cannot pick just five shows so this is my Top Ten for 2019 listed in the order I saw them:


The Dumb Waiter/A Slight Ache - Harold Pinter Theatre, London

Standing At The Sky’s Edge - Crucible Theatre, Sheffield (4 visits)

Follies - National Theatre, London

A German Life - Bridge Theatre, London

Rosmersholm - Duke of York’s Theatre, London (2 visits)

Hugh Jackman in Concert - Genting Arena, Birmingham

Ian McKellen On Stage - Crucible Theatre, Sheffield & Nottingham Playhouse

Dark Sublime - Trafalgar Studios, London (2 visits)

Life of Pi - Crucible Theatre, Sheffield

Assassins - Nottingham Playhouse

I don’t write reviews but these shows all delivered beyond expectation and for many different reasons.

I was very lucky to be able to congratulate in person some of the people involved in these productions, including Gemma Whelan (A Slight Ache) who was so happy to be asked about her stage work instead of Game of Thrones, that she gave me a huge hug.

I got many hugs this year but when Joanna Riding held my hand I just about melted. Seeing her in Follies was a real highpoint and my thanks to Tina Foote for being my guest that day and introducing me to Ms Riding. (Tina Foote knows everyone).

Had the chance to meet the hugely talented and incredibly nice Lucy Briers this year. I saw Rosmersholm twice, she had a great role as the housekeeper and although the stars of the show were Hayley Atwell, Tom Burke and Giles Terera (all of who were terrific) it was the supporting performances by Lucy and Peter Wight that caught my eye. The craft of acting displayed at its best and I loved chatting with her about that.

Of course with Dark Sublime, there was a chance to support the lovely Andrew Keates.  There is never a shortage of hugs with Mr Keates: also a mention for Piers Cottee-Jones too, a new acquaintance who is equally lovely.   I enjoyed seeing them both in Nottingham when they were promoting the play and this photo shows us all, plus the lovely James Delmond McBurnie (uber fan of Marina), doing our bit.

The play itself, by Michael Dennis, is about an ageing sci fi star (played by the seemingly ageless Marina Sirtis) meeting one of her fans. It was the perfect play for a geek like me.

There is one other person who I must mention, the most famous person I know,  Alastair Natkiel.

Ali was part of the amazing cast in Sky’s Edge and it really was great to see him perform in such a special piece of theatre. I saw the show four times, over four consecutive Thursday nights. I would willingly have seen it every Thursday this year.

Seeing people you love and respect up on stage, doing so well, that makes me a happy man.

I met one other Alistair this year, and he deserves an honourable mention not least because meeting Mr A McGowan meant getting the best hug of the year from Charlotte Page.


I look forward to the year ahead and maybe seeing more friends on stage. The year begins with a return to Sheffield for Guys and Dolls, then later on in the year there's Uncle Vanya with Richard Armitage and Toby Jones, To Kill A Mockingbird with Rhys Ifans, Hello Dolly with Imelda Staunton and Sunday In The Park…with Jake.

There’s Shakespeare, my first ever trip to see Phantom of the Opera plus Jenna Russell in Piaf.

It has the makings of a great theatrical year.

You I Like

27th December

You I Like

It’s no secret that I love the theatre.

Like many, my introduction to theatre was through attending a pantomime and I have vague recollections as a child of seeing Mrs Mills, sat at her piano, dressed as the biggest fairy in the world. Does anyone else actually remember Mrs Mills?

The first musical I saw on stage was ‘Oliver’. Both my brothers were in it, part of Fagin’s gang. I was probably too fat even then to pass as a starving waif, reliant on his nimbleness just to survive.

Even though I wasn’t in the show, I knew all the songs. I can pretty much still sing the whole score. To me that’s the secret of good writing isn’t it? That the songs stick in your memory.

My head is full of great musical theatre songs that I love, written by generations of great composers, from Jerome Kern through to Jason Robert Brown.

I can carry a tune, obviously you have to have some skill to appear in a brilliant professional production of Sweeney Todd…have I ever mentioned that? Although I can sing a bit,  there is little doubt that I always feel more confident singing a song I love.

Singing the songs of Stephen Sondheim never loses its appeal. Listening to his music is a source of constant joy, there are songs I can turn to for most moods, especially when I’m feeling like a good cry.

But if I want to sing a song that leaves a smile on my face then there is little doubt that the songs of Jerry Herman are top of my list.

Seeing 'Hello Dolly’ on Broadway, starring the wonderful Bette Midler, was certainly a theatrical highlight of my lifetime. We have tickets to see the London production next year starring Imelda Staunton.

I think my first exposure to Jerry Herman would have been the film version of ‘Hello Dolly’, but I also had in my cassette tape collection a compilation of Broadway hit songs which featured Dame Angela Lansbury singing ‘If He Walked Into My Life’. That’s a great performance of a great song from ‘Mame’, a musical that wasn’t as well received as ‘Dolly' but has just had a well received revival here in the UK, and I will be trying to see it when they bring it back.

Another cassette in that collection was the OCR of La Cage Aux Folles, starring George Hearn & Gene Barry. Another musical that I grew to love and this love was certainly cemented when our local amateur operatic society staged a production, a very good production. I have seen three productions of that show in the West End & on tour and ‘The Best Of Times’ must be one of the greatest feel good MT songs of all time.

Thanks to Torville and Dean, we discovered and fell in love with ‘Mack & Mabel’. Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters are often popping up as my iPod shuffles through my song list whilst I’m driving too and from work.

We had the great pleasure of seeing and hearing the production staged by The London Musical Theatre Orchestra with David Bedella as Mack & Natasha Barnes as Mabel.  Less enjoyable was the touring production with Michael Ball, but the songs still hit the mark.

Another song that appears on shuffle is the aforementioned Dame Angela Lansbury singing ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ from ‘Dear World’.

I have never seen ‘Dear World’ and as I now sit looking through Jerry Herman’s back catalogue I realise there are musicals he wrote or contributed too, that I am yet to discover and add to my play list…but I think today is a good day to make the choice to change that.

I hadn’t planned to write about Jerry Herman today, but the announcement of his death reminded me just how much I have enjoyed his music. Really enjoyed it actually.

Thanks Jerry. You really do leave this legacy of great songs which people will be singing for as long as we have voices.




Tap Your Troubles Away

So You Wanna Be A Boxer

26th December

So You Wanna Be A Boxer

Having almost killed myself on Christmas Day, trying to out twerk a mechanical llama, I decided the sensible thing to do was retire early.

9:30pm, fast asleep, and, other than the usual nocturnal shuttles to the bathroom for a man of my age, a fairly restful if painful night.

My legs have become pretty unreliable in recent times, hence the occasional stumble and even rarer incidents of falling over. It’s all a little annoying to say the least and the main reason why I won’t actually be able to do any boxing today…and I was so looking forward to boxing.

I’ll be honest, I know Boxing Day isn’t really about standing in a ring in your baggiest shorts, punching someone. But does anyone actually know what ‘boxing’ you’re supposed to do on Boxing Day?

A few suggestions:

Getting the boxes out of the loft to pack Christmas away?

Opening another box of Quality Street or Elizabeth Shaw Mint Crisps?

Trying to think of ways of getting the guest stopping over in your box room, to leave?

Maybe having a punch up in the queue for the sales?

Maybe it’s deciding to order in pizza?

Whatever Boxing Day is for you then that’s OK - enjoy it.

In our house, Boxing Day was traditionally the day for bubble and squeak, cold meat and pickles. And sherry.

Some people like to go for a walk, to blow the cobwebs away. Personally I love it when everyone goes for a walk, it means I have the house to myself for an hour and can find a proper Boxing Day film to watch.

Zulu was always a favourite or A Bridge Too Far: something epic with lots of my favourite actors in and of course a film you’ve seen that often you can say the lines along with he the actors.  Maybe that’s another definition of Boxing Day? Just sitting in front of the box?

Boxing Day aside, it’s the next few days that really bother me. The days between Christmas and New Year…it’s like a black hole into which all normal rules of time and space seem to vanish.

I already don’t know what day of the week it is, and until January 1st, (which I know is always a Monday), I will be lost in the vortex of the unknown, scrabbling to maintain my sanity. Surviving on left over pigs in blankets and some olives flavoured with myrrh, I will be recalling all those public information films we were shown as kids in school, how to survive a nuclear winter.

My memory isn’t that good though and all I can actually recall is someone called Petunia eating an ice cream and sending her husband, Joe,  to call the coast guard.  They were Brexit voters I think.

(I added a link for those who thought  I was going mad)

https://youtu.be/K3-Jqltwon4


Anyway, time to rise and shine, to kick these old legs into action, and scramble some eggs for Mrs B.

Have a good day everyone and remember, the only box that really matters is the one you keep all your wonderful memories in.

We Need A Little Christmas

25th December

We Need A Little Christmas

In tribute to Greta Thunberg, and because I’m really busy preparing sprouts and buttering parsnips, I bring you a recycled blog entry:



If Herod had employed reliable labour all those years ago to find and kill the baby Jesus, this would just be another cold weekend in December - instead here we are again, Christmas.

There are three stages to Christmas:

First there is the stress of the pre-Christmas rush when we all dash about like headless turkeys trying to snatch up bargains to give to our loved ones. We then battle through the aisles of our favourite supermarket trying to make sure we have plenty of sprouts to cook and then to throw away after nobody eats them.

We then 'deck the halls' with bright coloured lights and find we have the stress of running to B&Q when we discover one of the bulbs has blown. There are parcels to wrap and post, there are cards to address, there are stamps to buy and then there are post boxes too full to take your cards leading to more stress!

But eventually it all comes to an end and the pre Christmas period is past and we have the day itself to experience...more stress.


Locked in a house all day with people you spend all year avoiding. Being forced to share your television with people who only watch documentaries on coastal erosion or Eastenders.  Trying to put on a brave face when you open the presents that leave you almost speechless with shock - "wow, a nutcracker shaped like Katie Price - thanks so much." Or perhaps you might get a cook book by Heston Blumenthal.

Trying to remember who likes breast, who likes stuffing, who likes extra gravy and then trying to find something for Aunty Mary who is on a three day diet of beetroot and runner beans.

Holding back from the urge to devour a whole bottle of Pinot in one big gulp just to get you through that long long evening.  It is like an eternity; only longer,  and you begin to feel like Nelson Mandela on Robben Island (but he at least had a guard to talk to).

Eventually the day passes and you begin to think that the stress must now begin to lift, just a little. Wrong.

Now you have the stress of joining the queues in the sales to exchange the Katy Price nutcracker for something you really want, something with a little class like a Katherine Jenkins nutcracker.

Then you have to make sure you de-christmas by twelfth night or bad luck may follow throughout the year...I say leave the decorations up, what's the worst that could happen? You just survived Christmas!


The stress of the festive season hits us each and every year and still we have not learned our lesson. I think the time is coming when we should reflect on the true meaning of Christmas and try and model our celebrations around that simple message surrounding the birth of a little baby in a stable.

We should forget the rushing around and the over eating and the terrible presents and we should all go to a stable and wait for the miracle to happen. In the present cold snap it might be an ideal place for the elderly, they could all huddle around a pile of steaming manure and keep the cold at bay by sleeping under a cow, her udders warm with milk - a cosy bed and a midnight snack all in one.

Yes, we should all find a stable and if you don't know where your local stable is, just follow the bright light in the sky. It’s not a star, it's the Police helicopter, but it passes by the stable occasionally so you'll be OK.

If it's too foggy to see the chopper then follow the Shepherds, they live at No.42 and they always spend Christmas in a stable bare. Yes, they are naturists, but don't worry about the nudity because in the cold weather there is nothing to see, poor Mr Shepherd looks like he has a walnut whip instead of a penis.

If you don't know the Shepherds you could always follow the three wise men but if you live in Mansfield don't hold out much hope of finding them anytime soon as they are out searching for a virgin and so far they have struck out.


Yes, Christmas would be so much more tolerable in a stable where the only cause for stress would be what can you do with all the myrrh? Oh wait - now where did I put that cook book by Heston Blumenthal?

Yes, I'm a miserable old sod, but it makes me happy.  I just joined the board of BHS  (Bah Humbug Society) and on a serious note this Christmas will be a sadder day than usual as Mrs B and I will be thinking of those no longer with us.

Anyone who has had a bereavement this year will no doubt find the gloss of Christmas somewhat diminished and my heart goes out to you all.

The Glamorous Life

24th December

The Glamorous Life

When I look back over previous blog entries, there have been far too many that are rooted in my experiences in supermarkets or supermarket car parks. I wonder what it is about these places that brings out the worst in people?

I rarely venture to Tesco anymore.  Having referred to it as ‘The Temple of Doom’ for so many years, I really started to believe I would end up having my heart ripped out in the freezer section; sacrificed to the gods of capitalism & consumerism by a management trainee called Barry.

There I would lie, on a bed of freshly shredded red cabbage, clutching my comestibles and gasping my last words: “How much?”

Mrs B is an Aldi fan.  I cannot enter for fear of tripping over the produce that litters the floor after the marauding hordes have passed through. She made me go in with her once and I felt quite ill watching one lady interfering with the bananas.

Luckily there is a Sainsbury’s next door. It’s not quite Waitrose but the wine section is very well stocked and it’s right next to the freezer section where the fish fingers can be found.


The great thing about ‘Doom’ was  zap and pack. You could literally, enter the dreaded building, do your shopping and exit without having to interact with a single human being. Bliss.

How brilliant was it to recently discover that Sainsbury’s now offer a similar service. Packing your bags as you walk around the store and then walking past all the tweed jackets & twin set and pearl brigade who are too posh to scan their own shopping - you beat all the queues.

Of course you do have to wait for someone to authorise that you’re actually old enough to buy Merlot but that’s one minor irritant in the scheme of things.

But then the adventure really begins as you have to escape the car park. It would be easier for the Enterprise to escape a black hole.

It’s impossible to explain how badly designed the roads around Sainsbury’s are. Sufficed to say, one road services two supermarkets, a cinema, three restaurants, the bingo hall and a fast food drive through.

There are points in the day when the whole area is in gridlock.

These are the days you just have to be patient and polite.


I always make sure that as I crawl along, I let one car in from each junction I pass. We are moving so slowly that one more car in front of me doesn’t make much difference.

Today, the man behind me had a different idea - he didn't like that I was letting cars into the stream of traffic. He gave me a little peep on his horn. I ignored him and let two cars emerge at the next junction.

When I got home, the fish fingers hadn’t defrosted so all in all a successful trip.

Next time you’re sitting in a traffic jam, worrying about your perishables, resist the urge to peep.  Resistance isn’t always futile.

You Could Drive A Person Crazy

23rd December

You Could Drive A Person Crazy

The thought processes of some people on the internet, or lack of a thought process, could drive a man to use such words as ‘stupid’ or even ‘idiotic’. But I’m not the sort of man who would use words like that to describe other human beings, no matter how feeble minded and daft they are.

The internet has allowed every partially educated muppet with internet access to display their lack of basic common sense with ease.

The ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ are a favourite of mine, like those who truly believe that we did not land a man on the moon. Now think about this, we live in a  society where there is no such thing as a secret anymore. With organisations like  Wikileaks and hordes of crusading journalists spending all of their energy crawling into every nook and cranny of public life, you really think that someone might have blabbed by now if it was a hoax.

The Holocaust Deniers, the Flat-Earthers, the Climate Change Deniers, all have free rein to spread their own anti-science, and alternative facts and that’s not forgetting the Anti- Vaccination brigade. 

They have the added joy of endangering people’s lives with their theories.

It’s impossible to have a reasonable debate about such things of course, because nobody is reasonable anymore…except for me and Stephen Fry. 

I’m seriously thinking of starting a cult based on one of the theories I just made up:

When I was a child we had one bath a week and no one had heard of autism…therefore people taking too many baths must cause autism.

When I was a child we were beaten soundly just for looking at a teacher but then they stopped corporal punishment and the next thing you know we have Al Qaeda.

When I was a child we had golliwogs on the jam, then they took them off and now we have an obesity epidemic in children.

I’m sure one of them will take off big style, especially if I can get celebrity endorsements from maybe Tommy Robinson or Uri Geller.

The internet is alive with the sound of stupid and that’s without even mentioning the religious & moralistic bigots who scream their poison into the dark void of the Twitter-sphere.

Evangelical extremists who believe Jesus was blonde haired and blue eyed and spoke with a soft Southern accent.

People who memorise huge chunks of the Bible just to weaponise the word of their god against heathens and foreigners…and homosexuals of course.

It’s a foregone conclusion that if anything goes wrong in the world, any natural disasters strike, then you can bet your bottom dollar a religious nutcase will pop up and blame it all on ‘the gays’.   

Navigating your way through all of this rubbish can be tiring and you might begin to think that the world is populated solely by these mongrels and charlatans but fear not…I’m here to restore balance.

"Humans do have an amazing capacity for believing what they choose” ( And The Children Shall Lead - Star Trek) 

Poor Unfortunate Souls

22nd December

Poor Unfortunate Souls

The wedding went very well, the bride looked beautiful, the groom cried and I think I managed to stay out of all of the photographs.

I left home at 10am and arrived back at around 5:30pm, so this gave me plenty of time on the road, just me, some music and my thoughts.

And it’s strange what comes into your head whilst you’re driving through the wilds of Lincolnshire.  For example, are parents still naming their children Alexa?  How confusing must that be for the child and the little box in the corner of the room.

Alexa, come here!
I’m sorry I cannot comply with that request. I have no legs…

Alexa play some Vivaldi.
Hang on mummy, I’ll fetch my recorder…

I’m also guessing there are children in this world named Siri who suffer  equally confusing lifestyles.

Some parents bless their children with what they think are beautiful & original names don't they? I recall a child named Jelly Bean Coco from some years ago and another named Collagen.

It’s like their parents wanted them to be bullied.

I was a potential bullying target at school as I was a chubster, but apart from one incident when some huge older boy pinned me to a fence to try and take my dinner money, I managed to get through school pretty unscathed.

Or maybe I’ve blocked it out? It’s not unknown for me to ‘forget’ some of my past as there were times that are still pretty unappealing to look back on. I guess the other side of that coin is how we might romance the past to make it seem more palatable, even creating false memories which eventually even we can no longer differentiate from the truth.

Visiting Lincoln yesterday, on the return leg of my road trip, stirred up many memories. Having lived there for 22 years, I have a mixture of very happy and extremely unhappy times to look back on. The unhappy ones often over power the happy.

The move to Mansfield, almost 20 years ago now, was in no small way to physically distance myself from the source of such pain. But no matter how hard you try and keep those bad memories locked up in a dark corner of your mind, they have this habit of creeping out. It’s then that names and places come back to you, unbidden, to peel the scab off what you had hoped was a long since healed wound.

And no matter how hard you try, you cannot seem to gain a balance between the happy and the sad. You know there are great times to recall but once you start to look at your pain, it’s hard to stop.  It’s a bit like trying to eat just one segment of a Terry’s chocolate orange.


Time for some Star Trek wisdom to kick in…

You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are.


Thanks Jim. For good or bad, we are the sum of our experiences and no life is all good, but then again no life is all bad. It’s just that some of us find it hard to see the wood for the trees sometimes.



Alexa, play something soothing.

Hang on, I’ll fetch my recorder…

Alexa…oh never mind.