The following year at West Dean

It's now 2012 and I have decided to fill in my profile twelve months after I opened this blog. Since I appear to be the only person who has read it or looked at it, I think I can call it my confidential diary. It is well known that one should never travel without one's diary: one should always have something sensational to read on the train...

So what has happened in the year since I last wrote on my blog?  Well, there is a new thing in my life, which quite by chance happens to share the same name as the old thing in my life. The new thing is also called Newton and has come to us from Mount Olympus... well, the mountains of Skiathos to be precise: Newton is an English setter and three years old. He is a survivor, a very dominant chap who seems to love people and in time will learn to love other dogs, we hope. Learning to live with Newton - and him with us- is an experience for us all. He is an archaeological enthusiast, and my Mother's once exquisite garden has been transformed into a site of which Tony Robinson would be proud. Every toad, frog and vole has fled for safety into the banks of the stream on the other side of the fence. The shrubbery, which earlier this year was a haven for a barce of nesting pheasants, is now a network of runways. We have become as expert in analysing poo as the doctors of George III as we search for interdental brushes, tissues, biros and diabetic pens which have made their way through Newton's stomach.

We can only surmise as to how he got his name. Did an apple fall on his head, or more likely an olive? We had to collect him at 4.30 am one Wednesday morning at a junction on the M25 made famous for its road rage murder. Now we have a happier reason to connect us with Swanley. I hope that is the same for him: it seems so. Suddenly however we have become immersed in the world of dog psychology and the realisation for some in the household that Socialism is not a word that dogs appreciate or understand: for a dog, you are either Top Dog or one of the pack. The nose-to-nose encounter above is only the start of a long journey establishing who pays for the food and who eats it. But the sight of him leaping round the garden is very, very heart-warming.

And what of plays? Our venture last year into the world of Salem and Arthur Miller was good, but the recent revelations about Jimmy Savile are whipping the public up into a frenzy similar to a pack of huntswomen in full flight with total bloodlust in their eyes. I have no truck with paedophilia at all: I do not see that there is a "grey area". We know the rules, and if you break them, then as an adult you deserve what's coming to you. Nevertheless, the public does seem to being whipped up into such a frenzy over this that it can only be a matter of time before the first malicious accusations are made against individuals in exactly the same way as happened in the Salem witch trials. If we are not careful, innocent people are going to get hurt as a means of settling old scores, and this must be avoided at all costs.

We must also end this country's obsession with celebrity. Like all of us, celebrities have feet of clay, as is only too apparent now after all these revelations.

Back to plays. "David Copperfield" is coming shortly to my new group in Chichester: I am directing for the first time in four years, and have a talented cast of 27. It comes off next month, and I hope it will be a success. I am delighted with the poster which is shown here. If you see this before Decemeber please come.

Do I like David Copperfield as much as Nicholas Nickleby? The short  answer is No. The book is artistically better, but David has many more insecurities. He is certainly a more rounded character than Nicholas, but is far less of a hero, because he is more fallible. Nicholas's attitudes are black and white, as befits someone of 20. By 30, which is probably how old David is at the end of the book, one is beginning to be aware that there are more than 50 shades of grey between the black and the white.

Oh- and I have just been told that I have been cast in next year's production at West Dean - an open air theatre just north of Chichester. In July we performed "Taming of the Shrew" in varying degrees of weather, though probably more veering to the wet. I played Tranio, the wily servant of Lucentio, who gets the younger daughter by convincing her father that Lucentio has the most money to wed her. (Either that or I am persuading him that garlic breath is truly an aphrodisiac). The play was set in the Wild West which may explain the costumes. Next year is a big one for me, but you will have to watch this space if you are the least bit interested....

Here goes....

A blogspot- a blank page with my name (imaginary or otherwise) on the top. Well- the name is imaginary, or part of it is, anyway. I am indeed Richard. Not Dick, Dickie, Rick, or Ricky or Rich (certainly not the last of those). Just Richard....

As for the Nickleby, that is the fictional bit. I have always been a Dickens fan even though I cannot claim to have read all his novels. If I was on Desert Island Discs, though, my book choice would be "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby". My choice of music would depend on my age and mood at the time, an I would have to think really hard about just eight favourite tunes. But this would be the book. And that is strange, too, because it is not even my favourite Dickens work. It is not as well-crafted as "Bleak House" or "Little Dorrit", nor even as gripping as "Great Expectations". But I like it because of the hero. The hero is someone with whom I empathise- especially now that my father is no longer with us, my mother is- well, a bit like Nick's mother, really, and my sister has all the attributes of Kate, including being much put-upon. But I am a good thirty years older than Nick. I guess Nicholas is the kind of guy I would like to be, really.

This is me, not looking like Nicholas, and playing a part. I am involved in amateur theatre. NOT AMDRAM!!! For me, "Amdram" is like the word "queer"- perjorative, used by sneery people to belittle others who have an interest in something that they don't. I like the word amateur, because it shows that you are doing something because you love it. You don't have to be paid for doing it, and you don't have to be particularly good at it. But you do not have to be sneered at for doing it, nor should people believe that you are only an amateur because you aren't good enough to do it professionally. I would never think that about an amateur golfer- good on him for doing something he likes to the best of his ability!

In the picture above, I was playing the role of a real-life character who has become a hero of mine. The character is Alan Turing, whose work on cracking the Enigma Code in World War II was never appreciated by the public in his lifetime. In fact, the public treatment of him was shocking, and an official apology was eventually given him for the way in which he was treated a couple of years ago. He was a brilliant mathematician, and if he were a child today, he might well have been diagnosed as autistic, and therefore classified as having special needs. His work at Bletchley Park shortened the war by at least two years.

In "Nicholas Nickleby", Nick befriends a guy with special needs called Smike, and they travel around the country together. Much of the story revolves around the different attitudes that other characters have towards Smike. Some treat him harshly, and others- most particularly the theatrical troupe they join for a while- treat him like one of their own.

Well, I think that's all for now.