Today we saw Don John at Stratford, a Kneehigh Theatre production in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company. A breath-taking show about love, lust and loss. I was so moved that I felt I had to get up and dance. Wonderfully, after their curtain call, the actors reached into the audience and brought people on to the stage to waltz. Extraordinarily magical. Go and see it if you can. It's on tour now until the end of March.
An interesting venue, the Courtyard Theatre. The RSC is being redeveloped for an eye-watering £100 million plus. I get resentful at their long list of donors. There are so many fabulous arts projects out there that cost so much less and demanded only a tiny portion of lottery cash. One of my favourites, where I had my leaving party when I moved on from running the lottery side of things at London Arts, was the Poetry Cafe. Under £100,000 to create a cafe, library and accessible spaces entwined with poetry throughout the building, on the light shades, on the stairwells. In my eyes, that's a model lottery project, not one that sucks up cash at the expense of so many others.
Still, the Courtyard is accessible (as it should be for a new, lottery funded venue!) Easy to get around, great seats for wheelchair users, fine cafe with tables you can get under. And it gave me a chance to see one of the best plays I've seen for a long time.
