Cultural Desert....

A quiet start to the working week today. I didn't have a meeting until noon so I went into the city centre to have my hair cut at my favourite place, BarberBarber in Barton Arcade. It's always a pleasant experience. Jonny the owner, had been in and out. He's busy organising the new BarberBarber in Birmingham. He'd declared the Manchester store 'a mess' and wanted it brought up to 'Jonny standards' by the time he returned. It looked fine to me but Jonny hasn't got where he is now by letting high standards slip.

I still had time so I went round a few of the city's cultural institutions and picked up their prospectuses for the Autumn/Winter season. We tend to think we're living in a cultural desert by mid August. In the Royal Exchange Theatre I stood waiting to have a word with one of the box office people and listened in to the calls. At the Royal Exchange end it was all 'sold out', 'going fast', 'limited availability'.... I knew they were talking about the first play , a new production of 'A Streetcar Named Desire' with Blanche Dubois being played by the excellent Maxine Peake. Hence the lack of tickets. I took the decision to get some for any time I could which I did. I'm looking forward to it and seeing how Maxine Peake, with her broad Manchester accent, copes with the deep, southern states accent of Blanche.

I also got tickets for 'Breaking The Code' the play about Alan Turing and the Enigma Machine. It deals with his life before he moved to Manchester and worked on the world's first programmable computer, Baby. And for Christmas we have 'Sweet Charity', the Royal Exchange's unusual Christmas treat for Manchester.