Tragedy or comedy?

Yesterday, when I was looking for something else that I knew was behind one of our heaps, I came across a filing box containing old theatre programmes. I could have dumped the lot in the bin but I didn’t (which is why this tidying lark is taking such a long time). There are 41 of them, dating from 1993 to 2006.

(The rest of this text is for me when my memory has declined even further, like next week.)

Seven are productions I remember seeing with pleasure or astonishment or emotion: Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (NT 1993), Ted Hughes’s version of the Oresteia (NT 1999), The Vagina Monologues (Oxford Playhouse 2003), Vincent in Brixton (NT 2003), Pinter’s Betrayal directed by Peter Hall (Oxford Playhouse 2003), Out of Joint’s Macbeth (Oxford Playhouse 2004), Alan Bennett’s History Boys (NT 2004).

Another ten are from plays that, once the programme cover reminds me I was there, I remember seeing (note to self: that includes Creation Theatre’s execrable Tempest) and six are from plays whose programme I have to look inside to remember that I saw them.

The remaining 18, so that’s almost half, are from plays I don’t remember seeing at all and of these, eleven I have never even heard of. Those eleven include plays by Mike Leigh, David Edgar, Wole Soyinka, David Hare, Ibsen and, most shamefully because I seek out things of hers, Yaël Farber.

The ones I’ve heard of but don’t remember seeing include David Hare’s version of Brecht’s Mother Courage, starring Diana Rigg. This is deeply shocking. When I was 15 I played the title role in a school production so I have every reason to remember it (though Judi Dench as Mother Courage in the Barbican in 1984, despite lack of programme, is a tattoo on my psyche).

Actors I have forgotten seeing include Frances de la Tour, Una Stubbs, Susannah York, Derek Jacobi, Simon Russell Beale, Dominic West, David Suchet, Warren Mitchell and doubtless a host of others who I don’t know are famous.

Although God Only Knows comes close, the programme that amuses me most is Remembrance of Things Past. Didn’t know that had been turned into a play, even though it was done by Harold Pinter and I saw it.

Anyway, all but the first seven are now in the recycling bin.