Out To Play

Old people (especially women) are not listened to, and are treated as if they are half mad, even if they are speaking profound truths. This is one of the propositions of our afternoon's entertainment. In our daily lives in the village, we still feel as if we are below median age. Looking around city streets, train and tube platforms, I struggled to find people I thought were as old as me. I think the latter is probably a healthier state of affairs. Someone offered me their seat on the tube, a first, which is food for thought

Another of the play's contentions is that our free will is largely illusory. Our fate is 'written in the stars' at the time of our birth, determined by the positions of Jupiter and Saturn, or by DNA and environment, depending on your preference. We spent a lot of the day doing what we were told, parking in the right place, waiting in lines, giving way, keeping up with the crowd, not crossing flimsy barriers, 'no phones or cameras' - the normal stuff off city living - choosing (I think) to be good citizens

Also wound into the production: Gratuitous killing of animals for sport is morally comparable to murder. Animals share something with humans that you might call 'soul' or 'mind', the destruction of which is to do wrong. I have hunted for sport, but I wouldn't do so now, so perhaps I agree - though I would not support the retribution visited on some of the hunters in the play either

The narrow argument about animal rights was broadened into a consideration of whether the destruction of ecosystems - the life of the planet - is comparable with crimes against humanity, war crimes and so forth. This is a point made by contemporary climate protesters: they are put on trial for voicing protest; there is no crime with which the fossil fuel companies can be charged for their ecocide. The play was at the Barbican, at the centre of a brutalist concrete enclave - a big adjustment for my rural-adapted senses. As we were leaving, we were stuck by this display - out of place, but nonetheless welcome. This is "Mendelssohn’s Tree: the remains of a 500 year old Beech Tree which fell in the forest of Burnham Beeches, Buckinghamshire, during a storm in January 1990". There is a suggestion he sat under it to compose the music for Midsummer Night's Dream. Perhaps also a hint that people crave more than concrete and glass

The play was Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, a dramatisation by Complicité of the book by Polish Nobel prize-winner, Olga Tokarczuk. I found the book hard going and the play much more accessible

If you are interested in the Barbican architecture, this film is worth 6 minutes of your time. Full disclosure: friends & family were central to its creation

A quick follow-up to yesterday's picture: our journey down the Thames valley today suggests that, just at this moment it's fine for water thank you (see extra)