To be....

...or not to be. A day that began at 6.20am in dark so thick you could slice it, a hag moon and scudding clouds and finished with more of the same eighteen hours later.

Took Eve to see Hamlet in Newcastle. Poor thing, she's only 14, and it's the toughest and longest play in the repertoire but if you're going to see it, where better than the RSC performing at the Theatre Royal? The visual spectacle alone makes the difficulty with the language bearable. Fortified with a pre-theatre Italian and some sweeties we were both on the edge of our seats. Streamed down Northumberland street at chucking out time and saw scenes that the Bard would have recognised - pretty much every form of transgressive human behaviour bar bear-baiting and cock-fighting, but maybe that was later. A visual feast. It's hard not to love Newcastle. Rough & ready it might be at times, but invigorating? Always.