New Trust & A Flea in Her Ear.

A really good meeting yesterday evening at the National Trust's Queen Anne's Gate headquarters with Gary and Ruth. We're looking to create a Drama and the National Trust module to roll out for Level 2 Applied Theatre students from September next year which will hopefully both provide an ongoing theme for the sixty or so students enrolled on the course, enable the Trust to commission work form us and give us a further opportunity to explore and further our research into the ways heritage sites can provide the stimulus for community engagement and expression. There's quite a bit to iron out, but we're all onside and very excited about further strengthening our ties.

Tonight off to the Old Vic to see an all star cast take on Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear. It's great to see such secure farce playing and it's clear that the actors all really relished the the freedom to demonstrate their virtuosity. In a theatre dominated by psychological realism or spectacular staging effects it must be so liberating to spend a couple of hours playing in this way. As a member of the audience it's certainly wonderful to be able to sit back and simply marvel at plot and device.

Tom Hollander is superb shifting seamlessly across the dual roles of buffoon porter Poche and the bourgeois respectable Chandebise. He's ably supported by Freddie Fox as Chandebise's speech impaired young nephew, Tim McMullan as the pompous butler and John Marques as a fiery Spanish lover. Sometimes there are clunks but it's very early in the play's run and given the calibre of the actors and the clear joy they're already getting from spinning the plates, things will no doubt bed down sooner rather than later.

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