WE ARE HERE!

(tt)  Well folks we are here in Glebe, NSW in the home of our dearest friends, Robert Alexander and Barry Blight. The flight was numbing but thank heavens for that spell in Hawaii because jet lag is minimal. It is cold! No frangipanis and balmy breezes here. Lots of changes in the neighbourhood...especially for Sheldon who hasn't been here for two years. We had a walk down the main street and counted the new businesses and the ones gone. A trip to the main shopping centre yielded the electronic means to keep up this drivel and as  the cold grey settled in we frittered away the arvo snoozing, tea-ing, tapestrying and reading. The on our first evening? Of course..the thartar. Mr R. Alexander opened in this.....

It is sixty years since it debuted in London and a special and new production is touring the Antipodes. Sydney is first stop and the season is nigh booked out. Miss Christie is hugely popular here with the Marple/Poirot series rating through the roof. The venue was not a typical one for this vintage offering...

..and there wasn't a curtain...which I think is a shame. I love curtains rising on old mansion drawing rooms... but that is the minorest quibble. The cast, with fifteen days to get it on, (please don't let this become the norm..actors  working for no rehearsal money and providing their own frocks) did a splendid job and did not succumb to the real danger of codding it up. Even though I knew who'd dunnit from the start I had a splendid time.
The audience did too. I spotted Amanda Muggleton, Ian Phipps, Simon Burke, Michael Tyack. Jason Langley and Toby Schmitz. Here are some lovely mugs I was game to click

 Barry Blight, Paula Brown and a pushy fan.

The increasingly pushy fan with John Gregg

Robert Alexander in the middle celebrating a very fine performance as Mr Paravicini. The wormingly pushy fan had tried to crash the celebration but was located by security personnel and thrown out into Hickson Rd.
And here are some production shots. Robert Alexander, Travis Cotton and Nicholas Hope

Linda Cropper, Justin Smith and Gus Murray

Mr Hope and Jacinta John