“The Suicide”: On Thursday, we went with Sally and Alan to see “The Suicide” at the National Theatre. It is a dark comedy, adapted by Suhayla El-Bushra from a play be the same name by Nikolai Erdman. Erdman was a noted poet and comic writer in Russia during the 1920s, when he wrote “The Suicide”. Unfortunately for him, Stalin and his friends didn’t appreciate the humor and Erdman ended up in Siberia. The play was banned before it was even rehearsed and was not performed until 1969, after the script was smuggled out of the Soviet Union. El-Bushra updated the play extensively, while retaining the central idea.

In the play, Sam (played brilliantly by Javonne Prince), is depressed because he is chronically unemployed and has lost his benefits for being late to meet his social worker. He is fighting with his wife and his life seems to be a disaster to him. So it is all very real life in terms of problems faced by poor people in London today. He is thinking about suicide and it standing on a bridge at night when his suicidal angst is filmed by some kids, who put it on line, where it goes viral. Sam is then beset by people who want to use his suicide to make one point or another, including a documentary filmmaker who wants to use his suicide as a revolutionary act, a social worker who want to use it to attack the local MP, the local MP who wants to use it to attack the psychiatric services provided through the NHS, a restauranteur who wants to get famous by making his last meal, a buddy who becomes famous by reciting poetry jam verse about his impending death and others. There were all of these great little parts in the play of people wanting to get something out of him and some memorable little performances. Sam is offered fame and money and all the things he never had in his life, but only if he kills himself the next day at noon. He gets swept up in the momentum of it all and the desire to show that he can support his wife, even if he can only do it by killing himself. It is a bit creepy, but had a black humor that worked. It is very cleverly written and wonderfully staged. It was very funny and a bit sad, while making some serious points about the state of our society, the sorry state of politics and government and the warping impact of social media on everything. I think this one will stay with me for a while.

“Sunny Afternoon”: We saw this with Linda and Chris on Saturday night, after visiting the TKTS booth in Leicester Square. It is a musical based on the music of the Kinks. It started at the Hampstead Theatre (one of our favorites) and moved to the West End when it became a big hit. It is essentially about the Davies brothers, Ray (the songwriter and lead singer) and Dave (the lead guitarist and wild little brother). It had most of the great Kinks songs, so it couldn’t be too bad and it was pretty cleverly done. I guess they could figure out how to work “Lola” into the plot, so it ended up being used as a big audience sign-along at the end. The guys who played the Davies brothers were talented and the actor playing Ray was especially good, and he had to be, since the who show really centered around him (not a big surprise, since the real Ray Davies helped to write it). I really like the Kinks, so I was more interested in seeing this that something like “Jersey Boys”. If you think about this as an example to of the “Rock Musical” genre, it is certainly one of the best. (Off the top of my head, I’d say that “Tommy” would be the best of that genre. It is a lot easier to come up with mediocre ones.) An enjoyable night in the theatre, but, unlike “The Suicide”, ultimately forgettable.

Gull Eggs: When were were over at Jane and Paul Jee’s house for Easter, their friend Jeremy told me that I had to try gull eggs, which were just coming into season. According to him, they are harvested by people who climb up or down cliffs to take them out of gull’s nests. He said that the government licensed individuals to harvest gull eggs in World War II to deal with food shortages and that there are very few left. (According to a Daily Mail article from 2015 that I found, there are only twelve licensed gull egg collectors left.) The classic way to eat them is with celery salt. After we saw “Sunny Afternoon”, we took Linda and Chris to dinner at Sheekey’s, a famous seafood restaurant in the West End. There on the menu were gull eggs with celery salt and mayonnaise. (£7.50 per small egg, soft boiled.) I had to try it. The taste was slightly more delicate than a regular chicken egg, but still definitely an egg. I’m not sure what I was expecting…..