About the only way that the Christmas that just slipped by us, was like any previous ones, was that it had equal amounts of absolute trash on TV compared to the past. It is a time when you have to be very selective according to your own tastes. Speaking for Stephen and myself, I must admit to having watched more TV this year, with all the social distancing, than any other time in my entire life. Being a pair who normally go to the cinema and the theatre a fair amount, that has been a major down side. We would often go out with friends, mainly from the swimming pool group, who meet regularly to swim, with others who belong to the two triathlon clubs; Trinity which is our club, and is mainly a swimming club these days funnily enough, and the now huge Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club, both of which were founded by Steve and I, that have their home at Littlehampton Wave. This brand-new swimming and sports centre had only been open, for barely one year before the rot set in during the early months of 2020.
This has meant that we have been deprived of our swimming for the most part, the first discipline in triathlon of course. Lots of our friends have been sea swimming even when it is now so cold. Steve doesn’t want me to join in any of that, since he knows how quickly I can get very cold indeed, without stepping into the English Channel at this time of the year. He worries about me since I have had pneumonia a couple of times after getting very cold, I seem to do that, quite quickly, and so his foot is firmly down on that count.
Linked very closely to the swimming set, was the loss of our social lives that closely revolved around our sport of thirty years, triathlon. As with any club, the group throws up birthdays and they must be celebrated. That was most often done after the Saturday evening club swim session when we would go and have a meal together, or nip into the little local art hour cinema; The Windmill, that is staffed by volunteers, half a mile away from the pool. Sometimes low key and other times involving dinner and theatre in nearby Chichester to see the latest productions at Chichester Festival Theatre that are often pre-London openings. Chichester is only a twenty minute drive from Littlehampton.
Thank heavens then, that the West End theatres started to stream previously recorded productions on TV for a small fee, or sometimes free which was amazing. Over the Christmas period Stephen and I have settled down for something like that most evenings. Most notably for us, were two of the biggies from the show world that we had been to see a number of times in London, when it also involved dinner and a night out in a West End hotel and travel costs. The first of these great shows was the 25th Anniversary concert performance of Les Misérables, filmed at the Royal Albert Hall. That was marvellous and also had a long encore section in which previous stars performed, and there were emotional speeches from Cameron Mackintosh and the shows great writers Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil. The recording was from 2010. Last night was indulged ourselves further with another 25th Anniversary of a West End production this time filmed in 2016. This time it was Miss Saigon which I think we have seen with nearly every cast change since the opening. I’m not sure who cried the most but it could well have been Steve even with being so familiar with the story. We had both cried floods when we saw Madame Butterfly at the ROH a couple of years ago too; the two versions of the same story equally heart-breaking.
Chichester Festival Theatre
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