The world from my window

It's the General Election tomorrow and I've made it my business to be out in the evening. After suffering a heart attack on Brexit eve  while watching the television coverage, there is only so much I can take. So I'm off with friends to see The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School perform Under Milk Wood in Bridport . Says the blurb:  Set in the fictitious fishing village of Llareggub, this twenty four hour peek into the lives and loves of the likes of Captain Cat, Polly Garter and Willy Nilly has continued to enthral its audiences ever since. With its canvas of nonsense gossip, feuds, affairs, fights, frauds and practical jokes, the play pulses with the vitality and relish of real life characters re-living their dreams and desires. “Using Thomas’ delightful descriptions, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School students have turned this feast for the ears into a hearty beano for the eyes.”  Robin Markell, BBC Captain Cat gets my vote every time, even if he's got a...

It's the annual village outing and we have left the womb-like bay of Woolacombe for a day trip around the headland to Ilfracombe. We're walking past the harbour and then we see her, a striking figure with sword held high. A kind of modern-day Statue of Liberty looking out across the Atlantic from this pretty and quirky seaside town in North Devon. I've been out of the loop for a while, what with living abroad. But when someone said there was a Damien Hirst statue here, I didn't really know what to expect. A giant skull made of crystal , perhaps, or a cow pickled in formaldehyde .  But from here, the statue looks beautiful. It's clear from this angle that she's pregnant, controversial for some perhaps (but not to me, power to the sisterhood and all that) but so far so good. She gets better as we draw closer. The scales of justice are tucked behind her backside and the skin on her right leg is peeling off, so she looks like she's wearing one thi...

Last night, I went to the Marine Theatre at Lyme Regis to see Guy Masterson's show Under Milk Wood . It was a wonderful one-man encapsulation of the comedy, sadness and lyrical beauty of Dylan Thomas's radio play. The dreams and nightmares of ordinary people in a small town, wishes that will never come true and memories of the long-dead. It is a book I remember well from school, where we read it in class and I was always cast as Polly Garter, with her dress up over her head having babies. It has been in and out and around my brain for years: 'And before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its shoes.' My own Enchanted Village is a bit like Llareggub, with its own versions of Ocky Milkman, Dai Bread and his two wives, No Good Boyo, the Ogmore-Pritchards, Organ Morgan, Willy Nilly the postman (he knows the contents of all the letters he delivers) and the long-suffering Mr Pugh, who fantasises about murdering his dreadful wife. As I write this, Mr Grigg has just popped next ...