In the spa, massages and stone-oil baths cost about £16 each. You’ll pay, for example, about £50 for six two-hour lessons in cross-country skiing, and about £3 per day to rent the boots and skis The horse-drawn sleigh ride costs about £7 per person. Skiing lessons, gear hire, horse-drawn sleigh-rides, and hotel spa treatments are extras. A week at the Hotel Wiesenhof costs from £594 per person sharing a double/twin room, including seven nights’ half-board, return scheduled flights between Heathrow and Munich, rail and hotel transfers Three nights on the same basis costs £396. Inntravel (01653 629010; ) offers three-night and seven-night breaks in winter (between 21 December and 23 March). A holiday in Pertisau on the other hand will break neither an arm nor a leg.
I’m going to Florida.I’m sorry, but you probably wouldn’t be able to afford that. We’ve attempted to make sure that no idea in it is party political. We don’t want people coming along and thinking, “Bunch of bloody lefties!” As far as we can, we’ve tried to maintain the play’s farcical energy and chaotic absurdity During the process of Accidental Death… the maniac starts to appear sane and the police start to seem insane.
Where does the real madness lie?I’ve never been of the opinion that you persuade people of your political opinion That was the 20th century. But I do believe theatre is the place to provoke people to question their beliefs. There’s one particular speech at the end of the play – “We are in the shit up to our necks, which is why we’re walking with our heads held high” – which really brings home the idea that unless you actually do something about what’s going on, instead of just talking about it, you’re as good as ignoring the problem. Indeed in some sense, you’re directly responsible.As Dario Fo put it, forgetfulness is the world’s worst disease. He’s saying, don’t forget yourself, don’t forget your opinions and most importantly, don’t forget your conscience.’Accidental Death of an Anarchist’: Donmar Warehouse, London WC2 (020 7369 1732), previewing, opens Wed, to 19 April. Pretending To Be Me
Philip Larkin is alive and well and in a highly entertaining mood. The famous poet – as reincarnated by Tom Courtenay in the excellent biodrama, Pretending To Be Me – pops his bespectacled head up behind a tower of cardboard boxes.
Emerging in his neat grey suit, he starts chatting away, stammer allowing, in a singsong voice – only growing passionately bitter when swigging whisky. He’s a cross between a nervous mouse, a dour librarian (his day job), and a startlingly funny raconteur.
With something of Alan Bennett in his homely manner and satirical bite, he touches on his childhood feelings of boredom and fear, and on his awkward parents who he insists he liked in spite of his most popular, cynical verse, “They fuck you up your mum and dad…” He jokes about and seriously contemplates the art of poetry, and Ted “The Incredible Hulk” Hughes comes in for blistering sideswipes en route.We might, symbolically, be in the attic of Larkin’s mind here; the walls glow a surreal sky-blue in Ian Brown’s production (transferring from Leeds). Yet on a more everyday level, it’s the 1970s and the ageing recluse, with writer’s block, has just moved house in Hull and not unpacked.What’s extraordinary about this one-man tour de force is that Larkin’s verses, including Whitsun Weddings and The Trees, are slipped in almost imperceptibly among the prose aper? which Courtenay has compiled from the complete writings. That’s true to the protagonist’s own definition of poetry as “heightened talk”. There’s also a strong sense that Larkin’s personality is really in Courtenay’s blood. And in contrast to most biodramas’ clunking expositions, you get to know this man as you might in life – incompletely, with illuminations along the way Some might complain that this is a partial portrait.