Whatever Happened to Rick Marks?

At least, I think there's a question mark at the end. Is there a question mark in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"? Who knows.

Anyway on Monday 16th we have a feast of entertainment winging its way to the Horse and Groom. First up will be a short poem written and performed by Silas Hawkins.

It will then be followed by two playlets that, purely because the cut off is arranged on a first come first serve basis, failed to make the forthcoming competition. They are "Mum & Dad" by Simon Desborough and "Paradise in Portobello" by Alison Wilkie. Both are drug-filled comedy dramas. If this were Channel Four, I'd be issuing a warning that both contain strong language and scenes of an adult nature that some might find offensive from the outset. But this isn't. This is P-P, and if I were to say that you'll be climbing the walls to see them.

Then, as the main entertainment of the evening, comes a one act comedy of manners by biographer and journalist Francis Beckett. Francis writes books about such heavyweights as Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown ( better him than me ), and savage denunciations of Polly Toynbee too. It's a dirty job, eh?

But Francis also writes plays. Hey, he even writes about writing plays. He even, once, wrote about Player-Playwrights for the Guardian. Which one of our actors did he describe as having "a voice that sounds as though he gargles with granite"? Click on this to find out.

The play he mentions in that piece was "Blair's Babes". It's now been retitled as " The Right Honourable Lady", and has since been published by Samuel French.

So it should be a good evening. 7.45, Horse and Groom.