Goodness gracious me, I am rather lax at the moment regarding my poor little blog!! Many apologies, I have no excuse for abandoning you all in such a cruel and heartless way. However, in a rather blatant attempt to ingratiate myself with you lovely people again, please sit back, get a nice cup of tea, and enjoy my long-promised Blog On The Theatre.

Quite a few weeks ago now, the Family Eris went to the theatre. Not just any theatre, my friends, nay. We went to Cliveden to see Charley's Aunt, an open air production. Well, we knew that by its' very nature, this production was going to be a) fantastic, and b) viewed by people who took picnicking seriously. So the Family Eris packed a picnic accordingly. Myself and Mother Eris had a lovely bottle of wine, Sister Eris had some Pina Colada from M&S, and Father Eris (as usual, our wonderful and put-upon token male and designated driver), had some nice cordial, again from the wonderful haven of Marks & Sparks. Foodwise, we had chicken, sausages, a rather nice salad in some tupperware, a fish platter from M&S, and other picnicky food. So we sat there with our chairs, and started to look around. Because Mother Eris and I are both terrible snobs, we started to feel a little inadequate in the picnic stakes. For example, why hadn't we brought a table?!? Why were we drinking out of plastic cups? So what if there was a risk we break the wine glasses? Damn....should have brought the good crystal. Hmm....our tupperware was all very well and good for a child's picnic, but the ideal manner in which to present an outdoor salad appeared to be in fact a salad bowl with matching tongs. Curses. However, we did have the last laugh when the people with their salad bowl, crystal wine glasses and bone china plates had to ask us if they could borrow a corkscrew.

So we stored these little bits of important information up, and watched the play. Which was just fantastic. The actors were both professional and able to ad lib when requested; even when things went wrong, or a plane flew overhead, they were able to continue, and to work it into the play. I am a fan of condensed theatre companies, when done well, and this was Charley's Aunt with five actors. It was utterly splendid. At the beginning, when we arrived, the actors were already in character, ready to greet the audience and show them where to sit. They interacted wonderfully, and were never out of character for a moment.

It was, in short, a fantastic, if eyeopening, evening out.

A few weeks after that, the Family Eris had tickets to another outdoors production, by the same company, this time at Hughenden Manor. This time Sister Eris, who had just got back from her sterotypical teenage holiday, was sleeping off her excesses, so Prurient Badger came along instead. And this time, Mother Eris and I were more prepared. We had been to Essentials in Hazlemere, and purchased ourselves a nice picnic table, and I had also managed to procure a lovely salad bowl with tongs, having been completely unable to get this vision out of my head since the last time. We also took along some wine glasses; Father Eris refused to let us take the best crystal, as both Mother Eris and myself are slightly clumsy and accident prone with less spacial awareness than a dizzy mole. However, we do have a lot of nice wine glasses, so we took along some of them. This time, we were among the people that (at least Mother Eris & I like to think) others were looking at thinking 'goodness, they do picnicking properly. Alas! How inadequate I feel! Herbert, dear, next time we come to such an event, I feel that a salad bowl really is required like the effortlessly sophisticated family in front of us'.

Even this time, however, we still learnt things from others. For example, next time we are definitely taking along a china cruet set and some scented candles. Also a flask of coffee; the National Trust do provide coffee, however Mother Eris & I prefer coffee that could walk down the road by itself if so required.

Midsummer Night's Dream was wonderful. It is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, and neither Mother nor Father Eris had seen it before. With only 6 actors, it was done amazingly. Titania & Oberon were portrayed as old-fashioned faeries, very animalistic, nothing light and airy about them at all. The sexual attraction between them was shown, along with the way in which this attraction comes out in the quarreling, and the constant games they played with each other and the mortals.

Bottom was portrayed as an Irish builder, and had the audience in stitches. It was, to sum up, absolutely wonderful, with the beautiful backdrop of Hughenden Manor to set off the simplistic but very clever and multi-functional set.

Now, if anyone has any other suggestions as to how Mother Eris and I can put together the most apparently-effortless sophisticated picnic known to man, please let me know!