The twins' birthday

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Further to discussions of birthdays: in "Ready-Made Family", Nicola describes her previous birthday outing as "Nicola had borne the visit to the Chichester Festival Theatre last year. Not, as it happened, that she hadn't enjoyed it more than she'd thought she would - after all, you couldn't not enjoy Lawrence (sic) Olivier, even when he was blotted out behind a black face, looking, so Ma had said, exactly like Patrice Lumumba in the cart at the end".

Olivier played Othello (which I presume is the part he blacked-up for) at the Chichester Festival theatre (he was a director from 1952-65) from Tuesday 21st July 1964 to Saturday 29th August 1964. RMF was published in 1967, so allowing a year or two for final polishing and publishing time, I think it's conclusive that that was the play they saw. (Will anyone give me odds that AF was there as well? :-) ) Which all ties in with what we already knew.

It was only in typing Olivier's name just now that I noticed the spelling mistake - he's Laurence. My edition of RMF is the Faber Fanfare - page 171, 10 pages after the start of Chapter 12 - do the hardback or the GGB edition have the same spelling?

[Edit for spelling - would you believe "theater"?]