Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

It is always a pleasure to go to the theatre, and just occasionally, it's a real privilege - and not just because I'm an investor. I attended the opening of Macbeth at the Gielgud last night, and Charles Spencer of The Telegraph has, this morning, described it as the greatest Macbeth he's ever seen. Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood were an amazing duo as Macbeth and his lady, and Nicholas de Jongh of the Evening Standard has given it 5 stars. I will not add to the columns of praise they are receiving this morning. I will however, bring to your notice the appearance of Michael Feast as Macduff, who gives one of the finest performances of his career; when told that Macbeth has murdered his wife and three children, the next sixty seconds on stage is one of the most dramatic moments of theatre I can remember in the last 30 years, ensuring that whenever I see the director's name (Rupert Goold) on a poster in the future, I will be booking seats - whatever the production. The play is only running for 10 weeks and already has a million pound advance. If you hope to get a ticket, you'd better book now.

Knights of the stage and screen

On Sunday evening, Mary and I attended the 100th anniversary celebration of Laurence Olivier (1907-2007) held at the Olivier Theatre at the National. Of course it was a glorious occasion of self-indulgence with some of our greatest thespians making their entrance and exits on the hallowed stage. The largest cheers were for Claire Bloom after a snippet of her performance with Olivier in Richard III was shown on the big screen, and for Dickie Attenborough who has become the grand old man of the theatre. I was disappointed that Dame Joan Plowright, who was at the unveiling of the Olivier statue, did not take a bow herself at the end. But it was, nevertheless, a magnificent evening.

I firtst saw Olivier playing Coriolanus at Stratford when I was 17, and had waited in the returns queue to pay 5 shillings (25p) to stand at the back. I saw him several times after that at the Old Vic and the National Theatre, but the last full length great production I saw him perform was Long Days Journey Into Night with Ronald Pickup - who was on the stage on Sunday night - Denis Quilley and Constance Cummings, which was certainly among the half dozen finest performances I have ever seen on the London stage. I look back on that era which included John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Michael Redgrave, and wonder if we have the same calibre of actor performing on the English stage today. I think the answer is probably yes, because one could point to Anthony Hopkins, Ian Mckellen, Anthony Sher, and Richard Griffiths. But it's only a matter of judgement, and perhaps whatever generation you come from, you consider the past was better.

Patience, patience

I've now finished the twelfth draft of A Prisoner of Birth, and now comes that agonising moment when you allow someone to read it for the first time. I don't think it matters how many books you've written, or how many are published, it is always an anxious moment - well actually about 3 or 4 days - while you wait to hear the professionals' opinions. The book has been sent to my publishers in Britain and the USA, and I expect to hear back from them today. HELP!

Terence Donovan

Last night I attended the opening of the Terence Donovan photographic exhibition at the Chris Beetles Gallery in St James's. It was so well attended that it was quite hard to look at the photographs. My favourites were of Sir Ralph Richardson, Lord Olivier and Alec Guinness (1980), and a picture of a policewoman helping some children over a zebra crossing (Miss Allen and Children, 1959). If you're my age, this exhibition will bring back many nostalgic memories, and I also recommend it to the young, as it's a photographic history by one of our great exponents of the art.

Among the guests was John Madejski - recently appointed as Chancellor of Reading University - who told me to stop fussing about players' wages at Cambridge Rugby Club, because he described modern footballers' wages as nothing less than scandalous - he is of course the owner of Reading FC, which he has made clear to the outside world he would be willing to sell if only he could find the right buyer. If an American billionaire or a Russian oligarch is reading this blog, plese get in touch with him.

Talking of Russian oligarchs, did you notice in this morning's papers the report of the oligarch who has halted a planned Sotheby's auction of the Rostropovich collection by buying the entire collection to send it back to his homeland. He is rumoured to have paid over £20m. I must congratulate Sotheby's on this coup, as I felt the collection was actually rather average. Not so many years ago when oligarchs didn't exist and Russia was a communist state, Roy Miles was selling Russian art from his gallery on Bruton Street and was unable to find enough buyers. Success in any field so often depends on timing.

The weekend's entertainment

On Saturday afternoon I watched Cambridge Rugby Club play Nuneaton, and after a rocky start - we let them score first - we ended up winning comfortably 32-13, to keep our unbeaten run. On a perfect summer afternoon, the new Cambridge stars left us in no doubt that there must be a possiblity of them going up yet another division. The club has risen 4 divisions in 5 years, and the problem any club in this position faces is keeping pace with this expansion. Although we have improved the ground's facilities beyond recogniton, I am told that if we were to move up into division 1, we would have to find another quarter of a million pounds a year. Modern rugby is becoming quite expensive, although still nowhere near the madness of football. I will keep you briefed as the season goes by.


In the evening, Mary and I went to see Alan Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves, at the Cambridge Arts Theatre which we much enjoyed. Nicholas Le Prevost led a very strong cast, to give a packed house a hugely entertaining evening. I think Ayckbourn's plays, like those of Noel Coward, are bound to become dated, but the best ones will survive, as they are such amusing observations of the British at that time.

Beadle's about

Last night I was at the Cafe Royal to conduct an auction for the Tiana Honey Watson Fund, a charity for children with rare and metabolic disorders. Jeremy Beadle did the warm-up, which made my task that much easier. In all, the auction raised £42,000 for the charity, and the star prize of the evening was a box for 18 at O2 for Take That, which sold for £11,000. One of the highlight of the evening was when Steve, the compere, sold his suit - an unbelieveable outfit of beiges and pinks - for £3,000 to someone on table 7, who'd clearly had too much to drink. I got home at just after midnight to find Mary sitting at her desk reading through some papers for a meeting at Addenbrooke's later today - both of us are old age pensioners.

Theatre Club night

My theatre club attended The Last Confession at the Theatre Royal, Harmarket, on Wednesday evening, and, to a man, gave it the thumbs-up. No-one will be surprised to hear that David Suchet, playing the would-be Pope, was brilliant, but he was backed by an outstanding supporting case, led by Michael Jayston (he of Nicholas in Nicholas and Alexander, for real film buffs). We popped in to see David after the show (he and I went to the same school, although he was several years after me), to discover that he's about to disappear, in order to film another 10 episodes of Poirot, by which time he will have covered every story Agatha Christie wrote. I remember the last time I visited him in his dressing room, after his appearance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - he was so exhausted that he could hardly speak, and he told me he'd had to cancel matinees as he couldn't manage the intensity of the part twice in one day. There are only two performances left of The Last Confession, so if you want to see it - then ring the box office now. We're unlikely to see David on the West End stage again for some considerable time.

Dyspraxia Foundation

Last night I conducted an auction at Billingsgate for the Dyspraxia Foundation which raised £40,000. Do you have any idea what dyspraxia is? No, neither did I. It is also known as Development Coordination Disorder, and sufferers - children and adults - have difficulty co-ordinating their limbs in relation to one another. The best item in the auction was a copy of Abbey Road with all four Beatles' signatures, though playing football against an Arsenal all-stars eleven was equally popular. The catering was better than most other London venues, and they deserve great praise because cooking for 600 can't be easy - I know, because I can't cook for one.

Awake and Sing!

Went to the Almeida last night to see their new production, Awake and Sing, with Stockard Channing playing the Jewish mother to perfection. I loved the show, having had rather a bad run lately, but my hero of the night was John Rogan who played the grandfather and was in a wheelchair. None of us realised until the curtain call that he really was in a wheelchair, having suffered the most appalling accident falling down the escalator at a tube station. He thought he would never work again, and this is the first thing he has done since that accident. He was quite outstanding, and I hope we will see him on the stage again.

A weekend of sport

On Friday evening, the Rugby World Cup opened with the host nation playing Argentina, and I have nothing much to add to the thousands of column inches that have been in the national newspapers, except to say that if Argentina go on playing like this, they must be semi-finalists. The following day I went to Lord's with the intention of settling down to watch Sachin Tendulkar score a hundred. He was given out once again when he wasn't out, and it was even worse this time, because he has never scored a century at Lord's, and he was robbed. Something has to be done about a third umpire - we have it in other sports. I hope the great man will come back to England again. England played better overall than the Indians and deserved their great victory. I rushed back to watch England play the US in rugby and have absolutely nothing to add to what the press said.

Cricketing greats

Last night I did what many of you reading this blog - not to mention 50 million Indians - would consider a complete fantasy. I had dinner with the Indian cricket team. I sat next to the skipper Rahul Dravid and opposite the man Shane Warne described as the greatest cricketer he had seen in his lifetime, Sachin Tendulkar.

Mr Dravid remined me that he didn't play for India until the age of 22, whereas Tendulkar first appeared at Lords at the age of 17. If you look at the statistics carefully, it is fascinating to see that Dravid has a higher test average than Tendulkar although he is a thousand runs and several tests behind him. Dravid will unquestionably reach the magic mark of 10,000 test runs which divides the very good from the great, whereas Tendulkar will probably pass Brian Lara's record of test runs - he needs another 600 - during the upcoming series in Australia at the end of this year. The last appearance for these two great men at the home of English cricket will be when they play against England tomorow. Both men will deservedly receive a standing ovation from the moment they leave the pavilion until they take guard, and both will receive another standing ovation when they leave the ground, even if they score a duck, for they have graced the game with distinction for the past two decades.

A fact that many of you may not know is that neither of them has ever scored a hundred at Lords. I will be sitting in Ian Botham's box tomorrow hoping they both score centuries and that England win in the last over. That's how it would end in one of my short stories, though I fear reality may not be quite as exciting. I salute both of these men and wish them well in whatever careers they pursue in the future, although if you've sat on the top of Mount Olympus there are few peaks left to conquer.

Publication Day

Publication day is always exciting, although of course hardback has more poignancy than when a book comes out a year later in what the British call paperback and the Americans softback. Nevertheless, Cat O'Nine Tales is in the bookshops in paperback today. Both sides of the Atlantic have remained faithful to Ronald Searle's magnificent drawings, which will please his many fans.

It's always a strange feeling seeing a book come out in paperback when your concentration and energy is already on the next book. I am writing this a few minutes after 8 o'clock, having spent two hours on the twelfth draft of A Prisoner of Birth - I wonder what I'll be doing when that comes out in paperback?

Past World Cup Glory

Another auction last night, this time for the Wooden Spoon charity which supports mentally, physically and socially disadvantaged children and young people. The Wooden Spoon are to rugby what the Lord's Taverners are to cricket. Because this was an ITV event, the auction, which raised £40,000, was a short affair with only three lots - a Nelson Mandela signed lithograph, a Mini and a two tickets for the final of the Rugby World Cup.

All those who didn't turn up to Monday night's event seemed to be there last night, although Michael Lynagh and Will Greenwood attended both events. I had a chat to David Campese who said we wouldn't make the quarter finals, to Francois Pienaar (former captain of the winning South African team), who was a little more diplomatic, and to Martin Johnson who concentrated on our strengths rather than our weaknesses. The former captain and Sir Clive Woodward took the rugby World Cup up onto the stage, and when I left what was a glorious evening, I wondered - remembering my age - if I would ever see the World Cup paraded in England again. Perhaps the current team will surprise us all - nothing would delight me more.

World Cup forecast

Mary and I had a busy weekend, which saw us at the Cambridge Arts Theatre on Saturday evening enjoying Tom Conti's performance in Romantic Comedy, and on Sunday at our old friends the Nourses to celebrate their daughter Charlotte's wedding. Sadly we had to leave early as Mary was flying to Israel to speak in a seminar on alternative and sustainable energy the following day. Back in London and I am now reading through the twelfth draft of my latest novel, A Prisoner of Birth, before handing it in to the publishers on September 17th.

On Monday evening I conducted an auction at Grosvenor House for Jason Leonard (114 caps, 1 try) for his favourite charity, ORCHID, which raises money for research into male cancer. It was a sell out, and Matt Dawson, Austin Healey, Will Greenwood, Brian Moore, Michael Lynagh, Jeremy Guscott and of course Jason Leonard, answered questions about the forthcoming Rugby World Cup.

Universal opinion seemed to be that France, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand would reach the semi-finals, France and New Zealand the final, and heaven knows who would win with an 80,000 crowd cheering for the home side. The panel were of the general opinion that although England, Wales and Ireland would get to the quarter finals, their chances of progressing beyond that were not too good. Matt Dawson was particularly scathing about the way England have played in the last couple of years. Jeremy Guscott did suggest that if Wales could beat Australia at Cardiff and meet England in the quarters, then we might just reach the semis and end up against New Zealand.

The auction raised £63,000. I do have two comments on what was a very enjoyable evening. First, the food at Grosvenor House is not improving - mind you, I have just spent two glorious weeks in Italy - and second, I do wish these male-dominated, testosterone-fuelled events would attract more women. Such an event held in Australia or even America would attract 50% women. Our rugby players still believe a night out with the boys getting drunk is a good time.