The first time I remember uttering that phrase was (appropriately enough) on stage.
I was in a production of Julian Mitchell’s play “Another Country”, a fictionalised account of the schooldays of the spy, Guy Burgess. In a scene that is pivotal to the play (and mysteriously left out of the execrable film), the schoolboys are visited by a Harold Nicholson-esque aesthete (and screaming queen): Vaughan Cunningham, played in our production by an incredibly gifted actor, (who rejoices in the name Bryan Robson) whose comparative absence from the stage is as shameful a slur on it as the presence of Ray Quinn (late of X Factor) is. In the one scene we shared, the Burgess-esque character “Bennett” wants to leave the illustrious visitor in no doubt that he is absolutely a passenger on the same bus, and is prepared to do rather more than stamp a couple of tickets should the opportunity arise. To this end, in reply to some very innocent comment about the dangers of making an exhibition of oneself (this IS an English Public School, after all), Bennett replies airily but with steely purpose: “I don’t mind making an exhibition of myself” – thus presumably giving the nod to any number of early evening soirees where he might be called upon to adopt Classical poses in the over-heated library of an over-heated interior decorator…
All of which is very much by the by in recording that Wife is about to make an exhibition of herself – or rather of her work. There have been midnight flits to IKEA to purchase the frames, visits to the picture framer to cut the mounts, and any number of hours spent in darkrooms (digital and otherwise) to prepare for the big event, which falls on Thursday.
It goes without saying that I am unbelievably biased in my analysis of my wife’s genius: but I truly do believe that her work would stand comparison with anything in any gallery in the world. There are three sequences that I am particularly enamoured of, very different in their subject and execution (including one for which she has invented a new printing process for), but all of which illustrate her recurring themes of imagination, illusion and solitude.
So: the private view is on Thursday, and no doubt I shall be cluttering up the virtual world with a debrief of (what I know will be) that triumph. But until then, I am enjoying my very private view of Wife’s private view.
