I was invited to the press night of “Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell” at the Richmond Theatre on Monday evening. I thought it was brilliant. Very funny. Robert Powell gave a very convincing performance as a lovable drunk rogue, although when we met him after the show he commented that the audience was the hardest he’d ever had to perform in front of. That’s press for you….
Written by the very talented Keith Waterhouse (author of “Billy Liar”), the programme gives you a biography of the man himself describing Bernard as “a man apparently bent on a course of self-destruction”. Well, rather worryingly I beg to differ. I thought he was a funny man with a passion for life and he reminded me of both my parents and all their friends during their time abroad. He had a healthy disregard for rules and an insatiable desire to not be boring. His attitude was that you “can’t get through life without a highly developed sense of the absurd”. He lived for the moment and loved the company of others (mainly women it seemed). OK, he didn’t live till a ripe old age but he certainly lived. It reminded me of my EMI days and certainly I would imagine that the Fleet Street set and old style journalists in general would give a little sigh and a nod to “the good old days”.
There are not enough colourful people like him left in the world.
Shame.
