Serious Picnics

Eating outdoors from a picnic hamper, what could be nicer?

Well, eating indoors, actually, if you ask me. I prefer my food not to blow away and my drink not to have flies in it and I prefer to be able to eat without being attacked by wasps.

But many people don't feel like I do about this al fresco eating lark. Many people love it.

Here's the audience for Illyria's excellent production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I saw last night at Nostell Priory.

There were hundreds of them. And they had all brought picnics of varying degrees of complexity:

Here's a table adjacent to us: they had a white cloth, wine glasses, the lot. In the background you can see Alastair Chisholm, one of the actors in the agency I work for. He was selling programmes before the play started, as was Robert Took. Illyria's actors work incredibly hard - five actors between them played every role in the play, and there are lots of roles in this one!

Here are more happy picnickers, with the stage area in the background:

Some of these picnicking groups had brought candles to accompany their white wine and their little salads. One candle burned so fiercely that the character of Helena added a new Shakespearean line, "Do we need a fire extinguisher?"

Everyone had to bring their own chairs or rugs and I think that the whole shebang showed that the British Wartime Spirit is alive and well. If only it had rained! Then we could have shown what we were made of and stayed to the end in spite of being soaked and frozen.

Me? I had a packet of crisps from the National Trust stall. All National Trust produce is classy and expensive and these were special Posh Crisps hand-grown in Yorkshire from specially selected Yorkshire potatoes, lightly sprinkled with sea salt and made with lots of loving care.

I didn't like them much. I prefer Walker's crisps. And I don't like picnics, especially not posh ones. You can take the woman out of Leeds, but you can't take Leeds out of the woman.