From The Ridiculous To The Sublime

Daughter went off last night to her father's and is due back this morning. Son is going this afternoon and coming back Sunday. They do get on, honest. Well, sometimes. They've both had to cancel their morning paper rounds on the day they're away, when they could have covered for each other, and therefore both got a full wage but that would have required communication and cooperation.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, Derby win for the third time is eight days and in style 3-0 away at Plymouth.

L and Daughter spend the afternoon shopping, getting frilly undies for their respective holidays or something like that and don't actually make it home. Instead, they crash in Cast. I head down to join them, to save L from herself and from the Leffe. Although to be fair, I'm not a great help.

Cast, which is both a bar and a restaurant, has recently gone into administration. Which, when they refuse to sell us any bar food because the kitchen is too busy serving the restaurant, you can see why.

Slightly oiled but not fed, we head off to the Theatre Royal. The three of us have tickets to see The Graduate. Not only a novel by Charles Webb and a film starring Dustin Hoffman but it is a play too. Daughter was keen to join us; I just hope she doesn’t get on her moral high horse during the nudity, particularly as we have seats near the front. I like to be near the front, whether there's nudity or not.

Set in 1960's, Benjamin Braddock is at a party to celebrate his graduation. It's a party that Benjamin wants no part of, he doesn't want follow the American dream. He fends off congratulations from a variety of family friends but he cannot fend off Mrs Robinson, who totters on to the stage, a drink in one hand, a fag in the other and promptly tries to seduce him. It never happened to me like that. When she gets her kit off in front of him, keen to make good on her offer, he is appalled by her advances and runs a mile. Nope, that never happened to me either.

Benjamin is at odds with his father, his studies complete, he has no desire to work or study further and wants to experience real life instead. He tries to leave home but returns very quickly, with his tail between his legs.

Perhaps the experiences he was looking for have been on offer all the time. So he calls Mrs Robinson, despite his uncomfortable experience with her, he is clearly intrigued by the older but attractive woman. On reflection, this is a lesson in life he rather fancies. They meet up and he stumbles out of his clothes and into bed with all the style of an adolescence Mr Bean.



So, much to his father's annoyance, Benjamin continues to spend his days doing nothing in particular, that is when he's not meeting up with Mrs Robinson. Mr Robinson, unaware of what is going on, encourages Benjamin to date his daughter, the rather shallow and staid Elaine. The exact opposite of her Mother in many ways but so similar in others.

Mrs Robinson is understandably horrified at the prospect, Benjamin too realises that involvement with the daughter of his lover could be disastrous, so he does his best to make her dislike him and takes her on a date to a strip club.

After which, he is overcome with guilt and apologises. He comes to realise that Elaine is interested in him whereas her mother may provides drunken sex on tap but is not interested in anything he has to say.

When they begin to go out together, Mrs. Robinson threatens to tell her Daughter of their affair. So Benjamin comes clean, confesses all, and is subsequently dumped.

Despite that set back, he won't give up on Elaine and follows her to University, effectively stalking her. Despite her becoming engaged to someone else, Benjamin refuses to give up hope and gatecrashes their wedding. Where amongst much mayhem, Benjamin and Elaine eventually runaway together. They end up in a motel and sharing, bizarrely, a box of Cheerios.

It's all good stuff, a witty script and I think the play is possibly funnier than the film. An ode to everyone's shambolic teenage years. All backed up by some excellent Simon and Garfunkel tracks.

We head back home, stopping to pick up a take-away curry on the way. An excellent night.