Madame Galina's Doings Diary

Madame Galina's Silver Jubilee

Courtest of Ben Dorling, Volupte London Copyright Magnus Hastings

Beginning my Silver Jubilee day as I mean to go on: out first thing to buy a copy of The Stage which features a profile of yours truly, I commented to the renovations obsessed Canadian woman opposite that I can always tell when her building contractors are being paid by the job or by the day. When it’s by the job, a gang of racing-snake-thin Eastern Europeans swarm over her house getting the work done quick-sticks; when by the day, it’s the fat knacker from Dagenham with his alcy Paddy accomplice occasionally popping back from the café round the corner to see if, Elves and the Shoemaker-like, I presume, any work has been done since they last checked.

How Pinky and Perky Changed my Life

When Nancy Mitford translated Roussin’s play La Petite Hutte, she was appalled by the behaviour of its English cast.

‘Any good line is: “my good line” and the rest are “that’s a very flat line of yours, darling (to me!)’

But what upset her most was that no matter how she pegged and pegged away, darling, adding jokes to Roussin’s text, a topical reference ad libbed one night by one of the cast then subsequently added to the script always brought the house down.

‘Really, darling, the utter ghastly drear: the name of Dr. Kinsey is introduced and the audience laughs for five minutes.’

She knew it was a cop out. And so would I know it was a cop out - to make any reference in my current run of Galina shows to Black Swan.

Sorry, just wanted to get that out of the way because people keep asking me if I’m going to.