Jan Leeming - The Official Website

THE IDEAL HUSBAND

25th October 2008

Went to see this production at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley.  It was most enjoyable despite the fact that they had lighting problems and the whole play had to be staged with the lights in a single mode.  The performance was thoroughly enjoyable, despite this, probably because the Cast were so good.  It was a very strong cast with names such as Michael Praed, Robert Duncan, Kate O'Mara, Carol Royle and Tony Britton. All the performances were memorable especially some of the smaller roles such as the Butler to Lord Goring played by Paul Aves who conveyed a multitude of emotions just with a flick of his eyes.  Fenella Fielding still looks incredibly good on stage but I found her difficult to hear - maybe she was sickening with a cold.

It is uncanny how perceptive was Oscar Wilde - all the shenanigans in politics and the skulduggery could have been picked straight out of today's goings on and yet Ideal Husband was written in 1895 but could have been written today. Wilde really was a man ahead of his time.  Today his life and sexuality wouldn't be accorded a second thought.

Ideal Husband was thoroughly enjoyable and I felt it was such as shame that the theatre was only half full.    If we had a 'Churchill' down here in Kent, I'd be going to virtually all the shows but for some unaccountable reason, we just don't get productions like this staged at the Marlow in Canterbury which doesn't have the most exciting repertoire.  I simply don't understand why we can't have 'pre-London' runs.  I'm told we are too close to London which is rubbish.  When I lived in Buckinghamshire, we got some superb productions, ballets, plays etc at the High Wycombe Swan and HW is only a half hour from London.

It's either feast or famine - I'm going to the 70^th Anniversary Reunion at the Oxford Playhouse on Sunday and then on Monday to an Agatha Christie at The Hall for Cornwall in Truro.  I'm going to be in Truro anyway and have had an invite to 'And Then There were None' which will be particularly pleasant because Ray Lonnen is in the cast.  Doreen and I met him on the Oriana when he was performing on board ship with the Ray Cooney Players.

APPLE MAC's

I've been an Apple devotee since 1988 when I hosted a Conference for Apple and bought my first Computer and Laser Printer.  I think, even with a discount, they cost me £3,500!!!!!  At the time Apple were, and I believe still are, much more user friendly than P.C's and, as I am a technophobe, I went for an Apple graduating from one of the first machines to a compact Desktop and then a Laptop and now I'm on my second.

I have to say that I was very disappointed when the coating started wearing off  certain keys on my previous MacBook but after almost three years put it down to 'wear and tear'.  Imagine how upset I was, when after nine months of use the same keys on my new MacBook Pro also started to wear.  There's a great deal of complaint about it on line. 

However, I happened to be at Bluewater Shopping Mall the other day and there they have an Apple Store.  I explained my problem to Stu and Dave and they, very kindly, exchanged the faulty keys for me.  However, despite this, I really don't think that the coating on keys of a machine costing nearly £1,500 should be so thin that it wears off.

I am a touch typist and type an enormous amount but I really don't think this should affect the keys the way it does.

Anyway, I do think it is a problem which Apple should address.  Meanwhile I am very grateful to Stu and Dave because I like to keep my machine looking as good as new and, for the moment, it looks new again.  I only wish we had an Apple Store closer to home - say Canterbury - and then I'd join up for their tutorials.  I've only ever learned to use the Computer through trial and error and if something goes wrong I'm completely stymied.

Probably because I met Omar Sharif at Collioure a few weeks ago, last night I started watching a DVD of 'Lawrence of Arabia'.  It's a long film with an Intermission so I'm going to shut the computer down and go watch the second half and drool over Sharif and O'Toole.  Must remember to dig out the Video Recording of my interview with Omar back in the 70's.  I think we will both have changed a little!!!!

Take care,  Jan

OXFORD PLAYHOUSE - 70th ANNIVERSARY

19th October 2008

OXFORD PLAYHOUSE

Life is a trifle quiet at the moment but I've just received a lovely invitation to the 70^th Anniversary Celebrations of the Oxford Playhouse at which there will be many well known faces.

If you've been reading this website and looked at my CV, you will notice that I earned a living in professional theatre whilst living in Sydney, Australia.  On the death of my fiancée I made a rather rash and emotional decision to return to the UK.  Theatre work was very hard to come by, and not having wealthy parents who could support me, I had to earn a living and that's how I landed up in Television which has been my life and career for more decades than I care to remember.

However, apart from appearing in 5 Pantomimes, I did have one season in Real Theatre - and that was with the Oxford Playhouse in 1968.  If I remember correctly, a member of the repertory company was taken ill and they needed a replacement in a hurry.  One of the cast members, Lewis Fiander, had seen me in theatre in Sydney and recommended me to the legendary Frank Hauser.  I auditioned and got a season at the Playhouse.  I must say the two plays were not exactly going to set the world on fire.  One was, I think the first, and probably the last performance of Robert Browning's 'Pippa Passes' and the other was Ben Jonson's Epicoene (The Silent Woman).  In my humble opinion, neither play was going to be a great crowd puller but I was thrilled to be part of this illustrious Rep. Company.  Another member of the cast was a young (weren't we all) Stephanie Beecham long before she rose to World Fame.  She was stunningly attractive and still is - 40 years later.  I don't suppose she will be at the reunion as I think she spends a lot of her life in America.  But Giles Brandreth and Graeme Garden are attending on the Sunday - our paths have crossed several times when I've interviewed them.

It's a pity I can't attend on both the Saturday and Sunday nights as there are a few people performing on Saturday with whom I'd like to re-acquaint.

Anyway, that's something to which to look forward.

                                                                                      ************************************************************** 

I understand that the number of women joining Kindred Spirits (Internet Dating Website) has increased dramatically - apparently after I said on GMTV that  it was a 'safe' way of meeting members of the opposite sex.  So, I may have had a couple of weeks of hassle but at least some people have benefited.  My site is still closed and I am undecided as to whether I'd open it again. 

 Take care.  Jan

QE2 LAST VOYAGE

10th October 2008

QE2 LAST VOYAGE

Everyone has ups and downs in life and mine has been a roller coaster lately.  Well it's on an up at the moment.  After all the unwanted publicity, and judgemental comments from people who don't know me, over my Internet Dating attempt, something lovely has happened.

I've been invited to spend four days on the QE2's last voyage.  I shall take my son Jonathan with me (who has moved a boy's trip to Amsterdam) and we join the cruise from Rome to Alexandria.  I have been asked to give a talk so have to decide which of my four presentations would be most appropriate.

I never got to travel on Concorde so am doubly thrilled to be going on the QE2.  My trip to Capetown has been suspended as this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Was going with friends to see the Addo Elephants and also the Cheetahs at Daniell Cheetah Reserve but they will wait, where the QE2 will not be doing another 'Last Voyage'.

So thank you Cunard - thank you very very much.

OMAR SHARIF

7th October 2008

OMAR SHARIF

Well!  Who would have thought it?  I interviewed Omar Sharif on a BBC Magazine Programme called Pebble Mill back in the late 70's.  There I was, with two friends, having lunch in the delightfully scenic Port of Collioure - not far from Perpignan - and saw some film trucks.  They were filming 'J'ai oublie de te dire ' (if I've got it right - 'I forget what you say'!) and the star was Omar.  Having looked up the title on the Internet under the excellent IMDB, I see that the film is to be released in 2009 but don't know when.  I rather doubt it will go onto major general release.

I explained to the delightful restaurateur of La Marinade  that I'd interviewed him years ago and she conveyed this information to one of the Assistants.  He bothered to come and speak with me - I wrote a little note to Omar and the next thing, I was standing talking to him.  I'm sure he wouldn't remember me from a bar of soap but I distinctly remember that interview as though it were yesterday.  For any of you who used to watch Pebble Mill,  the head guy was Donnie McLeod and he always did the 'Personality Interviews' but on that particular day, he was fogbound in Aberdeen and I filled in.  It was a pre-recorded interview for transmission the following day.  Mr. Sharif was doing a tour promoting Waddington's Games.  We recorded the interview and at the end he asked if I were married - which I wasn't at the time.  I was given the next day off but when I returned to Birmingham and the Pebble Mill Studios, one of the researchers told me Omar had phoned in my absence and asked to speak to me.  Probably just as well I wasn't there ...........!!!!!!!

It really was an absolute pleasure to meet him again.  He is still incredibly good looking and has that gift of making every one to whom he speaks feel as though they are really special.  Well, I felt very special and it made an already lovely day, simply Wunderbar!

PERPIGNAN AND BARCELONA

So what was I doing down in the South Western Corner of France!  My friends and I were travelling to a Juice Plus Conference in Barcelona and had decided to avoid Airports and take the less frenetic journey by TGV  down to Southern France.  It was a great journey - only marred by a ridiculously long Taxi wait at the Gare du Nord.  We waited an hour and only caught the TGV at the Gare du Lyons with 5 minutes to spare - So much for our leisurely lunch.

Discovered later that the Taxi Drivers in Paris charge 300,000 Euros for their licence on retirement (it is their pension fund).  Young people cannot afford to pay this sum so there is a dearth of Taxi drivers and the passengers are paying the price.

We stayed two nights at the Aragon a delightful B & B in Perpignan (clean, simple, no nonsense and and excellent Continental breakfast)  We had a day tour to Elne (where I fell in love with an apartment and would have bought it had I had the ready cash) Elne boasts a fortified church with a superb  marble cloister - a great attraction for visitors.  We lunched at the Port of Collioure - and not only did I meet Omar Sharif but a very pleasant group of people from the Westcountry who asked if I were 'Jan Leeming'.  They used to watch the Nightly News Programme which I presented for 7 years alongside the lovely Bruce Hockin.  They had a gorgeous greyhound with them - she was a rescue dog and a bag of bones when they found her.  I know that many greyhounds are abandoned when they are past their best as racers - how cruel people can be.  But it's good to meet kind folk who take them in and nurse them back to health.  Sorry I didn't get their names but I will try and get a picture of them and the greyhound up on the site.  You know I'm a technophobe and anything more than writing my blog is quite an effort.

Then it was on to Barcelona and the first major mistake.  None of us knew the Avenue Diagonal was 18 kilometres long (yes 18 and my finger didn't slip on the key) and my hotel was too far away from the Conference Centre - so I ended up paying top wack for a room more centrally situated.

The Conference was extremely informative and the Gala Dinner and Dance absolutely delightful.  I danced until they brought the lights up.

We managed a couple of the Tourist Bus Tours and WOW what a fabulous city is Barcelona.  At every turn you are gawping at the architecture and so much of it is of the 'Modernista' movement - which I probably know better as Art Noveau.  Of course a vast amount of these 'Over the top' buildings are the oeuvres of Gaudi.  I simply don't know whether he was Mad or way beyond his time.  However you respond to his works, he certainly generates heated discussion. And as for his main work - still not finished almost a hundred years after his death - the Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia!!!!!  It's weird, wonderful, exciting and you could study it for weeks without ever exhausting all its strangeness.  It looks like a mix between a Disney edifice and something shaped out of wet sand.  Actually it defies description.  When they started building it, the  Cathedral stood in meadows and now it's cheek by jowl with modern apartment blocks and looks totally incongruous - probably not much more so than the Pompidou Centre in France (which I dislike intensely).  i kept wondering how Gaudi got the City Fathers to agree to allow him to build his Cathedral.  He'd never get away with it today.

In Barcelona even the standard apartment blocks are beautiful and so many have the most intricate iron lacework balconies with lovely Art Nouveau decoration over the windows and doors.  I simply couldn't believe how stunning it all was and definitely want to go back for another visit.  I didn't think any city could compare with my beloved Paris but Barcelona, in some respects, eclipses it.

I've been so lucky to have visited three fabulous cities in the last few months - Bruges with it's glorious mediaeval architecture,  Rome and it's antiquity and now wonderful and exciting Barcelona.

Haven't got any more trips lined up, but life is ever changing and I really do believe in 'Carpe Diem' - Grab the day.

Fond wishes to you all.  Jan

STEVIE WONDER

1st October 2008

STEVIE WONDER

Must be brief but will fill in more when I'm back from Barcelona.

Stevie spent more than an hour playing, what to me were nondescript numbers, before he got to the ones which made him famous and it wasn't until the end that we were treated to Superstition and the like.  I was rather disappointed and as for the behaviour of people at concerts - well!  Can they really not go for a couple of hours without drinks and chips and pizzas - there was a constant to-ing and fro-ing which I found very disconcerting.

I must however praise to the heights an incredibly good looking young man in Car Park 2 (call sign Oscar 67)  who helped my disabled friend and myself well beyond the call of duty.  He reminded me of that song 'San Jose' and the mention of the out of work actors, pumping gas and parking cars.  Maybe he was!  Despite booking two weeks ago, our so-called 'disabled car parking spot' was far too far for my friend to even attempt to walk to the Arena.  He arranged for us to leave Park 2 and repark in Park 1 and went to a great deal of trouble.  Even then the walk was far too long for my friend but on the way home, we had the services of a delightful young lady - Kesia (I hope I've got her name correct) who brought a wheelchair and 'drove' it all the way back to the car.

I didn't like O2 at all and will expand further next week.  My dear Son has talked about getting tickets for Tina Turner but I think I'll turn the lights down, get a good bottle of wine and listen to the CD in the comfort of my home.

Drive safely and take care.  Jan