Urban Rose

I'm not usually a fan of urban spaces. Perhaps I associate them too much with windy post-war shopping centres and soulless high rise tower blocks. There are exceptions of course. Take the Rose theatre at Kingston upon Thames. We were there for The Winslow Boy._[1] It was superbly acted but the theatre itself caught my imagination too. It has little in common with other theatres in the round, apart from its shape, in terms of construction methods. Its ceiling resembles the spokes of a huge iron cartwheel and one could be forgiven for thinking that someone forgot to apply the final layers of plaster to the foyer areas. I wanted to draw that ceiling, but even more delicious were the geometric shapes of receding triangles that lent perspective to the rooms of the set. Oh for a piece of charcoal!

This wasn't the first time in the last week that I'd found myself wishing I had a sketchpad in hand, not because I think I could necessarily turn out any kind of masterpiece but because art of any kind is somehow rather therapeutic; a pastime that is totally absorbing. The subject doesn't really matter. It could be anything that catches the eye from the odd perspectives in the theatre set to Ascot hats in someone else's painting or the stunning swathes of colour of an Azalea border.

Earlier that day we had been in an outpatients' waiting room. It was kind of them to display such lovely pictures on the walls. They were for sale of course, but my interest was in how they were painted rather than imagining them on my walls. This time I had a pencil at least but it was time to go before I had had a chance to finish. Perhaps I'll continue next time, or perhaps not. I should probably tear up my efforts and start again.

My week began however with a walk in the park; not any old park but one on the edge of a sixties shopping centre in Sussex. The sort where wind whistles round corners on blustery autumn days, leaves huddle in gutters and shopping lists are plucked skywards from your hands by sudden gusts, if you fail to grip them tightly enough. I'd walked around three sides of a square, depressingly, past abandoned shop-fronts on every corner, when I discovered that to reach my starting point the shortest route led through the park. For a few hundred yards I was in another land, of escapism, imagination and beauty. What an unexpected find.

[1] The Winslow Boy by Terrence Rattigan is reviewed at http://www.rosetheatrekingston.org/whats-on/the-winslow-boy