“Panda has seen a lot of things,” I found myself telling someone today. Panda is a very thin veil for this guy writing to you now. He’s got gimlet eyes but he’s just as fluffy and approachable. Many pandas have seen more world than store manager Panda but it the wide angle is one aspect of his life where he will happily stand in front of his teenage panda self and not be found wanting. So long as he can keep the momentum up as there’s still a lot of world panda hasn’t met.
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Meanwhile, my agent rings. It is comforting and unusual to get a straight offer for some interesting work – a radio drama, such as I listen to all the time on my long journeys. And I’m playing a calm but unconventional international fixer type guy. Could’ve been written for me. I literally had to calmy juggle some of my international fixing work to fit it in, but it ended up working fine, so art can imitate life can imitate art. One second I was reassuring a client that people I am putting into high profile driving jobs won’t be starstruck or unprofessional. Next second I am clarifying with the same client that I’ll be able to take a day out into a studio to help record this lovely piece of story. It all worked beautifully.
Right now though, I’m turning in, putting myself down, getting ready for nine hours of Panda tomorrow. I’m in the basement of Birch in Selsdon. I treated myself to a posh meal at Elodie. A taster menu with a wine pairing. Nine courses, 5 wines. I sat down at 8.15pm and didn’t get up until quarter to twelve. “Would you like to start the Elodie experience?” (It’s mostly waiting)
As a performer and student of the world I love to see how people work with text and improv in real world contexts. Waiters at restaurants like Elodie are a great example, as they are usually fundamentally not actors, just lovely people making money. They’ve learnt a script about the food. If you ask them questions they have either been asked before and now have an answer or they will either style it out with fluff, or charm it out with bald admissions of ignorance. I love it when I see people style it out. “What’s samphire?” “It’s … it’s asparagus of the seaside…”
My food was very slow and about halfway through the meal waiters started apologising to me as the wine pairings started going out of sync. I was totally fine as I had nowhere else to go, I was loving reading my book on my phone and I didn’t mind at all about not having sweet red wine with my strawberries, or waiting six months for my crab. The guy to my left wasn’t drinking but he got out much quicker than me. He was generally quite angry and peremptory though so maybe he put the shits up them. The part of me that has cared about being a fine dining floor manager winced when – after he had thrice stated very clearly that he didn’t drink alcohol – he was brought a chamomile and gin gimlet as an amuse bouche. His bouche didn’t look amused after that.
Food from the estate where possible. That’s the hook. It is a rewilding project so they are very involved in ethical sourcing. They’ve had a big crop of chamomile, clearly. Three dishes had chamomile involved. Everybody has had good courgettes this year. They had a whole course dedicated to them. (Zucchini as you call them across the pond.) Tomatoes, which they’d put with Cornish crab. I guess its a decent time of year for crabs. A touch of lamb. My waiter was very green, but they are just opening. Half remembered litanies of words ran under gestures that betrayed they weren’t even sure which one was potatoes and which was cod’s roe. I tried to be a good customer, as the first drink I was poured was poured with actively shaking hands and I could tell these guys were still putting the customer on a pedestal. Give them a few weeks to bed into their knowledge and they’ll start shining their personalities through the work.
Tristan was a sommelier at St John’s. He was serving there when Wes Anderson and Ralph Fiennes were regularly going there during the Grand Budapest shoot and I will eat my hat if they weren’t going there to study the fucker. Ralph basically does Tris in that movie. There’s a bald joyful chutzpah to being a sommelier. You have to hold your ground as a load of drunk high status amateurs try to impress their guests by knowing more than you. You also have to talk some absolute bobbins sometimes. My guys were both charming and didn’t feel rote learnt. I asked genuine questions and they answered. They do however have a pairing with some sourdough bread, which I found hilarious. “The notes of pear on the nose really bring out the apple juice used in the making of the bread…” It’s delightful, that stuff. You get to say absolute twaddle to people who are the same as you but are paying. They then nod and say “fwafwafwa”. Some of them adopt high status signifiers and expect you to adopt low status ones. It’s all utter tosh. It’s another of these delightful social constructs by which we inbue and shift status amongst us, and it’s always best if we remember that it is a playground game. Today I was fwafwafwa. I enjoyed it.
I had a yummy slow thoughtful meal and now it’s pushing 1am. Panda needs to sleep so he can be 9 hours straight through tomorrow. Fwafwazzzz
AlBarclay 