Theatre, Chigwel School

摘要

As you travel out of London the suburbs become more standard and duller: the further you are from the centre the more they appear to merge into the same greyness that seems to render Puriey indistinguishable from Plaistow, or Sutton from Southgate. Eventually the banality overwhelms any connection with your means of transport and your senses focus in on themselves as if you were reading a catalogue -of suburbia. One section tells you of the newest and sweetest thing in lace curtains; another which fast motorcars go with which atrophied caricatures of familiar architectural features. A third might suggest a choice of road names. Replication grants a kind of authenticity to imperial connections like Mafeking, Quebec or Jubilee; bird names like grebe, cormorant or sandpiper are a common standby. If these don't appeal, what about Oxford University colleges like Balliol or Merton, as much to do with their landowning tentacles as academic ambitions of suburb planners? But passing through the ribbon roads linking the various villages that constitute London, one question grows to dwarf all others: when will it END? I know. I've been there. It's called Chigwell. And I have returned with a story to tell.