Darling, what about a tingy-wingy little drinky-poo?
Some time ago I developed an unnatural interest in those vacuous celebrities of the 1920s known as the Bright Young People. I watched documentaries about professionally posh prats like Brian Howard and Nancy Mitford, poured over their portraits by Cecil Beaton, read Evelyn Waugh’s mirth-making Vile Bodies again and revelled in the salacious details of Circus Parties* and Bath and Bottle Parties** in DJ Taylor’s book, Bright Young People.
All that remained was to see Terence Rattigan’s ‘lost’ play about the period called After the Dance.
Happily it’s now showing at the National Theatre.
So I took myself along to see it.
After the Dance is very good (and not just because it stars the lovely Benedict Cumberbatch). A sharp, witty look at inter-generational conflict, it also examines what happens when people try to hang on to their youth for too long. It’s not pretty.
But the most impressive / horrific (I can’t quite make up my mind) thing about it is the drinking. The play starts with most of the main characters being hung-over and continues with them enjoying post-breakfast drinks, pre-lunch drinks, afternoon drinks and well, any-other-time drinks. They are never away from the drinks cabinet and the cocktail shaker. This is the kind of lifestyle you can only maintain if you have a butler named Williams, shamelessly use the words ‘drinky-poo’ and your sole occupation is drunkenly dictating a pointless biography of ‘King Bomba of Naples’ to the hired help at 5am in the morning. Still, I’m kind of jealous.
The sad practicalities of life demand that I limit myself to a tiresomely small number of cocktails each week. I’m pleased to say, however, that I have managed to locate a new favourite recently. It is called the ‘Fiesta’. They probably didn’t drink it in the 20s but hey, its the closest I’ll get to Bright Young Person style exuberance these days.
Fiesta
- dash lime juice
- dash grenadine
- 3/4 oz Noilly Prat
- 3/4 oz Calvados
- 3/4 oz white rum
Stir over ice cubes and strain into chilled cocktail glasses.
* Come dressed as a trapeze artist or lion tamer
** at St George’s Swimming Baths, Buckingham Palace Road. Guests were required to wear at Bathing Suit and bring a towel and a Bottle. It was simply divine.
August 13th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Oh, live-action Cumberbatchery! I confess I’m a bit jealous. Was the audience was full of squealing girlies?
August 13th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
No, Red Scharlach, we went to a matinee so it was full of sighing grandmas. And sadly, his hair was greasily slicked back 30s style so he wasn’t quite as appealing as he otherwise might be. Not that I’m complaining of course – it’s still Benedict Cumberbatch!
August 13th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I say, that sounds absolutely divine.
August 13th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
I’ve always been tempted with reading a Tallulah Bankhead biog (anyone with a parrot called Gaylord, must have some tales to tell). Does she count as Bright Young Person?
No drinks for me thanks, blazing hangover today – a few too many Jamesons last night
August 13th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Tallulah Bankhead was mentioned a few times in the Bright Young Person book, but I think she just dabbled in the scene. She had a proper job (well, more of one than the rest of them) so couldn’t really justify lying about pissed all day.
Jamesons – divine! (as long as you weren’t mixing it with coke that is!)
August 13th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Never with coke – just a splash of water (mineral ideally). Although a real find last week was Bailie Nicol Jarvie , a blended whisky – but with 60% malt, as smooth as a single malt, but with more body and none of the mustyness typical of blends
August 14th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
sounds like a nice spot of booze I quite like calvados.
I knocked up this variation the other day which was nice and summery.
http://www.blipfoto.com/view.php?id=673854&month=8&year=2010
August 15th, 2010 at 11:39 am
I can heartily recommend this particular cocktail recipe for a Gin Gimlet:
http://yogagimlets.blogspot.com/2009/05/gimlet.html
It was described to me (I paraphrase) as ‘very small, very strong and very easily dealt with’.
I once polished off half a bottle of gin in an evening drinking these and experienced that strange ’sober…sober…sober…sober…ahh, I seem to have lost the use of my legs’ drunkenness that so many in the lower classes enjoy of a Friday night.
Chin chin!
August 16th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Well folks, thanks for those top tips – they all look very good indeed and appropriately summery. I can always go a whisky, and a cucumber cocktail (cucumber vodka is pretty good too) and the old gimlet. Not had a gimlet with actual marmalade in it though…
January 16th, 2011 at 5:26 am
All that remained was to see Terence Rattigan