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Am off to see another听offering in the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queens tonight. "Both Sides Now" by Ransom Productions. But, all this cultural activity leaves me with a problem. Food. 听I don't finish work until 7 and events start anytime from 730 on,听and I am usually raving with hunger. I don't eat before I go on air, due to fear of听bodily gases(if you must know!) in the middle of an interview.听

Last week I found myself racing up the road听on foot to the Lyric Theatre, stopping off at a Stranmillis听shop to buy a packet of KP Nuts and smuggling them into the show, crunching and rattling the packet during the louder bits.听They were sustenance of sorts, protein enriched, but they're not my dinner. Meanwhile, I have a stew cooking in the slow cooker for my children and husband (working mother guilt for not being there) while I will be salivating at the thought of it sitting in the Crescent Arts Centre.

I wonder if听theatres could provide a nose bag of sorts for reviewers and late night workers like myself to keep our blood sugar levels up during the show? But then, if you were sitting beside me and I unwrapped an egg & onion sandwich, you wouldn't thank me. There's an eating etiquette. I've canvassed opinion from seasoned reviewers, Jane Coyle and Grania McFadden, who tell me that chocolate is my only man. Now, maybe chocolate peanuts would be better?听And no, I'm not sharing!

I went to see a play in an apartment at the weekend. It was on the 17^th floor of the Obel Tower, Belfast, spacious, luxurious, ensuite in the master bedroom with spectacular views of Belfast Lough. I sound like an estate agent. We gathered in the lobby as residents went to and fro. Or were they? I started to question whether everyone was part of the play. But, in fairness, I think they were just people who lived in the apartment block. We were invited to come up to the apartment about 15 mins before the play started. It was a one woman show, 鈥淩equest Programme鈥�, from Cork based company Corcadorca, and we were told to have a look around. So we had a bit of a snoop. Family photos, books, copies of Hello magazine, a packet of Chocolate Kimberleys in the cupboard. I toyed with the idea of making a cup of coffee and leaving the cup in the sink with the unwashed dishes. And then the 鈥渙wner 鈥� of the flat came home. Played by Catherine Walsh, 鈥淩equest Programme鈥� is without words. We watch this woman go about her evening rituals once she has come home from work. We watched her do the dishes in the kitchen and put on the kettle. We followed her into the bedroom while she took off her work clothes. We followed her back into the kitchen while she made a cup of tea and watched the tv for a bit. We stood outside the bathroom door while she did a pee. We watched as she worked on a quilt she was making. We were there as she brushed her teeth and washed her face and got into bed. She turned out the light and we sat in the dark while she lay in the bed. And then the light was on, we were there when she got up, went back into the kitchen, took out a bottle of pills and washed them down with a small bottle of bubbly. The End.

It was compelling and slightly hypnotic to be there, in this space, with no words, watching this actress act out the loneliness of a woman who finds her life so听 unbearable she commits suicide. It鈥檚 just that the end was too sudden for me. The lights came up and the drama ended, just moments into taking the pills. I was left thinking the director could have dragged it out a bit more, taken us back into the bedroom, left us in the dark with her, making us uncomfortable, heightening our sense of complicity at watching her for a final time.听

Then it struck me today, this play is 40 years old. Written in German in 1971 by Franz Xaver Kroetz, it must have been shocking to witness the breakdown of another human being in such an intimate way 40 years ago. But when I walked into that apartment on Saturday night in Belfast to see it, I was bringing with me the baggage of life today. While I turned the 鈥渘oise鈥� off, phone to silent, no texting, tweeting, status updating during the play, I was almost innured to the message of the play. This is the generation of watching people 24/7 in a house filled with cameras for a tv show. This is the generation that tells 鈥渇riends鈥� in cyberspace the highs and lows of their lives in 147 characters. This is the generation that takes it for granted that they will see images of a dead dictator on the internet moments after his death.

Watching a woman take her own life in a 1971 play seemed less shocking. But that鈥檚 what has shocked me the most. Not the play, but my own reaction to it.

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Finally got my long-awaited interview with Kenneth Branagh on Friday. He's been in town slogging it out on the stage of the Lyric Theatre with Rob Brydon in The Painkiller for the past few weeks, but with the last few performances in sight, he took time out to come in and talk to me! I even came in on my day off and deposited the youngest child with her wee friend (and very understanding mother) while I went in. This wasn't the first time I had met Ken. Well, I doorstepped him last week when he was in with Mark Lawson of 成人论坛 Radio 4's Front Row. The corridor outside Studio 3 of 成人论坛 Belfast was an inauspicious meeting place, especially as I started to babble with nerves. "We met before" I blurted out, "Yes, when I was working in the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith". Oh he said., with interest. 听No I said. I was working in the Lyric Theatre's cafe, summer job, 1987, I gave you spaghetti bolognaise one night. His听PR lady was moving him on as I struggled to put a sock in it, but I heard myself saying, in order to prove that I did have some cultural credibility,听"I went in to see you in the play听 Public Enemy. You were great". Aghh! Note to self. Stop talking when you know you are babbling. Actually, he was great. The play (wot he wrote) is a thriller听, in which Branagh also takes the lead, a Jimmy Cagney-style Belfast hitman. He spoke in a Northern Ireland accent and I felt proud hearing the accent in the middle of London.

So when he came into studio on Friday, I didn't mention the spaghetti bolognaise! He听was such fun, doing the Belfast accent,听telling anecdotes about being on the set of the Billy plays and revealing that he is听actively interested in the new Billy play Graham听Reid is writing, about where Billy is now. He talked about the grief he felt when his parents told him he had to move house from Belfast to Reading,听bawling his eyes out, but that the promise of a back garden took on Wembly-esque dimensions!

He looked tired, the sheer physical impact of nightly French farce taking听it's toll. But he's heading off to Sweden to film Wallander and there's talk about another Thor. But we'll be waiting for the next Billy play. Wouldn't it be great if it premiered here?

听You can hear the interview on Arts Extra today on 成人论坛 Radio Ulster at 1830 (and for the next 7 days on the听成人论坛 iPlayer)