As eavesdropping opportunities go, the barber shop has everything a playwright could desire: a constant stream of close encounters and a broad range of people willing to sit still and talk.
The very survival into the 21st century of an unfinished play written by a 23-year-old in 1836 is an extraordinary thing, made more extraordinary by the grimness of its subject.
What could be more cheering in a dank dark London February than a blast of Spanish flamenco? Answer: a Sadler's Wells flamenco gala, a fistful of stellar talents for the price of one.
For anyone who had been wondering, seven and a half years on from the demise of Pina Bausch, what was the point of her company's continued trawl through her back-catalogue, this visit is reason enough.
If Kenneth MacMillan had left well alone, the taut little chamber piece he made in 1967 - stark, inventive and affecting - would be hailed a modernist masterpiece by now.