"I serve at the pleasure of the President"

Something I don't seem to have talked about much recently here, is my love for television. Or more specifically, certain television programmes. I've always been a fan of American TV series, both comedy and drama and as living in France often means missing out on the latest shows or having to play catch up with older seasons, I tend to collect the series I really love on dvd. Over the years I have lost my heart to the trials and tribulations of the hard-working doctors in 'ER', everybody's favourite New York based 'Friends' and crime busting duo Stabler-Benson  from 'Law & Order-SVU'. But as far as American television goes, no scratch that, as far as television goes full stop, I cannot think of any series that was better written, better acted and better loved, at least by me, than 'The West Wing'.

I was introduced to 'The West Wing' by a friend who had received a couple of seasons on dvd for Christmas. She lent me season 1 to watch one day while I was waiting for the next season of ER to arrive from Amazon and from the moment the music swelled, the opening credits rolled and I saw that 2 of my all time favourite actors, Allison Janney and Rob Lowe starred in the show, I was hooked. I watched the whole of series 1 in a weekend and when I got to the nail-biting finale episode around 22.30 on Sunday evening, I couldn't stop myself, I had to find out what happened and ended up ringing the same friend and demanding that she let me come over and borrow the 2nd season right! now! (To her credit she did, and the feeling of relief I felt when I finally had it in my hot little hands was akin to getting my A-level results or my university degree and that is not a word of a lie.)

I borrowed season after season from my friend and watched it in chunks of 2,3 or sometimes 4 episodes in a row, cheering on Zoey and Charlie's romance, swooning over Sam Seaborne, laughing as CJ sang "The Jackal" and weeping when Leo's own season finale came far too soon. Eventually I came to the end of the 7th and last season and sat silently in my living room as the credits rolled for the last time on the Bartlett administration. When I realized there would never be any more new episodes for me to watch, I felt like I'd lost someone close to me, but happily through the magic of modern technology and for the modest sum of 45€- (possibly the best money I've ever spent) I bought myself the complete box set of the show and settled down to re watching my favourite episodes.

And since the series ended of course the actors have moved on to other projects and by some good luck and being at the right place at the right time, I've had the opportunity to meet a couple of them and tell them how much I loved the show. I was lucky enough to meet Allison Janney very briefly in New York after she performed in 9-5 the musical and I'm happy to say she was just as funny and charismatic in real life as she was as CJ Cregg in the show. And  then on Saturday evening, this happened:

I met Richard Schiff, aka Toby Ziegler the White House Communications Director aka the man who didn't know that babies came with hats.

He has been starring in a play at the Menier Chocolate Factory for the last few weeks in London and along with my equally obsessed West Wing friend Julie, I went to see both the play and the man this weekend. The theatre itself is absolutely tiny and we had great seats, practically on the stage itself so we were up close and personal as he played the role of Bebe the legendary Broadway composer in the Jack Rosenthal play 'Smash' And after the show finished and practically everyone had left the theatre we hung out in the tiny bar for a bit. As we stood chatting, Richard Schiff walked in with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other and made our whole evening with his charm and willingness to sign our programmes and pose for a photo with each of us. He was as expected, very witty and far smilier in real life than the rather morose Mr Ziegler ever was on-screen and  it took everything in me to remember to call him Richard and not Toby, but I managed it. Consider my day absolutely made.