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The brown word: Death on the Throne @gatehouselondon

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We’re warned at the start of the show with an upbeat number that this is not the usual sort of musical. And it turns out to be just that. But with boundless enthusiasm and energy from its two leads, who deploy a range of voices and breathtaking energy to create a series of voices for puppet characters, a bedtime story becomes a silly oddball tale about four souls stuck in purgatory. With puppets. And various toilet humour references. It’s currently playing at Upstairs At The Gatehouse . The piece starts as a bedtime story. Daddy (Mark Underwood) is about to read a bedtime story for Louise (Sarah Louise Hughes). But her stomach felt funny, and soon, she went to the bathroom. Then, for reasons that seem to only make sense in the confines of the show, they start telling the story of four people who died in unfortunate circumstances in the bathroom. Depicted as puppets, they’re stuck in purgatory as St Peter doesn’t have enough space for each of them in the afterlife. And so begins a puppe...
Evensong at Kings College

Well it was Saturday afternoon, I didn't fancy going to the latest anti-war demonstration in Hyde Park (given the demographics of my area it was a popular option), so I hopped on a train to Cambridge and caught the evensong service at Kings College at 5.30. It was good way to see the Chapel and the choir.

Afterwards I took a leisurely walk around Cambridge and wandered through various bookshops. I stopped by the Town and Gown pub - a gay friendly pub (according to Spartacus) - but it didn't look that friendly so I just moved on for coffee at the local Cafe Nero. Of all the chains of coffee houses here, I think I like this one the best. Their coffee isn't too bad and I can usually find a free wi-fi hotspot for my pocket pc nearby so that does me. Anyway I got home by 10pm and managed to catch Blow Out on BBC1 before falling asleep!

Regression

While I have been here, every now and then I find myself doing something that I haven't done in years. Yesterday it was Refreshers. They are like fruit tingles as they are fizzy. But I haven't had them in years. I used to have a stash of them at home and would consume them in mass quantities. I inhaled the packet I bought yesterday in Cambridge in 20 minutes. Small things that are fizzy can be so enjoyable. I haven't yet found the perfect extra strong mint to replace the ones I used to eat back home but I am working on that...

Various pieces from around the traps...
A great new feature of the latest google toolbar is that you can automatically blog things to your site... Alas it didn't put them in this blog so I have moved them to here now!

Well somebody had to do it...
Southwark council apologises for David Blaine. They didn't expect the crowds or the taunts or the litter apparently...

Politics tonight
The lib-dems have just concluded their conference in Brighton with a declaration that they are the only credible alternative to Labour. I suspect Brits are not going to care for a dull bloated and ineffectual Charles Kennedy no matter how many verbs he drops from his speeches! Such a pity there is no credible opposition here as the government continues to get attacked for using the late political weapons analyst David Kelly for political purposes...

Tastes funny
A performance artist is to sit in a bath full of baked beans for 100 hours to promote traditional
British cuisine.

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