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Life upon the wicked stage: Already Perfect at Kings Head Theatre

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Performing two shows a day on a Broadway run sounds exhausting enough. But when you’ve just had a not-so-great matinee and are having a crisis of confidence, I would assume the last thing you’d want is to confront your past. Yet that’s the situation in Already Perfect, writer-performer Levi Kreis’s slightly autobiographical journey of confronting the past and his younger self. With a series of toe-tapping and emotional songs in a sleek production, you’re invited to experience someone else’s therapy session. And with a show title called Already Perfect, you know what kind of session this is going to be. It makes for a show where nothing is left unsaid, even if it is unnecessary,  unbelievable or best left on a greeting card. It’s currently playing at the King’s Head Theatre .  The story begins in his dressing room after a matinee, with Kreis alone. The show didn’t go so well. Struggling after being dumped by a lover, pressure mounting on the evening show being filmed for poster...
Saturday night
After wandering throughout the city I decided to skip the Last night of the Proms or its cheaper counter-part Proms in the Park (in Hyde Park) for something a little more obscure.
I went and saw True or Falsetto - A Secret History of the Castrati. It is an encore season of Ernesto Tomasini's one-man show that first did the rounds last year. It is a whirlwind tour of musical history and quite entertaining as he moves from sacred music to opera and then to the music hall. Tomasini has a four octave range so he is quite up to the job.

The venue was intimate and warm at the Drill Hall. The Drill Hall is across the road from the Eisenhower Centre, the deep bomb shelter used by Eisenhower towards the end of WW2 so seeing that non-descript building was a bit of unintentional touristing as well. It was a bit like being a concrete bunker in the venue without much air and with hot stage lights. Tomasini was sweating like a pig towards the end of his performance. The small but sold out audience of 50 or so people were quite sympathetic to his plight. At the end we applauded very loudly...

After the show I made my way to Soho for a sensible drink and to watch the punters go by before catching a bus home. It was my first bus I successfully caught and enabled me to get better bearings as to where the hell I lived. It turns out that I am not that far north of the city as the crow flies. As the bus drives, well that is a different matter. But anyway it was early so it wasn't crowded. By the time I reached home I was entertained by a bad Pink Panther Film on TV.

David Mania
The biggest tourist destination at the moment is the David Blaine in a box spectacle near Tower Bridge. I didn't get to it yesterday as I confused the location with London Bridge so today I went back to London Bridge and walked the extra 500metres to Tower Bridge so I could see it.

Top things overheard as the thousands of people watched Blaine:
* I wonder how he pees?
* Eh si non comprende la toilet?
* Howdoeseegopee?
* Zzzha zha zha zha pee?
and then there was
* Ay Davidgiveusawave?
* Wave!
* Zzzzha zhaaa zha wave

I particularly like the bedsheets posted scrawled with writing on the temporary fencing around his box (which has expanded in the past few days so security can keep an eye on you as pelting eggs and other missiles at his perspex box is becoming a new London fad to do). My favourite:
YOUR MY HERO IM YOUR NUMBER 1 FAN

I thought it highlighted perfectly the literacy levels of London. No wonder the Home Office wants to give new migrants a basic test in English. In many ways it is too late. What is spoken in London now is some hybrid-English.

There also was some stick figure with tits and hair at the site that I assumed was his model girlfriend. Perhaps this stunt of 40days without food is to slim down to her size.

The Sun
Yesterday while on the tube I managed to grab a copy of The Sun. I had no idea what was really going on in this city! I particularly liked the Hook Benefits Scandal story. If this paper loves freaks, then they have got a goldmine in the muslim preacher of doom and hate who has gone underground. The paper is offering £1000 for information leading to his wearabouts... Hmm what would they do with him...?

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