Featured Post

One hundred people’s ninth favourite thing: [title of show] @swkplay

Image
[title of show] takes you back to a time before the fast paced social media where word of mouth for a positive show came from chat boards, video diaries or (god forbid) blogs. A simple staging makes it an ideal (and economical piece to stage), but it’s sweet and earnest take on just putting on a show, and putting it out there and taking a chance gives this show its heart. With a strong and energetic cast and endless musical theatre references, it’s hard to resist and it’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse .  It opens with Hunter (Jacob Fowler) and Jeff (Thomas Oxley) as struggling young writers in New York City. An upcoming New York Musical Theatre festival, inspires them to write an original musical within three weeks to make the deadline. As they discuss ideas, writers block, distractions and endless other good and bad musicals, an idea for a show emerges. Which is about writing a show for a musical theatre festival.  Their friends Heidi (Abbie Budden) and Susan (Mary Moor
Things about interviews
* They are a great way to see parts of London you wouldn't think of travelling to (Enfield yesterday, today it was Lewisham)
* They offered me the job from yesterday even though I told them in a roundabout way I was lousy for the job (hey honesty must count, or maybe I was too roundabout)
* I am still happy where I am for now...


BBC Radio 4

After hearing a few weeks ago that you could apply online to get tix to BBC shows - and they were free - I spent an evening applying for anything and everything. My efforts paid off and in the mail I got tix to a recording tonight of The Now Show. It was at the Drill Hall where I had been to see the True or Falsetto show a few weeks back. Not having listened to much radio in the nine weeks I have been here now I had no idea what it was about. So tonight I discovered:
* It is a comedy show based on current affairs / current events similar to the "Good News Week"
* BBC Radio 4 is for slightly-liberal middle-class intelligensia types who like to talk about issues in moderately-priced restaurants. They must be mainly white too (certainly if the audience was anything to go by)
* Political satire is still alive and well in Britain. And some of it was surprisingly good. The best bit was their sketch on WMD in the vein of looking for the pellet with the potion by following the tank tracks for anthrax and so on and so on.
* Only half the jokes went over my head so I must be keeping up with the latest here
* The studio audience was full of "Now Show devotees" who knew all the cues and the set pieces.

Housekeeping...

Darn I forgot to mention...
* Last Thursday I went out to Heathrow to say farewell to Dr T. It marked 8 weeks since I had arrived at Heathrow so I tried to get something out of that.
* Sunday night I stayed in and watched my very first episode of Coronation Street. Why? Well there was this matter of the first ever gay kiss on the show. It was a bit of an anti-climax to say the least. It was more of a stolen peck. And having to sit through 25 minutes of the show to see it just before the credits came up made me wonder about the Coronation Street and Eastender marathons they show on the weekends... How can people sit through 5 episodes back to back???
* This week the Conservatives have met in Blackpool for their annual conference. Their leader Iain Duncan Smith (who the press call IDC in the headlines which is a rather unfortunate TLA as it sounds like some sort of contraceptive to me) told the Tories today that he has delivered. What he has delivered is anyone's guess. The real opposition to Tony Blair's New Labour is the various other groups within Labour. Poor old IDC has a hard time getting his message across while his partyroom is making no secret about dumping him for somebody else. Anybody else!!
* Freakshows abound now David Blaine is starving in a perspex box near Tower Bridge. This week another freak Derren Brown played Russian Roulette on C4. The catch was that the gun was switched and was fake. But debate ensued. Coronation Street was looking good by midweek!

It might be a good idea to get out of Haringey this weekend as England will be playing Turkey in the Euro 2004 qualifying match. With threats for the players safety and everything else that goes with Turkey - and football / soccer - added intrigue came this week when star player Rio Ferdinand was excluded after failing a random drugs test. The rest of the team were going to strike.

Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial security
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...