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
Where has the time all gone to: The weekend

I am back online today after buying a router (that is pronounced, row-ter, which I only mention as I was in a meeting the other day where non-techy people debated the correct pronunciation of this device) and hooking up wifi in the flat. It was a four-hour odyssey to do this as I managed to get my MAC addresses confused. I have no claims to being a techy and am far too impatient to read instructions that are poorly written and can be bypassed in any event, but the outcome is now that I can blog regularly from home once more...

I can do this as out of the settlement for being in a relationship - I got the laptop. As it was one of those "desktop replacement" models that were oh-so fashionable January 2004 (before people came to their senses in March) it is a big ugly motherfucker of a laptop and I don't particularly like it, but as I curse it, I can think that it is storing nearly two years of photos and cheap laughs, so that has to count for something.

Purchase of router followed longish session at the gym which will probably mean that for the next few days I will be in pain. While I was there I caught up with Adam who is also an Australian and a lot fitter than I. We grabbed a bite to eat afterwards in Soho after failing a few times to just get a coffee somewhere (but making an entrance three times probably counts for something I suppose, even if it was just to turn heads and then scamper off)...

Theatre: On the Town

Caught up on opening night of the English National Opera's production of On the Town Saturday night. Yet again, the best thing I have seen.
* Caroline O'Connor was in it playing Hildy "Come up to my place"
* Three American actors were playing the young sailors and even from the Balcony they looked very "exuberant" - better than that phony model they have used on their artwork...
* Full ENO Orchestra played the shit out of Bernstein's score... The horns blaring the opening notes from "New York, New York (It's a hell of a town)" was worth going to hear alone.

The show is much better than the film, which took away most of the music and story because MGM thought it was too sophistimicated for the film going public. They were probably right. Three sailors meet three girls and since they are going off to a war (which they may never return from) they want sex, and the girls want to give it to them. Three exuberant hours of entertainment ensue. The cast as an ensemble were fantastic and it is hard to single out anyone, although Caroline O'Connor singing "I can cook too" got plenty of laughs:

I'm a man's ideal of a perfect meal
Right down to the demi-tasse.
I'm a pot of joy for a hungry boy,
Baby, I'm cookin' with gas.
Oh, I'm a gumdrop,
A sweet lollipop,
A brook trout right out of the brook,
And what's more, baby, I can cook!

Very little of the book and songs were changed and it is amazing how well they have held up after 61 years. The neuroses of big city life still seem to be all there... Although there is no total war looming over people's lives...

The production did have its faults last night, the sets didn't quite work all the time, the props failed and there was this darn blue strobing light on the stage that wouldn't stop flashing in the final 20 minutes, but none of that could detract from what is an amazing three hours of music, ballet and theatre so perfectly integrated into telling one story.

After show drinks

It seemed quite sensible after the show to head to one of the gay bars just around the corner. A few from the audience were doing just that. There is nothing much to report although my attention was diverted to a person across the bar who above the sea of heads was trying to get my attention. Hmmm he looked tall I thought, so I motioned back. A motion isn't really an acknowledgement, it is more like an ambivalent shrug that you could pass off as grooving to the music if they come up to you and start drooling, or have bad breath etc.

But regardless of the gesture, he took it as a signal to come over to me. So he jumped down from the very tall step he was standing on to make his way over. In doing so he revealed he was quite short. Very short actually.

Not really in the mood to have a conversation of giant-talks-to-midget I finished my Becks and cleared the hell out of there...

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...