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No country for old women: Old Ladies - at Finborough Theatre

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The day after seeing The Old Ladies at the Finborough Theatre , I was describing the play to someone in great detail: about three old ladies who lived in a rickety house in southern England in 1935. Based on Hugh Walpole’s novel and adapted by Rodney Ackland, it is the sort of story with enough believability, humour and mild thriller to stick in your mind. Perhaps it is the lure of this dark, forboding tale of a life without money, to be alone and to be old, that makes you feel attracted to this poverty porn. But then again, given the state of the world, the cost of living, an ageing population, or just the fact that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, it might as well be an every little old lady-for-herself, too. It’s a well-acted and staged piece that moves at a brisk pace, so there isn’t much time to think about it too much. And in the intimate (or should that be claustrophobic?) space of the Finborough, there’s nowhere to avert your eyes. Even if you wanted to.  The scene is a grim Cathe...
News: Hitting home...

Mild hysteria erupted this week over reports that a craze that started in the dreadful bowels of all things evil - South London - now is spreading nation wide. It is called Happy Slapping and involves teenagers ganging up on an individual and hitting them, while taking photos of the victim with their mobile phones, before running off into the sunset, to post the pictures on the internet. It's supposed to be a new form of techno-bullying, but Does 'happy slapping' exist?. Well if it does, it is bound to spread to every mild-manered unsuspecting town in the near future...

Billy Elliotopened this week at the Victoria Palace to amazing reviews and some declaring it one of the best shows ever...

And finally, Kath and Kim premiered on BBC2 Thursday night. For those in the know (and with Sky), it has been broadcast for the past year here but now it is on free-to-air television it is getting a much broader audience. I suspect it will do well here, and it made the pick of the day in many newspaper TV reviews. I keep telling people that it is exactly how Australians live - although Melbournians wear darker colours usually - and aren't so much into shoulder pads anymore...

Potato, potato; pasta, pasta; plaque, plaque
Speaking of accents, noice and unewsual... I have found...
You don't say:
I'm having Paahsta for lunch
You say:
I'm having Passta for lunch
But I still say paaahsta. In fact, now I say paaaaaaaaaaaaahsta because it gets such a reaction... My colleagues make allowances for foreigners though...


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