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He had it coming: Burnt Up Love @finborough

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Out of the darkness and shadows, three characters emerge. Lit only with candlelight or flashlights, a gripping tale by writer and performer Ché Walker about crime, punishment, love, and loss emerges. The fast pace conveys a sense of urgency to make up for lost time, lost opportunities, and what might have been. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We first meet Mac (Ché Walker) in prison, serving time for a crime he committed. With only a photo of his young daughter, Scratch, to keep him company, he looks for her upon release. But Scratch (Joanne Marie Mason) isn’t the teacher, lawyer or dancer Mac imagined while incarcerated over the years she might be. Instead, Scratch is in and out of trouble, on the edge, angry and violent. A chance encounter one night with JayJayJay (Alice Walker) forms a loving bond and gives her a moment of stability. But Scratch’s demons and restlessness mean trouble does not seem far away. Scratch's random act of thoughtless violence against

Music: Sir Thomas Allen

Saturday night I caught Sir Thomas Allen in a recital of music by Fauré, Duparc and Ravel at the Wigmore Hall.

The first half was Fauré's La bonne chanson and L'Horizon chimérique and I thought they were great. I still had a bit of a hangover from all the merriment of Friday night so when it came to interval and everyone was bitching about how the old man was struggling through the music people started knocking back the drinks in the bar when they found out I was enjoying it.

Well there are a couple of points to make here. The first is that Allen is only 62. The second is that as I had never heard some of this music performed before I was more interested in the music than the quality of the performance. But the audience was very appreciative of Allen...

All told I preferred the Fauré works to the others. But I didn't hang around afterwards to get any of his CDs... I needed coffee...

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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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