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Eyes, hair, mouth: Darkie Armo Girl at Finborough Theatre

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Darkie Armo Girl, Karine Bedrossian’s electrifying one-woman show, commands attention from the moment it begins. First performed in 2022 and revived last year, it now returns for extra performance and it's an event not to miss. The show takes you through the thrills and horrors of a hectic life. She struts, shimmies, and taunts while revealing some horrific truths. She is such an irresistible storyteller that you find yourself hooked. The story is one of fame, glamour, abuse, self-harm, and suicide. If that subject matter doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you haven't seen it delivered with such high energy and provocation. It's currently at the Finborough Theatre . The show's title refers to a slur a popular girl at school once called her. Her ancestry is Armenian, and her parents were from Cyprus, where they fled the civil war and arrived in the UK with nothing. Shortly after she was born in Roehampton. The birth was an emergency C-section that left the baby and ...

Theatre: Rose and other adventures...

In the month it took to get my internet put up I did get up to the following:
  • Caught The Rose Tattoo with Zoe Wanamaker. Great play and well worth the £10 tix. It is great to see more Tennessee Williams plays in London and here is hoping that the fashion for reviving his work continues... It wasn't hard to resist doing ones best impersonation of Sicilian impersonator with colleague AW. It sort of goes, "Naw naw naw naw naw... Naht mah Rrrrose!" Perhaps it was the fine wine, but after the play AW and I photographed the grass on the theatre and groped a cast iron statue on Waterloo Bridge... It was a great night...
  • Saw Pelléas et Mélisande (translated: Pelléas and Mélisande) at the Royal Opera. I had been warned that the opera was boring so sat in the cheap seats but it turned out to be all rather exciting and dramatic. Sure it all ends in tears but what a way to go... The champagne at interval cost more than the ticket but it was all rather worth it... Particularly when Sir Simon Rattle was conducting...
  • Performed in London Gay Mens Chorus concerts in Edinburgh and Glasgow. It was music for bad boys that included Relax (don't do it) and the march and chorus from Carmen. I had a reading to do from Larry Kramer's lovely novel Faggots which went down like a treat too. Maybe it was in the intonation, my lovely dulcet tones, I just don't know. The choir will not be so much under the influence of Irn-Bru as well... I relied on it to get through the weekend concerts (particularly after arriving in Edinburgh having had not much sleep)...I won't be in the concert when it gets to London's Cadogan Hall in July but it is well worth booking for asap as it should sell out...

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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...
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Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

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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 ...
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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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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.
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