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Sleight of hand: The Fabulist @charingcrossthr

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Billed as a musical comedy, The Fabulist is actually a rare chance to see Giovanni Paisiello’s rarely performed light opera, The Imaginary Astrologers , translated and updated to Mussolini’s Italy. With sublime music, fine singing and a bit of additional silliness thrown in for good measure, it’s a welcome addition to the choices available on the West End. It’s currently playing at Charing Cross Theatre . In this update, the action moved to Italy in 1929. A magician (or, as he prefers to be called, Fabulist), Julian is on the run from both the fascists and the Catholic Church. On the run, he stumbles on a film shoot and dazzles the screenwriter Clarice with his charm while her sister tries to complete a series of mildly subversive historical films. What will win in a battle of ideas between science and magic, the church and the Fabulist? It’s an evening of light operatic comedy, so there are no prizes for guessing.  Experts in clerical fascism and fascist mysticism may find some of the

Games: The Show Must Go On


 Thursday evening I found myself at the launch event for The Show Must Go On, which is a rather nifty little game that brings together opera, cheap laughs and the iOS platform. Given all three are favourites of mine I downloaded it.

It is very cute and quite amusing little game, recreating Covent Garden and backstage at the Royal Opera when everything goes wrong. The game puts you in the shoes of a stage manager and includes a series of mini games. Within these you have to undertake a variety of back stage tasks in order for the show to go on. I particularly liked running over the rooftops of Covent Garden chasing sheet music and dodging pigeons. Depending on how well you do, depends on how good the show is. So far I have only created rubbish shows... The game might be trying to tell me something but I will ignore that for now and keep practicing...

An interesting collaboration between the Royal Opera, including its sound technicians singers from the Jette Parker Young Artist programme and musicians of the Orchestra, EMI and Hide and Seek. Very funky cool stuff... Go play...

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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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