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One hundred people’s ninth favourite thing: [title of show] @swkplay

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[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
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The Accidental Tourist I get a telephone call this afternoon informing me that my visa has come through. My tourist visa. And so my working life in the UK comes to a somewhat abrupt end from today. I was expecting it to come to an end at some point in the next few weeks, but I was expecting later rather than sooner. Oh well. Who says the civil service isn't efficient? What happens next is a little up to Dame Fortune and my ability to interview well, but in the meantime I can: Take my first holiday since December/January and my first holiday in several years lasting longer than a week. Explore the delights of Croydyn Catch up on all those galleries and museums that I have yet to get around to seeing... Well anyway... That's the plan...
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News: Notting Hill Carnival Bank Holiday Monday in August means 500,000 Londoners head to Notting Hill for at street party . There is lots of colour and movement and jerk chicken (if you like your chicken charcoal black) but even better is to be in the vicinity of the carnival where you can hear all the carry on, but not actually have to be amongst it, such as I found myself today. I was the only Australian at the party so I was giving a ribbing about the Ashes and had a can of Fosters thrust in my hand. There really should be some cultural guides written about how much an insult an Australian finds being given a Fosters . It is such a rubbish beer but the chavs in this country can't seem to get enough of it. Along with Nike tops and chunky silver chains it is what you expect to see being carried by any lout in this city...
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Scenes from Kew Gardens Sunday 17:23 - Chihuly's glass sculptures among the greenery... It was here in the the temperate room green house where this photo was taken A saw a man leaning over a pond about to take a photograph. He motioned to push the man in the pond for my amusement but he neglected to see the photographers two friends looking outraged behind. Obviously not Londoners... No sense of humour whatever. But the glass sculptures were very smart... All hand blown as well... It certainly made the visit to Kew (also known as the Royal Botanic Gardens) all the more interesting. It is such a vast green space that even after two hours one barely covered a kilometre of the site, but how much gardens and green space on a fine sunny day can one take? Interestingly there were a lot of gay men in the gardens. Fortunately unlike many of the parks about town they were there to take in the greenery and the glass...
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Scenes from G-A-Y at the Astoria Saturday night / Sunday morning 01:50. Trip to Winchester was cut short as there was an Abba night back in London with Bjorn Again . Ok so the music wasn't live (note the absence of leads on the guitar and keyboard) but by 1.30am the punters didn't care and kept singing along to the tunes. Nowadays Bjorn Again have multiple groups touring the country as blonde and brunette singers accompanied by fat men with beards are a dime-a-dozen... The Astoria is for young boys and their admirers really and is a silly venue, but it is only a five minute walk home so it is rather handy...
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Scenes from Winchester Saturday 15:52 - Bank Holiday weekend. If you are not travelling somewhere exotic, why not go to Winchester? They have a cathedral , some castle ruins and a flower market where young lads sell flowers... Winchester also seemed to be a lovely town to go if you were pregnant. There seemed to be pregnant women everywhere... Maybe they are all locals and there is a baby boom on its way... It was interesting to observe all of this. There were also more elderly persons in wheelchairs per able bodied person than I have seen anywhere else of late. As for the cathedral, it was a bog-standard.
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Theatre: Henry IV (Part Two) After the awful trip to the theatre on Wednesday night I caught Henry IV (Part Two) at the National Theatre Friday evening to make up for it. While the story may be a little plotless the show has a fantastic cast that includes Michael Gambon as Falstaff. It was amazing to watch him, including in the second act when espousing the virtues of sherry he couldn't get the bottle open and made a few ad-libs. The play is definitely one of the highlights of the London theatre scene at the moment so it was good to catch it. Unfortunately the man sitting next to me had a bit of a bad breath problem. When he laughed a cocktail of saliva, cigarettes and bile wafted over to my seat. Oh well, when the tickets are only £10, these are the things you have to deal with. But it would have been handy to have had some chewing gum on hand to offer around... Or some noseplugs...
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Shopping: Those Muscle Fit Polos A recent doco on the BBC chartered a man's attempt to go straight by hooking up with some evangelical outfit in Memphis. Apparently he found the gay scene a bit to superficial (he obviously had not taken the Eurostar or gone to my gym). In the end it turned out he stopped having sex completely so some conversion that turned out to be... Anyway the Guardian reported today more about the "going straight" therapy in Memphis, noting that Abercrombie clothing is banned. And who can blame them, as it is very gay. Arriving this week in the mail was several Abercrombie t-shirts and polos I bought online. My flatmate and his houseguest curious about the steady stream of packages arriving during the course of this week asked me to model one of the polos. They were impressed with the cut that accentuates one's v-shape even if one doesn't have much of that shape. And it's that sort of fit that goes down well with the boys...
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Scenes from Regent's Park Open Air Theatre Wednesday 20:08 - A delay starting due to wet weather... Those in the know brought garbage bags and towels. Live and learn. As for the show, well HMS Pinafore in the damp cold night air wasn't the most pleasant of experiences - it seemed less of a production and more of an embalming of G&S. The last time I saw this show I recalled: It was funny and the actors had comic timing, The orchestrations were better, Buttercup also wasn't played by someone who should be in a retirement home. Ok Lesley Nichol is a wonderful actress but it was just wrong for her to be in this part... Also of note: Desmond Barritt seemed to have confused the role of Sir Joseph with his role as Vice President Dick Cheney in Stuff Happens at the National - he spent most of the time walking around looking pissed off. The hero (Simon Thomas) has his shirt off at the beginning and mercifully puts it on. Nobody needs to see a pasty white flat
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