Scenes from West Hampstead 5.21pm: Late afternoon lunch Posted by Hello

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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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Bare emotions: Gods and Monsters @swkplay

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Gods and Monsters , now playing at the Southwark Playhouse is a showcase of incredible performances from its terrific cast and an engaging story. Oh and there is a bit of full frontal nudity too. Based on the novel Father of Frankenstein (which was also the source material for the film of the same name ), the story is a blend of fact and fiction. Age, memory, fame, youth and loss collide in the story of the last few months in the life of English director James Whale. Whale director and creator of the first two Frankenstein films, had a moderately successful career in Hollywood which enabled him to live comfortably in Los Angeles. He was also openly gay. But following a series of strokes in his sixties, he lost his ability to prevent painful memories from his past flooding back. And without giving too much away, his most successful creation, the monster in Frankenstein, seems to become something far more personal.
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The agony and the ecstasy: Cadel: Lungs on Legs at Riverside Studios @cadeltheplay

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Cadel comes with a subtitle, “lungs on Legs”, which is what Cadel Evans, Australia’s only ever winner of the Tour De France, was referred to as. Connor Delves, who co-wrote and devised a 70-minute sprint through the pain and glory behind this win, could be called lungs and mouth on legs. He cycles, he emotes, he sweats, he spits and collapses on stage.  He spares no pain in this brisk and thrilling account of a sporting victory that was never certain. Even if you know little about the sport, you feel that you’re there struggling up the mountain for a photo finish. It’s currently spinning at Riverside Studios after playing at the Edinburgh Fringe.  Delves performs (and pedals) on a 2011 yellow bike, the same model that Cadel Evans won the Tour on. Watching the piece, it’s hard to work out where the performer ends, and the subject begins. Delves doesn’t look like Cadel, as the footage of the real one at the end of the show shows, but you feel he's captured the man’s essence in ...
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