News: Bond premiere

Daniel Craig as Bond!, originally uploaded by yahoo_movies_uk.

The new James Bond movie Casino Royale had its premiere tonight in Leicester Square. The early reviews are saying this "reboot" of the series is a good one... But really all the talk is about this particular scene of Daniel Craig emerging from the water... Hmm bit of an upper body workout happenin' there...

(And ok it was a cheap excuse for a bit of flesh on the blog site...)

Cults and wardrobe malfunctions 101

My Monday's have been a lot busier since I joined the London Gay Men's Chorus. Actually I should correct that. My Monday's, Wednesday's, occasional Thursday's and Weekends have been a lot busier. We are preparing for a Christmas concert, but joining a choir is like joining a cult as it takes up all your life...

But it has been fun singing in a community choir. With the exception of tonight. Tonight after some tricky choreography there was a wardrobe malfunction: my trousers split. Not the best of looks in this particular choir. The trousers look like jeans and have been a little controversial in the office as denim is forbidden. Every time I wear them to work I usually end up having to argue that they are not jeans but a "leisure pant". Well anyway, not anymore... They are also a little on the "form fitting" side which probably didn't help things tonight.

There was a fortunate end to the story (and no it wasn't that I was wearing the Aussiebum's). It was warm enough to tie a sweater around one's split leisure pant and carry on. Although it was a bit drafty on the walk home from the tube...

Scenes from Regent Street Sunday 19:29

DSC03968, originally uploaded by Pauly_.

The Christmas (not to be confused for winter) lights for the year...

Scenes from the South Circular Saturday 13:36

DSC03953
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.

Best if you leaf it...

Movie: The History Boys

The History Boys
Originally uploaded by Jo Salmon.

I finally caught the film version of The History Boys. When I saw it staged at the National in April 2005 (with the original cast now in the film version) I thought it was one of the best plays I had ever seen. The best thing about this film is the amazing performances by Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour and the boys including Samuel Barnett and Dominic Cooper are on film.

Set in 1983, it tells the story of eight boys in Sheffield who are preparing to take the entrance exam that could see them get into Oxford or Cambridge. From this premise themes of the purpose of education, sexual and emotional freedom are explored. Above all a series of characters emerge so real and genuine. Their virtues and their fears and limitations are all on display.

For instance, Richard Griffith's character Hector inspires the boys with "general studies". But he also likes to grope the boys if he gets the chance when giving them rides home on his motorcycle. For somebody who went to a high school and observed some inspiring teachers organise sexual liaisons in their spare time with selected students this scenario seemed all too believable.

Alan Bennett's play already felt cinematic when I saw it on stage. Scene changes included video segments projected above the set to drive the story along. The film has expanded the setting of the story and adding more female characters. The soundtrack includes some great eighties music, and Rufus Wainwright has a song over the end credits as well.

Unfortunately due to the nature of the medium, a lot has been cut from the original. I would have been happier with a longer film with maybe a few of the scenes extended a little. Also, the film wasn't shot in a very beautiful way. This may have been intentional but at times it feels distracting, especially during scenes that are a little more intimate between characters.

All told these are probably minor quibbles and it is great to see this very entertaining story on film. Left in is the songs sung by Samuel Barnett and Frances de la Tour gets to say the word (when describing one boy's sexual appetite) as "cunt-struck". It opens in the US from 21 November and has been playing in the UK since mid October. Pass it on. History may be "just one fucking thing after another", but this film is worth catching.

Theatre: Bent

Today I was mentioning to colleagues how I was going to the theatre tonight to see Bent and they were a little surprised with my excitement in seeing a revival of a play set in Dachau about two gay men. Well Martin Sherman's play is still well regarded, and the reviews from this new revival with Alan Cumming at the Trafalgar Studios have been good. I was also seeing it with A who insisted that we sit up close to appreciate the show, and its full-frontal nudity, without having to rely on opera glasses.

It was not a light night out at the theatre however... Not that it wasn't watchable, but the full-frontal nudity gave soon gave way to blood-spattered walls and trashed apartments. The play opens in Berlin on the "Night of the Long Knives" when Hitler executed Ernst Röhm and his gay stormtroopers. Suddenly it wasn't good to be gay in Nazi Germany. The play then follows, step by squeamish step, the fate of the three main characters.

The first half was a bit distracting with over the top performances by the supporting cast playing naughty Nazi stormtroopers and odd theatrical effects that included a fire that was blindingly bright for a few seconds... Although Richard Bremmer performs a great new song in drag written for the play by Chris Lowe (of Pet Shop Boys fame) and Sherman, by the time intermission came around, with all the blood, fireballs and other balls on display I needed a G&T...

The second half of the play set in the concentration camp is when I found the story becoming particularly involving and the relationship that developed between Cumming's character Max and Horst, who he meets on the train to Dachau. Horst was played by Chris New and there was a wonderful chemistry between him and Cumming and it gave the play the heart that it needed. Here's hoping there is more of Chris New in the West End and beyond soon as he delivered an incredible performance.

Still, no play on a subject matter like this is going to make you do a conga line out of the theatre. As an antidote, I suggested we go to a nearby bar for mojitos. Finally relaxing over sensible cocktails A suggested the next thing we see should be The Sound of Music as something a bit lighter. Fortunately I wasn't that drunk to agree to seeing that...

Scenes from the Southbank Saturday 18:47

Scenes from the Southbank Saturday 18:47
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.

News: Climate protest goes mainstream

P1010231
Originally uploaded by pink_ego_b0x.
Trafalgar Square today was packed with people all waving placards and flags urging for a global treaty to cap global warming. It wasn't just the usual suspects of young impressionable revolutionaries but hoards of what the media are calling a 'mainstream protest'. One wonders if these are the same mainstream people who are enjoying the bonfires and fireworks all this weekend to coincide with Guy Fawkes Day...

Best placard was the one lampooning George Bush (does anybody in London respect that man?). Although it was a little startling to be walking around a find George Bush's head bobbing along right beside you (as above)... Like YIKES!

Overheard at the gym Friday

Brazilian: Do you take Viagra?
Man: No...
Brazilian: How do you expect to keep a boyfriend if you don't take Viagra?
Man: Oh...

Film: Marie Antoinette

Sunday night I caught Marie Antoinette. I would warn people not to watch this film on an empty stomach as there are an astonishing array of desserts in this film. After ninety minutes I kept looking at my watch as I really fancied a tart or something with cream and berries. Unfortunately the film had another half hour or so to go so it was a bit of a long wait. And all I could get at the end of the film was a Magnum. Kirsten Dunst is great in any film she is in, although here she just had to play herself. Style triumphs over substance here but everything is so gorgeous (including the tarts) and was similar in tone to director Sofia Coppola's other films that it was watchable enough...

Quiet Saturday Lunch in SW2

Scenes from a SW2 Bar Friday 21:12

Scenes from a SW2 Bar Friday 21:12
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.

After a jug of cosmopolitans, I started photographing anything around me... Last time I was at this bar (just a few days earlier) there was this fifty-something woman making out with a twenty-something man on the very same seat that these ladies were sitting on. It was so bizarre. Anyway, the ladies didn't mind the attention. Oh and that is a projection screen behind them...

Scenes from Jubilee Bridge Thursday 22:18

Scenes from Jubilee Bridge Thursday 22:18
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.

Conversation taking this photo went something like this:
Paul: I'm not sure about using the flash on this camera as I will look really white...
F: But you ARE white...
Paul: Oh yeah...

Theatre: Caroline Or Change

I received a bit of flack this week from an anonymous poster connected somehow to the West End production of Cabaret saying I was such a bitch for what I wrote about Cabaret and that I should stick to watching Daddy Cool or some other jukebox musical as that would be all my intelligence could cope with. Those creative types can get so touchy...

Anyway, I had already bought tickets to see Caroline Or Change for Thursday evening so I couldn't take them up on their suggestion. I had been looking forward to this for some time. Listening to the Broadway Cast Recording over the past couple of years it has grown on me to be one of my favourite musicals of recent years. With a book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (who also wrote Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (who wrote the musicals "Violet" and "Twelfth Night" and the new music for "Thoroughly Modern Millie" when it was adapted for stage) it received raves when it opened and the UK production has similarly received glowing reviews since opening.

Set in Louisiana where "Nothin' ever happens" just after the Kennedy assassination in 1963, it covers a period of small changes and bigger impacts that flow from them. Caroline is a black maid in a Jewish household. Noah, a young boy in that household, keeps leaving small change in his pockets and his step mother wants to teach him a lesson by letting Caroline keep all the change in his pockets. Caroline is a sad and lonely figure, but she escapes into her own world of work as a maid in the basement doing laundry where the washing machine, the radio and the dryer come to life. Her life is the music of the day so the score is peppered with soul, blues and rock and roll music set to the mundane and banal world that she is living in. This a world where money, loss and disappointment in life rule the day. Her daughter and her friend Dotty are moving with the times, but Caroline is resisting everything that is happening around her.

The drama builds to a series of climaxes that culminate in the performance of the above song "Lott's Wife" which has to be the most exciting thing I have seen on stage. Sitting where I was - merely a few metres away from Tonya Pinkins (reprising her role from Broadway and seen in the above clip) - you couldn't help but be blown away. The rest of the cast in this production were equally fabulous, and the singing in this production was particularly good. Pippa Bennett-Warner as Caroline's daughter Emmie was great and I also liked Malinda Parris as the washing machine who gave wet sudsy clothes such sex appeal...

For a musical some serious themes were being dealt with here. Race, poverty, consumerism, grief, anger, loss and disappointment. But at the heart of this show with its focus on two families was a story of hope and optimism. A new direction for an old genre called musical theatre if there ever was one...

Scenes from the Northern Line Southbound Monday 22:45

Scenes from the Northern Line Southbound Monday 22:45
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.
Freebasing on the Northern Line...

Scenes from Tooting Sunday 21:33

Scenes from Tooting Sunday 21:33
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.

Heading home from a curry in Tooting, one couldn't help but notice the window displays. I suggested to An that I could wear that hat at his impending birthday party... Well, the invite said dress "celebratory"...

Sunday phone conversation

Paul: Just what do you say to someone with a Prince Albert?
Ad: How about, "Would you take that out for me please?"
Paul: Yes it's good to remove the earrings before dinner...

Scenes from Clapham Common Fish pond Saturday 13:37

Scenes from Clapham Common Fish pond Saturday 13:37
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.

Afternoon light...

Scenes from Elephant & Castle Saturday 00:15

Scenes from Elephant & Castle Saturday 00:15
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.
Waiting for doors to open...

The Week by location

Monday: In Sydney having bad cocktails
Monday night: In Brisbane hospital getting saline
Tuesday: In Brisbane having lunch
Tuesday night: On a plane to Singapore
Wednesday morning: Arrive in Singapore 5am have shower at airport and change of clothes having managed to get noodle sauce over my polo shirt.
Wednesday morning: Fly out of Singapore. The best thing about Singapore is the plane out of it.
Wednesday afternoon: Arrive Heathrow.
Wednesday evening: Arrive Clapham. Go to the high street for dinner. Weather curiously the same as I left it in Brisbane.
Thursday: Back at work in body. Have cocktails in Brixton after work which gets the taste of the Sydney one's out of my mouth.
Friday: Back at work in mind.
Saturday: All is zen... Eating tuna sandwich while updating blog...