Scenes from Soho Square Sunday 18:43

190820072216, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

Soho Pride was a quieter affair this year... With the light drizzle it did tend to put people off... Well some people anyway...

Scenes from the Northern Line Thursday 17:30

Scenes from the Northern Line Thursday 17:30, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

That would be right... No bloody seat...

Theatre: Bands and Cigarettes

An old school friend sent me a message asking if life in London was an endless stream of theatre productions and overheard conversations. Well basically I would have to say (in between the rest), yes... So bearing that in mind, Fraser and I went to see two short plays by the National Youth Theatre at the Soho Theatre (or should that be the national yoof featre?)...

Anyway, the first play The Band was about a bunch of Manchunians bitching and moaning... I could relate to it as I lived with a Manchunian and that's seem to be what they do best... Fraser wasn't so enthralled by it with all its teen angst and overplayed drama. Besides he was still pissed that I had arrived late to the theatre and there wasn't time for a drink beforehand... Still even sober I thought it was great fun. Even better was that it was short and short is always a good thing... As mid week who has the attention span to last longer than 50 minutes before an interval or break?

The second play was 20 Cigarettes, which also featured the not-so-youthful Simon Dutton. I quite enjoyed watching Simon Dutton but Fraser started to wonder if the large glass of wine I consumed during interval had gone to my head... It was all those well-pronounced vowels I suppose... Anyway the play was a great ensemble piece and quite funny. There were lots of cigarettes too (along with the odd cigar). Special permission has to be sought to do that sort of thing on stage nowadays since smoking is the new pornography... But for good reason I suppose... Watching Harry Melling puff away on a cigar made me wish I hadn't given away all my cigars last week at a colleague's leaving work do. All told I would go again. Not just because the plays were good (and short), or the actors are the very talented stars of tomorrow... But for the passive smoking...

Leaving the theatre, there was an even bigger crowd waiting to see Miss Coco Peru. Strangely they were mostly male mostly recognisable from my gym. Who knew so many men are out there looking for cheap laughs?

Overheard at the gym last night...

Man #1: Guess what happened to Graham yesterday?
Man #2: No what?
Man #1: He missed his flight.
Man #2: No...
Man #1: Got to Gatwick too late because of mmmmm...
Man #2: Really?
Man #1: So guess where he had to stay last night? Mmmmmm
Man #2: Get outta here...
Man #1: Mmmm hmmm. What Graham wants... Graham gets...

Scenes from the Haywood Gallery Monday 20:30

130820072159, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

Waiting in a long line to see the Antony Gormley Blind Light (basically a foggy room). It was fun in a disorienting kinda way... And not without its thrills... I was with Anna and she got unintentionally groped by a woman desperately trying to find the exit in an "Oh my God I've gotta get outta here" moment. The rest of the exhibition was even better. It finishes this week...

Overheard outside South Kensington Tube

Very nervous woman in car (to man): Excuse me sir... Excuse me.
Man on street: Yes
Very nervous woman in car: Can you tell me why all these people are heading this way?
Man on street: They're coming from a concert at Albert Hall.
Very nervous woman in car: Oh

Too bad she didn't ask me. I would have told her we just wanted to get the hell out of South Kensington and get on with our lives... Perhaps she had visited the following website...

Overheard leaving Albert Hall

Lady: The wine was actually really nice wine... Not like that old stuff
Man: Yes really nice. Really really nice. Not the old stuff at all...

Scenes from Albert Hall Sunday 18:52

120820072145, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

The crush to get back into the hall in time for Act 2 of Götterdämmerung. Some folks thought they could stop traffic but the black cabs had other ideas...

At least an hour for a meal break was provided since it started at 4pm... It had another three hours to go... All things considered (like it was at Albert Hall, the catering is rubbish and it was a concert version), it probably was worth the effort... No chance of snoozing anyway when one was sitting in front of the augmented horns section...

Music: John Dankworth and Cleo Laine

I keep forgetting that I should avoid going to proms concerts. Albert Hall is stuffy, the acoustics are bad, the seats are terrible, and you always have to worry about some old person falling over you with their walking stick as they navigate the steep inclines. I really don't know why so many old age pensioners risk hip replacements coming to these concerts, but they do...

Anyway, I found myself among the OAPs watching two OAPs on Wednesday night: John Dankworth and Cleo Laine (well they both turn 80 later this year). Despite the limitations of the hall, they managed to give it a feel as if it were a jazz club and they were just playing some music. The audience loved it and it was a bit of a treat...

Overheard at Victoria Underground Station

Man: Well you aren't expected to know everything...
Woman: Yeah, like... Like... What's it matter that I don't like know who Tony Blair is?

Scenes from Soho Square Sunday 15:20

050820072026, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

Just when the sunbathers were enjoying the sun in the square, these fat bastards come by murdering songs with their guitars and piano accordions. Putting the trash into eurotrash, they were less Gipsy Kings and more Gipsy Queens... They were passing around a hat for money (or was that for doughnuts?) but that seemed to encourage them to stay so I gave them nothing...

Scenes from an office fig Tuesday 11.29

Scenes from an office Tuesday 11.29, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

Scenes from Waterloo Sunday

Scenes from Waterloo Sunday, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

Concert: Carmen Jones

Source: Carmen Jones publicity artwork http://southbankcentre.co.uk

I had been warned that Carmen Jones was a bit of a dated show. It is afterall a "modern" 1943 reworking of Bizet's opera Carmen into a musical. Given that piece of advice (and that I was still probably jet lagged) I figured the cheap seats at Royal Festival Hall would suffice to see this new production of the show. If it were a bit dull then I figured I could always have a sleep (especially during the overlong first half). Of course I forgot that the cheap seats means that you are surrounded by cheap people. In this instance it was cheap people with body odour problems, weak bladders, and noisy crisp packets. For the first half I was detracted by the cheap people around me who felt that the people's palace meant it was their living room. I was half expecting belching and farting since there was every other noise... Well that's where socialist idealism gets you in the twenty-first century...

By the second half I had moved myself to one of the empty seats closer to the stage and closer to where Fliss and Chris were sitting. They didn't want to have any part of my theatre economics so booked separately. The move it was a noticeable improvement on everything but the acoustics... While the London Philharmonic sounded fantastic, it was a bit hard to hear the dialogue and the singing and I suspect that wasn't the fault of the performers... I also had to contend with a largish glass of white wine to consume which for a lightweight such as me guaranteed that I was going to have a good time no matter what in the second half...

Anyway it turns out Carmen Jones isn't that bad of a show. This fully staged concert version with a great cast had a lot going for it (when you could hear it) and was visually pleasing from time to time as well (which is not always the case with concert productions). At times you get the feeling that Oscar Hammerstein II had more fun conceiving this Carmen than you actually get from watching it, but modern translations of operas abound nowadays. And I certainly can appreciate the fact that "dats our man, the man with the wallop, hotter than a firecracker" is a great line to be sung by a chorus...

Soundtracks: Hairspray

After Friday night's jet-lag cure I had to go and pick up the Hairspray soundtrack on Saturday. Movie soundtracks used to be crap compared to original cast albums (I believe this is the correct terminology for afficianados out there) but Hairspray follows the more recent tradition of being pretty darn good. It was refreshing to be back in a music shop that didn't just offer Michael Buble as its specialities.

Mind you I did raise the point that the shop did not stock a lot of the new Australian musical titles that I heard while I was down under. After describing songs about shaving your balls and a musical about a gay love triangle set in a fun fair there was general concensus that some CDs are best left in the antipodes (or to be more accurate, in Melbourne)...

Overheard at Clapham Sainsburys Sunday

Man: I took the number 35 bus last night and ended up falling asleep and waking up at Liverpool Street...
Woman: Oh no...
Man: Yeah but I found some mates nearby so it was still a great night...

Scenes from Soho Saturday

280720071940, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

Old Condom Street is quiet... Soho pride is Sunday...

Movies: Hairspray

"Hairspray" movie poster, originally uploaded by knoopie.

To get over jetlag, I thought that an early session of Hairspray would do the trick. It did. There was so much energy on screen that it was impossible to fall asleep. And besides the prospect of seeing a movie with Michelle Pfieffer singing (and in a conga line), John Travolta dancing as a woman, Queen Latifah as a blond and Christopher Walken as a lovestruck husband was simply too good to sleep through.

All the musical numbers were pretty impressive showstoppers and pulled off with enough homage to John Waters to avoid it being a sanitised version of his original movie. It seemed so appropriate that Waters has a cameo as the flasher in the opening number as well. And while at times the story seems a little earnest, it was clear that the movie had its heart in the right place.

It has already had the biggest weekend opening of a musical, I hope it kicks Grease off its pedestal as the most successful movie musical in the last 30 years. Besides, unlike Olivia the lead Nikki Blonsky didn't need the others to dance around her (despite the bingo wings)... Oh and the music is so much better... Will be interesting to see how the West End production fares when it (finally) opens October this year...

Scenes from the tube Wednesday 16:23

, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

Back to the usual...

Travel: Nearly there...

Actually... I am in Singapore so I am not nearly back in London... I did manage to leave Brisbane last night and was not arrested by Federal Police... Then again I don't keep a diary that can be edited by anyone else, nor do I loan out my SIM cards... Oh and I am a white male (albeit a pasty one) so life isn't that tough... Now to catch that flight and get the hell out of this transit lounge in Singapore with the hippy pipe music and free wifi...