I went to the West End Whingers Party and all I got was smarm... That's about right...
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Overheard at the gym Saturday...
Man #1: What would you say if I called you skinny boy? Would ya like that? Would ya?
Man #2: Uh... No...
Man #2: Uh... No...
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Theatre: Gone With the Wind
One of the fun things about going to the theatre and blogging about it is that you can pick up the buzz and excitement about new productions as they hit town. Sadly this was not the case with Gone With the Wind. When asking around about it over the last month, the only responses I got back about it were forced smiles and phrases like... "Well... It's innnnteresting". Well now after seeing a preview of it on Tuesday night I can confirm what they are saying. It is innnteresting... And for those that don't know theatre-speak... That means it is rubbish.
First of all starting with the leads. It was a curious choice to put Darius Danesh and Jill Paice in the lead roles of Rhett and Scarlett. Despite the efforts of Darius to make his voice boom and disguise with sideburns the fact he is in his twenties, he still looks like he is playing dress-up and wearing his dad's clothes. Paice doesn't fare much better either and together to pair give the show the kind of earnestly bland feeling you get from a high school musical... Perhaps the stress of carrying such a heavy show will prematurely age them so they might begin to resemble the age of their characters but even then they I suspect they still wouldn't have the gravitas to pull it off...
As a musical, I kept thinking how the opening song from Parade in a few bars conveyed more about Georgia than anything I heard in the three hours and forty-five minutes of this production. It isn't just that the songs are bland and forgettable, but the majority of them simply grind the show to a halt rather than advancing the plot and keeping things moving. The numbers (and the performances) that had any life in them were sung by the black cast. The stark contrast between the songs and performances made me wonder whether they adapted the wrong book and that they really should have adapted the parody The Wind Done Gone and be the south's answer to Wicked...
But ultimately what kills this show is the endless narration. And it is so embedded in this production that it strips the show of any sense of drama. Obviously no effort was made to focus the show so loads of narration helps get through huge chunks of the plot. But there was also actually very little dialogue and everything from the bleeding obvious ("she turns her head") to whatever fiddle-dee-little-dee devilish whim enters Scarlett's mind also was given the narrative treatment. This show must be wonderful if you are blind, although you still have to listen to the music.
I suspect part of the problem is that the book, lyrics and music were all written by the same person. Generally (unless you are a genius) this is a pretty brave thing to do. And if in the case of Margaret Martin - where you have no previous theatre credits to your name - and half of your bio is devoted to how you are a specialist in child and maternal health, it is particularly bizarre. It gets even more bizarre in the production notes where the claim for experience is based on the fact that "As a single mother, she identified closely with the challenges faced by Gone With the Wind’s young protagonist". A pity she didn't identify with the challenges faced by adapting a well-loved film and particularly dense novel into a watchable musical.
The production itself was intriguing too. There was a revolving mansion that when it revolved didn't seem to be any different. A big flag descended at various points to signify we were in Atlanta. And actually the entire theatre had flags and drapes and other paraphernalia around just to remind you that you were in the south. Given it had such an Englishmen's view of America this was quite necessary to be reminded about exactly where this story was set... Then there were these pesky hoop dresses that all became a bit of a burden and started taking on a life of their own. Well I guess hoops must have been difficult. When they disappeared at a point in the first half I assumed they were melted down as part of the war effort as selling pillowcases to fund the war effort (which also featured in a prominent scene) can only get you so far. The scene where Scarlett walks through the dead of Atlanta by running around in circles and having the dead roll over was particularly amusing unintentionally. I began to wondered if one of the dead was meant to be Margaret Mitchell... Turning in her grave.
I caught the show with the West End Whingers (and seven others). When it happened and what happened was all dutifully recorded by the Whingers in the first act. Although for the record I will be disputing with them that I arrived at 7.29... It surely couldn't have been any later than 7.28... Besides I knew I needed all the spare time to consume enough coffee to stay awake for this thing so I did make an extra stop at Nero. Still I was grateful to the Whingers that they had got us some great seats that were also set back from where all the actors kept running around so I didn't have to worry about tempting to trip them up with my feet and other baggage.
But by the second act, the Whingers and six of their guests decided a bar would be more pleasurable than a moment longer of this show. But Katy and myself were determined to stick with it. Besides, I had said to Andrew I would "take one for the team" and keep him up to speed on what happens in the second half... Since I don't carry a notebook with me to record every detail of what I am seeing, I decided to twitter my reactions to the second act instead. I could tell Andrew was impressed with this as it is so Web 2.0 (even though I have no idea what that really means). Anyway, while using a mobile phone in a dark theatre would normally be a no-no given the distraction for others around, given that there were eight empty seats I figured there was enough space to not make too much of a disturbance. If you missed the feeds on the right hand side of the blog at the time, they were:
9:21 PM: Phew i just managed to get gin so i can endure the second half!
9:37 PM: Oh the narration! Make it stop!
9:44 PM: Now the actors are crowing...
10:15 PM: Drunk scarlett sings... Oh dear...
10:27 PM: Cut the white characters... Leave the black ones... They can sing (this was at the point of one of the showstopper black songs)
10:35 PM: Rape song now... Oh goody
10:49 PM: Just sung gone within a month... How prophetic...
11:02 PM: Another death song
11:16 PM: The narration... It has stopped... It has finally stopped...
Not as detailed as the Whingers, but you try texting in the dark while concealing your bright phone under your right leg. But at least by 11:16pm, more than three and three quarter hours after it started it was all over. I felt like I had survived. I couldn't applaud. I was too weak. Not counting Elaine Paige at Barbara Cook's 80th, it was the worst show I had seen since Cabaret. Still somebody on one of the sides leapt to their feet. Others cheered and carried on too. Cabaret is still playing in the West End, so maybe it shows what the hell do I know... I didn't think about that too much... I just needed to get some sleep...
First of all starting with the leads. It was a curious choice to put Darius Danesh and Jill Paice in the lead roles of Rhett and Scarlett. Despite the efforts of Darius to make his voice boom and disguise with sideburns the fact he is in his twenties, he still looks like he is playing dress-up and wearing his dad's clothes. Paice doesn't fare much better either and together to pair give the show the kind of earnestly bland feeling you get from a high school musical... Perhaps the stress of carrying such a heavy show will prematurely age them so they might begin to resemble the age of their characters but even then they I suspect they still wouldn't have the gravitas to pull it off...
As a musical, I kept thinking how the opening song from Parade in a few bars conveyed more about Georgia than anything I heard in the three hours and forty-five minutes of this production. It isn't just that the songs are bland and forgettable, but the majority of them simply grind the show to a halt rather than advancing the plot and keeping things moving. The numbers (and the performances) that had any life in them were sung by the black cast. The stark contrast between the songs and performances made me wonder whether they adapted the wrong book and that they really should have adapted the parody The Wind Done Gone and be the south's answer to Wicked...
But ultimately what kills this show is the endless narration. And it is so embedded in this production that it strips the show of any sense of drama. Obviously no effort was made to focus the show so loads of narration helps get through huge chunks of the plot. But there was also actually very little dialogue and everything from the bleeding obvious ("she turns her head") to whatever fiddle-dee-little-dee devilish whim enters Scarlett's mind also was given the narrative treatment. This show must be wonderful if you are blind, although you still have to listen to the music.
I suspect part of the problem is that the book, lyrics and music were all written by the same person. Generally (unless you are a genius) this is a pretty brave thing to do. And if in the case of Margaret Martin - where you have no previous theatre credits to your name - and half of your bio is devoted to how you are a specialist in child and maternal health, it is particularly bizarre. It gets even more bizarre in the production notes where the claim for experience is based on the fact that "As a single mother, she identified closely with the challenges faced by Gone With the Wind’s young protagonist". A pity she didn't identify with the challenges faced by adapting a well-loved film and particularly dense novel into a watchable musical.
The production itself was intriguing too. There was a revolving mansion that when it revolved didn't seem to be any different. A big flag descended at various points to signify we were in Atlanta. And actually the entire theatre had flags and drapes and other paraphernalia around just to remind you that you were in the south. Given it had such an Englishmen's view of America this was quite necessary to be reminded about exactly where this story was set... Then there were these pesky hoop dresses that all became a bit of a burden and started taking on a life of their own. Well I guess hoops must have been difficult. When they disappeared at a point in the first half I assumed they were melted down as part of the war effort as selling pillowcases to fund the war effort (which also featured in a prominent scene) can only get you so far. The scene where Scarlett walks through the dead of Atlanta by running around in circles and having the dead roll over was particularly amusing unintentionally. I began to wondered if one of the dead was meant to be Margaret Mitchell... Turning in her grave.
I caught the show with the West End Whingers (and seven others). When it happened and what happened was all dutifully recorded by the Whingers in the first act. Although for the record I will be disputing with them that I arrived at 7.29... It surely couldn't have been any later than 7.28... Besides I knew I needed all the spare time to consume enough coffee to stay awake for this thing so I did make an extra stop at Nero. Still I was grateful to the Whingers that they had got us some great seats that were also set back from where all the actors kept running around so I didn't have to worry about tempting to trip them up with my feet and other baggage.
But by the second act, the Whingers and six of their guests decided a bar would be more pleasurable than a moment longer of this show. But Katy and myself were determined to stick with it. Besides, I had said to Andrew I would "take one for the team" and keep him up to speed on what happens in the second half... Since I don't carry a notebook with me to record every detail of what I am seeing, I decided to twitter my reactions to the second act instead. I could tell Andrew was impressed with this as it is so Web 2.0 (even though I have no idea what that really means). Anyway, while using a mobile phone in a dark theatre would normally be a no-no given the distraction for others around, given that there were eight empty seats I figured there was enough space to not make too much of a disturbance. If you missed the feeds on the right hand side of the blog at the time, they were:
9:21 PM: Phew i just managed to get gin so i can endure the second half!
9:37 PM: Oh the narration! Make it stop!
9:44 PM: Now the actors are crowing...
10:15 PM: Drunk scarlett sings... Oh dear...
10:27 PM: Cut the white characters... Leave the black ones... They can sing (this was at the point of one of the showstopper black songs)
10:35 PM: Rape song now... Oh goody
10:49 PM: Just sung gone within a month... How prophetic...
11:02 PM: Another death song
11:16 PM: The narration... It has stopped... It has finally stopped...
Not as detailed as the Whingers, but you try texting in the dark while concealing your bright phone under your right leg. But at least by 11:16pm, more than three and three quarter hours after it started it was all over. I felt like I had survived. I couldn't applaud. I was too weak. Not counting Elaine Paige at Barbara Cook's 80th, it was the worst show I had seen since Cabaret. Still somebody on one of the sides leapt to their feet. Others cheered and carried on too. Cabaret is still playing in the West End, so maybe it shows what the hell do I know... I didn't think about that too much... I just needed to get some sleep...
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Housekeeping: I'm ready...
Tomorrow night I am going to the theatre and the production is so long who knows when I will get home... Such is the odyssey that one particular production is currently enduring in the West End. Bearing that in mind I plan to use twitter as my means of communication to the outside world... Oh and I will stay awake if I can find a new energy drink called Pussy... Now that's a drink with a name that's going to take off...
Monday, April 07, 2008
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Overheard on the High Street Tuesday
Lady #1 (to woman on a mobile phone blocking a doorway): Excuse me... Oh that's a lahvely ring
Lady #2: Oh thank you dahling... Thank you...
Lady #1: No it's lahvely
Lady #2: Thank you dahling...
Lady #2: Oh thank you dahling... Thank you...
Lady #1: No it's lahvely
Lady #2: Thank you dahling...
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Theatre: Jersey Boys
From the Tony Awards 2006
I caught Jersey Boys at the Prince Edward Theatre Monday night. I saw it with Grant and we must have looked like a right pair of luvvies as a lady in front of us from Cincinnati asked us if we get to the theatre all the time living in London. I wasn't quite sure if that was a question asking us whether we liked musical theatre. Whatever the line of questioning was, I wasn't going to admit that I had just bought on DVD Show Business. Besides it had been over a week since I had last been to a theatre. And that was fringe theatre...
Jersey Boys - a show about some workin' class boys from New Jersey makin' good - was was all class. Rather than the usual trick of being a juke box of hits strung together for an unbelievable story, or weaving a string of b-side songs into a nights entertainment because that is all the rights that were available, this show tells the story of the boys rise to fame using their music. Their story moves at breakneck speed and has been very cleverly put together. Songs spin into drama about the creative process that spun into new songs spinning into more drama about paying back mob loans. It felt like Dreamgirls meets The Sopranos... But by the end of it you felt like you knew something about each of these boys.
Drama aside, even more fascinating was what happened when the show gave the audience the recognisable music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The first time it occurred was half way through the first act in the build up to the song "Sherry". Surrounded by baby boomers, as the song started there was this shock wave of audience excitement that rippled across the theatre. It was like we were taking part in some sort of phenomena channelling a collective experience of the 1960s. As that was a little before my time, I was a bit taken aback by this... Music always takes me back to when I first heard it, and I was assuming that this audience had a bit longer to travel back than some eighties retro flick like Dirty Dancing... Just as well the tunes were so easy to groove to otherwise there could have been quite an emotional mess in the Prince Edward Theatre...
It was easy to forget it also wasn't the Four Seasons on stage but a talented group of young(ish) actors and a rather amplified band. There seemed to be a great chemistry onstage with the actors and Ryan Molloy as Franki Valli and Stephen Ashfield as Bob Gaudio were particularly memorable. When songs you have heard many times before seem new and fresh like "December 1963 (Oh what a night)" you know something good is going on.
The only thing that had me perplexed all evening was the set. It was a mish mash of styles and almost as hideous as the one in Thoroughly Modern Millie. I could appreciate that it was to give the show the backstage / gritty / Jersey look, but surely we could have something executed a little bit more elegantly. Oh perhaps nowadays one should just be glad to have seen a decent new show, well made and performed, that hasn't had to rely on BBC advertorial to pull in the punters... Good tickets available at the usual outlets.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Hot news this week in London...
'I've been trying to die in Southwark for the past two weeks but I just can't afford it', originally uploaded by rensenbrink78.
Well London is so expensive no matter what you want to do...
Overheard in the bathroom department of Habitat Monday
Man: Oh take a look at that. Now you won't like that will you?
Woman: Oh no... No! NO!
Woman: Oh no... No! NO!
Movies: The Orphanage
The Orphanage was a funny sort of film to be watching on Easter Sunday... A movie about dead orphans that don't seem to be dead. But since it was in Spanish it had an art house feel to what is essentially a mystery about a boy who disappears while his parents are moving in to the old orphanage his mother went to. To give away any more of the story would be to ruin the fun(?), thrills(?) of the film.
Of course, if you have seen The Others or The Sixth Sense, you will know that dead people are not to be feared as they are your friends (or at the very least they just have a few issues like the Maitlands in Beetlejuice). Bearing this in mind I didn't find it scary. But it still was a creepy way to spend a few hours in the dark... Particularly with that kid (pictured above) popping in every now and then...
Scenes from Albert Embankment Friday
Albert Embankment is the best place where one can admire the natural beauty of London and its iconic architecture...
Friday, March 21, 2008
Music: Maria Frieman Re-Arranged
I don't normally go for photos with performers but West End Whinger Andrew made me do it since he hassled Maria Friedman enough to get her to pose for photos. Why not blind her in the process? I don't quite recall what the distraction was... Nor why I am covering my mouth...
Anyway, Maria Friedman has just started doing a concert series at the Menier Chocolate Factory through until May. Maria has been around for ages (particularly if you note her very long timeline on her website), and I had seen her in the concert version of Follies last year. But not being a Friedman devotee (or should that be groupie?), I wasn't particularly won over by the music, performance or banter of the first half of the show. I wasn't alone with this view either, since the guy next to me fell asleep.
By the second half however, the show picked up the pace and turned out to be quite a treat. Particular highlights were her picking on members from the audience while she sang "The Worst Pies in London" and "I Want to Sleep With You Now". There also was a wonderful performance of Irving Berlin's "I Got Lost In Your Arms" that had the audience on the edge of their seats. And with a terrific band, here's hoping there are more concerts here in the future. One caveat would be to make sure that any future concerts ensure that the star is more elegantly attired. The house dress and glitter potato sack with boots was a bit distracting...
This is a concert worth catching, but you will of course have to get there well ahead of its 8pm start to fight for an unnumbered seat. The couple who tried to reserve half a row with their jackets hadn't counted on seasoned chocolate factory goers such as we challenging them on that... The theatre can be such a tough place... Especially when all the guests in your party don't arrive with you...
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Overheard at the gym Monday...
Man #1: You go to Trade yesterday
Man #2: Nah. Couldn't get tickets. Went to Joiners Arms instead...
Man #1: You went to... Vaginas???
Man #2: No we didn't go there. Joiners not vaginas! Joiners Arms... It's in Shoreditch...
Man #2: Nah. Couldn't get tickets. Went to Joiners Arms instead...
Man #1: You went to... Vaginas???
Man #2: No we didn't go there. Joiners not vaginas! Joiners Arms... It's in Shoreditch...
Monday, March 17, 2008
Scenes from Royal Festival Hall Sunday...
Well... the best service comes from the automated ticket machines there anyway...
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Theatre: Postcards From God - The Sister Wendy Musical
Friday night I had the chance to see at Hackney Empire studio Postcards from God - The Sister Wendy Musical. Written by London Gay Men's Chorus member Marcus Reeves, it tells the story of the rise to fame of a nun - Sister Wendy Beckett - and her love of art. I pretended to recall the Sister Wendy phenomenon of the nineties when Marcus asked me at a rehearsal last year "You remember Sister Wendy?" But the reality was that the phenomena passed me by. Fortunately there is enough on Youtube to enable anyone to brush up on her life and her passion for Poussin.
The musical featuring Gay Soper in the title role as Sister Wendy Beckett covers her life from contemplative hermit to celebrity art critic. Part of the fun in watching this show is when the art she talks about comes to life. I would have preferred the focus to remain solely on Sister Wendy, Soper's terrific performance, and less of the side characters (and giving her much more to do throughout), but there are the makings of a great musical here.
The show runs until the end of the month and you can also join the Facebook groupies called Wendy's Frendies. Tickets are from £5 too... Enough to make anyone want to venture to Hackney... The bar there is great too...
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