Scenes from London Naked Bike Ride

Picture 500, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

It is that time of year again when naked people cycle through the streets of London. While it lacked the body paint and noise of last year's ride, it made up for that with the huge numbers of naked people cycling.

And amongst all this full-frontal nudity there was a message that we should get back to nature and stop relying on oil... More ass, less gas or something like that...

Walking back through Hyde Park afterwards one stumbled across a sea of naked and semi-naked people who had finished the ride. There were also loads of people taking photographs of this nakedness. I resisted the urge to capture close up nudity in favour of the magic of the ride... Besides some things are best viewed when they are whizzing by you...

Scenes from a Westminster Park

Picture 454, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

There are loads of things you cannot do, but it is nice to know the council would still like you to enjoy yourself while you are there...

Scenes from rehearsal Monday

Send in the clowns... We're performing at the Scoop on Friday as part of Fringe Choirs week... Also performing this week is the London Irish Pensioner Choir... But they perform on Thursday...

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Scenes from a rehearsal break...

Well... You are what you eat...

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Theatre: Grasses of A Thousand Colours

Saturday morning over breakfast, we were discussing how it was possible to have sex with a cat. There was a general consensus at the table that it would be quite difficult as unlike a cow, a goat (Silvia perhaps), or a big dog, a cat would have other ideas. I hypothesised that perhaps the cat could be used like some sort of muff. Such was the fascinating conversation that ensued after seeing Grasses of A Thousand Colours at the Royal Court on Friday evening.

This play is part of the Wallace Shawn season at the Royal Court, and is a world premiere featuring Miranda Richardson, Jennifer Tilly and Shawn himself. Shawn plays a scientist who has managed to manipulate the food chain with rather surprising results. In amongst all that he has three women in his life and sex with a cat that ends up bruising his penis (or giving it a funny colour at least).

Most of the story unfolds through a series on monologues. A series of monologues that lasted nearly three hours with only two ten minute intervals. It was the first play that I had been to that comes with instructions as well. Sitting down to dinner at the theatre beforehand (something low in carbs is necessary to avoid falling asleep), you were strongly encouraged to order your interval drinks right there as the intervals would be brief. I was wondering whether this contempt for the audience was part of the experience of the play. Naturally being presented with such recommendations I ignored them, although with hindsight making time for coffee during the brief intermissions might have been a smarter choice.

It could have been worse I suppose. A month or so back I received a worrying email from the theatre saying the play was going well over three hours and that you better not be expecting to get the last train home. Of course there always was the easy (and quite popular option if Friday night is anything to go by) of skipping the third act altogether. It was during the second act when the cat sex entered the story so perhaps these people were dog lovers. Still, as fascinating and rewarding as it was to see Miranda Richardson lick Shawn's bald head and Jennifer Tilly in her underwear, those people that missed these and other things in the third act, didn't really miss that much.

Monologues are interesting stuff when they are witty and unusual and have a new point to make but when it is just relentless cat sex it does just become a bit of a drag. My mind started wandering to thinking about the cat I used to torment when I was growing up that met a gruesome end from other cats in our neighbourhood. Or the cat that was nearly eaten by a friend's dog. Then there was the cat that ate the garlic prawns about to be served at dinner... It was only when the dialogue between the characters started happening in the third act that I snapped back into attention.

If the night was warmer and the play was duller I definitely would have left at the end of act two. Well summer is here and the pubs stay open longer now. Life is just too short to sit through something that could have been edited. But given the quality of the cast and the fact that the production was not that bad, curiosity did get the better of me. There was general agreement that the cast made it almost worth hanging around to see, but coffee would be advisable. All things being equal, it is probably worth seeing, but beware of the conversations that might ensue the morning after... It runs until the end of June...

Theatre: The Cherry Orchard

Thanks to the West End Whingers, I had long held a ticket to Tuesday night's preview of The Cherry Orchard. This was a show that Time Out listed this week as the one thing you should go and see. I always have relied on friends, bloggers or just passing people on the street to be slightly fashionable and this was no exception. I was lucky too as the play turned out to be a real treat.

Confusingly however, I had the play in my diary as the Bridge Project. Well that is the name of the co-production between the Old Vic, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Neal Street Productions, under the direction of Sam Mendes. The acting troupe including Simon Russell Beale, Ethan Hawke and Rebecca Hall will perform Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Shakespeare's The Winters Tale at the Old Vic over the summer here before continuing to various other locations around the world for the next two years. It has been described as a new model for theatrical productions , which hopefully does not turn out to be some sort of enslavement for actors. Afterall the works they are performing are not exactly light fare.

Having not seen Chekhov's play before, I found it all rather fascinating. There was something very appealing and topical about a play where unpaid mortgages and changing times were at the heart of the drama. The comedy of this play (if you believe the notes and other reviews) has been heightened and the long soliloquies many of the characters have to deliver were all rather imaginatively staged and delivered.

Of course it helped having Feigned Mischief sit beside me. As more than just a casual fan of Simon Russell Beale, she took enjoyment of the play to a whole new level. I wasn't too sure if she cared so much about Chekhov, but she was focussed on Simon's part. Actually I didn't mention it to her, but in a way I could appreciate what she likes about Simon. He he is a bit grrr woof (if you like that sort of thing). All of London who reads the Saturday Times have some idea of Feigned Mischief's devotion to SRB as well. She informed me that she is going quite a few more times to see both plays in the Bridge Project so your chances of seeing her at the Old Vic are probably quite good... But then again even if you're not sitting next to a Simon Russell Beale stalker, it is still worth a look...

Hot news this week in London...

Headline News, originally uploaded by SteveM51.

The third tube baby in history... Ew...