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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging
Please Hello... After being in London for less than a month, one of the striking things is how uncultured the mass of the city is. Starbucks is on every corner serving bland coffee and styrofoam food. Deep pan pizza buffets are on every other corner serving stuff that wouldn't rate at a Sizzler restaurant back home. Fosters is a popular drink here and they have a special tap to generate an "artificial head" on the beer so it lasts while you finish it off. Ben Elton has a hit show with his stringing together of Queen songs into what is purported to be a musical , and he is about to do the same to Rod Stewart songs with the show Tonight's the night . Fortunately amongst all the trash in London, there are quite a few bright spots. One being the Donmar Warehouse . On Friday I saw their latest production, Pacific Overtures (a co-production with the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre ) and it was a knockout. A small all-male cast, a theatre in the round, and Sondheim
As luck would have it... I read in today's papers that I was a few minutes away from being stranded underground on my tube ride to Hampstead Heath. Darn missing out on that adventure ... The best commentary was a cartoon in tonight's Evening Standard where the station billboards stating when the next trains arriving were instead displaying "Next passenger... Joe Blogs 2 minutes, Mary Rose 3 minutes" and you could see these dirty people trundling out of a tunnel. Spin to the end... In a city desperate for news Alastair Campbell's resignation has filled the gap for now. Tony Blairs right hand man of spin was going to go anyway so it was not really a surprise... but the media to make a story started writing about why he went today instead of tomorrow for instance. The PR was that he wanted to spend "more time with his family". Such are the times we live in when such a noble cause is trotted out as an excuse when one's job situation is untena
Dark and Damp After staring at government files all day trying to put them in order I decided that despite the light drizzle, I would go for a walk around Hampstead Heath again. It was nice to walk in open spaces and a light rain (the first rain that has occurred since I have been here). Little did I know that the Underground was shutting down as I walked around taking in the open space. Well New York had its outage, it was time for London I guess to follow suit... While it is possible to walk home from Hampstead Heath, by the time I wanted to the light rain became a little less light than I was hoping for. Still I had some sense of direction so I just headed in that way. I could have pulled out my London A-Z but I thought I would keep walking for a bit and not try and stuggle in the rain with silly things like where I was heading. About 20 minutes later I realised that I had walked to South Hampstead when I really needed to go west. Fortunately I spotted a tube station
Safe at work and play... Working at Whitehall isn't all that bad... once you get used to the security procedures. It reminded me that yesterday after I strolled from Hyde Park back in the city and stumbled onto Grosvenor Square where the American Embassy was behind two layers of temporary fencing and a concrete barricade on the street. It would have made for a wonderful photo but I didn't know whether the guards with automatic weapons would have understood I was merely a tourist. Well I was struggling to work out where I was with a map but I wasn't so sure. The other thing I have been travelling around with is my Diesel side bag. It is quite useful for storing an A-Z map of London book, a cd player and my pocket computer or camera. Of course when it is stocked full of these goodies it has caused some guards to be slightly alarmed at what I was carring to make it looked so packed. How could I explain it was just a few maps and Ute Lemper? I plan to get a more se
A holiday comes to an end... Just when I was enjoying myself at the Science Museum and wandering through Hyde Park I am back at work again for the rest of the week. In the meantime I have posted the photos from my first three weeks . Select the link "Paul is in London" and you will get there.
Bank Holiday Weekend Regarded as the last gasp of the summer holidays, people use it as an excuse to get the hell out of town. By Friday night convoys of caravans and cars were clogging up all routes out of London. I didn't think it would be the best of weekends to go touristing so I decided to take in the city with Skye. This weekend huge sections of the National Rail were going to be closed for repairs but you could still be creative After Hamstead Heath on Saturday, on Sunday I went back to the Theatre Museum for a jazz concert with Rosemary George. Well it was jazz versions of broadway music so it was very sensible. Legendary reed player JD Parran was also there to accompany her and did a solo version of "My Favourite Things". It was a pity such a jazzy show was in such a stately room full of pensioners (and me) but you get that. The show went late after ending with the song Ain't misbehavin' (which I thought was very sensibly appropriate for
My first working week... My first working week ended with a whimper with the headache thing... But I had Friday off to do more of the job search thing. That bought about some more promising leads so I am optimistic there. But if all else fails... temping... while it doesn't pay so well... can cover the bills for the time being... After meeting some ex colleagues at the airport I caught my first London cab . As a bit of an aside, cabs like many things in London are such a scam here. While they are obliged to pick up people and take them where they want to go, when it is late at night the situation is different. Cabs will often not pick people up to take them home if they live on the opposite side of town to where they want to go. This has led to a proliferation of mini-cabs - both licensed and unlicensed - to fill the gap. It is an unfortunate problem that the unlicensed mini-cab drivers have been known to rape women trying to get home. But in a typical London re
Not last night I had a headache... I was going to update the blog last night after finishing my temp job for the week but Dame Fortune had other ideas. She gave me a headache so after taking two Mersyndol I was off in another calm and tranquil world... This calm and tranquil world was still in West Hampstead on a comfy couch but I was still in another world. But I digress... Theatre review * The Madness of George Dubbya was great. It was a mild satire at first, but by the second act it started to get really on the money. One of the highlights was the voiceover at the beginning: "This is a reminder that if you have a pager, cellphone or other device to please switch it ON during tonights performance. That way in the event of a terrorist attack on this theatre you will be able to send final messages to loved ones." It was interesting times to be watching a show that had Jasmina the cleaner as a Hammas suicide bomber cleaning a US Air Force Base in Britain. Tony
Who gives a shit about Lara? Tonight as I made my way through Leicester Square I found that I couldn't make my way through the square. There were barricades around a theatre. A movie theatre of course. Punters were out everywhere waiting for the premiere UK screening of the latest Lara Croft flick. The director was on the morning show this morning so the usual smoozing and PR is to take place. Alas cinema being at the forefront of our culture I guess this is what one has to put up with. You could say the square is a haven for shit flicks actually as apart from the Lara franchise at one of the theatres, there is the Terminator franchise at the theatre opposite and the Legally Blonde franchise at a theatre nearby. I sighed as I made my way to the TKTS booth to buy a ticket for the show The madness of George Dubbya ... A retake on Dr Strangelove apparently... Things I keep forgetting... is it jetlag? * I got a haircut on Friday. I no longer have tourist hair. But the
Streetlife and XXXX Things to do on a Saturday when you have time: *Visit the Royal Park at Greenwich and see your first squirrel. I had no idea that there were deer there however. There were thousands of people at the park but you would not have known it. One also took in the views from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich . On a clear day you really can see forever. Well at least past St Paul's Cathedral. * Spend time around and about Canary Wharf . Apart from the lovely tube stations in this part of the woods there were plenty of sensimible shops to have a wander and a browse through. Resisted the temptation to purchase anything for now but made a mental note to return. * Have a drink at The Gloucester at Greenwich... just because it was in the film Beautiful Thing . Also managed to pick up a copy of the Pink Pages which details sensible accomodation and jobs to look for... Other things to do on a Saturday: * Go with (straight) friends to Club Aquari