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The agony and the misogyny: Banging Denmark @finborough

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Banging Denmark, the comic play by Van Badham, answers the question, what lengths does a misogynistic pickup artist go to date with a frosty Danish librarian? It may be an uneasy farce given the subject matter, but it is made more palatable by the cast assembled to convince you of it. It's currently having its European premiere at the Finborough Theatre .  It opens with Guy DeWitt (Tom Kay) at one end of the stage. His real name is Jake, and he's a part-time podcaster whose expertise is misogyny and playing the role of the pickup artist. That is, someone who attempts to coax women into having sex with a mix of flattery or manipulation. His podcast attracts a variety of involuntarily celibate men (or incels), so call in asking for advice. And while he gives the impression of living the high life, he is in a grimy flat strewn with empty pizza boxes.  At the other end of the stage is feminist academic Ishtar (Rebecca Blackstone). She lives out of the photocopy room, losing all her
Things about interviews
* They are a great way to see parts of London you wouldn't think of travelling to (Enfield yesterday, today it was Lewisham)
* They offered me the job from yesterday even though I told them in a roundabout way I was lousy for the job (hey honesty must count, or maybe I was too roundabout)
* I am still happy where I am for now...


BBC Radio 4

After hearing a few weeks ago that you could apply online to get tix to BBC shows - and they were free - I spent an evening applying for anything and everything. My efforts paid off and in the mail I got tix to a recording tonight of The Now Show. It was at the Drill Hall where I had been to see the True or Falsetto show a few weeks back. Not having listened to much radio in the nine weeks I have been here now I had no idea what it was about. So tonight I discovered:
* It is a comedy show based on current affairs / current events similar to the "Good News Week"
* BBC Radio 4 is for slightly-liberal middle-class intelligensia types who like to talk about issues in moderately-priced restaurants. They must be mainly white too (certainly if the audience was anything to go by)
* Political satire is still alive and well in Britain. And some of it was surprisingly good. The best bit was their sketch on WMD in the vein of looking for the pellet with the potion by following the tank tracks for anthrax and so on and so on.
* Only half the jokes went over my head so I must be keeping up with the latest here
* The studio audience was full of "Now Show devotees" who knew all the cues and the set pieces.

Housekeeping...

Darn I forgot to mention...
* Last Thursday I went out to Heathrow to say farewell to Dr T. It marked 8 weeks since I had arrived at Heathrow so I tried to get something out of that.
* Sunday night I stayed in and watched my very first episode of Coronation Street. Why? Well there was this matter of the first ever gay kiss on the show. It was a bit of an anti-climax to say the least. It was more of a stolen peck. And having to sit through 25 minutes of the show to see it just before the credits came up made me wonder about the Coronation Street and Eastender marathons they show on the weekends... How can people sit through 5 episodes back to back???
* This week the Conservatives have met in Blackpool for their annual conference. Their leader Iain Duncan Smith (who the press call IDC in the headlines which is a rather unfortunate TLA as it sounds like some sort of contraceptive to me) told the Tories today that he has delivered. What he has delivered is anyone's guess. The real opposition to Tony Blair's New Labour is the various other groups within Labour. Poor old IDC has a hard time getting his message across while his partyroom is making no secret about dumping him for somebody else. Anybody else!!
* Freakshows abound now David Blaine is starving in a perspex box near Tower Bridge. This week another freak Derren Brown played Russian Roulette on C4. The catch was that the gun was switched and was fake. But debate ensued. Coronation Street was looking good by midweek!

It might be a good idea to get out of Haringey this weekend as England will be playing Turkey in the Euro 2004 qualifying match. With threats for the players safety and everything else that goes with Turkey - and football / soccer - added intrigue came this week when star player Rio Ferdinand was excluded after failing a random drugs test. The rest of the team were going to strike.

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