Featured Post

Love is all you need: The Island @cervantesthtr

Image
A drama set on the seventh floor of a non-descript hospital waiting room may not be everyone's idea of a great night at the theatre. But love and all other forms of the human condition are dissected in Juan Carlos Rubio's The Island. Translated by Tim Gutteridge, it feels like everything is up for grabs. What is love? Is it a bond between two women with a fifteen-year age gap? Is it the love between a mother and her son with a severe unknown disability? A wonderful life full of health and happiness is not always an option on the menu, and the choices may become a bit less palatable. Throughout a series of sometimes banal conversations, what comes out is a story of two women with lives that are separate and together. And while the piece becomes darker on one level as it progresses, it never ceases to fascinate and draw further insights into the couples. It's currently playing at the Cervantes Theatre .  A couple waits in a hospital waiting room for the outcome of an accident
Bang, crash etc...

Guy Fawkes night isn't so much of a night anymore but it is a season. Especially since November 5 is a Wednesday, and due to the fact that an Indian / Asian festival event also falls around this time, the nights over the past few weeks have been full of bangs and pops. Walking home from my bus stop at Haringey the other night I heard an explosion. As I looked I saw the tell-tale cloud of smoke from yet another banger gone off. Since the UK isn't a nanny-state like Australia all that seems fine and dandy with the punters. People are free to blow whatever they like up... Of course there are also the official bangs and pops on the usual river barges and parks sponsored by insert name of company or local government borough. But the odd banger on the street is much more interesting... even if it is at 3am

Tube glorious tube

One of the nicest things about working where I am (well for the next two weeks now) is the nearest station. Public works here in London aren't like those horrible things they toss together back home. When your stations look like this it does make going to work that more enjoyable. Southwark station did win a design award in 2000 as well.

South Miss Tessmacher

After working on the southbank for three weeks, on November 17 I will move further south to take up a new job... the usual reasons apply (a change is as good as a holiday and (lots) more £££). I start my new job in Peckham which is part of Southwark.

I may also be moving to a studio on Finchley Road. This is sort of south west from Haringey. If this goes to plan it will all happen from this Saturday.


Your just damn irritating neighborhood Spiderman

First it was Batman and Robin on top of the courts. Now it is Spiderman on top of tower bridge. You could be forgiven there is something about that area that just needs to have a local idiot and since David Blaine moved out last month it hasn't been as much of a tourist attraction. The police have closed the bridge however so it is more of an incovenience than an attraction. Spiderman is up there because the courts won't allow access to his three year old daughter. Oh and spiderman is her favorite superhero...

Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial security
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...