Featured Post

Death becomes her: A Brief List Of Everyone Who Died @finborough

Image
For a natural process, death is not a topic that comes up naturally for people. We ask how people are doing but expect the response to be “I’m great”, not “I’m not dead yet”. And so for the main character in A Brief List of Everyone Who Died, Graciela has a death issue. Starting with when she was five and found out only after the matter that her parents had her beloved dog euthanised. So Graciela decides that nobody she loves will die from then on. And so this piece becomes a fruitless attempt at how she spends her life trying to avoid death while it is all around her. It’s currently having its world premiere  at the Finborough Theatre . As the play title suggests, it is a brief list of life moments where death and life intervene for the main character, from the passing of relatives, cancer, suicides, accidents and the loss of parents. Playwright Jacob Marx Rice plots the critical moments of the lives of these characters through their passing or the passing of those around them. Howeve
Housekeeping and the Weekend

No computer set up at home yet, so have done this update from an internet cafe on the Strand. Oh well, it's nice to get out on a Sunday evening... Even if nobody else does!

I will look back at this weekend and think of the fabulous things that could have been done such as:
* Russian Orchestra at the Barbican
* Walk through the Heath in the light snow
* Take coffee throughout Bloomsbury
* Major blockbuster Turner, Whistler and Monet at the Tate

But no, instead I cleaned the old flat at West Hampstead and after downsizing (ie throwing lots of things out or giving them to Charity) I moved everything else into my new place in Bloomsbury. It was exhausting. You don't want to be carrying an ironing board, two boxes of books and clothes and a wheelie suitcase everyday on the Thameslink. It didn't help that this weekend the Jubilee Line was out for engineering works either. There is no dignity when moving on the cheap. By the time I got to Kings Cross I decided to catch a cab for the rest of the journey home.

We will find out tomorrow during the flat inspection whether we get our (or rather mostly my) bond back, minus the next two weeks...

The rubbish real estate agents hinted that we could get out by 1 March and they would move somebody in from that date but it turns out that they will stick to our six week agreement as they are having trouble moving new people in... Maybe that is because:
* The place was built using dodgy offcuts of wood
* The roof in the kitchen wasn't fitted correctly so now it leaks and is home to several types of mould
* The living area doesn't get much natural light and has curiously unusual corners and dips in the floor
* The neighbor sounds like she is a hooker who gets bitch-slapped every other night
* Homeless men shit outside your place (but I covered that in October)
* Winter is a bit of a slow time anyway

Well hey... Its only money...

News: Oscar Oscar Zzz

Will probably fall asleep tonight watching the Oscars, which has to be better than Temazapan. They are broadcast on the BBC which is a bit unfortunate as they have to find something to fill the regular 3 minute commercial breaks. If last year was any measure of a guide they had Jonathan Ross and other film aficionados smugly commenting on the proceedings while drinking champers. It was excrutiating. So much ado about over paid surgery enhanced actors. Good to read that Awards fatigue is setting in...

New place, New stuff

On the plus side, after getting another one of those fabulous coffees near me, I spent early this afternoon getting some new stuff for my room to make it just so. It now is just so right...

New places: Planet Organic

I now live just around the corner from a Planet Organic so yesterday I thought I would give it a try as it is always busy when I walk by it.

The coffee wasn't so great for something organic and the cafe seemed to be frequented mostly by middle aged women and youngish-scruffy-pasty-white men with bad sinuses. The fact that I could fit into that latter cohort was not lost on me. Was the organic life me, or was I just having a bad hair day and not giving a shit about what I was wearing??

Anyway rather than dwell on this too much, I drank organic coffee, ate my organic muffin and after purchasing an organic cucumber for twice the Gross National Product of New Zealand, I left.

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...

Ramin Karimloo: the unstoppable beast

Image
Iranian-Canadian musical theater actor Ramin Karimloo is known for his work in the West End, performing in The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables, as well as debuting the role of the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera sequel, Love Never Dies. Recently he finished a run playing Valjean in Les Miserables on Broadway and gained attention for not just his vocals but his physical strength. He is back in London and getting ready for a show (tonight) at the Palladium on 16 July. Later in the year he will be joining Victoria Hamilton-Barritt and Kerry Ellis in UK premiere of the off-Broadway musical Murder Ballad at the Arts Theatre. The Palladium show will be another opportunity to see Ramin and his band mix country and bluegrass with musical theatre (and vice-versa), after sellout shows at Islington’s Union Chapel in January. I sat down with Ramin shortly after his return to London. We talked about the shows, his fitness regime and how he is looking for a goo
Read more...