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Somewhere that's green: Potty the Plant at Wiltons Music Hall

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"I'm Potty the Plant," sings a potted plant in this odd little fringe concept of a show. It's hard not to get the tune out of your head, even if the show is brief. It's an earworm for a show that features a worm-like plant as a puppet. And given the show's brevity, running at only an hour, it's hard to get too annoyed by a lack of a coherent story, even if it still seems like the show could use a bit more development (which is underway). It has made its London debut at Wilton's Music Hall. The premise is that Potty, the plant, lives in the hospital office of Dr Acula (geddit?) and dreams of a life with the cleaning lady Miss Lacey (Lucy Appleton). But Dr Acula might be responsible for why all these children are disappearing while trying to romance Miss Lacey for her family's money that she doesn't have. Three nurses are on the case, trying to solve the mystery.  If the show settled on a convincing plot, location and set of characters, it could ...
Monster music on Good Friday: St Matthew Passion

Caught the (near) sell out concert of St Matthew Passion with the City of London Sinfonia and BBC Singers last night. Richard Hickox conducted, and the Evangelist was played by Tom Randle who was superb. The first time I had seen someone treat the role as though it was retelling a drama and not reciting an oracle (although the music at times does tend to lend itself to being the latter).

At three hours in length however it is a marathon effort - for the performers and the audience. It is one of those pieces that can work really well or fail spectacularly. I was in a performance of the latter once, so it was nice to see the former happen last night.

For those in the audience that didn't feel like DVT was setting in, they rewarded the performers with a raptuous applause. They had definitely earned it, and you could sense the relief in the faces of the orchestra members and chorus that it was over. They certainly earned their performance fees last night...

I found out when I got there that one could have stayed at home and listened to it on BBC Radio 3, but it is more fun being there live... Even with the possibility of DVT. Oh and last minute purchase of one of the few remaining seats meant I was surrounded by pensioners (and the curious smell of mothballs)... They never give you the demographics of who is sitting around you however when you book alas...

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