News: That's cheap

And on email banter, all the news on Friday in London was about a senior Lawyer who asked a secretary to pay for his dry cleaning bill after she accidentally squirted ketchup on his suit. The story got out because he sent a reminder to her asking her for the £4, and she copied her response to him to many other colleagues. Those colleagues then forwarded it on to people, and then those people then forwarded it on and suddenly it is a hot story... Not as good as the infamous Claire Swires blowjob story from a few years back, but still a tad amusing

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Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

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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 understand the…
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Fluffing it: Rouge @Underbellyfest

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It's not enough for a circus act nowadays to offer a series of acrobatic feats. Nowadays, they are pushing all sorts of conventions. There's the all-male, the all-female, the all minimalist. Rouge is the all gender fluid pan-sexual circus for grown-ups who like a bit of everything. But only if that everything includes a little bit of nudity and a bit of mild titillation. 
The men wear eyeliner, the pairings are male-female, male-male and female-female.Strong female types abound throughout. It's a unique concept that's marred by its own timidity. It's currently playing at the Underbelly Festival on the Southbank.
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Nursing crisis: Persona @Riversidelondon

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There’s something reassuringly contemplative about Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. No matter what humdrum life you may be leading, at least you haven’t gone mute from too much acting. It’s not the only message to take away from this stage adaptation. Even when things seem lost in translation from screen to stage, the blurring of lines of the roles people play in life still resonates. It’s currently playing at the newly reopened Riverside Studios at Hammersmith.

The piece centres around a famous stage actress Elizabet (Nobuhle Mngcwengi), who has stopped speaking and appears to have had some form of breakdown. As part of her recuperation, she travels with a nurse (Alice Krige) to a remote summer beach house. Alone with the waves and silence, they both are left to recover.

Krige and Mngcwengi create an intimate and engaging portrayal of this ambiguous relationship between the actress and the nurse. Are the conversations real or imagined? Who is the patient and who is providing the treatment?…
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