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High anxiety: Collapse - Riverside Studios

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It’s a brave or maybe slightly provocative production to use Hammersmith Bridge on their artwork for a show called Collapse, which is about how everything collapses—poorly maintained bridges, relationships, and jobs. Nothing works. That’s probably too close to home for Hammersmith residents stuck with a magnificently listed and useless bridge on their front door. It gets even weirder when you realise the piece is staged in what looks like a meeting room with a bar. However, keeping things together in the most unlikely of circumstances is at the heart of Allison Moore's witty and engaging four-hander, which is currently having a limited engagement at Riverside Studios . The piece opens with Hannah (Emma Haines) about to get an injection from her husband (Keenan Heinzelmann). They’re struggling for a baby, and he’s struggling to get out of bed. But he managed to give her a shot of hormones before she started worrying about the rest of the day. She’s unsure she will keep her job with ...
At a Covent Garden ball last night:

Speaker: Ladies and Gentlemen, given the events of Thursday we had contemplated canceling tonight... But given the prevailing mood in London... (the room erupts into cheers).

I went with A to the ball which had a burlesque theme. That basically meant there were lots of tits with tassels, which anybody I think can enjoy. After a vodka and orange and a bottle of cheap white wine (that wasn't so cheap) good times were ensued. During the course of the evening a photograph was taken of me involving two ladies, a whip, a paddle and A. It was nothing like it suggests however... There were also boys in period costume selling bamboo folding fans so I bought one of those. One lady commented that it appeared only the men were using these frilly little fans. Well, it was one of those sort of evenings.

As I was wearing some rough denim and A was wearing leather trousers I did suggest that we could spend the rest of the night in some interesting bars around town, but we decided against this in the end. Besides, neither of us had the moustache (real or otherwise) to carry that look...

After the ball I was going to catch up with M1 and M2 for a drink, but they cancelled. They live near Manor House tube on the Piccadilly line which is now indefinitely closed. A 20 minute journey into central London would now take almost an hour if they caught the bus. I guess the city isn't as easy (or as convenient) to get around as it used to be.

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