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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 ...
Just another Summer Saturday in London

Today was one of those days when you could have:
  1. Seen the women's final at Wimbledon (assuming that you had tickets)
  2. Gone to Live 8 at Hyde Park (assuming you won tickets on the mobile phone lottery)
  3. Participated in the London Pride (assuming you were a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person)
I went the third one of these. There hadn't been so many gay men in central London since yesterday, but that didn't stop anybody having a good time. I wasn't planning on taking part in the actual march from Hyde Park to Victoria Embankment, but A convinced me to do so and before I knew it I was walking up Piccadilly getting applause (which is something that you don't get everyday).

There was an interesting part near Pall Mall as well where anti-gay protestors had placards saying something about sodomites. A and his friends asked what we should be doing at this point and I said we should just do what everybody else was doing: make impolite gestures with our middle finger and shout "motherfuckers". We did. And it was such fun. It was probably the most sensible debate to have with these people.

I didn't really spot any celebrities unless you count rights campaigner Peter Tatchell as one. He has to be admired for his passion on issues and his attempt to make a citizens arrest on despot Mugabe, even though he is a tad left on the political spectrum...

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