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Wine time: The Frogs - Southwark Playhouse

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For a show called The Frogs, there isn’t much amphibian activity in the piece. But being a show with music by Stephen Sondheim, you could be mistaken for thinking it’s a critical theatrical piece. But like Sondheim’s final musical playing at the National Theatre, while it may not be a musical that fills you with provocative thoughts, it’s a fast-paced romp through hell and back to save the world for the sake of arts. With rousing choruses, thrilling choreography and plenty of cheap laughs, what more can you want from the theatre? It’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) . There isn’t much to the plot, except that Dionysus (Dan Buckley), disillusioned by the state of a divided world, and his sidekick and slave, Xanthias (Kevin McHale), cross the river Styx to the underworld to find a great writer who they can return to the world to teach the world about life. He has his mind set on bringing back George Bernard Shaw until he hears the poetry of Shakespeare.  This v...
One houseguest or two

My flatmate R has a friend staying over for the week. He is English but lives in Barcelona as a lifestyle choice. He is a great houseguest however as already it has only been a day and he has cleaned out the cupboards and fixed the blockage in the bathroom sink. If only all houseguests could be so useful...

Anyway, he brought with him some chorizo sausage from Spain which he left hanging in the lounge room. Sunday evening he awoke to hear the sounds of something chomp chomping into his sausage - and not in a good way. Our resident rat had found it and somehow managed to eat half the thing.

Last night as the event was described to me as an unwelcome visitor I was wondering whether it was one of R's gentlemen callers that were quite interested in a bit of Spanish sausage. They have been known to come around for a bite at 3am and again at 5am. But when it was clarified it was a caller of the ratty kind it all made sense. I had thought it had been a case of all quiet on the rodent front for some time but there is nothing like an old building and a bit of sausage to tempt the critters out.

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