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Eyes, hair, mouth: Darkie Armo Girl at Finborough Theatre

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Darkie Armo Girl, Karine Bedrossian’s electrifying one-woman show, commands attention from the moment it begins. First performed in 2022 and revived last year, it now returns for extra performance and it's an event not to miss. The show takes you through the thrills and horrors of a hectic life. She struts, shimmies, and taunts while revealing some horrific truths. She is such an irresistible storyteller that you find yourself hooked. The story is one of fame, glamour, abuse, self-harm, and suicide. If that subject matter doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you haven't seen it delivered with such high energy and provocation. It's currently at the Finborough Theatre . The show's title refers to a slur a popular girl at school once called her. Her ancestry is Armenian, and her parents were from Cyprus, where they fled the civil war and arrived in the UK with nothing. Shortly after she was born in Roehampton. The birth was an emergency C-section that left the baby and ...

Scenes from Buckingham Palace Saturday 16:03. Just who are these two gentlemen in white? Rumour has it that they went to Buckingham Palace in their white wardrobe to see the special exhibition of Queen Elizabeth's (later the Queen Mother's) White Wardrobe. While their clothing isn't exactly Norman Hartnell it is amazing how the one of the right is wearing a black sash just like the Queen did on her tour to France in 1938 (although the fact that it is a black Kipling bag is beside the point)...

The summer opening of Buckingham Palace (which runs through to 27 September) was a chance to see the State Rooms of the palace as well. There is a sense of the dramatic in the design of some of these rooms along with a great sense of history. The state rooms are a mixed bag of grand stately design and over the top dramatics but it all seems to work rather well. Besides it is a fabulous location with a rather grand backyard (where the above photograph was taken). One also got to see some of the secret passageways that connect the state rooms to the private residences.

The actual White Wardrobe exhibit was a bit of a disappointment with only a handful of dresses on display and a few of the gifts. It would have been much more interesting to have a more substantial collection of the dresses to reflect the style of what she wore, and how this became her signature look etc etc but it wasn't to be. Instead it was just a few moth-eaten silks and sequins from the 1938 visit. Oh well, museum curators the organisers are not... The rest of the tour was interesting enough anyway.

As one leaves the section of the grounds you are permitted to walk in you have the chance to purchase royal ice creams and buy trinkets in the royal shop (a copy of a copy of a copy of royal plate anyone?). Along the walk A kept pointing out to anybody who looked in our general direction we were wearing our white wardrobe... So much for the subtle joke.

Oh and one was not the illegal immigrant arrested on the grounds on Saturday either. We paid to get in...
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