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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 ...

Movies: Wallace and Gromit

Caught the new Wallace and Gromit movie last night. As it had just come out (in time for the school holidays here) it was particularly popular with the punters. A wasn't sure about seeing such a high culture film but I suggested that since it is a hit in cinemas in several countries it could be considered to be selling British culture to the world.

Indeed there were a lot of typically British things on display including:
  • A passionate love for not killing animals
  • Overzealous gardening (and it all looked very organic)
  • Upper class twits and eccentric town folk
  • Edwardian terrace housing, and
  • The usual red telephone boxes and post boxes
So who could ask for anything more? On the downside the Odeon cinema where I saw it is such rubbish. It is only five minutes away so it is handy but it smells across between a toilet and a candy store. Indeed the threadbare carpet has a stickiness about it that makes you wonder about how it got that way. Perhaps children gorging on fruit pastilles vomited them up at various places.

The other downside to seeing it at the cinema was that you were inflicted with a very bad computer animation featuring penguins that apparently was a plug for the upcoming release of Madagascar on DVD. It was loud, noisy and looked like rubbish… I think one kid in the entire audience laughed at it (presumably she has special needs).

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