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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 ...

The move is on...

I think it may be all sorted now, but this weekend I have been auditioning for a place to live. It is such a beauty contest where you have to show that you have personality yet are considerate in about half an hour. By Sunday I was over it.

For various reasons (and much to the horror of some northern friends) I have decided to go for "sarf London" rather than "noorf London". I don't get this divide based on the Thames. I have seen rubbish on either side of the Thames so I think it is all a bit silly.

Anyway, I did have the opportunity to live in the north but decided against it. There were two reasons: price and the most hideous shocking bathroom I have ever seen. It was a tough decision I could have lived in zone one near Kings Cross Station (an area Time Out recently described as "up and coming" so that counts for something surely) overlooking Regent's Canal. It was very quiet and not bad looking for a semi-industrial-ripe-for-regeneration area.

I could have also shared with a lovely butch lesbian from Adelaide and her kelpie. What was not going for it was that the landlady who owned the place must have done some heavy drugs when she decorated the bathroom. Rather than replace worn out tiles as they started to fall off she stuck circular mirrors and bubble glass on in such a haphazard manner that now the lot was cracking and falling off. Jagged and broken mirrors stuck out from the wall. The ceiling also had holes punched in it with bits of plasterboard dangling down, and poking through was what appeared to be Christmas tree lights. So for the price, I said no. I said no to the flat with the canal view and the lesbian and her dog as the landlord had fucked up the shower. There is a lesson in that for all of us I am sure…

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