Scenes from Charing Cross Tube Northern Line Wednesday 21:37. A slight modification to the station artwork involving a badly drawn iPOD. Then again, no Londoner should be without one...
A show with a title called Derrière on a G String conjures up all sorts of expectations about the type of smut that you might encounter. And what flesh might be on display by some unsuspecting performers. But fortunately, we’re at the Kings Head Theatre in Islington, not some seedy location elsewhere in London, so there isn’t much to fear. What we have is a mostly silly dance-and-movement spectacle set to classical music. If there is a way to describe the piece, it would be: a day in the life of a young man (played by Sammy Moore), surrounded by his friends, told through dance and movement and comic sketches. There’s waking up in the morning and getting to work, waiting for a bus, builders on a construction site, swimmers getting a bit frolicsome, and party goers getting nasty. Things take an interesting turn with ladies shaving in the bathroom and men tap dancing while farting. It all is done in the best possible taste, with only the occasional flash of a buttock. Moore has a na...
Giffords Circus tours England annually and has arrived in Chiswick for the next week with its current show, Waterfield. Some circuses nowadays are stripped-down affairs focusing on a few circus elements or minimising costumes. In contrast, this show takes the old-time circus and gives it a modern twist. There’s wonder and whimsy, incredible costumes and staging, plus some spectacular acrobatic acts. The show is set to music performed by a live band, with an eclectic set of songs sung by Jenna Dearness-Dark. It feels both familiar and new at the same time. Animals are part of the performance, including a goose that spreads its wings on command. What’s not to like? The show is simply irresistible. The mood is set as you arrive. After passing under the A4 and entering Chiswick House and Garden via a nondescript car park, you are instantly transported. The dystopian, traffic-clogged London suburb becomes another time and place. Reddish circus wagons ring a large tent. Music plays. A c...
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue . Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple. The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...