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...
Gods and Monsters , now playing at the Southwark Playhouse is a showcase of incredible performances from its terrific cast and an engaging story. Oh and there is a bit of full frontal nudity too. Based on the novel Father of Frankenstein (which was also the source material for the film of the same name ), the story is a blend of fact and fiction. Age, memory, fame, youth and loss collide in the story of the last few months in the life of English director James Whale. Whale director and creator of the first two Frankenstein films, had a moderately successful career in Hollywood which enabled him to live comfortably in Los Angeles. He was also openly gay. But following a series of strokes in his sixties, he lost his ability to prevent painful memories from his past flooding back. And without giving too much away, his most successful creation, the monster in Frankenstein, seems to become something far more personal.
I found myself at my local theatre, The Finborough Theatre in Earls Court, watching a play called Local. This is a play about childhood memories, home in the North, and belonging. But when you live between towns, cities or countries even, perhaps you never feel at home in any of them. Welcome to the life of an outsider, not a local. And this is at the heart of Liz Richardson’s solo show about growing up in West Cumbria and how returning home, meeting again people from her past. We go with her on a journey to discover who she is and where she is going. It’s currently playing at the Finborough after touring Cumbria and other parts of England. Richardson takes us on an engrossing and personal journey as she opens the show. Who she is and where she was from was how she always introduced herself. Except that she never said that she was from West Cumbria , but from the much nicer sounding Lake District . Ooooooooooh. Well she admits she was always a storyteller, and a life as a writer in th...
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...