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Ruthless People: Ruthless - Arches Lane Theatre

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What is it about the Madoff’s that writers can’t resist writing about? Sure, it may have been the largest Ponzi scheme to collapse (so far), but there isn’t much more to explore. Or is there? In Ruthless by writer Roger Steinmann, Ruth Madoff is imagined as a wronged, gun-toting woman anchored in the past while trying to move on with her life. It’s not entirely successful but a fascinating look at life and wig choices, It’s currently playing at the theatre now known as the Arches Lane Theatre in Battersea. Ruth Madoff, played by Emily Swain, is here wearing a wig. I thought it was an odd look until I reviewed how closely it matched the photo of her interview in  The New York Times .  Typically, it’s the sort of wig you might see worn by Ladies on a night out in central London, not someone who once had over $80m in assets. With Bernie in Jail and both her sons now dead - one by suicide and one due to cancer, she is setting a table for the men who have left her. And ordering p...

Things I have not covered

While waiting for broadband to be connected by Wanadoo (I have been waiting six weeks now), I can confirm that I have yet to cover
  • Seeing Stockard Channing and Aiden Quinn in The Exhonerated. It has an extended run at Riverside studios with a revolving cast. They were fantastic. A brilliant play which is staged as a simple reading telling the true tales of people wrongly sentenced to death in America.
  • Going to the Australian Film Festival at the Barbican and seeing "The Illustrated Family Doctor", "Opal Dream" and "Three Dollars". Of the three, Opal Dream is worth catching. It is set in Cooper Pedy and actually paints the town as a nice place so it was a monumental feat of film-making and storytelling there.
  • Caught Capote which was another great film. After seeing the film one should try to speak for as long as possible like Truman Capote until it drives you and your friends insane. I think it should be a new game.
  • I have written another dirty letter to Wanadoo. I used bigger words like "incompetent" and "fools" and "fraudsters" - sometimes in the same sentence! Can't wait to read what their reaction will be. Pity that I have to still pay for their rubbish service, but we'll see.

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