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Bit parts: Garry Starr Performs Everything @swkplay

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Garry Starr Performs Everything is a bare-bones (and bare buttocks) tribute to the theatre. Theatre may be in trouble, and audiences are down, but Garry Starr aims to save the theatre and bring back to the masses every style of theatre possible. As long as each style involves wearing a transparent white leotard or a skimpy thong. And tassels. It's part comedy, part physical comedy and part perv at Gary's physical prowess. The sentiment "if you've got it, flaunt it" applies here. So here we are with a show that has been around for some years and is having its first proper London run at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) through Christmas. The premise is that Garry Starr (played by Damien Warren-Smith) has left the Royal Shakespeare Company over artistic differences. He is now on a mission to save the theatre from misrepresentation and worthy interpretations by doing things such as a two-minute Hamlet, recreating scenes from a Pinter play using unsuspecting audience

Film: The Queen

Today I caught the movie The Queen which is about that rather unusual period in 1997 when Princess Diana was killed in a car crash and the attempts of the new PM Mr Blair to get the monarch to understand the mood of the public. It was quite an extraordinary film and very well written. While it may not have happened in the way it is presented, the cleverness of the film is that it makes you think the dialogue is believable. Apparently it has used a mix of corroboration from close sources in both camps with a healthy bit of speculation. But at its heart is a great play between two figures of power dealing with change (intercut with real footage of the huge outpouring of grief at the time).

Michael Sheen, who has already played Blair (and Kenneth Williams) in TV dramas, again shows his versatility recreating those heady days of the New Labour era when there wasn't any Iraq, Lebanon or backbenchers passing notes... But Helen Mirren in the title role doesn't quite so much act as channel ER in this film. Actually discussing it later with Ad we agreed that to play the Queen all you needed to do was walk around Balmoral as if you needed a hip replacement and speak slowly and end your sentences on an inflection such as "One does think that would be appro... priate, don't you Mr Blair?" Be careful though, if you are not a trained and brilliant actor like Mirren you could end up sounding like Donald Pleasance as Blofeld... Anyway, definitely a film worth catching...

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Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

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Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
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