Idle Chatter at Tescos

Checkout lady (scanning Paul's shopping): They found another body...
Paul: Did they? You mean a fourth?
Checkout lady: No a third*... She had been sssstrrrangled.
Paul: Oh
Checkout lady: You got club card?

* The conversation took place before the news that two more bodies had been found in Suffolk today...

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David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House.

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The Flies at The Bunker theatre is a chance for production company Exchange Theatre - which specialises in translating plays for English audiences - to return to the piece that put them on the map. With live music, video and eye-catching design, it’s an ambitious piece. But it seemed to miss any sense of drama. And it’s star actor Meena Rayann was off too.

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The latest instalment of the Up series landed this week. It tracks the lives of a bunch of unrepresentative British people every seven years. Fascinating in its ordinariness and irritating by director Michael Apted's random and pompous commentary, it was on my mind as I was watching Country Music. It's a much more subtle exploration on how people change over time. Or at least your perception of them. And how your life can be shaped from your early years in ways you can never appreciate. It's currently playing at the Omnibus Theatre.

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