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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Theatre: Rock and Roll

Finally caught Tom Stoppard's play Rock 'N' Roll before it closes at the end of this month. It has been playing since last summer and has caught the imagination of the critics and the punters. The background of the story is the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia, and the links a family in Cambridge have to the country. The central message is that there is no freedom without creative freedom and that's something that I could agree with. There is a wonderful scene where an old British communist after the collapse of the old regimes in 1990 smashes a plate. Was it all just a waste of time? Or do the new democracies appreciate what they have more than those in the west? Who can say but plenty of food for thought...

The original cast have moved on but even with the second cast headed by Dominic West (who is terrific) kept the pace going, even when it was a bit on the long side. I get the impression that even though the play finishes its run in February, it's going to be around for some time...

Walking out of the theatre afterwards, there were plenty of people wondering what it was all about they had seen, not to mention where they were when they first heard the many music clips peppered throughout the production...

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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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