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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

'Tis the season...

After the Accentuate the Positive concert with the LGMC the opportunity arose this week to freeze one's ass (or arse) off in the Covent Garden Piazza singing Christmas carols. Have made mental note to always wear thermals in future, but it was a great way of getting into the festive spirit. And with the mulled wine and hot cider on offer in the square, it helped to keep warm and add to the heartiness of the singing...

Tuesday night's carols were quite eventful with one very straight drunk wanting to join the chorus and no security in sight. His mates were looking on laughing as he pushed his way in through to the front. He got through a full verse of Hark the Herald Angels sing before security finally realised he wasn't part of the tenor 1's. He was dragged out wailing he "jushwannadooshing". They weren't messing about the second time while we were singing ABBA's "Happy New Year". Some drunk queen in a long coat and scarf stopped and stood next to me for a brief moment. A brief moment was all it took for security to pounce on him and man-handle him off to the side as he cried, "But-ith-maa-favourite-song!"

As we finished our finally set Dave walked up to me. I was ignoring him as he looked like he was about to try and sell me a copy of The Big Issue, but instead he gave me a Christmas card addressed "to all the lovely singers on stage". The festive spirit was alive and well in Covent Garden that night...

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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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