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High anxiety: Collapse - Riverside Studios

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It’s a brave or maybe slightly provocative production to use Hammersmith Bridge on their artwork for a show called Collapse, which is about how everything collapses—poorly maintained bridges, relationships, and jobs. Nothing works. That’s probably too close to home for Hammersmith residents stuck with a magnificently listed and useless bridge on their front door. It gets even weirder when you realise the piece is staged in what looks like a meeting room with a bar. However, keeping things together in the most unlikely of circumstances is at the heart of Allison Moore's witty and engaging four-hander, which is currently having a limited engagement at Riverside Studios . The piece opens with Hannah (Emma Haines) about to get an injection from her husband (Keenan Heinzelmann). They’re struggling for a baby, and he’s struggling to get out of bed. But he managed to give her a shot of hormones before she started worrying about the rest of the day. She’s unsure she will keep her job with ...

Staycation: The Cotswolds

Ladies of Gloucester...

Last weekend I ventured out of London to the Cotswolds for the first time. The Cotswolds seems to consist of many cute little towns that all look the same and that offer an array of antiques, clothing for  the elderly and places to eat lunch. It is all rather civilised. Lunch in the Cotswolds turned out to be a very cruel sport. Establishments were either offering a one hour wait, or menu boards outside saying they were full and didn't want you approaching them. Once inside one of these sought after establishments, no menu could be considered complete without deep fried brie and some form of lasagne. With menus like that on offer it was no surprise everywhere we turned we saw fat people, such as Gloucester at sunset...

Incidentally, the trip to Gloucester was accidental after being frightened out of Cheltenham by chain restaurants and loose women amongst the regency terraces. It was a chance to take in the cathedral, the various shopping arcades built circa 1970/1980, and a rather good Nepalise / South Indian restaurant, Hilltop, which we found using a combination of the Tripadvisor app and iPhone navigation... Eventually...

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