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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

Music: Out of the Piano

It's been a busy week with Seven Deadly Sins at the Roundhouse, but in amongst all the rehearsals I did get a chance to see the third Tim Williams Award for musical composition. It is a competition that presented 21 news compositions to lyrics taken from classical or established text, performed by various West End and sensible professionals...

While 21 new compositions are bound to be a mixed bag, there were a few rough diamonds in here... The winning song by Christopher Hamilton called Burn and performed by Diannne Pilkington was one of those rare moments that just surprised the audience and had us bursting with laughter.

There is a full podcast of the show on Musical Talk, or just some silly post show banter (much shorter too) from Audioboo... The next awards are in October. Here's hoping there are more comic songs... We can do with the laughs...

Listen!

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Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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