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Still here: While They Were Waiting - Upstairs At The Gatehouse

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As the song goes, time heals everything. Or as another song says, it's time after time. Yet waiting—for a moment, a minute, or even a while—can feel like a chore. In Gary Wilmot’s slightly absurd and silly While They Were Waiting, the focus is on waiting and wordplay. No opportunity is missed to find more than one meaning in what is said. A debate arises about the difference between a smidge and a whisker. There's a playful riff on how you can be here and over there at the same time, depending on your standpoint. If this piece has a point at all, it depends on what you find funny. The concept of waiting-related language is, in itself, amusing, and there is plenty to laugh about in this show. It’s currently playing at Upstairs at the Gatehouse . The premise is simple: Mulbery (Steve Furst) arrives for an appointment and is kept waiting. What the appointment is for, we are not clear about but he is waiting for a yellow door to open. Nobody answers when he rings. He’s joined by th...

Out and about: British Museum

British Museum South African GardenA trip to the British Museum this week to see the Masterpieces from the Uffizi Gallery (and the Museum too) is a pleasant enough diversion for an overcast day and an opportunity to brush up on 500 years of drawing and making paper... There are so many drawings that it is difficult at times to concentrate in the low light of the library reading room in the museum... It is there until July.

Also in the museum grounds there is the South African landscape with its mass plantings of colourful Cape Daisies and rather interesting-looking quiver trees. It is there until October.

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