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Iron Maidens: Iron Fantasy at Soho Theatre

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Two women chase the elusive six-pack in Iron Fantasy, only to embark on an unexpected journey exploring what it truly means to be strong in today’s world. In a culture that demands visible strength and power, they subject themselves to lifting, protein powder-guzzling, and raw-egg drinking. Interestingly, consuming raw eggs elicited many squeamish reactions from members of the audience. None has obviously been to Cabaret to see Sally Bowles guzzle prairie oysters. But in the search for the attributes that make someone strong, a little more is revealed about being a young woman in the modern world. And that strength comes from a number of ways. It’s currently playing at the Soho Theatre .  It’s part performance, part musical, and part interviews, as writer-performers Shamira Turner and Eugénie Pastor, who make up the theatre performance duo She Goat, don a variety of silly costumes and play a range of musical instruments on their journey researching strength, fighting, and pumping i...

Opera: Parsifal



Wednesday night was an opportunity to catch the ENO's Parsifal. This 1999 co-production with San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera, Chicago and is purportedly the last time it will be staged. There are seven more performances to go.

Directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, What makes the opera a standout is the brilliant staging and imaginative English translation. This translation transforms this production and keeps things moving at such a pace you won't realise you have been there for over four hours. On top of this there is such spectacle at times it is almost hypnotic.

A stunning cast includes John Tomlinson as Gurnemanz, Australian tenor Stuart Skelton as Parsifal and Jane Dutton as Kundry. Mark Wigglesworth conducts.

Wagner is still an acquired taste, but this probably goes some way to make this work accesible (and palatable). Leave work early and go. There are greater powers at stake.

Initial 'boo raves and reactions as follows:
Listen!

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