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A night at the opera: That Bastard Puccini! (Park Theatre)

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It’s hard to imagine that it’s only been 130 years since Puccini first premiered La Boheme. Nowadays, it’s a revered classic, and guaranteed to be on any opera company's annual programme if it needs to stay afloat. It’s a crowd pleaser with its melodrama of poor, impoverished artists loving, starving and dying in Paris. But Puccini’s La Boheme had a less auspicious beginning, with one of his contemporaries accusing him of stealing his idea and being poorly received on its first outing. And that’s at the heart of That Bastard Puccini! Currently playing at Park Theatre , writer James Inverne uses the friendship and rivalry between the two composers, Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo, to weave a comic tale of creative frustration with an awful lot of facts and tidbits about the opera scene at the time. It’s part comedy, part music appreciation.  It opens with Leoncavallo (Alasdair Buchan) at home with his wife Berthe (Lisa-Anne Wood), cursing about Puccini’s latest work, which is drawn ...

Life in London: stalking spring joggers in spandex

Springtime for Lycra #3There is always the thrill of the first sunny and warm day of the year. Sunday just past was that sort of day. As temperatures hit above fifteen degrees celsius, people took to the parks and the streets to enjoy the great outdoors.

And joggers took to the streets to celebrate... Wearing their best synthetic fibres... Shorts and t-shirts were curiously absent.




Springtime for Lycra #2

Springtime for Lycra #1

I am currently restricted to walking so could not keep up with the stalking... But whether it was some reticence over if the temperatures really were warm enough to show bare flesh (or just that there are some good deals out there for leggings), runners dressed in near superhero-like outfits is a trend around town that would be interesting to see more of in the coming months... And not just next week for the marathon...


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