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Wine time: The Frogs - Southwark Playhouse

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For a show called The Frogs, there isn’t much amphibian activity in the piece. But being a show with music by Stephen Sondheim, you could be mistaken for thinking it’s a critical theatrical piece. But like Sondheim’s final musical playing at the National Theatre, while it may not be a musical that fills you with provocative thoughts, it’s a fast-paced romp through hell and back to save the world for the sake of arts. With rousing choruses, thrilling choreography and plenty of cheap laughs, what more can you want from the theatre? It’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) . There isn’t much to the plot, except that Dionysus (Dan Buckley), disillusioned by the state of a divided world, and his sidekick and slave, Xanthias (Kevin McHale), cross the river Styx to the underworld to find a great writer who they can return to the world to teach the world about life. He has his mind set on bringing back George Bernard Shaw until he hears the poetry of Shakespeare.  This v...
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Art, death and decay: Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum

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The British Museum's Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum is a wonderful way to start to appreciate the richness and beauty that has been uncovered from these two ancient towns. Over 250 artifacts, some which have never ventured out of Italy are on display and attempt to piece together the ordinary life of the Roman home and the people who lived in them. There are the obligatory pieces of information that explain the eruption, how it engulfed the cities and how those who were not able to flee died. But what is more interesting than the plaster casts and the bone fragments  as others have noted is how you can see firsthand the various lost art forms from the Roman Empire that were rediscovered and reinterpreted from the Renaissance onwards.
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Out and about: British Museum

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A 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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Scenes from the British Museum Saturday

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Scenes from the British Museum Saturday , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Hmm... Nice golden ass ...
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