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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Previews: It curtains with Ron Arad’s Curtain Call this summer

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Bloomberg Summer at The Roundhouse returns for its fifth year this August with Curtain Call by architect and designer Ron Arad. It is a return performance of this piece after its original outing in 2011. This time around Arad will reinvent the curtain experience by inviting new collaborators to work with him on the 360° immersive installation, alongside returning artists from 2011. The work will be showcased at the Roundhouse from 6 – 29 August 2016.

Architecture and Art: Summer Pavilion at the Serpentine

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This year's summer pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery is a hot noisy affair... Imagine a spaceship has landed in Kensington Garden (albeit one made out of wood) and is about to take off with various plant samples... While Peter Zumthor may have had in mind a tranquil garden and oasis from the rest of the park, in reality the noise is just amplified to unbearable levels with the hoards of people inside. And on a warm day it just feels so much warmer... Still the temporary concrete pathways leading to it are lovely. Tranquility is better found inside the gallery with Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto's exhibition  The Mirror of Judgement . It is  a meditation on religion and faith amongst cardboard and mirrors... It runs until 17 September and is worth a look... Free too...

(Open Air) Theatre: Hello Dolly

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Watching a musical in Regent's Park is always going to be a little tricky as the venue lends itself better to plays as the acoustics of the venue... Well there are none. Watching HMS Pinafore four years ago on a chilly drizzly August night did not make me keen on ever going back. Four years later however and on a perfect bank holiday Monday evening - warm and a gentle summer breeze - for Hello Dolly . Arriving at Regents Park I could feel some trepidation... It may have been something to do with running into a friend on the tube who enquired where I was off to. He thought that was hilarious and when he alighted at the next stop with his mates he shouted, "ENJOY WATCHING HELLO DOLLY!" before all of them broke out into an off-key version of "Put on your Sunday clothes" which trailed off only when the tube pulled out of the station. I remained on the train for another stop. Surrounded by manly men I could feel the glares... And the shame. Although most had got on

Overhead conversations of the summer...

Woman near Soho Square: I don't even say knickers any more; I just say, "get your daks off..." Homeless man on Oxford Street: I 'ope your 'ouse 'as been buuuurgled...

Movies: The Dark Knight

At the London Premiere... It's all about camera phones... Thursday night I crammed into a hot, sweaty cinema to watch the new Batman movie The Dark Knight . There is something about this dark, unrelenting film that people just wanna see. Perhaps it hits the mood of the times, even when it is so bright and hot outside. The Dark Knight was worth the discomfort of The Ritzy to see it, and probably one of the better comic book adaptations. It doesn't keep up the momentum to the end, and there is a sequence about the good of the people of Gotham that will have you want to yell out, "WTF???" But its visuals and Heath Ledger's performance are good enough reasons to see it. My only question would be, why does Batman speak like Patty or Selma Bouvier ? I am waiting for the cigarette tie-in...