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He had it coming: Burnt Up Love @finborough

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Out of the darkness and shadows, three characters emerge. Lit only with candlelight or flashlights, a gripping tale by writer and performer Ché Walker about crime, punishment, love, and loss emerges. The fast pace conveys a sense of urgency to make up for lost time, lost opportunities, and what might have been. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We first meet Mac (Ché Walker) in prison, serving time for a crime he committed. With only a photo of his young daughter, Scratch, to keep him company, he looks for her upon release. But Scratch (Joanne Marie Mason) isn’t the teacher, lawyer or dancer Mac imagined while incarcerated over the years she might be. Instead, Scratch is in and out of trouble, on the edge, angry and violent. A chance encounter one night with JayJayJay (Alice Walker) forms a loving bond and gives her a moment of stability. But Scratch’s demons and restlessness mean trouble does not seem far away. Scratch's random act of thoughtless violence against
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Scenes from a gay man's meal...

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Fish... Chips... And a cosmopolitan ... That's such a Samantha thing... Posted via email from paulinlondon's posterous
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Scenes from a council block lift

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IMG_1112 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Insight into your neighbours perhaps... Maybe that will help them to swallow...
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Theatre Wake: Too Close to the Sun

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Listen! It didn't feel like closing night of Too Close To the Sun . It felt more like a wake. Too Close To the Sun opened two weeks ago and immediately posted closing notices. We arrived almost too late for curtain up as John , Feigned Mischief and I were still having dinner across the road from the Comedy Theatre. I was keeping an eye on the theatre to watch when people went in, only to realise (almost too late), that with so few people attending the show, it was hard to tell. As we entered there was a deathly silence, and while I don't recall if there even was an overture, it felt like there should have been an organ playing funereal music. The musical is a four-hander about the last few days of the life of Ernest Hemingway. The synopsis goes something like this: Ernest plods about and tries to molest his secretary. His wife, played by Helen Dallimore , walks around the set in some rather fascinating stirrup pants and heels. Meanwhile some other guy tries to woo Helen Dalli
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Scenes from the Serpentine Pavilion

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IMG_1093 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Is it a coffee shop? Is it art? Is it both? Certainly this year's pavilion is an inspired piece of design. Also at the Serpentine is the Jeff Koons Popeye Series . While some at the gallery commented that if you shoved any inflatable water toy up your arse this could constitute as a Koons installation, it was brief enough for me to not get too bothered about it one way or the other... Both run through the summer.
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Theatre: The Mountaintop

Friday evening I caught The Mountaintop at the Trafalgar Studios. The two-hander is about the night before Martin Luthor King Jr is assassinated and imagines King as a man. A man with stinky feet, no toothbrush and afraid of thunder. There with him is the hotel's maid. After bringing him a cup of coffee, the stage is set for an astonishing set of revelations, many of which are hilarious. Much of the humour derives from the banality of everyday life. There are pros and cons about different brands of cigarettes, whisky, coffee, the weather. Martin Luthor King has just delivered his I've Been to the Mountaintop speech, and as the play unfolds, both his regrets about what more there is to do, and the knowledge the audience has about what lies ahead, gives this play its strength. Katori Hall 's play is fast paced and the production is slick. The chemistry between David Harwood as King and Lorraine Burrough as the maid Camae was incredible too. Who knew summer plays could be so
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Hot news this week in London

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Don't mess with my tutu , originally uploaded by ian_fromblighty . Flickr user captures Katie Price in Selfridges in a tutu... To publish some book... Nice Aussiebums though...
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Brüno in tube

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Posted via email from paulinlondon's posterous
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Hot news this week in London

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DOG POO MISERY , originally uploaded by the_moog . It isn't just the swine flu... There is dog poo too...
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Opera Opera (and more) Opera

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It has been a a summer of opera for me. And a very enjoyable one as well. After catching Renée Flemming in La Traviata earlier in the season, I caught the opening night performance of The Barber of Seville. This production has to be a highlight of the year and one of the best productions I have seen. While Joyce DiDonato's fall in the first act gathered the headlines, what really was sensational about this production was how great the cast was. Particularly DiDonato, Pietro Spagnoli and of course, Juan Diego Flórez as the Count. Flórez in the final fifteen minutes of the opera was simply amazing, even more so after reading DiDonato's account on her blog , where he was holding her up... Literally. After his final aria, the audience couldn't stop cheering, stamping, hollering (you name it). It is moments like this that you remember why you go to the opera. The other moment of high drama in this opera was when DiDonato fell in the first act. I thought it was those chunky s
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Overheard at the gym Friday night...

Man #1: So we could have salad for dinner... Man #2: Yeah like lettuce? Man #1: Yeah like lettuce... Lettuce and... Chicken...
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