Paul in London

I don't recall anyone saying that you should see more shows that feature hot wet acrobats falling about. But there should have been. This great looking show Soap , is playing at the Riverside Studios and is quite a eye opener. And not just because the cast is well fit and lit with water and moody lights. The show was quite engaging on its own level and will have you hooked. After a slightly shaky start on Tuesday night (where I think the audience wasn't quite sure what to expect), we all settled in and went for the ride. The programme notes make the point that this show has been a hit in Germany, this is the ideal sort of Cabaret / Variety show. That was fine with me. Some of the creative team was also behind the production of La Clique, however this show has a much more coherent thread through it. There may not be a woman playing a kazoo with her vagina, but there was water and acrobats so that was more than enough (as the clip above demonstrates). It runs for about ninety...

Last week I was watching Paint Never Dries at the Adelphi Theatre wondering if this is what passes for British musical theatre nowadays, maybe I should avoid it in future. This week I was at the Union Theatre watching Once Upon A Time At The Adelphi , which despite the overlong title (and perhaps an overlong second half), was enough to make me change my mind. There may be no projections or intricate melodies, but at least there is a coherent story and a series of characters that you could at least care about. The musical, by Phil Willmott , is set at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool , which has been the source of many great stories, such as Roy Rogers taking his horse, Trigger, on the roof for some exercise or Hitler working in the kitchen. The action moves between the present day and 1930s. While it is more melodrama than drama, there is an emotional heart in it all, that had me hooked right up to the ending. And dare I say... It will leave you with a slightly misty-eyed view of Live...

London has never really done the piano bar ... They are good at doing the rough bar, the noisy bar, the bar where everyone used to be hip but now look weathered, the bar with too much wallpaper but never a bar where there is just a piano and a singer... And an open mic... So Saturday nights may not ever be quite the same again after the inaugural Show Off Piano Bar , downstairs at the Cafe Koha behind Leicester Square Tube on Charing Cross Road. The lovely Nathan Martin and Marissa Dunlop entertained and then coerced (at least some) of the bar patrons up to the piano to sing. The standard was pretty good too... Particularly after a few drinks... With such a wide selection of sheet music flying about the bar, finding a song in low level lighting wasn't the easiest of things to do but I did make do with a little number from  The Producers . Show tunes did abound strangely enough but they weren't essential. An awfully sensible way to start (or end) a Saturday night. The next o...

I had the opportunity to catch a preview of Love Never Dies , the sequel to  Phantom of the Opera , Friday  night at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End. It is the show with the really creepy artwork that is starting to appear around town, and which has its opening night this week... I have yet to get around to seeing Phantom on stage, but I would like to think that I know enough about the story and the music to make sense of any follow up. I also recall many years ago playing the Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman cast recording on a family road trip which caused my grandmother to throw up. The free association of the show with grandma's sick probably hasn't incentivised me to rush out and grab a ticket. Anyway arriving tonight at the theatre with Johnnyfox there was a buzz of activity. It was either excitement, or the sounds of people scrambling to pick up tickets from the shambolic box office. Normally at one minute to the curtain up you don't see a li...

East London Advertiser Originally uploaded by LoopZilla You have to watch out for those birds ...

At the end of Tuesday night's performance of Hobson's Choice at the Broadway Theatre in Catford, the woman behind us leaned over and said to Johnnyfox and myself, "You two are terrible..." I was thinking, hmm wasn't that exactly what the ladies at the Gatehouse said when we saw the high furniture removal production of High Society ? Well naturally anything with the slightest double entendre is going to make us titter, so lines like "I like a man who's good with their fingers" is naturally going to lead to trouble. Of course this woman's mind also was in low places; she was the lone person laughing following the line that mentioned something vaguely about finishing up your work before you come (to bed). Schoolboy antics aside, this is a great production of the Harold Brighouse play, briskly paced and acted well. Oh and it is directed by Thom Southerland who always manages to make a show look great in a tight space. Written in 1914 and set i...

I finally managed to catch Bette Bourne and Mark Ravenhill: A Life in Three Acts at the Soho Theatre on Friday night before it finished its run this weekend. It is part reading, part conversation, part cheap laughs, part oral history of the gay liberation movement in London and (on Friday night at least), part watching members of the audience get up and go to the toilet and watching Ravenhill give his death stare at them when the returned. Maybe it was the wind chill and happy hour at the bar that kept sending so many people out of the theatre... None of them were particularly light on their feet either. Still, this is a great night out and here's hoping this isn't the last time this is seen. Bourne who is now 70 and living in a housing estate in Notting Hill has loads of stories to tell. Over his years he performed at the Old Vic, set up a squat with drag queens and appeared on the BBC. He also found particular fame in the gay community with his cabaret troupe, Bloolips . The...

It's hard not to like a show that is under ninety minutes but Far From Kansas from the London Gay Men's Chorus was doing another encore performance of last year's Edinburgh Fringe Fest show, Oklahomo. Fine singing and gingham shirts abounded... Sometimes even in the audience. They take the show shortly to Dublin... Listen! via AudioBoo Posted via web from paulinlondon's posterous

The last play I saw in the Duchess Theatre was about cottaging with Sir John Gielgud , and now I was there watching a play about syphilis. It is enough to make you wonder about what you might pick up from going out to the theatre. Fortunately this time around at the Duchess Theatre the play was Ibsen's Ghosts . Ghosts tells the story of a woman whose husband was a bit of a dirty man and died early, and how she has to deal with her son going the same way thanks to congenital syphilis. Meanwhile to put all this behind her she has decided to open an orphanage on her property. That all seems fairly straight forward but I couldn't help but think that this once-scandalous play seemed a bit of a mild affair. The characters seemed as irritated with the weather as the sexual depravity so it was a bit hard to put it all in perspective. Still it is entertaining enough an evening to watch Lesley Sharp and Iain Glen spar about virtuous and noble lives. And the simple set is lovely to look ...

IMG_1506 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . I think it was chicken, not human...