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Belters and bohemians: Opera Locos @Sadlers_wells

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At the start of the Opera Locos performance, the announcement says that they really are singing. You could be forgiven for wondering that, given the amplification turns up the backing track and the voices so loud that you can't always tell what's real. But this is a mostly harmless and slightly eccentric blend of opera classics fused with the occasional pop classic. However, recognising the pop tunes would help if you were over a certain age. The most recent of them dates back twenty years. It's currently playing at the Peacock Theatre .  Five performers play out a variety of archetype opera characters. There's the worn-out tenor (Jesús Álvarez), the macho baritone (Enrique Sánchez-Ramos), the eccentric counter-tenor (Michaël Kone), the dreamy soprano (María Rey-Joly) and the wild mezzo-soprano (Mayca Teba). Since my singing days, I haven't recognised these types of performers. However, once, I recall a conductor saying he wanted no mezzo-sopranos singing with the s

DVD: Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

I have spent the last couple of days watching Superman II: The Richard Donner cut. For reasons that are too involved to explain (but rely a lot on the power of internet nerds) an almost complete (there is one screen test to substitute the film) second version of a sequel to a movie made thirty years ago has been released on DVD. This clip includes previously lost footage of Marlon Brando, Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder and has some significantly different scenes. The YouTube clip above explains some of the differences. In all almost half this film did not appear in the original theatrical version that was credited to another director... Alas having seen what is now a rare extended cut on Australian television (which supplemented the original version with footage shot by Donner) neither this version nor the deleted scenes includes the great campy lines such as Ursa played by Sarah Douglas , screaming "MEN! TO KILL!" Perhaps one day all the lost footage can be found... Un

Theatre: Christmas in New York

Sunday night I caught a concert showcasing new music from composers in New York and London called Christmas in New York . It's great to see new music in the West End since most shows nowadays are juke box collections of classic hits or revivals. The only trouble is that new music doesn't always mean that it is great music. Even though it wasn't necessarily the case, by interval it felt like every song seemed either dour or trite or a bit of both. It would have been fine in an elevator but in a large theatre that was a bit of a problem. And surely only composer Frank Wildhorn could use a lyric call St Paul's Cathedral "ancient"? The British composers who had their new songs showcased tonight were good, but I still couldn't get over the rest. If it wasn't earnest, it was a song that would be good to slash up by. I guess music theatre was once at the cutting edge, but I wasn't thinking along these lines. I guess nowadays if you want cutting edge you d

Scenes from Oxford Street Sunday 18:12

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Scenes from Oxford Street Sunday 18:12 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . No trip this Christmas is complete without a visit to the Christmas Ghetto , a "squat art concept store" by underground artists on Oxford Street. It is the site of an old Clarks shoe store and this window displays an evil looking Santa with a belt buckle that says "Satan" endorsing anything and everything. And there I have been thinking that Oxford Street between the circus and Tottenham Court Road is full of shit shops and one of the worst shopping experiences in the world... Suddenly it's got good... Then again one shop does not make an experience...

Idle Friday chatter...

Paul: How many French Martini's have you had? M: I don't know... Paul: How many mojitos have I had? M: I don't know but you were knocking 'em back Paul: I needed the vitamin C I have a cold...

Overheard at the gym Thursday...

Man #1: His mother is Moroccan and his Father is Brazilian... Man #2: Ah so that's why he's got such great skin... Man #1: Yeah its all natural...

Scenes from an office water cooler Thursday 17:35

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Scenes from an office water cooler Thursday 17:35 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . The water-cooler conversation today was strangely enough... About water coolers. Over the past few weeks somebody had been putting the plastic cups in the dispenser the wrong way and it was starting to really bug people. Apart from looking aesthetically dreadful, the cups would get stuck in the dispenser... Today it was crunch time for the rouge-cup-dispenser-placer. After a colleague had spent earlier this week fishing out the cups which had been put in "end in" only to find by the afternoon they were around the wrong way a notice was placed to alert this rogue cup person that there was a right way and a wrong way to stick in plastic cups... I assisted in the drafting of the notice by suggesting the phrase "the lip goes in the hole first". I thought that was not as suspect as the drawing... But anyway...

Scenes from an office window Thursday 11:01

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Scenes from an office window Thursday 11:01 , originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Heavy rain, high winds and hail was all that was happening. There were reports of people flying (or rather knocked off their feet) in the high winds as it knocked them off their feet. All of this is a bit better than Kensal Green in north-west London which had a small tornado. By 11:05 it was all over.