Paul in London

At St Pauls Cathedral... Contrary to what the camera captures the view was not that bad... Posted via email from paulinlondon's posterous

Waiting for the act two call... Posted via email from paulinlondon's posterous

Fears Grow For Doctor Who , originally uploaded by LinkMachineGo . Not only has David Tennant missed his star turn in Hamlet due to a back injury, he may not be able to finish that silly TV show ... Oh the humanity...

Almost time... Posted via email from paulinlondon's posterous

In a week of final rehearsals for a sellout Christmas Concert , loads of Christmas parties and the odd bit of theatre , I received word from Australia that my grandfather (Pa) passed away. He was getting ready to go out on Saturday night when it happened. At 86 he was still was able to go out with my grandmother to a local football club, have a bottle of wine, a meal and a gamble and get home at a rather late hour... All of which sounded awfully sensible to me. It is always an experience being 10,000 miles away from the rest of your family, but apart from the people around me (you know who you are), what keeps me upbeat is thinking of his sense of humour and his knack of winding people up. I would like to think that I carry on this tradition. When someone says they didn't sleep well last night, I reply, "Well I slept well. I had a clear conscience". Thanks for that one Pa. It gets a reaction every time...

It's like a washing powder commercial... Posted via email from paulinlondon's posterous

I had been warned that In A Dark Dark House , currently playing at the Almeida Theatre is a disturbing sort of show. So I figured it was only fitting to be the final show for Adrian to see before he left the UK. I had been in a rehearsal all day and was a little exhausted after that, and Adrian was returning from a few days in Manchester, so something interesting and a little controversial by Neil LaBute was bound to keep us interested. While we waiting for the show to start we could at least take in the fantastic production design. The Almeida always seem to create the most fantastic realistic looking gardens and grasses and this was no exception. After a slow start, the play really started to unfold, somewhat sneakily, into another realm... Which also included a mini-golf course. This is a play about sexual abuse and two brothers reliving their unhappy childhood. But it was told from an interesting perspective and there are such terrific performances it is worth catching. All told ...

When friends visit from Australia I find that I see a lot more musicals in the West End. Adrian was in town from Melbourne this week and as a fan of musical theatre I knew that at some stage this week it would end up like this. And it did. I ended up seeing Avenue Q (which in its third year is still fun , but a little lacklustre and the Tuesday evening performance this week had some pretty poor puppeteering), and Zorro (enjoyable sort of panto with the music of the Gypsy Kings and well-shaved gypsies). Bearing this in mind, I was determined to mix it up a little as well. So last weekend I took Adrian to the Royal Court's production of Wig Out by Tarell Alvin McCraney . This is an entertaining and slick production. While music features prominently in the story about competing drag houses in New York, it is no musical. It seems that for the characters in this play, the motivation for doing drag was that their grandmother wore a wig. Who knew that grandmother's could cause s...