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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
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Death, reflections and reflex actions: Untold Stories

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Alan Bennett's Untold Stories at the Duchess Theatre is an opportunity to sample two short stories from Bennett's life recounting his experiences with his parents. It is an enjoyable and contemplative evening at the theatre. It possibly is a little too quiet and contemplative as I could hear and see a few members of the audience nodding off to sleep in the first, shorter piece. The play is two snippets from a larger volume of observations and stories of the same name. He wrote it while being treated for cancer and was expecting it to be his final work to be published after his death. As noted at the time of publication it had a valedictory quality to the piece (or a hint of death?). Thankfully the cancer went into remission and he was able to finish the stories, and write some smashing new plays - such as The History Boys . But death still lingers over the work here as it is about recalling times past now that his parents are gone.
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Art, death and decay: Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum

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The British Museum's Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum is a wonderful way to start to appreciate the richness and beauty that has been uncovered from these two ancient towns. Over 250 artifacts, some which have never ventured out of Italy are on display and attempt to piece together the ordinary life of the Roman home and the people who lived in them. There are the obligatory pieces of information that explain the eruption, how it engulfed the cities and how those who were not able to flee died. But what is more interesting than the plaster casts and the bone fragments  as others have noted is how you can see firsthand the various lost art forms from the Roman Empire that were rediscovered and reinterpreted from the Renaissance onwards.
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Disorder in the house: This House

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This House by James Graham, back for return season at The National Theatre , is a political drama (and comedy) that manages to capture the excitement and the insanity of its time. It covers the period between 1974 to 1979 which was the last time there was a minority government running the country. With a wafer-thin majority the government was not expected to survive and it was the role of the whips , who enforce party unity in voting, to ensure its survival or bring it down. While it is full of some of the spectacle set pieces of the time such as a near riot in the Commons and Big Ben breaking down, what is more remarkable is how it sheds some light on the relationships that developed in the period both within the parties and across party lines. It is part epic drama with a booming soundtrack supplied by a supporting band, and part series of small scale personal dramas from people passionate about something.
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Scenes from a Sunday in the park...

Parks and recreation on a Sunday... As told by Vine...
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Taking no prisoners: Gibraltar

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The shooting of three unarmed terrorists by the Special Air Service in 1988 is the backdrop for an analysis of the media, press coverage, spin and counter spin in Gibraltar . Currently playing downstairs at the Arcola Theatre , it is a minimalistic production that blends factual accounts and testimonies with fictional analysis. It works best when it is a semi staged reading that mixes the mundane aspects of life on the island with its associations with crime, terrorism and other niceties. The history of The Troubles, or whether the killings were lawful are surprisingly less important here than looking at how a news story is given an angle and the search for an understanding about what really goes on.
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Music meaning and laughs: Tiffany Graves in the house

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Closing out the season of Cabaret at Lauderdale House  on Highgate Hill, Tiffany Graves delivered a memorably funny and high spirited show last Sunday. Lauderdale House is a former private home that has been transformed into an arts and education centre and has been running Sunday afternoon events for some time. Graves delivered a wonderfully comedic and powerful collection of songs that she felt reflected her career, her friends and her relationships, which was at times hilarious enough to forget about the miserable weather outside.
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Ambiguity and postal orders: The Winslow Boy

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The Winslow Boy , currently playing at The Old Vic , is a lovely piece of entertainment about how a middle class family in Edwardian England risks everything to see that a mild injustice is overcome. But it is somewhat hard to sustain interest in its near three hour length when the characters are only defined by how they relate in society and legal arguments relate to a particularly obscure piece of Victorian law... The play tells the story of Ronnie Winslow, a fourteen year old Navy cadet who is accused of stealing a five shilling postal order. Without given the opportunity for representation, he is investigated and found guilty and his family is asked to withdraw him from the Royal Navy College. At the time there was no automatic right of appeal and so the play follows the attempts of the family to clear his name and the toll it takes upon them all.
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On a bad day: Darling of the Day

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It is appropriate that the Union Theatre , which has a reputation for fresh perspectives on old shows, has given Darling of the Day , a forgotten musical from the 1960s, its first European Revival. The show with music by Jule Styne ran on Broadway for only 31 performances and attempts to revive over the years have stalled. Perhaps the reason it has been ignored is that it is just not a fashionable show. The story revolves around a famous artist in Edwardian London who seizes an opportunity to assume the identity of his butler and fade away into an upper working class existence. The score isn't full of memorable songs, but with its take on old love (or rather two more mature leads who get married), the show is intriguing and mostly harmless fun.
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