Paul in London

Ping pong tables are popping up around London this week and are free to play... Providing you return the bats and balls... It's one of the initiatives to get people playing more sport (possibly by blocking the walkway so you have no alternative)... Here's hoping we see surprise fencing tournaments start up next... Outdoor darts might be a step too far... It isn't an Olympic sport... Ping pong on Leather Lane in Farringdon Originally uploaded by  Ping! London

After a week away from London, I was back in town this week to see a preview with the West End Whingers and others of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love , being revived at the Menier Chocolate Factory . Some might say it is an odd sort of story with a few catchy tunes, others might say it is Lloyd Webber's best work... As I had not seen it before (and hadn't been out for a while since being away) I was keen to see this chamber musical. Well I was just to be out really but that's another matter. All told, I enjoyed the cast and the production. What works about this show is the cast and the production. It is a show centred around a few characters so it benefits from the small space. It could probably be a little smaller as there were the odd distractions of sets moving in and out like it was removal day... Given how close you are to the stage I did enjoy the the occasional sleight of hand such as when the daughter grows up in a song and gets replaced by an older ac

And of course, there was the little matter of the London Gay Men's Chorus concert The Seven Deadly Sins at the Roundhouse on the weekend. There is something satisfying about performing three concerts in a row and they get better every time... And you learn a few things about staying focussed, looking excited and keeping the energy levels (and fluids) up... This is a brief clip of the encore / playout music, recorded by a very enthusiastic member of the Saturday evening audience... There will be an appearance at Pride (and Europride in Poland), and then the next concert will be at Christmas...

Last Tuesday night's opening night of Manon at the Royal Opera was a surprise. A four hour opera comique that was so engaging and so thrilling that you didn't care you had been there all evening watching the melodrama unfold, and you would not have minded staying longer... There is something very engaging about watching how somebody's choices in life lead to their own downfall... And of course there is great music, beautiful costumes and interesting sets... Some wonderful photos from the evening are on Intermezzo's blog . This is a new production of Jules Massenet's opera and while the story has been updated and made sexier by Laurent Pelly, the stars of the show were Anna Netrebko and Vittorio Grigolo  in the lead roles (featured above). Despite a high profile in both USA and Australia (something to do with a best selling crossover album and a stint on Dancing with the Stars), Grigolo was making his Royal Opera debut and from his arrival on stage you could feel

It's been a busy week with Seven Deadly Sins at the Roundhouse , but in amongst all the rehearsals I did get a chance to see the third Tim Williams Award for musical composition . It is a competition that presented 21 news compositions to lyrics taken from classical or established text, performed by various West End and sensible professionals... While 21 new compositions are bound to be a mixed bag, there were a few rough diamonds in here... The winning song by Christopher Hamilton called Burn and performed by Diannne Pilkington was one of those rare moments that just surprised the audience and had us bursting with laughter. There is a full podcast of the show on Musical Talk , or just some silly post show banter (much shorter too) from Audioboo... The next awards are in October. Here's hoping there are more comic songs... We can do with the laughs... Listen!

Sweat and gluttony... Posted via email from paulinlondon's posterous

It is a bit like it was shot from a mobile phone (probably because it was), but the London Gay Men's Chorus did take part in West End Live today... The rain held off (mostly) and the crowd seemed to like our stuff which is a good omen for the three big shows next Friday and Saturday at the Roundhouse in Camden... The resolution is not the best of the video above but I managed to do (slightly) better backstage just before we went on. Rest assured this is not the full chorus, there are almost going to be double this number on stage next week... And some of us even have hair... West End Live is a great showcase for some of the musicals playing on the West End and the chorus has been privileged to also take part. There is more tomorrow and it is worth a wander by...

A trip to the British Museum this week to see the Masterpieces from the Uffizi Gallery (and the Museum too) is a pleasant enough diversion for an overcast day and an opportunity to brush up on 500 years of drawing and making paper... There are so many drawings that it is difficult at times to concentrate in the low light of the library reading room in the museum... It is there until July. Also in the museum grounds there is  the South African landscape with its mass plantings of colourful Cape Daisies and rather interesting-looking quiver trees. It is there until October.

Karen Akers is playing at Pizza on the Park this week. Ms Akers is probably not so well known in London, but she was in the original Broadway cast of Nine and Grand Hotel. She also had a small role in the film Heartburn . These things I know, but she has also spent a lot of time in the last thirty years just recording and performing songs in her own way. This way is mostly a dark alluring alto voice which would make you do anything for her... Her ability to sing a song and hold your gaze might also have something to do with it... Sitting in the front row it could be a little unnerving at times... particularly when you have Johnnyfox serenading her back on your right, and a crazy looking Dutch man at the table on your left looking at her with a wide-eyed fascination that couldn't be healthy (well I think that's what his wife sitting next to him and clutching him was thinking)... At one stage he looked as if he was about to get on stage and help her with her microphone stand

It's less than a month away from when the London Gay Men's Chorus presents the Seven Deadly Sins at the Roundhouse . The show is a mix of classics, pop and show tunes, which is fair enough... But even more interesting will be a segment in the show where a group of young fathers aged between 16-25 join with a small group from the chorus to create a version of John Lennon's 'Jealous Guy', fusing pop and rap. The fathers and members of the Chorus are being tutored by Rodney P, 'the Godfather of British rap' along with musical director Simon Sharp from London Gay Men's Chorus. This will be the first time the chorus performs a show at the Roundhouse. A year or so ago we rehearsed there and made some weird yelping noises so the Roundhouse could get a sense of the acoustic for choirs (or the acoustic for gay men). Anyway it is a great venue and I'll be blogging more about the fun and hard work of it all this month... Tickets are on sale now through th

It isn't quite a trip out of town, however on Sunday a trip to zone six to see friends in Ruislip felt almost like one... Still it was a chance to see suburban London, its wide open spaces, and the many tube stations it takes to get there...

Vox Pops Dr 3 F9 480p (16x9) from David Newell on Vimeo . Eurydice takes greek mythology and gives it a twist focusing on the loss, memory and redemption in this production at the Young Vic . Maybe all this death and loos has been putting people off from seeing it as Saturday night's audience could have been larger. The play itself is not bad at all and full of mildly surreal scenarios with water that can leave a lot to your imagination. The play opens with Eurydice and Orpheus about to go for a swim and then off to get married. Meanwhile her father is writing letters of advice to her for her wedding to her but she is not getting them. On her wedding night she leaves the party lured away by a man who says he has one of his letters... Soon she is in the underworld and Orpheus is trying to get in touch with her... One of the problems with this play is that there is no sense about how much Eurydice and Orpheus like each other... Sure they are practically naked with swimming gogg

The production of La Fille Du Regiment at the Royal Opera is in its first revival, and Thursday night's performance included Colin Lee in the role of Tonio, which earlier in the run was filled by Juan Diego Flórez. Having seen Juan in a passable but hardly thrilling recital at the Barbican earlier in the month, I was happy to miss him in the opera. The audience were thrilled after his performance of "Ah mes amis" with its nine successive high Cs and Lee himself looked awfully pleased as the audience cheered and applauded... The same applied after singing the tender declaration of love in his Act 2 aria, ‘Pour me rapprocher de Marie’. It was all great stuff... Laurent Pelly’s production, first staged in 2007 is a lot of fun and the performance by Natalie Dessay as the tomboy daughter of the regiment, who falls in love with Tonio gives the show its heart. The rest of the cast round out this great opéra comique (a slightly silly one)... There are two more performance

The  Fantasticks  (which I mis-pronounced Fanta sticks thinking it was some sort of ice lolly) is now playing in the West End. It's a fifty-year old musical with whimsical songs and and tells an allegorical story that forces actors to run about and inflict injury on themselves for laughs. It played for forty years in New York and again has been revived again there recently, so there has to be something going for it. None of our party that included Johnnyfox and the West End Whingers had seen it before and the so it was as good an excuse as any for catching the second preview of this London revival... It is great they are offering stage seats for the show. Not only are they cheaper tickets, it is more fun watching it sitting on stage, assuming you can stay awake for the full two hours (not everyone in our party could do this)...  Plus you get a special little tour backstage to get to your seats (well not so much a tour but just a walk down some narrow stairs and past the props

On Friday evening when it was warm and too nice to be indoors, Gio and I were indoors taking in a very early preview of the new show Paradise Found at the Menier Chocolate Factory . The audience consisted of Americans, the elderly, homosexuals or a combination of these. Given that it was a full house and the chocolate factory has only bench seating, you had no choice but get very acquainted and slightly sweaty with your neighbours. We knew nothing about the show and only the poster and programme art suggested it was going to be some warm loving sex show... Possibly set to music. What I did know was that it had a great cast of talented people in it... A cast that includes Mandy Patinkin , Nancy Opel , Judy Kaye, Shuler Hensley and John McMartin. It is directed by Hal Prince and Susan Stroman, and has music arrangements by Jonathan Tunick. You would think it is surely is worth a shot. As the show got underway, the story is about the Shah (John McMartin) and his trip to Vienna to fin

Note: this post was updated in December 2022 in an attempt to comply with Google content guidelines - however if a phrase used in the play about cocksucking violates these guidelines it still may have a content advisory… 🤷‍♂️ I caught the penultimate performance with the original cast of The Habit of Art on Tuesday, Alan Bennett's latest play which has been running since late last year at the National Theatre (and been broadcast in cinemas around the world recently). It's had great reviews and been hard to get a ticket... Afterall, it is an Alan Bennett play so you know it is going to have some great dialogue and something about 🐓sucking in it. There will be a new cast returning in July and a tour, but this cast had a bit more star power with Richard Griffiths and Frances De La Tour... Since the play does talk about devices, there is only one thing worse than plays within plays, which often seem to be a device to make a show that doesn't work slightly more palatable (

Last weekend I ventured out of London to the Cotswolds  for the first time. The Cotswolds seems to consist of many cute little towns that all look the same and that offer an array of antiques, clothing for  the elderly and places to eat lunch. It is all rather civilised. Lunch in the Cotswolds turned out to be a very cruel sport. Establishments were either offering a one hour wait, or menu boards outside saying they were full and didn't want you approaching them. Once inside one of these sought after establishments, no menu could be considered complete without deep fried brie and some form of lasagne. With menus like that on offer it was no surprise everywhere we turned we saw fat people, such as Gloucester at sunset... Incidentally, the trip to Gloucester was accidental after being frightened out of Cheltenham by chain restaurants and loose women amongst the regency terraces. It was a chance to take in the cathedral, the various shopping arcades built circa 1970/1980, and a ra

IMG_1753 Originally uploaded by Paul-in-London Dr Zeuss meets the brown word...

The Royal Opera continues in its current trend to show flesh with its slightly naughty version of Aida . I caught up with it on opening night last week, and this new production looks great. And with plenty of partial nudity, it can be a little distracting. While it has been a controversial choice in staging, I thought it helped since I really don't care for Aida as an opera - a small story blown out into epic proportions that goes on forever. Still, conductor Nicola Luisotti also gets a great sound out of his orchestra and chorus (if perhaps not his soloists). His thoughts on the opera are captured in the latest podcast from the Royal Opera as well. Opening night was also a charity fundraiser with HRH in attendance ( wheeling in his wife ), so the standard of dress was a little bit better than usual at Covent Garden as well... It runs until 16 May and worth catching.

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On election night, I was in Whitehall at the Trafalgar Studios watching the Australian (gay) play Holding the Man . The play is about two boys and their fifteen year relationship from meeting at a good Catholic school in Melbourne in the late seventies through to the early nineties.  It is based on the book of the same name . The story is part coming of age, part coming out, part gay life in oz in the eighties, and part dealing with HIV and AIDs. Two out of the four parts are quite depressing, but at least the coming out and coming of age parts are charming. Surprisingly for a play that has won a lot of awards (in Australia), I found it to be like a cliff notes version of the book. While I have not read the book, after seeing the play I feel I have a sense of its geography, but not its sentiment. The direction and staging don't help much either, which is fairly uninspired with too many "comic" diversions and a set that looks like a tip. This is a shame as the cast

IMG_1745 Originally uploaded by Paul-in-London Card reads: Hot Transexual. Busty boobs. Fit, sexy, English, naughty babe. £60 recession special. For when times are tight I suppose...

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Thanks to a large volcanic ash cloud which stranded Johnnyfox in New York (not that he minded by his tweets ), I was lucky to catch Daniel Boys at Pizza on the Park Thursday evening. Daniel has appeared in various shows including Avenue Q and has recently released an album   So Close , that has become very popular... All of this has given him the opportunity to showcase his talents and charm in the intimate space of Pizza on the Park. It was Daniel, a great band and an audience. An audience that appeared to be mostly very appreciative women. There must be something about his boyish charm, enthusiasm and lovely vocals that drives women crazy. While they weren't throwing an underwear on stage I wondered whether this was simply because they weren't wearing any. Anyway, Daniel performed mostly on a stool behind a music stand and looked loveable. This might have seemed a bit odd if you were directly in front of him (unless you like singing music stands), but fortunately I was

It was a weekend for checklist operas. Once you have seen them you can mark them off your list as never needing to see them again. First up was Il Turco in Italia at the Royal Opera. Here was a great cast let down by Rossini's over plotted and overlong opera. Still when the cast could sing and act it was hard to be annoyed and wish they would get on with it. Ildebrando d’Arcangelo as the prince and Aleksandra Kurzak as the errant wife made infidelity seem so glamorous too. I also wasn't so sure about the cardboard cutout set, but I did like the sleeping cat. There should be more stuffed animals in productions. The Royal Opera also continues its trend for non-singing beefcake in productions (following on from the Rake's Progress), with a muscle man parading in his speedos at the close to taunt Kurzak's character one more time. Leaving the theatre we almost ran into him racing towards the tube station. He was almost unrecognisable in his tight t-shirt but the glowing

Balls on the street Originally uploaded by Paul-in-London Balls to that...

IMG_1674 Originally uploaded by Paul-in-London Wired for sound

Just before Easter I managed to catch Meera Syal in the Chocolate Factory's revival of Shirley Valentine, part of its Willy Russell season which also includes Educating Rita. I wasn't particularly in the mood to go and see this play as I was to be packing that evening for a holiday, but there was something about this show that sucks you in and has you hooked. On one level the 1980s have never been so fashionable. But on another level, when you are watching a show with a set that reminds you of your mother's kitchen, and the first scene involves frying chips and egg (don't go to the theatre on an empty stomach), perhaps it isn't everyone's idea of a great night out. That's a pity as Syal's performance is great and the show is as good as ever (not withstanding the difference of opinions in the audioboos below)... Willy Russell seems to love the cliches and dramatically obvious but here in this show that is an asset (unlike in Blood Brothers where it i

IMG_1624 Originally uploaded by Paul-in-London It's all about brown shoes at the moment... Preferably your own not somebody else's...

IMG_0152 Originally uploaded by Paul-in-London Battersea Power Station with moody weather backdrop... Shortly after a monster dump of rain ensued...

Anyone Can Whistle , playing at the Jermyn Street Theatre is an odd sort of show that apart from potentially curing your insomnia will leave you wondering what on earth it was all about. I sat in the front row and even with all that great singing and acting I was none the wiser. It is one of Sondheim's shows that closed shortly after opening and that was probably less to do with the songs (there are a few good ones) and more to do with the book and subject matter. Still, well done for the cast and the creative team for trying to make something out of it. Just pity the audience that has to sit through it. It is not every show that has four people falling asleep, and about half a dozen not returning for the second half... It is Sondheim's eightieth birthday so there will be an onslaught of Sondheim shows in London this year. It feels like we get at least one major Sondheim revival every year for the past few years anyway... So perhaps no excuse was needed anyway. It runs a b

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 on

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 line of people

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...

IMG_1505 , originally uploaded by Paul-in-London . Now there's a date for the diary...

Not counting the West End Whingers and friends, the audience for Megan Mullally and Supreme Music Program appears to be a mix of gay men and their mothers. And lesbians. Some lesbians even brought banners to unfurl during an opportune moment. Here's hoping this is a new trend in the West End for lesbians with banners amongst the audience, particularly if they help performers feel less nervous... When she sings George Jone's The Grand Tour , a song about a man who finds his wife has left him and taken their child, it brought the house down. She sings the song from the point of view of the man, as originally written which went down well with the audience... It's not really lesbian music , but it could be. The band sounds great and the choice of music is refreshing with a mix that isn't old standards or songs from shows she has been in... The show promotes her Will and Grace fame to get the punters through the door, and then delivers an evening of great and lacklustre