House Of Cards...

The other day I got to go to The Houses of Parliament for a chat with some security chappies. All very interesting.

"Have you signed the OSA?" they asked.

 "Yes" I said.

"Well, that's OK then." 

There's nothing like a thorough security check, is there? And that was nothing like a thorough security check.

The Tyburn Tree...

On Sunday night Stuart and I went to see Marc Almond and John Harle perform The Tyburn Tree at the Barbican Concert Hall. It was a grand project. A concept album brought to life. It was hypnotic, complex, lyrical, dark, sinister and joyful.

Made-up ashen white and preaching from the pulpit Marc sang songs, recited nursery rhymes, told tales of Gothic horror, screamed and howled, got us to sing along to tales of hanging, and then pranced around the stage like a diabolical jester.

The songs were great, the neurotic prog-rock blended perfectly with Marc's voice and the night got a well deserved standing ovation.

The critics didn't like it, but as they say... "Critics? Cretins!"

Goldfrapp: Tales of Us...

Last night Darren treated me to a trip to the cinema to see Goldfrapp who were screening six new videos films inspired by music from their album Tale of Us. After the films were shown the band performed an hour long live set via a satellite broadcast from Air Studios in London.

The films were great albeit all rather similar in tone: black and white, sensual, shaky camera work, nudity in big country houses, murder on windswept beaches, slow-motion cycling, night-time shoots with people running through smokey back-lit forests, water (lots of water) - that sort of thing. Very 1980s. Very Vienna.

One video which did make me weep though was Annabel. A moving story of a little boy's inner voice.

The live set was good too - although perhaps missing that special something that a live audience gives back to a live performance.

Mind you, I was back to my crying again during Clay - a story of two soldiers' love.

So all in all a success as an event. Nice to see their videos on a big screen - but perhaps just missing that live interactive element that an audience provides.

United Visual Artists: Momentum...

Last Friday lunchtime Bobby and I went to see the United Visual Artists: Momentum exhibition at the The Curve in the Barbican Centre. A few swinging lamps in a smokey darkened room. Meh.

1984...

Last Thursday Stuart and I went to see 1984 at the Almeida Theatre in London's glitzy Islington. It was a slightly confusing production as it repeated traveled from a book reading club in 2050 back to the events of 1984 and back again without much indication of the time jump.

There was no interval so the production had a chance to ramp up the tension as Winston Smith gradually began to realise the doublethink/thoughtcrime/newspeak hell he was living in. The final half a hour got quite harrowing with the torture scene although we were assured no rats were harmed in the making of the show.

My review: Brave but rather confusing.

Lake, No Lake...

Scorchio...

Looks like it'll be another hot one in Town name again today. Almost boiling.

The Pet Shop Boyes...

Tell Me On A Sunday...

On Friday night Stuart and I went to see Tell Me On A Sunday at the Duchess Theatre in London's glitzy West End Theatreland.

Starring Marti Webb as 'the girl' she took us bath back 35 years to when it all began - to a zoo, that's got chimpanzees...

Tell Me on a Sunday is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Don Black. A one-act song cycle, it tells the story of an ordinary English girl from Muswell Hill, who journeys to the United States in search of love. Her romantic misadventures begin in New York City, lead her to Hollywood, and eventually take her back to Manhattan.

Starting the show with the show-stopper Take That Look Off Your Face we knew we were in for a treat. Marti had lost little of her magnificent voice. As she gamboled through the other songs the memories all came flooding back... I'm Very You, You're Very Me... Come Back with the Same Look in Your Eyes... You Made Me Think You Were in Love...

The show is very short though. Forty-five plus encore meant fifty-five minutes after taking our seats we were back out on the street again. In previous revivals they have had a 2nd half of dancing - Song and Dance starring Wayne Sleep. This time round we didn't particularly miss the lack of Sleep.

So all in all it was a  fun, albeit short, night of nostalgia. As Stuart mentioned to me on the way out she's botoxed to buggery. So ironically she won't be taking that look off her face anytime soon!

A Taste Of Honey...

Last night Stuart and I went to see A Taste Of Honey at the Lyttelton Theatre, part of the National Theatre, on London's glitzy South Bank.

Written by Shelagh Delaney when she was nineteen, A Taste of Honey is one of the great defining and taboo-breaking plays of the 1950s.

The production was a delight - coarse, fun and funny.

When her mother Helen (Lesley Sharp) runs off with a car salesman, feisty teenager Jo (Kate O'Flynn) takes up with a black sailor who promises to marry her, before he heads for the seas, leaving her pregnant and alone. Gay art student Geoff moves in and assumes the role of surrogate parent until, misguidedly, he sends for Helen and their unconventional setup unravels.

A Taste of Honey offers an explosive celebration of the vulnerabilities and strengths of the female spirit in a deprived and restless world. Bursting with energy and daring, this exhilarating and angry depiction of harsh, working-class life in post-war Salford is shot through with love and humour, and infused with jazz.

"We don’t ask for life, we have it thrust upon us."

World Cup, Anyone?...

Brushing...

While at the dentist last week I got to thinking. If I brushed my teeth as thoroughly every day as I did before going there, I probably wouldn't need to be going there.

Staines...

I was flashed by a speed camera going through Staines Upon Thames today. Don't know why... I was only doing 30 knots.

Valentine's Day...

I asked Stuart if he fancied going away for Valentine's Day.
He took it surprisingly well.

Early Bath...

Floppy Music - Soft Cell - Tainted Love - Now With Marc Almond Vocals!...

Floppy Music - Soft Cell - Tainted Love...

Sochi Fail...

In 18 shorts months I've gone from loving the Olympics to hating it. Homophobia isn't cool. #SochiFail

Peter Grimes...

Last night Stuart and I went to see Benjy Britten's opera Peter Grimes performed by the English National Opera. Having seen it put on a few years ago at The Royal Opera House it was interesting to see this production at the London Colesium.

Sadly it wasn't as good. Not least because the lead actor was ill. His understudy was ill. The lead lady was ill. And her understudy was ill too. So with the entire A team ill and the entire B team ill too we got some (admittedly excellent) stand-ins to make up the C team. Not a good start.

The orchestra was fine and the singing good but the production was only OK - bonkers in places and slightly overblown - it just never really engaged. We didn't really care what Peter Grimes did, or didn't do.

It didn't help that the auditorium was boiling hot and the long ponderous pauses did little to keep a few people near us from nodding off. The overlong three and half hour running time could have been snipped a bit.

Tube Strike Day 2...

Despite the tube strike the Victoria Line is running well this morning. Too well. In work early! #tubestrike

Tube Strike Day 1...

Few tube trains running today so getting bus to work. Treating it as an adventure.
"Back seat! Back seat!" ‪#‎tubestrike‬

Arsenal vs. Crystal Palace...

We beat Crystal Palace 2 - 0 at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. It was a fun game and nice to be able to take the lovely Chewie Baron along for the first time. Although he's a Manchester United fan at heart his 'London team' is Arsenal and he was soon singing along with all the songs. I'll get him to see the error of his ways soon enough!

American Psycho...

On Friday night Stuart and I went to to see American Psycho The Musical at the Almeida Theatre in London's trendy Islington.

Based on the controversial 1991 novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis the tale is set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s, We follow the daily life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman whose thoughts turn to murder.

Matt Smith (yes, him) plays Bateman with a suitably (and suited) devilish charm. He can't perhaps hold a tune to quite the same high standard as his colleagues but that aside he carries the day.

The musical perhaps arches its eyebrow rather more than either the book or the film in that it plays it for laughs. But we like a show when the black humour is as dark as the blood is red.

A bevy of original songs are accompanied by a string of 1980s hits; Hip to Be Square, Don't You Want Me, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, True Faith and In the Air Tonight.

If it gets a West End transfer (which is rightly deserves) you should get ticket.

King Lear...

Last night Stuart and I went to see King Lear at the Olivier Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

Wow! What a production! Sam Mendes has put on a fantastic all-star, all-singing, all-dying show.

An aged king decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, according to which of them is most eloquent in praising him. The first two offer false sycophantic adulation and get much. His favourite, Cordelia, who says nothing gets banished. Lear seems to value a flattering public display of love over real love. There may be trouble ahead!

Deceit, torture, murder, war, tragedy, madness and death a bit like a Christmas episode of Eastenders.

Simon Russell Beale is magnificent and plays Lear as a bad-tempered egotistical tyrant. A thug and military leader who is both selfish and vain and entirely undeserving of any compassion. His quick to judge attitude is his undoing. He wants to be treated as a king and to enjoy the title, but he doesn't want to fulfill a king’s obligations of governing for the good of his subjects.

The three daughters are also superb - especially Anna Maxwell Martin's flirtatious Regan.

The production shines too from the bathing of the set in a rolling video backdrop to the ear-splitting thunder and the perfectly executed spinning stage.

It's well worth a seeing - especially if you can endure the two hour bum-numbing first half, a bit of eye-gouging and some full-front male nudity.

Physics of Rick...

2 Girls, 1 Cup...

Rather unfortunately advertising.

Mexican Poster for I, Frankenstein...

The Pass...

On Saturday night Oliver, Steve, Stuart and I went to see The Pass at The Royal Court.

It was a brilliant production, fantastically acted and sexy has hell.

Starring the lovely Russell Tovey the story tells how the corruption that ambition and fame brings can ruin lives. Tovey plays Jason an aspiring footballer who along with his best mate Ade (Gary Carr) are poised on the brink of stardom. Jason makes a pass at Ade in their shared hotel room the night before a big game - something he fails to do the next day on the pitch - thereby changing both of their lives. Jason scores on and off the pitch, Ade fails to get picked, and then jacks in his ambitions and finds love being a plumber and with a new man. Jason goes on to bigger and badder things.

The action resumes years later as Jason, now a star, is trying to cover up his homosexuality. He is spending a night with a female pole dancer. But just who is fooling who? Jason's closet lifestyle and hunger for fame has driven him to the brink of a breakdown. He makes another misjudged pass and things soon spiral out of control. "I am not a gay man," he bellows, "I am an ATHLETE!", he then screams back at the woman as she questions his motives. And we believe him. His own disgust has driven him to self-denial and madness.

Fast forward a few years later and he has invited Ade up to his swanky hotel room. Drunk on pills, booze and power he makes his third and final pass. Perhaps trying to get back to that man he was, the man who stood a chance with his mate Ade. But Jason and Ade are both changed men. Jason's corruption is complete and the way he uses people disgusts Ade.

Steal a ticket!