Arsenal Philadelphia Unhinged…

Last night Darce and I attended the Arsenal Philly Unhinged event at the glitzy World Cafe Live in glitzy Philadelphia. 

Run by the amazing Philly supporters’ club honcho Stuart Nelson, the event brought together 100s of members of the Arsenal family from around the world.  And we were proud to represent gaygooners on the night. 

There was food, there was booze, there was entertainment - singing, a very funny slideshow about his home town by Badly Drawn Arsenal, a panel Q&A with Arseblog Andrew Mangan and Gunnerblog James McNicolas, and a bizarre drumming show from Philly Elmo. 

Lots of Arsenal staff & other supporters groups & bloggers were there so we got to do a bit of networking to promote LGBTQ+ visibility of fans. 

It was like pushing on an open door with some though. The Arsenal family do seem to get it. 

Gilberto Silva and Theo Walcott were there too and I got a chance to chat to them about gaygooners and what we do. Such lovely guys. They signed my shirt too. 

Perhaps most interesting though was to talk to Myles Lewis-Skelly’s mum. Myles is our #49, has played in our pre-season games in the US and assisted Martinelli’s winner against Man U last Saturday night. He is a rising star at Arsenal. 

Myles’s mum Marcia Lewis is simply an amazing woman. As Myles worked his way through the perils of being scouted (age 3!), then signed, and now playing for Arsenal (age 17) Marcia was there every step of the way helping him understand the agents, the sponsors, the temptations, and the pressures her young son was going through. To help her son even better she actually studied and got a Masters degree in football business. At the end of the day she’s a mother and she knows how to say “no”. No to the wrong sponsors, no to box-ticking, and no to anything that might disadvantage her boy. 

She insists Myles studies (taking A levels), he gets time off to recover, and he is fully informed of any decisions that affect him. Marcia empowers her son. It’s quite something. 

She now runs a web site helping other parents of young footballers navigate the world of academy football too. And it’s a runaway hit. 

“How would you feel if Myles told you he was gay?” I asked her. 

“I’d hug him. I’m support him. I’d love him.”

Right answer. 

Ayden Heaven’s mum was there too (our #76) and she said similar. 

It’s good to know that if a young male player does come out at Arsenal there are wise and supportive family networks around them. 

Naturally we had to get a photo with two such wonderful women. Proud Allies. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ 

Cocktails NYC style…

Great night out with Ed, Abby, and Darce for cocktails at Nubeluz Ritz-Carlton and dinner afterwards at Upload. Lots of giggles. 🇺🇸🇬🇧

Brooklyn…

Darce knows New York really well. So do I. So we said let’s go somewhere we both really like. 

Easy answer… Brooklyn! 🙂 Just great views. 

New York Bound…

When I boarded my flight to New York yesterday I mentioned rather discreetly to the Air Steward I’m a rather nervous flyer. 

“Okay hang on a minute” she said. 

She disappear for a bit. 

Returning with somebody who looks a bit more senior. The Head Steward(?)

“Hello Mr Green.  I understand you’re nervous flyer. Just so you know about 90 minutes in we expecting severe turbulence.”

“Oh. Ok. Thanks(?)”

Weak smiles all round. 

Buckle up baby!! It’s gonna be a bumpy night!! 🫣😱

(I just looked up First World Problems on Google and my post came up 😂😂😂)

So as word got round on the flight I’m a nervous flyer mi crew came to check in me as I looked “worried”. 

Probably the tears rolling down my face and white knuckles that did that. 

So the captain came back to chat to me. What a nice guy. James. I said “shouldn’t you be flying the plane?”. He said “oh these old buckets fly themselves” Weak smile from me. Nice guy though. 

Spurs fan. I made him hold Rex. Haha. 🤣 

Well, they were right about the turbulence. It got rough. It was really throwing us around. 

My food got chucked up in the air and then on the floor. 

It jumped off my tray - well the plane dropped and it stayed in the air. Then the plane jumped sideways and the food decided to obey gravity and drop to the carpet. 

Newton has a lot to answer for.  😂

Now if it had been a APPLE crumble I’d have had a little internal smile. But it wasn’t. It was my chicken supreme. 

And Newton didn’t have a law about that to my knowledge.

I had managed to grab my glass of red in time though 😅. 

Waitress said she’d bring more food when turbulence stopped and “full marks for not spilling a drop.”

Woman next to me covered in red wine though. More weak smiles.

Hello Dolly! @ London Palladium…

Last night Stuart, Jane, Johnnie, & I went to see Hello Dolly! at the London Palladium in London’s glitzy West End. 

Lush, spectacular, and beautifully sung it’s a wonderful show. 

Imelda Stauntan is an outstanding Dolly Levi. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

UK…

People often confuse the terms United Kingdom, British Isles, British Islands, and Britain. Here's a simple map to clear things up. 

(Well, I think it’s right! 😂)

Pet Shop Boys @ Royal Opera House...

Last night Stuart and I (and the world and his husband) went to the Royal Opera House in London's glitzy Covent Garden to see The Pet Shop Boys tear the old place a new one.

 

Wow! What a show! People were on their feet from the opening note and stayed dancing for the next two hours. 

 

We had seen pretty much the same 'Dreamworld The Greatest Hits Live' show just over two years ago at the O2 - although since then the set list has been improved - tweaking it slightly - losing a couple of their then current singles and inserting a few more recent ones.

 

Expectations were pretty high as we took our seats, but boy did the Boys deliver. Again. 

 

It was if a giant herd of rainbow flag-draped disco dancing musical unicorns pranced onto the stage of the Royal Opera House and rubbing their silver sparkling horns together spunked out torrents of shiny disco balls of pure pop loveliness that then exploded into the ears of the delighted crowd.

 

The background visuals were so stunning and the laser light show so joyously bright that when it splattered its spunky love-light across the smiling faces of each and everyone in the auditorium it was like some multi-coloured glowing rainbow-coloured luminous bukaki.

 

As you might gather - I liked the show.

 

The Boys were simply in magnificent form - interacting with the crowd between the songs (well, Neil anyway) - in fine voice (well, Neil anyway) - dancing around the stage (well, Neil anyway) - and wearing stupid hats (OK, they BOTH did that!) It was everything you expected from a Pet Shop Boys show and more.

 

It was like their Imperial phase was back all over again. They owned the place!

 

And after all this time they know how to put a show together - they work with the best. The set design, the background visuals, the sound design were all amazeballs and hung together magnificently. The show had a real feel of being integrated. Something you don't always see in a gig. But here it all had a single vision and it all came together perfectly. And this vision was DISCO.

 

The Boys managed to pull off that difficult trick of getting the set list right too. With such a large back catalogue to choose from and with new work to promote you're never going to please everyone. But they seemed to give the occasional fan plenty of hits, promote their most recent album quite well and keep the hard-core Pethead on-board too.

 

For the last five songs of the night the boys were joined on stage by twelve dancers wearing silver flashy winged suits. I kid you not. Very funny and the dancing looked great.

 

The encores of West End Girls and Being Boring went down a storm.

 

We love the Pet Shop Boys.

 

Set List:-

 

Suburbia

Can You Forgive Her?

Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)

Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)

Rent

I Don't Know What You Want but I Can't Give It Any More

So Hard

Left to My Own Devices

Single-Bilingual / Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is)

Domino Dancing

Dancing Star

New York City Boy

A New Bohemia

Jealousy

Loneliness

Love Comes Quickly

Paninaro

Always on My Mind (Gwen McCrae cover)

Dreamland

Heart

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

It's Alright (Sterling Void cover)

Vocal

Go West (Village People cover)

It's a Sin

 

Encore:

West End Girls

Being Boring

Death of England: Michael @sohoplace...

Last Friday night Stuart and I went to see Clint Dyer & Roy Williams fearless one-person play about identity, race and class in Britain, Death of England: Michael at @sohoplace in London's glitzy West End.

 

Oh my gosh, it was amazing. Thomas Coombes is as powerful and passionate as he is explosive. He deserves every accolade going for this spit-speckled, sweat-soaked, testosterone-powered performance.

 

Muscular, jocular, and sweaty, Coombes plays Michael, a working-class, late-30s Essex man bubbling with self-loathing. The action - and there is a lot of it - concerns the fallout from the death of his father, a racist, Brexit-loving flower seller, who collapsed during England’s World Cup semi-final defeat to Croatia a few years ago and his close friendship with his black schoolfriend Delroy.

 

Death of England started life as a 10-minute micro-play commissioned by the Royal Court and the Guardian in 2014. Ten years, four general elections, and one referendum later, it arrives here fully-formed and fully-updated on the @sohoplace stage as a fully-fledged 100-minute monologue.

 

It had a brief stint four years ago with Rafe Spall playing Michael at the Dorfman which was also excellent.

 

The night is funny, moving, and meta - it is also a solo (Soho?) tour-de-force. And there’s Penguin biscuits too.

 

Go see.

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Hot Wing King @ Dorfman Theatre...

Last Friday night Stuart and I went to see the Pulitzer Prize winning comedy The Hot Wing King at the Dorfman Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

 

Writer Katori Hall's entertaining and humane 2020 story sees four queer black men prepping for a hot wing competition in Memphis, Tennessee.

 

Beneath the bantering dialogue, and the precise instructions on how to prepare Spicy Cajun Alfredo wings with bourbon-infused crumbled bacon, lie questions of how to be a black man in America, and how to form a relationship and a family.

 

Amateur chef Cordell (Kadiff Kirwan) left his wife and kids for hotel manager Dwayne (Simon-Anthony Rhoden) after meeting him in the barbershop of lugubrious Big Charles (Jason Barnett). Schlubby Big Charles and his fey, preening partner Isom (Olisa Odele) alternately argue with and ignore each other. Dwayne is stricken with guilt over the killing by police of his disturbed sister, which left his nephew Everett (Kaireece Denton) alone with his criminal father TJ (Dwane Walcott).

 

Though it sounds like a lot is going on here, the story is actually extremely straightforward, unfolding around the island kitchen of Dwayne’s upmarket home over the course of roughly 24 hours.

 

Cordell is getting his chicken ready and asking all the others to pitch in with various levels of success.

 

The show even has its own version of Chekhov’s gun: the jar of superhot Ugandan Pelepele pepper mentioned early on is inevitably deployed later, with scorching results. Snatches of music swell up at moments of high emotion, there’s a hilarious group rendition of Luther Vandross’s Never Too Much

 

What elevates it is the quality and wit of Hall’s writing and the passionate engagement of the cast with her themes. She touches on food, class, sports, education and sexuality, what it means to be a lover and a father.

 

All six characters present very different versions of black masculinity to the world and even the homophobic, drug-dealing TJ (terrified his son will turn 'soft') is imbued with depth and subtlety.

 

Go see.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️