Mad House @ Ambassadors Theatre...

Last night I went to see the world premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s dark comedy, Mad House, at the Ambassadors Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

Starring David Harbour (him off of Stranger Things) and Bill Pullman (him off of Independence Day) the play is set in rural Pennsylvania and sees three siblings reunited and circling their dying father at the family home. Yes, all very Pinter, Miller, Tracey, Letts et al.

What sets it apart is the cast - all excellent - and the script - which is razor sharp.

Harbour plays one of the siblings - the play was actually written especially for him by Rebeck, with some of his character Michael’s mental health struggles reflecting those faced by the younger Harbour. The other siblings are Ned (the excellent Stephen Wight), evil Pam (deliciously played by Sinead Matthews), and Pullman plays the vile father.

Added to this, the play is truly set on fire by the outstanding performance by Ayika Henry as hospice nurse Lillian. The audience burst into a spontaneous round of applause at one point after one of her exits - pretty much unheard of in the West End.

Lillian is a complex, flawed character with a great back story, powerful motivations, and a great line in teeth-sucking.

A fab play - which when you add in a couple of hookers for an impromptu party at home, litter with secrets spilling out form the past, you know you are in for a treat.

Be warned though: the play contains discussion of death, mental illness and self-harm, suicide, transphobic and racist language, sexual content and swearing! You have been warned!

The Southbury Child @ Bridge Theatre...

Last week Stuart and I went to see Stephen Beresford’s new comedy The Southbury Child at the Bridge Theatre in London's glitzy London Bridge Quarter.

 

Well, I say comedy. We did crack a smile or two at the sub-Alan Bennett plotting and language. And it was very well acted. It's just we didn't really care for the characters. Or the plot.

 

Directed by Nicholas Hytner the play tries to examine how an affable (if flawed) vicar whose principles put him at odds with the world can lead to public outrage and weaponised offence. 

 

Is it a critique of cancel culture? Is it an eye-roll at wokeness?

 

Alex Jennings plays the vicar, David Highland. A funeral for a recently local child is about to be held in his church and David doesn't like the choice of decor by the grieving mother. She wants Disney balloons. David doesn't. And things spiral (excuse the church pun) out of control. The locals support the mother. David stands firm. Then a campaign starts. Then protests. David's family can't see why he is happy to die on this particular hillock. Then bricks are thrown. T-shirts are printed. David digs his heels in even more. Then red paint is spells out UNT on the vicarage windows (the C is slightly hidden).  

 

A cast of aghast lookers all try their best to calm things down - David's adult daughters (Racheal Ofori and Jo Herbert), a gay curate sent to defuse the situation (Jack Greenlees), and the dead girl’s agitated uncle (Josh Finan). 

 

Even David’s level-headed wife Mary (the splendid Phoebe Nicholls), wonders why his conscience is worth starting a war over.

 

We wonder as audience members too.  Which rather comes to undermine the play’s scattershot second act. Jennings is delightfully witty and urbane but that’s part of the problem: the way Beresford has written David, it is impossible to believe that someone so equitable would be intransigent in the face of grief. Not caving in to the mob rings true. Standing firm against a bereft mother (Sarah Twomey) beggars’ belief.

 

Who will win the standoff?  Well, you could sit through the whole thing and find out.

 

Or you could just not bother. 

 

The final kicker? We are denied the visual punchline of any helium-filled Disney princesses rising over the vicarage.

 

My Fair Lady @ London Coliseum... “GREAT SONGS! IMPERFECT PRODUCTION! CASUAL SEXISM ”

Last night I went to see the much loved Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady at the London Coliseum in London's glitzy West End.

 

First the good stuff...  Fresh from Broadway, it is the very definition of a comforting night out at the theatre. Bartlett Sher’s direction is straightforward and does the business. It glides from one well-loved song to the next on an elegantly twirling set designed by Michael Yeargan. We are in a bygone Britain filled with top hats, period lamp-posts and oak-panelled rooms. You get the picture. Amara Okereke, as Eliza Doolittle, has a voice that fills the auditorium. It's beautifully staged. The show is generally well acted. And funny. The costumes are fab too. The Ascot scene was great - as was the show-stopper Get Me To The Church On Time.

 

But.. but... My Fair Lady is such a dreadfully misogynistic show. And painfully class-ist too. Drag a poor woman out of the gutter, make her talk proper (using threats of casual violence) and use her as an object (of a bet). They then ditch her and get angry when she dares to object. 

 

And our Henry Higgins (Harry Hadden-Paton) plays his part knowing only too well he's on a sticky wicket. Yes, yes, all very funny to be 'Very English', but it’s sexist plain and simple, he’s a bully, arrogant and a snob.  Eliza is not given adequate words to reply in the show. She is often mute(d). Her words when she has them are either to be shouted or seen as complaining.

 

And the production was not without it’s shortcomings. Sadly we had no Vanessa Redgrave (meant to playing Higgins’ mum) last night either and Stephen K Amos as Eliza's dustman dad wasn’t really up to the task. He stumbled his lines and was rather unconvincing.

 

The sound was a bit off too. They faded principal singers up too late - often after someone had already sung a few words. ….anced all night….      …arried in the morning…    …ain in Spain…  etc.

 

Freddie was weak as well. Not handsome enough - playing it for laughs - a bit of an fopish idiot. No way Eliza would have fallen for him.

 

They rewrote the ending too - to make it seem less misogynist perhaps - but even that rather clanged being both puzzling and unconvincing.  We expected to bump into her in the foyer.

 

So a mixed night overall. Great songs of course, but a bit too long at 3 hours and when coupled with the dodgy libretto... well. it's hard to recommend. 

 

And if you see that bloke again who was sitting next to me and who insisted on singing along to I Could Have Danced All Night loudly, give him a wallop from me.

 

On the way home I passed Amy Adams graciously signing programmes for her show outside The Duke Of Yorks. If she'd seen how long the queue was she'd have thrown the Glass Menagerie at them.

Thor: Love and Thunder "FWOAR!"

One sentence review: a fun children’s film where Flash Gordon meets Voldemort, in space, with a lot of LGBT+ references. 7/10.

Legally Blonde @ Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.... “OMG, YOU GUYS!”

Last Friday night Andrew, Kev, Stuart and I went to see the musical Legally Blonde at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London's glitzy Regent's Park.

 

It was fab; way better than we'd thought it was going to be. We laughed. A lot.

 

Coming from the same pen that wrote the dire Batboy: The Musical I had a bad feeling about the show - but how wrong I was; the songs were good, the lyrics funny and the dancing top notch. And it's tongue was very firmly in its very pink cheek.

 

We'd seen an earlier production of the show at the Savoy Theatre 13 years ago with Sheridan Smith as Elle Woods. This time around Courtney Bowman took on the role.  And "omigod you guys" she nailed it.

 

Directed by Lucy Moss, co-writer and co-director of the smash-hit musical Six, it was one big camp show-stopping production number after the next.

 

It was a night of bend... and snap!  Glorious.

Straight Pride @ RVT... “STRAIGHT ACTING!”

Last Saturday night I (and a bunch of other straight-acting ne’er-do-wells) went to Straight Pride at the RVT in London's glitzy Vauxhall.

 

Duckie's last hurrah. It was fun. Fun but a bit bitty. Bit too hot, bit too crowded, and not the usual mix. The queue for the bar was horrendous too. Justin Vivian Bond and Bourgeois & Maurice were good though as was The Readers Wifes. And I got to chat to a bunch of people I hadn't seen in ages.

 

Very much looking forward to Duckie's new Tea Dance on Saturday afternoon’s starting in late August though.

 

Beauty and the Beast the Musical @ London Palladium... “KILL THE BEAST!”

The other Wednesday Roger treated me to a trip up west to see Beauty and the Beast the Musical at the London Palladium in London's glitzy West End.

 

We both love that show. We really do. And of all the productions of BatBtM we have seen together (and boy, we have seen a lot) this one was...  well... middling.

 

No, no, it was fine. It really was. And the dancing, magic and chorography were all tip top. The big production numbers - Belle, Gaston, Be Our Guest - were great too.  I mean you can't mess up Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice's masterpiece, right?

 

It's just that the actor playing Belle was a tad underpowered perhaps. The set was fine - but only fine - perhaps betraying its touring roots somewhat. And orchestra played with gusto - rather than their instruments - boom! boom!

 

Something was missing. The show didn't enchant, it just entertained. It didn't delight, it merely satisfied. 

 

It wasn't a banquet, just supper. No lavish meal, just food. A soup and salad, not a five course feast. Don't believe me? Ask the dishes.

 

Next time, Rog, next time.

 

“A common mistake (is) to suppose Johnson a nice man”

Four years ago Boris left the Foreign Office. Max Hastings, former boss of Boris Johnson, wrote that it is a “common mistake (is) to suppose Johnson a nice man”.   He feared he might become Prime Minister…

Max, you got it right old son.

Bye Bye Boris Zingers...

Impressive explanation from Boris Johnson. Surely any misgivings about his leadership have been put to bed once and for all. (Said nobody)

I sort of envy him. Having such a thick skin. To be live on national telly in a parliamentary chamber where his enemies, colleagues, friends (with only a few exceptions) utterly hate him. To be shown up to be a liar, a destroyer of his own party, of the office of PM. To have the gall to try and deflect, to try and excuse, to say he was distracted with other things. I wish I was that thick skinned. I’d be invincible. 👊

A tough day for Boris, he has now received almost as many resignation letters as he did Father’s Day cards.

Fresh Crisis: Shortage of House of Commons headed paper at the current rate of resignations.

Johnson currently trying to decide which family to spend more time with.

Third Prime Minister in a row to be brought down by Boris Johnson.

Carrie Johnson faces a race against time after buying a wallpaper steamer from Tesco.

Black is the Color of My Voice @ Kings Head Theatre "It is fecking fab! Tears rolling down my cheeks. So powerful." @KingsHeadThtr

Last Sunday afternoon Stuart treated me to an afternoon at the Kings Head Theatre in glitzy Islington to see Black is the Color of My Voice.

A one-woman show telling the story of Nina Simone, it stars Florence Odumosu who deserves all the international 5-star reviews it's been getting.

It is fecking fab! Tears rolling down my cheeks. So powerful.

Elvis "joyously sexy and crackling with electricity" 8/10...

One sentence review: Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis film is imaginative, colourful, and thrilling ; Austin Butler’s performance as Presley is joyously sexy and crackling with electricity. 8/10

Pride 22 - The Parade - @gaygooners @arsenal @PrideInLondon #AllOurPride Read about the GG Pride 2022 and more photos here ->

Last Saturday was Pride in London. And it was epic. The build-up, the arrival, the bus, the Parade, and the after-party.

 

All meticulously planned by Carl, Joe, aided by the GG committee, all the GG volunteers, and the whole Arsenal team. It was a joy. These things don't just happen by themselves. The GG gang have been hard at work making sure everything ran like clockwork on the big day, and it did.

 

We laughed, we sang (thank you Angus!), we drank (only a bit!), we danced (my poor feet!), we cheered and we cheered some more.

 

The flags were waved, the smiles were broadened, and the joy was there to see on everyone's faces.

 

For many it was their first Pride - for me it was my 38th - but I can confidently say it was the best.

 

Thank one and all. Thank you for organising. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being you.

 

Here's to the next one!

 

[Feel free to re-use any photos but please can you credit me if you repost them. Thanks.]

Pride 22 - Three Amigos - @gaygooners @arsenal Read about the GG Pride 2022 bus launch and more photos here ->

Last Friday morning I and a bunch of other GayGooners, were lucky enough to be able to go to the Arsenal Training ground in London Colney to the launch event for the GG Pride 2022 bus. 

 

Arsenal were filming our, and player, reaction to the GG branded vehicle for a video they were putting together. They gave us Pride 22 branded shirts to wear for the video shoot too. Nice.

 

The bus looked fab. It brought a tear to my eye.

 

During a pause in filming George Lewis (Academy) jumped on to have a photo taken with us which was really cool.

Then right on cue Mikael Arteta brought six first team men’s players round to see us and we all shook hands and took some photos. The boys had just finished a training session and were suitably hot and sweaty.  There was Cedric, Runar Alex Runarsson, Reiss Nelson, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Eddie Nketiah and Hector Bellerin.  They all seemed really pleased to see us and had elected to do so. 

 

Blimey Arteta looks like a piece of Lego close up!  And I got a cuddle with Hector. My hero.

 

The boys then headed off and we hung around waiting to see what happened next…

 

And sure enough…  Rob Holding came around the corner.  He stopped for a much longer meet and greet. He chatted about his holiday with his girlfriend and with Calum Chambers in California and how they found themselves at Pride events in LA and then the following week in San Francisco! Draw from that what you will!

 

I gave Rob my GG scarf to keep. He seemed genuinely chuffed. “Can I keep it?” “Yes” “Seriously?” “Absolutely”

After that, and his kind words on the Arsenal web site, we have a good LGBT+ ally I feel.

 

Feel free to re-use any photos but please can you credit me if you repost them (apart from second one and the last one which are credit Arsenal by their request). 

 

Table for two for the birthday boy...

Calling International Rescue! Table for two for the birthday boy! Happy Birthday Stu!

Battersea Power Station Control Room A…

From the 1930s to 1980s, Battersea Power Station was a working Power Station. At its peak, it was producing a fifth of London’s power. 

The Control Room A has just been renovated. 

Sadly no flying pig yet.

https://batterseapowerstation.co.uk/news/article/battersea-power-station-unveils-newly-restored-control-room-a