Some more photos of my lovely friend Mark. Gone too soon…. More photos ->

Beautiful Mark. Gone too soon…. More photos ->

Farewell my funny, beautiful, stylish, loyal, caring, thoughtful, friend. Love you. Gone too soon.

Farewell Mark.  Gone too soon. 

Jack Absolute Flies Again @ Olivier Theatre “Flatulence will get you nowhere”. Review->

Last night Stuart and I went to see Richard Bean's rip-roaring 1940s-set new play Jack Absolute Flies Again - his take on Sheridan's 1775 play The Rivals - at the Olivier Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

 

Starring Laurie Davidson as air pilot Jack Absolute the story of A loves B, B loves C, C loves themselves is set on an RAF requisitioned country house during World War II.

 

The script is very funny - all jolly hockey-sticks but with a modern post-modern twist. It strays into panto every now and again - but who doesn't like a good panto?

 

The plot is silly but engaging with an ending of bitter-sweetness.

 

The object of Jack's love is Lydia played by Natalie Simpson. Simpson is a delight, showing great comic timing. Hunky mechanic Dudley Scunthorpe is played by hunky Strictly winner Kelvin Fletcher.  Fletcher, along with the rest of the cast, even gets to dance too.

 

Both however are outflanked by scene stealing performances from Kerry Howard as Lucy, the unreliable go-betweening maid, and by Caroline Quentin's gloriously mis-speaking Mrs Malaprop.

 

Indeed, Quentin is given all the best lines:

 

Flatulence will get you nowhere. 

 

You’ve found the trellis where I’ve been training my climbing clitoris. 

 

I feel like a character from The Cunt of Monte Crisco. 

 

Carpe diem. Seize the carpet. 

 

etc. etc.

 

Well, worth a trip to the theatre alone. We laughed all the way through.

101 Dalmatians @OpenAirTheatre "it gives me great pleasure to write... a great piece of new British musical theatre! A joy. Utter Dalmatian"... #DouglasHodge @KateFleetwood @TobyOlie #101Dalmatians Review ->

Last night Roger and I went to see new musical 101 Dalmatians at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre in London's glitzy Regents Park.

 

And as if to over-egg the puppy packed park-based pudding still further, the action is itself set in Regents Park.

 

First off, let me say it was a great show. In fact, a great piece of new British musical theatre. And it gives me great pleasure to write those words. It's not playing to the tourist crowd per se; the songs and the jokes are very British; the set-up, manners and politeness are all delightfully British; and Cruella De Vil is played to the max in a devilishly evil Essex accent.

 

And let's face it, it's Kate Fleetwood's fabulous Cruella De Vil we have come to see. The show wasn't quite the same whenever she was absent from the stage!

 

That said, Timothy Sheader's whole direction and Colin Richmond's set design is very clever and never nothing but diverting. 101 dogs do appear - not only dalmatians - all inventively magicked up as a variety of puppets - some with solo performers, some with two. Full marks to puppetry design and direction by Toby Olié.

 

The songs were fab too. Some gloriously topical - the song about turning criminal was laugh out loud funny. Round of applause to Douglas Hodge for the music and lyrics, the book by Johnny McKnight from a stage adaptation by Zinnie Harris. 

 

Yes, the show was not without its small faults - but these were mainly technical as the show is still in previews. The sound balance isn't quite right so we can't quite catch all the plainly witty lyrics and some of the dance scenes look rather crowded.  But these are only very minor quibbles.

 

Congratulations especially to Pongo (head Ben Thompson, voice Danny Collins) and Perdi (head Yana Penrose, voice Emma Lucia) and all the rest of the cast. 

 

And last but not least, for it is a musical after all, big ups to Tarek Merchant as Musical Director, and to Sarah Travis as Musical Supervisor and Orchestrator.

 

A joy.

Prom 7: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas @ Royal Albert Hall "Containing what many believe to be one of the greatest English songs ever"... Review ->

Last night Paul, Helen, Trevor and I went to listen to David Bates and the La Nuova Musica choir perform Henry Purcell’s monumental work, the Baroque opera Dido and Aeneas as part of the 2022 Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London's glitzy South Kensington.

 

Containing what many believe to be one of the greatest English songs ever created, Dido and Aeneas was written almost 340 years ago making it one of the earliest known English operas. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons her.

 

The performance was excellent. Alice Coote as Dido was outstanding, James Newby as Aeneas was first class, Gemma Summerfield as Belinda was powerful, and the La Nuova Musica choir sung their hearts out.

 

However, the night was rather stolen by the three semi-naked sailors. Nicky Spence, Luke Cartwright, and Owen Morris performed the dance of Purcell's The Sailors' Dance to the choreography of Beyoncé's Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It). Fabulously funny.

 

Another highlight for me was the rousing "So Fair the Game, So Rich the Sport."  Love that tune.

 

Other notable parts were sung by Madeleine Shaw as Sorceress, Nardus Williams as Second Woman, Tim Mead as Spirit, Helen Charlston as First Witch, and Martha McLorinan as Second Witch

 

The ever-talented David Bates not only conducted the piece but also played the harpsichord. Clever chap.

 

Oh , and that greatest English song (covered by Alison Moyet, Annie Lennox, Justin Vivien Bond et al)?

 

Dido sings it as her last dying aria, "When I Am Laid in Earth", also known as "Dido's Lament."

 

It's a corker I can tell you.

 

Dido's Lament 

 

Thy hand, Belinda, darkness shades me,

On thy bosom let me rest,

More I would, but Death invades me;

Death is now a welcome guest.

When I am laid, am laid in earth,

May my wrongs create

No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;

Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

Book launch: Love from the Pink Palace: Memories of Love, Loss and Cabaret through the AIDS Crisis @TheRVT @THTorguk : Review ->

Last night Darren, Stuart and I went down to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in glitzy Vauxhall to attend Jill Nalder's launch of her book Love from the Pink Palace: Memories of Love, Loss and Cabaret through the AIDS Crisis.

 

Made famous by It's a Sin, Jill's book was a labour of love.

 

Partly as a fundraiser for THT, the night started off as an interview / Q&A with Jill. Then things moved on to a full-on musical theatre cabaret by the WestEnders performing songs from Les Misérables, Dreamgirls, Evita, Phantom of the Opera and much else besides. The night ended with a book signing - all the books being bought from a Gays The Word concession stand.

 

For those of you perhaps not familiar with her story, when Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends - of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own - she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs she could get.

 

But soon rumours were spreading from America about a frightening illness being dubbed the 'gay flu', and Jill and her friends now found their formerly carefree existence under threat.

 

In this moving memoir, Jill tells the true story of her and her friends' lives during the AIDS crisis - juggling a busy West End career while campaigning for AIDS awareness and research, educating herself and caring for the sick. Most of all, she shines a light on those who were stigmatised and shamed, and remembers those brave and beautiful boys who were lost too soon.

 

Patriots @ Almeida Theatre "Powerful stuff" : Review->

Last Friday night Stuart and I went to see Peter Morgan’s slick Russian oligarch drama Patriots at the Almeida Theatre in London's glitzy Islington.

 

It's a fun piece that takes on the seemingly unfunny post-Soviet, post-perestroika Russian history of 1991. 

 

But Morgan has a way with recent history as we have seen with The Crown.

 

Here, Russian oligarchs - chief amongst them being Boris Berezovsky (played magnetically by Tom Hollander) - are fighting over the carcass of a dying USSR. They cut huge deals, many illegal, that make them richer and richer. They then try to cement those riches with political appointments. Mistakenly Berezovsky picks Vladimir Putin, an obscure minor technocrat, thinking he can use him as a puppet leader. What Berezovsky doesn't realise is Putin has ambitions of his own and when friend turns foe the fight really starts.

 

With a history of working for the secret service, Putin knows a thing or two about getting what he wants. But Berezovsky, a talented mathematician turned businessman, has a trick or two up his sleeve.

 

The power struggle gains intensity - reading as it does like Games of Thrones, Succession, Julius Caesar. And the ending is as inevitable as it is tragic.

 

Will Keen plays Vladimir Putin beautifully. Luke Thallon makes an uncanny Roman Abramovich. 

 

Powerful stuff.

 

Primal Scream @ Alexandra Palace...

On Saturday night Paul treated us to see the fantastic Primal Scream perform Screamadelica in it’s entirety at the equally fantastic and glitzy Alexandra Palace.

 

It was Shelley’s birthday too so we had a chance to catch up with some old friends having kicked the day off with an epic Bolivian meal.

 

"Just what is it that you want to do?  

Well, we wanna be free, we wanna be free to do what we wanna do  

And we wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time  

And that's what we're gonna do (away baby, let's go)  

We're gonna have a good time, we're gonna have a party."

The Seagull @ Harold Pinter Theatre...

Last night I went to see a modern take on Anton Chekhov’s love-triangle ridden masterpiece The Seagull at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

 

Starring Emilia Clarke (yes, her off of Game of Thrones) making her West End debut the play has been reborn by Anya Reiss into a distinctly 21st century incarnation - along with much discussion of social media, the private life / fame balance, and the cost of mobile phone contracts. And it hasn't really been improved by the modern transition.

 

The orignal play is usually heavy on sub-text - whereas from what I saw last night the new text was not so much sub as dom. It was in control. Precious few feelings or motives were left unsaid.

 

Happily Clarke's Nina is a beguiling performance, bewitching and seductive. I'd love to see her in something better. In fact the whole cast (Jason Barnett, Robert Glenister, Tom Rhys Harries, Mika Onyx Johnson, Gerald Kyd, Daniel Monks, Sara Powell, Indira Varma, and Sophie Wu) are all good - it's just they are hamstrung Reiss's wisecracking script and by Jamie Lloyd's frankly puzzling production. 

 

No gun, no scenery, no backdrops, no seagull, no props (save for some green plastic chairs). The cast are on stage the whole time in a chipboard box set.

 

It's also a very lean-back production. Quite literally the characters lean so far back in their chairs that as they talk softly it is often hard to see who is speaking at first. There is very little movement.

 

Which pretty much makes me conclude the whole thing would have been much better suited to be on the radio. Let the voices tell the tale.

 

As Rita in Education Rita said of Ibsen's Peer Gynt, “Do it on the radio.”

 

So a good enough show, but not a wow.