Tragedy...

King Lear that is - which I went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company performing at The Roundhouse.

Absolutely loved it - its one of my favourite Shakespeare plays anyhow (somehow I'm more into the tragedies than the comedies...) and I thought this production was fantastic. I could pretty much remember what happened up to Lear going crazy, but couldn't remember how it finished (although I knew it wasn't a happy ending!) and I'd completely forgotten the sub-plot of Edmund and Edgar.

Seems to have been a few contentious reviews about this particular production - but I'll go with The Guardian's review :-). Although this is reviewing it at The Courtyard Theatre it was the same production we saw with the same cast etc. I'd probably give it 5/5 stars tho...

Vegetable Stew...

Went to see Stewart Lee again on Wednesday night. I last saw him around this time last year with Kevin and he was just as funny. Very good jokes about Guardian readers, Godzilla and comedians who do charity gigs.

Everytime I go to comedy I realise I should go more often. Laughter is so good for the soul - and sometimes it can be in short supply in day-to-day life.

Comedy Wednesday...

Comedy Wednesday involved a trip into town with Kevin to see 'Men Who Stare at Goats' which was very good. Nothing at all like the book in the sense that the story is completely made up, but they do use a lot of the source material. And somehow watching it makes the ludicrousness of it even more unbelievable...

Then it was off to see Stewart Lee (I was using a spare ticket Kevin had). Very funny! No point trying to write about any of the themes as you really did need to be there, but he was great. Also very funny was the man sat in front of us who was absolutely shrieking with laughter the whole way through. Think it is safe to assume he was enjoying it as much as we were!

Egypt updates will follow - but its a bit daunting thinking about writing it up, so I thought I would keep this up to date in the interim.

Speaking in Tongues

Mhairi and I went to see Speaking in Tongues - both very excited as it had both John Simm and Kerry Fox in it.

Sadly it didn't quite live up to our expectations. He was fab (of course), but overall the story just felt a bit laboured and obvious. It was pretty easy to see what was coming, and we didn't warm to any of the characters either. But we did get 'upgraded' at the theatre and ended up in much better seats. Thats never happened to me before!

Still glad I went - first time I'd been to the theatre for a while, but a shame it wasn't as good as we were expecting.

The amazing 'War Horse'

I went to see War Horse with a friend from work. I didn't really know much about it but Alex had heard a lot of good things, so we decided to treat ourselves as a Xmas present.

Absolutely amazing! Its adapted from a childrens story about a boy's journey to find his horse on the battlefields of WWI and it was done so well. The horses were done by a puppet company - but they were big enough that the actors could sit on them and 'ride' them around the stage. It was just so well done. We were completely entranced - I forgot I was seeing horses that were puppets and just felt like I was watching real horses. Brilliant. The story was great as well - dealt with the futility of war so well, without over-egging it.

And I cried at the end :-).

Gulp... time to play catch up

OK...

Its been a while - I'll admit that. But whats two months (almost...) between friends! So now I'm playing a whole lotta catch up :-).

All in date order so this is going back to the end of May - hope you enjoy finding out what I've been up to!

I've had extenuating circumstances - Tracey's been here for a month!!

Fleur - thanks for your call, reminding me to catch up - at last I'm starting to get around to it! And David commented on my lack of activity yesterday as well - guilt and shame finally caught up.

It will take me a few days to catch up though so do keep checking back!

I see a little silhouette of a man...

We Will Rock You is possibly one of the most cheesiest musicals around - but it was great! A very thin story pieced together around Queen's greatest hits - fantastic! Again we had great seats, and we were all up singing at the end - Tracey more than me and Maya, but we did get up!

I am now really quite keen to get Queen's Greatest Hits...

Wicked!

The first of the two musicals we saw was Wicked - which was just great! Fantastic seats (thanks Tracey!), and the show was really well done. Not quite as political as the book, and the happy ending was a bit 'Hollywood' for me, but on the whole it was a really good adaptation.

And I guess with a musical you have to give it a happy ending...

I wouldn't fancy playing Elphaba though - having to green up every day must be really bad for your skin...

The History Boys

Divya and I went to see The History Boys on Thursday night. Really good play, even though we were up in the Gods, so it was a bit like watching the top of their heads at time! But it was so well done that we forgot that we were so high up. And as the tickets were only £10 I can't complain!

I'm quite keen to watch the film as well, but I think I'll wait a while before doing that. The play is meant to be better.

He's behind you...

So this year I went to see what I think is my first panto as well - I'm pretty sure I haven't been to one before!

Steve - a friend from work was playing Wishy Washy in Aladdin at the South London Theatre - and it was absolutely brilliant. Steve was just fantastic ("Wotcha Wishy Washy!!") and the audience participation was full on. Lots of booing and hissing when the baddie came on, a bit of singing along to Waterloo, lots of shouting 'Oh yes he will, oh no he won't, he's behind you...' type of stuff. I came out and my face was just aching from smiling and having had such a fun evening.

What a great tradition!!

And here is Steve on the left as Wishy Washy, with his 'Mother', Widow Twanky...

Black Comedy

Mhairi and I went to see a friend from work in the play Black Comedy - very funny! Another very British 'farce' - along the lines of Lady Be Good so there seems to be a bit of a theme emerging there! Steve is a member of the South London Theatre and is about to audition for the panto Aladdin - could be my first panto!

Lady Be Good...

No - not what I tell myself every day...

I went to see Lady Be Good with a bunch of friends from work - it is the first time I've ever done the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and I really enjoyed it. I struggled with enthusiasm during the day - I've never gone to them before cos I've never trusted the weather, and the year I live dangerously we have the worst and wettest July since records began...

So I was well prepared with my walking jacket on, my picnic blanket to sit on and my fleece to keep my legs and hands warm and it was great! The musical was originally performed in 1924 with Fred Astaire and his sister Adele playing the brother and sister of the story - it was really well done, very fluffy, very funny, with beautiful frocks and dancing.

So I was pleased I trusted the BBC forecast and did go - roll on Macbeth in August!

Let me entertain you...

Now that I've finally uploaded most of my photos I can catch up with other stuff that I've been doing since I got back. Which actually isn't all that much- except for going to see The Entertainer on Tuesday night.

Fantastic play - great cast as well with Robert Lindsay and Pam Ferris. Apparently Laurence Olivier saw a play Robert Lindsay was in a long time ago, and said to him then that he should do The Entertainer one day.

It was quite amazing to listen to the dialogue (the play was set around the time of the Suez Crisis), and think that they must have changed the lines to reflect current events - but they hadn't. Incredible to listen to what they were saying, and everything could be directly related to the situation in Iraq as well. Shows how for all things change, everything stays the same...

Fantastic slide show

This is a great slide show of the Midsummer Nights Dream performance I went to - works best with sound! Click here to check it out.

Shakespeare like I've not seen it before...

Went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream last Thursday at the Roundhouse in Camden. It was absolutely fantastic - although I'm glad I read a synopsis of the story before I went. I'm not that familiar with the play and I think I would have struggled a bit if I hadn't any idea of what was going on, but it was a very clever production.

Underneath The Lintel

So tonight Kevin and I carried on our tradition of going to see West Wing stars on the stage in the West End and went to see Richard Schiff in Underneath The Lintel.

Fab play - about a librarian who researches a book that is returned 113 years late. I won't say much more about the story for any UK readers who go to see it, but its a very good story. And the library stuff is brilliant! Anyone who has ever worked in a library would enjoy this - after all, haven't we all had that urge to punish that bad borrower...

Ricky Gervais - funny man

In the nick of time Kevin remembered that he had booked tickets to go and see Ricky Gervais last night at the Bloomsbury Theatre. So although feeling very tired we both toddled off to see him.

It was a great show - he was doing a 3 nights of a benefit show to try out new material before he starts his next nationwide tour. You can't get much better than second row from the front, right in the centre! Luckily he isn't really into heckling the audience so we felt relatively safe sat there!

I would try and describe how funny he was but it never comes across well - suffice to say that he looks and sounds just like he did in 'The Office' and 'Extras'.!!

Funny night out with Sean Hughes

We went to see Sean Hughes last night - tickets that Kevin sorted out last night and he was really funny. This is a good article about why he is returning to stand up and it was a great wee theatre. Quite small and very intimate - so we made sure that we weren't sat anywhere near the front!! And as the show carried on we were very pleased - he had the bonus of three Irish girls in the front row and they came in for some ribbing! Very entertaining!!

A Voyage Round My Father and Embrace

Kevin and I went to see this play before I went up to Wales as SAP sponsors the theatre company putting the play on. It is by John Mortimer (author of Rumpole of the Bailey) and it tells the story of his relationship with his father. Derek Jacobi plays his father and he was just brilliant. One review described it as the Derek Jacobi show and it was a bit like that, but it was quite incredible to watch him. He aged through the play (not through make up or special effects, just through the quality of his acting) and the scene when he dies was incredibly moving. It was also rather cool as John Mortimer was in the audience as well!

And on Friday just been we went to see Embrace at the Hammersmith Apollo - about the zillionth time we've seen them, but as always they were fab. The lead singer Danny just loves to perform and it is brilliant to see him having such a good time - you just can't help not having a brilliant time as well! But then again I am a diehard fan...