Davids Daily Dramas

Spo Shirt Charity Tour

2012-01-30T15:58:00.006Z

Last week I took temporary possession of the Spo shirt of shirts on it's international charity tour. Organised by Dr Spo this unique hand made shirt has been travelling the globe for over a year raising money for charities like Doctors Without Borders, Prostate Cancer and Test Positive In Chicago to name but a few of the good causes.

The idea is you have your photo taken in the said garment and the money comes rolling in. It only travelled a short distance down the coast to me last week and I was planning on having a photo taken alongside something iconically Brightonian, but alas the inclement weather has not allowed that and now with the forecast cold spat looming I have decided to take my picture in the warm and dry indoors before sending it on it's way to the next worthy recipient. I understand it will shortly be arriving in Australia on its Down Under tour where the weather should be much more appropriate to wear outside.

I look forward to following it's onward journey and am glad to have been part of such a great idea.

W.E. A Film By Madonna

2012-01-25T18:10:00.007Z

You would have to have been living in a cave not to realise that Madonna is back in business after being relatively quiet for the last few years making her new film W.E. I went to see it today and despite the mixture of luke warm / poor reviews I loved it. It helps of course that I have more than a passing interest in Wallis Simpson and indeed Madonna herself to prompt me to go and see it but I do feel some of the more savage reviews are uncalled for. It is far too easy to put down what really is a hobby for the most successful female artist of all time and if she hadn't put her name to it I wonder if the critics would have been so lazy in their criticism of this movie.

I have enjoyed Andrea Riseborough in everything I have seen her in and she was a perfect choice for Mrs Simpson. She looked amazing and the styling and wardrobe / makeup for this part of the story was beautiful. It was a bit like The Hours with 2 stories running parallel, the Edward and Mrs Simpson story with a modern day story of New Yorker named after her who has an obsession with the story spending her time at the Sothebys auction of Wallis' possessions.

Madonna being the ultimate perfectionist with her live shows and videos the attention to detail was incredible. Every scene looked stunning and perfect, maybe at times a bit too perfect being my only criticism. There were some surprises I wasn't expecting including a Sex Pistols track in the score and also a shot that moved from the Empire State Building to a close up of Rayban sunglasses which made me think I was watching Desperately Seeking Susan.

Instead of what The King gave up Madonna tries to show us what Wallis gave up and tells it from her point of view. My favourite scenes were when Edward accidentally tears Wallis' dress and she lets the cat out of the bag in front of everyone and also when the abdication news breaks she flees to Claridges with her vintage Vuitton luggage only to fool the press by running back out the back to disappear into exile with the former king.

When you think this was only the second time Madonna has been behind the camera it was pretty dam good and I will definitely be getting the Blu Ray when it's out. Go see it with an open mind and you might be surprised.

The Iron Lady

2012-01-11T21:09:00.003Z

Yesterday I went to see The Iron Lady, the "bio pic" of Margaret Thatcher. I was a bit worried about it because my loyalties were torn, I love Meryl Streep but I hate Margaret Thatcher and I had heard people say really good things about it so thought they were going to airbrush history. The audience was split between the blue rinse brigade there to see Maggie and the gays there to see Meryl.

Meryl didn't disappoint, she had the voice and mannerisms and her old lady Maggie was incredible. Oscars due for the makeup, the crash helmet wigs and of course Ms Streep.

The film focuses on Maggie today and her decline into dementure, this is obviously a very sad and serious condition and very upsetting for the family. The actress playing Carol Thatcher was great but lets not forget that whilst Margaret has round the clock protection paid by the tax payer to keep her safe in her own palatial home, whilst she was Prime Minister she cut every benefit for the disabled , especially those suffering from mental illness, and the current Tory government feels the same about these benefit scroungers who should be selling their homes to pay for their care.

Shuffling about thinking her husband is still alive and that she is still Prime Minister you could quite easily warm to this dreadful woman but thankfully they didn't shy away from the terrible things she did. Going to war for no reason but to win an election, ordering the sinking of the Belgrano as it sailed away, the Poll Tax, hunger strikers, it was like an 80's history lesson.

It was mixed with real footage from the time, including the Brighton bombing, which was eerily weird to see as I was sitting yards from where it actually happened.

I actually loved this film and rather than making me feel sorry for Thatcher it made me come out singing all those anti Thatcher songs from the time, The Beat's Stand Down Margaret, Morrissey's Margaret On The Guillotine and that classic from The Exploited Maggie Is A C**t !

One Man Two Guvnors

2011-12-04T19:35:00.003Z

Last week I went to see the hugely successful and immensely popular One Man Two Guvnors in London's glitzy Adelphi theatre. It is a massive sold out show and soon to transfer to Broadway but I thought it was pretty meh!.

Admittedly I wasn't feeling too great and tried to change my ticket and even give it away without success and not wanting to waste it I went along. I could have done with a laugh and the audience were wetting themselves in hysterics but I managed to just give a couple of chuckles and didn't really see what all the fuss was about.

Set in Brighton in the 60's, the sets were great and very authentic, it was a slapstick farce whereby the One Man had to keep his two Guvnors apart so they didn't know he was doing 2 jobs. It was very panto and a bit of a 70's situation comedy with lots of audience participation and very obvious lame jokes. The main laughs came from an 80 year old waiter who played his part really well and was funny but it was ripped off completely from Victoria Wood's "2 Soups" sketch.

I am assuming it was me as the laughter was deafening and I won't spoil it for anyone but I saw through everything totally and didn't quite fall for the big joke which caused a massive stir in the audience. Maybe I just don't have a normal sense of humour.

Cardiff

2011-12-04T19:11:00.004Z

So my trip to Cardiff didn't turn out quite as planned. It has been quite well documented that George Michael is still hospitalised in Austria and has cancelled or rather postponed the rest of the tour. With a non exchangeable train ticket and non refundable hotel I decided to stay in Cardiff and make the most of it. In the 5 years since I was there last a whole new shopping centre has sprung up and it is a great city for shopping if that's your thing, which for me sadly is not.

The city was in full festive swing with an above average display of lights and the castle in particular looked great all wrapped up like a parcel.

I was able to use the time to hook up with some old friends and thoroughly enjoyed that and jumped on a bus to visit my old home town of Penarth. It was weird to see how things had changed, some for the better and some for the worse and to walk the routes that I did as a child and teenager.

My old school looked really run down and tired and I created a perve alert by walking up the main drive to it to have a look by being forcibly ejected by security. We never had security when I went to school and I wasn't sure if they were to keep the perves out or to keep the kids in.

It was a nice little trip down memory lane but very disappointing that George is so ill and was unable to do the concert.

Cardiff Bound

2011-11-23T08:37:00.003Z

I'm about to haul arse and go long haul to Cardiff for the first time in 5 years. I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends but the thought of actually going away and doing stuff seemed like a good idea at the time, but not so much so on a cold foggy morning. The downside of being old I guess!

The main reason for the trip is to see George Michael on his Symphonica tour, as I was unable to get a ticket for any of the London shows. He has just cancelled 2 shows in France due to a chest infection so I hope he is at home getting better for Saturday. Hopefully Geri is round there rubbing some Vick into his chest.

Melanie C - Let There Be Love

2011-11-15T17:08:00.000Z

Check out the new Melanie C video filmed in Brighton a couple of weeks ago. The locations used are all places I hang out but I was unable to appear in it due to the restraining order. Makes me so happy to live in Brighton though especially this time of year.

Jerusalem At The Apollo Theatre

2011-11-10T14:46:00.003Z

Yesterday I went up to London's glitzy West End to see the newly returned from Broadway production of Jerusalem. Knowing it had a running time of over 3 hours I had made sure I got an aisle seat well in advance to ensure some comfort. This play was a sell out in it's previous run and on Broadway and yesterday every seat was taken.

Opening with a young girl in fairy wings singing Jerusalem it burst into a late night wild party in the woods and then we met Mark Rylance in the role he has perfected of Rooster. He won both the Tony and Olivier award for the role of the drug dealing Englishman being evicted from his caravan in the Wiltshire woods. He is befriended by the local West Country hicks who go there not only for the drugs and booze and late night parties but also to escape the misery of their lives.

It is St Georges day and the local fair at which Rooster used to be the star and ladies man, where he used to do death defying stunts is in full swing. The new estate wants him evicted in a very timely way that mirrors the residents of Dale Farm. His far fetched stories to a cast that includes Mackenzie Crook, Alan David and Daisy from Downton Abbey range from the ridiculous to the tragic. It is very much Shameless set in the West Country.

There are live chickens wandering the stage, a tortoise and gold fish in supporting roles, real trees and all manner of things hitting the people in the front row from egg shells to dirt and vodka. There is enough bad language to make a sailor blush yet all the little old ladies in the audience seemed to get the joke. The 3 hours flew by and when it ended it was very much a case of wow, that was something different! The tickets might be overly expensive but compared to some other high end plays that are currently running for half that time you definitely get your money worth. Highly recommended.

Erasure

2011-11-08T20:11:00.004Z

On Friday after finishing work I dashed to The Dome to catch Erasure on their Tomorrows World tour. The seats had all been removed and the sold out show was jam packed. With a very simple set of Gotham like gargoyles Andy, Vince and 2 backing singers took to the stage. For the opening number Andy was dressed in a red sequinned jacket with a Centurion helmet which was quickly removed as the show went hurtling into into their back catalogue of fantastic pop friendly hits.

The whole show was a fantastic feel good experience. Fantastic songs, a great voice, Andy a total showman loving what he was doing, a fit body and a great connection with the audience who were loving every single moment of the show. After the previous weeks disaster someone needs to send Britney a memo that this is how you conduct a world tour.

I've seen Erasure many times and they never fail to deliver, Andy did his demented Black Swan dancing and as the opening bars to each hit started the crowd went wild. The tour is promoting their new album Tomorrows World and we were treated to the best songs from that album but it was the classics that got everyone up dancing. Looking around the difference in the audience having a dam good time and looking on in disbelief at Britney was astounding.

Sadly this was the end of the current tour and I could have quite happily gone along to see it again. I hope it's not too long before Erasure go back on the road.

The Killing Of Sister George

2011-11-01T20:16:00.003Z

When I was in London the other day I caught the matinee of The Killing Of Sister George at The Arts Theatre. The 60's lesbian soap drama made famous by the Beryl Reid movie is currently playing to as half filled houses as Britney's world tour. I actually really enjoyed it and thought it was a great production. The set was pretty spectacular with the 60's sitting room morphed into a Dansette wireless, the medium in which Sister George played out her weekly antics to her public.

The drama unfolds as Sister George discovers her character is to be killed off and takes it out on her girlfriend in the dysfunctional relationship. Meera Syal plays the butch lesbian top, strangely believably if you can imagine an Indian lady being an out and proud lesbian in the 60's. I was looking forward to seeing Helen Lederer but very disappointed in her performance as the physic neighbour, but she wasn't as bad as the BBC executives Valerie Singleton wig.

It all ends in massive lesbian high drama but in spite of being a little bit dated it was a very enjoyable afternoon and much better value for money than the car crash that followed at The O2.

Britney At The O2

2011-10-28T21:50:00.005+01:00

I absolutely love Britney's Femme Fatale album, it is exactly how a pop record should sound and it is as near pop perfection as you can get. Although I said I wouldn't go and see her live shows again when the dates were released for the promotion of this album I forked out my £70 on pre sale to get a good seat. I started to get worried as the day got nearer and I was inundated with emails for half price and then £25 tickets, which when I checked were all great seats in every arena on her UK tour.

Still I hauled arse over to The O2 last night and as the lights dimmed and the familiar It's Britney Bitch bounced around the embarrassingly empty arena I kinda wished I was home listening to the album. At her comeback show The Circus she looked amazing and the show had all the bells, whistles and special effects you expect in a major production. The FF show though just looked cheap and lame. A somewhat bloated Britney, with nylon hair hanging down appeared through some manually sliding doors and proceeded to just go through the motions of walking back and forth, a bit of hand waving and the choreography consisted of the odd bit of nylon hair swishing.

This is certainly not what you expect from an international millions of albums selling star on a global arena tour. Obviously she didn't sing, it was all lip syncing but I felt like I was watching a bad drag queen doing Britney on Canal Street not the real thing at The O2. She made no connection with the audience at all, just a Hi Y'all London and she seemed dead from the neck up.

There were some queens there screaming with joy just to be in her presence, she only had to manage to walk and 2 in front of me were squealing (they had boa's) but looking around the audience the majority were just standing in disbelief like myself. People were leaving, not in droves like at Whitney but a steady trickle throughout the show. She just seemed highly medicated and not sure where she was or why she was even there. Checking Twitter after I read Making a bear dance on hot bricks is less cruel than making Britney 2011 go on tour and that summed it up perfectly. I just felt really shocked that such a glittering career had turned into this freak show.

I will never go to a Britney show again, it is beyond cruel and basically there is no point. I just felt very sad about the whole thing.

The Specials

2011-10-26T09:28:00.003+01:00

Last night I went to see The Specials at The Brighton Centre. Two years after their 30th anniversary tour I guess this was their 30th anniversary tour of breaking up as they split up in 1981 after only 2 very important albums. The Centre was rammed and the show started to deafening boo's as a photo of Margaret Thatcher appeared on screen. The slide show continued with photos of the miners strike and the 81 riots to a huge cheer as a front page headline Thatcher Quits and ended with photos of the recent riots and a picture of David Cameron. It doesn't take Kojak to work out there was a pattern emerging there.

The screen fell to show the 50 something band members and they started their show of incredible 30 year old songs. Terry Hall was as po faced as ever, not cracking a smile at all throughout the show but looking so cool. There were a lot more youngsters in the crowd than 2 years ago who seem to have discovered The Specials for the first time. There was still however the amusing sight of 50 year old men shouting Rude Boy non stop and dancing to Too Much Too Young and then probably waiting for their 30 year old children to pick them up outside.

The darkness in the lyrics reflects how Britain was in the early 80's and the deadpan way they are presented adds to that. The anti National Front message, unemployment and the ahead of it's time "Why Must You Record My Phone Calls" all added to a great evening. There were disco balls again for Nite Klub which started off really slow and then burst into the most energetic number of the night.

They came back to an encore of Ghost Town and Little Bitch and that was it. I hope their reunion is not going to only last 2 years as everyone needs some Specials in their life.

The Luxury Gap

2011-10-15T12:49:00.004+01:00

30 years ago Heaven 17 released The Luxury Gap and last night they played it live for the first time at London's Roundhouse. Following on from last years anniversary tour of Penthouse & Pavement when Glen promised they would do an anniversary thing for Luxury Gap as well.

After drinks with Andrew and Sarah in Camden with 80's songs blasting out in the pub we went to the venue. This was billed as being the first ever concert using 3D sound, apart from a lot of speakers though I didn't really get what 3D sound is, but it did sound very good if no different from any other concert.

They played The Luxury Gap from start to finish, and it was strange to have their mega hit Temptation just slotted in as an album track, it was originally the last track on side 1. After the album had finished they treated us to their hits from Penthouse and a few Human League songs. The big encore though was a fabulous extended 12 inch version of Temptation with lots of great screaming from Billie Godfrey doing justice to Carol Kenyons original vocals on the album. 30 years is a long time to wait but it was well worth it.

The Pierces

2011-10-13T09:32:00.003+01:00

The Pierces played Brighton on Wednesday. I hadn't bought a ticket as wasn't sure where I would be this week and I underestimated their appeal as when I knew I was going to be in Brighton and tried to get tickets they were sold out. I was gutted and was going to down the Ebay route when I had an email to say I had won tickets, result.

They were playing the Concorde 2 which is a small but cool venue on the seafront and I got there just in time to see them arrive on stage. The place was packed and red hot but they were excellent. The two sisters looked gorgeous and did lots of psychedelic arm waving and were dressed in 60's style maxi dresses and sang beautifully. They played all their old stuff plus a great new song about ringing the ex when you've had too much to drink. I just hope they will get more popular so that next year they can play somewhere with seats and air conditioning.

Cool Hand Luke

2011-10-10T10:03:00.006+01:00

Last week I went to see the new stage version of Cool Hand Luke at the Aldwych theatre. The play is based on the book rather the film but it is very similar to the film in every way. Marc Warren plays the Paul Newman lead and his dreamy looking picture is seen all around London promoting the film.

His good looks and coolness don't seem to be enough to sell tickets for this play though after the scathing reviews. In spite of the bad reviews I actually enjoyed this production and thought they were a bit harsh. It's not going to save it though as when I looked around they were playing to about 10 rows in the stalls and that was it so expect it to close very soon.

The set was great , I actually liked the gospel singing breaking up every scene but there were parts I didn't like. The prison guard was perhaps the worst actor on the West End stage at the moment, he was really annoying. At 2 hours it needed a few light moments and the only "laughs' were the farting after the famous egg scene. Farting on stage is getting very old and seems to be a lazy way to get a cheap laugh now.

If you liked the film you will enjoy this and there are plenty of options for cheap tickets, for the cost of a full price ticket there are better things to see but an enjoyable afternoon. It is also a very attractive cast with lots of shirtless scenes in it.

Idina In London

2011-10-07T12:58:00.005+01:00

Last night was Idina Menzel's only UK show at The Royal Albert Hall and I was there in the 7th row. It was just exquisite. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Marvin Hamlish opened with a collection of show tunes and then Idina joined them on stage and gave an outstanding performance. Her voice was incredible but so was her sense of humour with the songs split up with stories from her time as a wedding / bar mitzvah singer, getting her break in the original Off Broadway Rent, singing for Miss Streisand, clashing with Beyonce.

The songs ranged from Wicked and Rent, to show tunes and her time in Glee with a first for the Orchestra having to learn Poker Face!

There was a huge cheer when she mentioned Rent, which seemed to surprise her as she said I thought you didn't like Rent in the UK. She told the story of Jonathon Larson dieing on opening night and singing No Day But Today which was probably the most emotional part of the night.

Telling how in college she fancied her gay music teacher and when they had to do a Cole Porter song she chose Love For Sale and bought some trashy lingerie and make up to sing it for him. He explained to her how she was coming at it from the wrong way and she should be singing the pain in the song. She had certainly learnt from him as she sang a tortured version of it and mixed it up with Roxanne, beautiful.

When she got to Wicked she sang For Good, with no orchestra and no microphone and her voice filled the entire Albert Hall, it was one of the most amazing things I have seen any singer do ever. She finished with a rousing Defying Gravity but the encore was just Marvin playing piano and Idina singing The Way We Were. It really was like seeing Streisand, both the humour and the talent along with a huge voice.

End Of The Rainbow

2011-10-05T00:09:00.004+01:00

So today is my birthday, or as it's just gone 12 in the words of Morrissey "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore" it was. To mark entering my 5th decade I went out for Sushi and caught Tracie Bennett in The End Of The Rainbow which is currently touring pre Broadway and playing Brighton this week. It is a year since I saw this in London and Tracie's portrayal of Judy in her final days has received non stop praise ever since she first opened in this show.

A year on and she is still putting everything into the role, a stunning performance, really powerful and mesmerising.

She belted out Judy's songs, both pitch perfect and drug fuelled alcoholic mess and showed what went on behind closed doors and was covered up in the 60's but still goes on today. This time last year I likened this performance to what was going on with Amy Winehouse, and we all know how that ended up.

Despite the gloom of the addictions the show still has it's camp funny moments, which you'd expect for a Judy Garland audience. There is a scene were her gay pianist, who lives in Brighton, asks her to leave her current fiance and come and live with him in Brighton and bury Judy, but she didn't choose that path stayed with him, feeding her addictions and died. But could Judy Garland really ever have lived a quiet life in Brighton, even in the 60's ?.

I loved Judy staggering into her hotel suite after a night on the lash with ripped stockings and grazed face. Most unbecoming of a lady but we've all been there just to lesser extents. Maybe it was that scene or the fact that I am now so old that I chose to come straight home and get my slippers on rather than go out partying who knows.

Nothing To See Here

2011-09-26T22:12:00.002+01:00

I have just realised I have not been here for almost 2 months. For the record I have not retired from public life in a Dianaesque style just yet. Sorry if that disappoints but it is purely that what I have been doing recently is either too dull or just not anything that I have felt the urge to share with anyone.

I have started a month off work today so I hope to report some fun activities and maybe even some happy clappy news in the very near future.

In the meantime move along, there's nothing to see here.

Morrissey At The Palladium

2011-08-09T19:57:00.003+01:00

Last night I dashed up to London after work to see the ever fabulous Morrissey. It was kind of strange in the pub beforehand watching the rioting unfold on the TV. I had earlier been joking about it thinking it was an isolated one off small event, watching London burn in front of me made it all seem so much more serious and real.

Morrissey had played Brixton the night before which had become a civil unrest hot spot and as I entered the London Palladium, current home of The Wizard Of Oz, I was a bit taken aback at being fully frisked and a lot of security there.

Morrissey started his set by saying welcome to my world and do I look like Sacha Distel. He looked very dashing in a smart suit and tie and ran through all the classics. I particularly enjoyed You Have Killed Me, You're The One For Me Fatty, Come Back To Camden, Every Day Is Like Sunday and Ouija Board.

I had that awful thing in front of me however, the middle aged gay Morrissey fan. Punching the air to any obscure b side so they could prove they were a bigger fan than anyone else, then talking to your boyfriend through the verse and punching the air again for the chorus.

The venue was a really strange choice and it was like Beatlemania with fans crawling over the seats to try and touch him. Bear in mind these were 50 year old men not teenage girls. With no crash barriers some idiots thought it would be clever to leap on the stage and one song was stopped whilst security took them off the stage and Morrissey said where were we and started up again. These idiots had great expensive seats and after seeing the other morons being bundled off stage they decided to do the same thing, just getting hurled out of the venue. The couple in front of me were appalled by the bouncer brutality and started booing. I wish they'd been bundled out.

Morrissey touched on the rioting and the inadequacy of the government but saved his scorn for the royals. He played a lot of Smiths songs and finished with Meat Is Murder with some really gruesome video footage from abattoirs. Coming back to do First Of The Gang To Die, which was sung along to fans being constantly bundled off stage.

It was a great night and Morrissey was brilliant but I was glad to get home and out of Dodge.

The Camden Queen

2011-07-28T21:42:00.006+01:00

Something else I did yesterday was go and visit the shrine erected to Amy Winehouse in Camden. I do not normally hold with mass hysteria and I thought the Michael Jackson shrine outside The O2 when I was there recently was a bit bizzare. I am genuinley gutted about Amy dieing though. It's a bit ghoulish but as I was in the neighbourhood I thought I would go and pay my respects.

Walking up Camden Road there was no doubt about where her house was as you just followed the people with flowers. As you entered Camden Square there were little shrines and flowers placed all around the fence and when you got to Amy's house there was a spot in the park right opposite piled high and also right outside her house. There was still the police tape outside and a security guard at the gate and cars slowing down to drive past along with all the people there.

I don't know how comfortable I felt with all the bottles of JD left there, I can totally see how some people say it's like leaving bullets at John Lennon's shrine. On the other hand I have always enjoyed a Jack Daniels (not to the same extent) and I would hope on my passing people would be raising a glass of JD or 2 to my memory.

On some crap TV show this morning Christine Hamilton was banging on how awful she thought it was boozed up fans sobbing outside Amy's house. It was nothing like that, no one was "boozed up" and the people there ranged from funky Camden types, to old grannies to middle aged men like me, it was all very respectful.

I put Back To Black on my headphones, left my little tribute and just stood there thinking how weird it all was. BTB was released years ago and since then all it's been is her dirty washing in the tabloids. Take Britney's meltdown, multiply it by 1000 and then drag it out for 4 years and you have an idea about what Amy was going through.

When Harry Met Barry

2011-07-28T21:16:00.002+01:00

Last night I went to see When Harry Met Barry at the off (off) West End Above The Stag. I have seen some great stuff here but this was by far the lamest. It was dragged out to 2 hours which was just too much, 90 minutes would have been so much better.

The story was a fallen angel, for some reason I didn't get, came down to get 2 people to fall in love to please God. She threw some glitter around and the most mismatched gay couple ever get it on as well as a believably matched straight couple. Loads of songs later we get to find out that the straight guy had a "moment" with one of the gay guys back at skinny Sue's in Wales years ago and maybe it was the glitter but they still had a thing for each other. It was waist deep in syrup, with lyrics like "why follow a yellow brick road, just to find the end of the rainbow" ?.

It seemed to be trying too hard to be camp, as if they were trying to mix Xanadu up with any Meg Ryan movie.

On the plus side I liked the way they did the bedroom scenes in such a small space, and also the taxi light hat was pretty funny for a cab driver. Their voices were fine but the songs were all a bit too cliched and boring. The characters were really unbelievable as well, a gym bunny who looked like he'd never worked out in his life and a TV chef who looked about 20.

Not a horrible experience but not one I would recommend and the house wine was absolutely vile.

RIP Amy Winehouse

2011-07-23T23:30:00.003+01:00

Amy Winehouse died this afternoon. A few things shocked me about this, firstly Wikepedia had her date of death up within an hour of her dieing. The news broke on Twitter about an hour before the news channels picked up on it but what shocked me mostly was the hateful things being placed on the internet about her. Addiction and mental health issues are a serious illness, would these people laugh at her if she was in a wheelchair ? I also don't get how people can pontificate that this is nothing compared to the Norwegian tragedy and that because they are so holier than thou their sympathies are with Norway. As a developed human being I am actually able to see the tragedy in both stories and see that they are both equally as sad but different. There is no monopoly on bad news and suffering, the same people who put up on Facebook my thoughts are with the people of Norway are 2 minutes later saying looking forward to going out on the lash tonight. Then judging others for saying Amy dieing is a tragedy.

Amy or The Swinehouse as I liked to call her was a great talent, she achieved more in 27 years than I will ever achieve in my life so I am tonight raising my glass to her. I wish she could have pulled herself together and released that 3rd album but it wasn't meant to be. Here is my review of her 2007 gig I went to.

I went to the Brighton Centre tonight to see Amy Winehouse. It was a sold out gig and I have never seen the place so packed. I eventually got served with a drink and found myself a good spot and there I stood and waited and waited. The show was over 2 hours late in starting and Amy’s audience were getting drunker and drunker with every passing minute and her fan base turned into a drunken lynch mob slow hand clapping and booing the closed red velvet curtains.
Eventually, way too late the show started and I thought she better be good after this wait. The band started up and her fabulous backing singers/dancers were getting into the groove. Then she appeared, Miss Wineglass sort of staggered across the stage, beehive hanging on for grim death held up by her last kirby grip. I could only think of 2 words to describe her, Patsy Stone. She picked up a guitar and started slurring a song I didn’t even recognise. Her performance on the first few songs swung from dire, to mediocre and back again. A few false starts to songs and whispering in the bands ears and disappearing and then whoosh, she hit me like a truck. I don’t know if it was her “medication” kicking in but she suddenly started singing “Tears Dry On Their Own” and she went full throttle and turned the show around into one of the most fantastic performances I have seen, ever! From that moment there was no stopping her as she went from song to song giving an outstanding delivery of her amazing work. She is a fantastic, fabulous mess. From that moment on she was suddenly back in the room and won the crowd around to cheers instead of boos. She apologised eventually for the delay in starting the show and even sang happy birthday to a girl up front.

She dedicated a couple of songs to her husband and said he had told her to say Hi to Brighton.
Amy Winehouse is an amazing talent but she does herself no favours with the late starts and poor performances. After the first cancelled shows, her shambolic performance on the opening night in Birmingham I had very low expectations. The fact that she would turn up would have been a bonus. I am so glad I stuck it out and not leave at 10 pm like a number of other people who obviously couldn’t wait any longer.
I am so thrilled that she showed up, and really glad I saw what is going to go down in history as one of the most bizarre tours of all time. My only criticism, once she started cooking with gas, was that she didn’t sing “F*** Me Pumps” . Still I should just be glad I suppose she didn’t start self harming or doing a few lines on stage.
When the show ended I was desperate for the toilet and really needed to sit down for a while, I had been standing for about 5 hours. I found myself in some dodgy late night back street boozer but I have never been so happy to see a bar stool and a pint in my life.

Here And Now

2011-07-04T19:14:00.004+01:00

Last weekend was a massive 80's fest in more ways than one. It started on Friday meeting up with some 80's friends who were just in for the weekend from Swansea. I hadn't seem some of them for over 25 years so there was a lot of catching up to do and as they were Welsh some serious drinking.

We met up again on Saturday but this was for the whole point of the road trip, the Here And Now Tour was on at the Brighton Centre and featured one of it's best line ups ever. I spent the afternoon waiting round the back of the Centre for a glimpse of some of my 80's icons and was lucky enough to be there when little Jimmy Somerville arrived and he bid me a cheery good afternoon.

With a lot of bands to get through it was an early start and first up were Flock Of Seagulls. I was never a fan of these and didn't own any of their albums but I did recognise the hit single. The shame of being so far down the pecking order was quite obvious as they were really just the opening act.

Next up was Pepsi & Shirlee. These were more famous for being Wham's backing singers but after the demise of Wham they had a couple of albums. They played their hits Goodbye Stranger and Heartache, with it's catchy Shame Shame line. They looked really good and were great fun.

Midge Ure was the next up and I was really impressed. Did a great performance of Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, If I Was and of course Vienna. He also did a rocky version of Visage's Fade To Grey which I had totally forgotten he had written.

Things hotted up greatly then when Belinda Carlisle took to the stage. By now everyone was up and dancing and she looked gorgeous. The further up the list you were the longer stage time and more songs you had. I was up against the front barrier by now and she sang Leave A Light On For Me straight at me. I loved her performance and she finished with the massive Heaven Is A Place On Earth.

After Belinda was the star of the show for me Mr Somerville. Jimmy started his set with Make Me Feel Mighty Real. His falsetto still as strong as ever. He was by far the most excited energetic performer dancing through his string of hits. He looked at his watch and said It's 1985 ! as he did the Bronski Beat classics Why! and Smalltown Boy. Then saying it's time for some disco as he did Never Can Say Goodbye. I had thought I had seen The Communards co singer Sarah Jane Morris going into the arena when I was stalking at the back but she wasn't with him on stage. His last song was Don't Leave Me This Way and as Jimmy started on walks Sarah Jane, in a wedding dress and joins him for the last song. A brilliant moment and fantastic end to a great performance.

After the spectacular that was Jimmy came Jason Donovan. Although I rate him as a musical theatre performer his Stock Aitken & Waterman albums were not his or their best work. After Jimmy's highly sexually charged performance as well he was just a bit bland and should have been on before him. He did Especially For You with some hag taking on Kylie's part which just didn't work with the Brighton crowd. He finished with Too Many Broken Hearts and threw his water in the crowd which went all over my glasses!

After regaining my eyesight it was time for the headliner, Boy George. Looking incredibly healthy and happy and a few stone lighter he jumped on stage singing Church Of The Poison Mind. It was like being back in the Top Rank in Cardiff. It was a bit of a teaser for the Culture Club tour next year. A stunning as always Victims, That's The Way, Its A Miracle and Do You Really Want To. What threw me was a cover of Always On My Mind, which was OK but with the time constraints I would rather have heard Time. He did some of his solo stuff as well, Everything I own and Bow Down Mister.

The show ended with George singing Get It On and Pepsi & Shirlee and Jimmy came back to join in and it was amazing.

Can't wait for next years Here & Now tour.

Glee At The O2

2011-06-30T10:22:00.002+01:00

Last night I went to the O2 to see the gay explosion in a glitter factory that was the Glee Live concert. It was the most fun I've had in a long time. A weird mix of kids, teenage girls and gay men led to deafening screaming. The show started with the Cheerios running around the audience giving out sick bags ? then a video of Sue Sylvester came on saying she couldn't believe we have paid out money to see these losers murder some show tunes so she's sent her Cheerios out with some barf bags for us. Everything else she said was drowned out with the screaming and one by one the cast of Glee came on to do Don't Stop Believing.

They bounced from one end of the arena to another with a stage at either end and did a whole ton of solos, group and duet numbers. On the show the songs are really over produced and sound really auto tuned but these kids really can sing. Lea Michelle is obviously used to it being a Broadway star but they all sounded great especially Mercedes who was just awesome.

There were loads of surprises, the first being when the Glee clubs competition, the Dalton Warblers did a set and then Santana was saying how she had been voted the sexiest girl on stage and a voice says not so fast lady and Gwyneth Paltrow comes on and does a song. Who knew I'd ever be seeing Gwynnie singing at The O2 ?

Another stand out performance was Kurt, a lovely version of I Want To Hold Your Hand, an outrageous Single Ladies and a stunning Happy Days/Get Happy sung with Lea Michelle. Kurt doing Judy and Rachel obviously doing Babs and she wore the same sailor dress Babs wore. A great touch missed by all the kids in the audience but a great homage picked up by all the men in the audience.

The show ended with a Queen song with fireworks, explosions, glitter cannons and a beaming smile on my face. I am a Gleek and I'm proud of it.

Cyndi At The Dome

2011-06-29T11:43:00.002+01:00

Last night I went to see Cyndi Lauper at the Brighton Dome on her Memphis Blues tour. She started the show by coming on stage and introducing the band and chatting to the crowd. She asked the Dome security guy what the audience were allowed to do and he said just keep the aisles free. So she said get up and dance but keep out of the aisles, this however did not stop the retards in the cheap seats repeatedly coming down and filling the aisles only to be moved back to their seats, time after time.

Cyndi started the show with a few numbers from Memphis Blues, her voice really suits these songs and she sang them with a great deal of passion but I am not a big fan of the Blues. The show featured a lot of these songs but she also included the many hits she is famous for. Dressed all in black leather she came down into the audience and climbed up on the seat in front of me singing She Bop into my face.

She touched on almost every album and spoke in her unique charm about the history of these albums. Some of the band had actually been with her sine the She's So Unusual album.

The encore was a rousing audience participation version of Girls Just Want To, followed by Time After Time with Cyndi playing the dulcimer. She told a funny story about the record company's reaction when she turned up with that at a meeting.

Cyndi spoke a lot about her charity work and the True Colors foundation. It did make me think about how she is quite genuine about this. She does not need to get the gays on board to sell millions of albums, she's already done that. Gaga on the other hand is all about the self promotion using her do gooding as a carear move. Cyndi also wore the kooky outfits back in the day, the newspaper rara skirt and orange mohican, but will people still be wanting to hear Born This Way in 30 years time ?

The final song of the night was True Colours, just Cyndi on stage with the dulcimer. She started by telling the story behind True Colours, it was a real tear jerker of a story and I did feel my eyes filling up, along with everyone else and she finished with a truly beautiful rendition of True Colours. She is a truly incredible woman.

K.D. Lang At The Royal Festival Hall

2011-06-07T15:53:00.005+01:00

My jam packed week of social activities ended on Thursday with a trip across the river to the Festival Hall to see KD Lang on her Sing It Loud tour with the Siss Boom Bang. Kathryn Dawn arrived on stage with her band, dressed in black with a red neckerchief. Looking slightly stout she still got loads of whooping from the ladies in the audience. One thing I noticed that over the years the audience at a KD concert has changed, the first time I saw her I was definitely in the minority but the audience was about 60/40 between men and women. Admittedly the men were mostly in their 40's with check shirts and beards but I'm glad her audience is there now to appreciate her music rather than anything else.

Her voice as always was amazing as she went through the Sing It Loud heavy track list. Highlights were Heaven, a thrash metalesque Constant Craving and the only version of Hallelujah I can tolerate which brought a standing ovation and was absolutely stunning.

She flirted with the audience, both men and women and was obviously in her element being back on stage with a band. My only criticism would be the choreography. A number of times she lunged towards the front of stage doing this really bad jiggy dance, like a drunk aunty at a wedding. The audience loved it though and she was obviously taking the piss out of herself, a hugely talented singer yes but a dancer, no.

I was straight back to work the following morning and it all seems a lifetime ago now but what an amazing few days.

Betty Blue Eyes

2011-06-04T23:22:00.004+01:00

On Thursday I swung by the Novello theatre to see the matinee performance of the hot new show in town, Betty Blue Eyes. Based on the Alan Bennett film A Private Function, it was really rather fabulous.

After surviving the coldest winter in years, the country is suffering under austerity Britain and the government telling us that everything has to be cut and food is in short supply. The only bit of joy on the horizon is the impending royal wedding. It is not however 2011 it is 1947 and the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Phil the Greek. The timing for this show couldn't have been better.

It was a really fun performance with some spot on comic timing and some great songs. My favorite scenes were Dance At The Primrose Ballroom with some vigorous jiving and a great song with a real shocker at the end. Also Sarah Lancashire doing a stunning performance of Nobody. This was old school with feather fans, fast changes and standing on tables, my only criticism was that they spoilt the ship for a ha'peth of tar by having cheap feathers in the fans. That may be though because the budget went on Betty, the animated pig in the story. Billed as the star, the pig is only in a few scenes and although very clever and cute she is definitely not the star of the show.

After the finale, when everyone was taking the bows they brought Betty out again and reprised Betty Blue Eyes and Betty sings the last lines, voiced by no other than Kylie Minogue.

A great afternoon spent in the theatre with a brilliant performance from the former Miss Bettabuys Sarah Lancashire. Go see it.

Bette And Joan

2011-06-04T00:00:00.004+01:00

Bette and Joan is a fabulous play starring Anita Dobson as Joan Crawford and Greta Sacchi as Bette Davies on the set of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. To say this was a little bit camp would be the understatement of the century. I had been a bit worried Anita Dobson might not carry it off and when she started speaking in an American accent I thought oh dear, but 5 minutes in it just worked and I totally fell for her Blanche Hudson.

The play is set in their adjoining dressing rooms and whilst Joan is busy cleaning down every surface Bette bursts in chain smoking, drinking and f'ing and blinding. You have to either be a fan of this movie (and Mommie Dearest) to get all the many references or gay. It was hysterical. There were some killer lines but I think my favorite was Joan showing photos of her children and saying this is Christina, I think we're going to be hearing a lot more from this little lady !

Anita Dobson just oozed the fallen from glory, false as hell Joan still trying to be a diva, and without a wire hanger on show. And Greta Sacchi was great as the call a spade a spade, proper actress blowsy old bag.

They got into character opposite each other in front of non existent mirrors and the transformation of Greta Sacchi into the monster that was Baby Jane was incredible as the make up piled on and eventually the wig. Once in character she even answered her dressing room phone in the style of Baby Jane.

How much truth there is in the now legendary stories of the weighted belt and the kicking who knows, and who really cares it makes for a great story.

Joan Crawford opposite playing very much the lady and wanting everything clean and organised, saying how her fans wouldn't accept her in the role of Jane, as she was a grotesque.

For some bizarre reason this play is only playing a very short run, in a very small theatre. I thought it was fantastic, a huge laugh and 2 very strong performances.

Sade At The O2

2011-06-03T21:36:00.002+01:00

My life seems to be all or nothing, after weeks of nothing I've had a really manic few days of living it up in that London. It started off on Tuesday with a visit to The O2 to see Sade, back on the stage 18 years after I last saw her at The Albert Hall.

Soldier Of Love was my favorite album of last year and I have loved Ms Adu's music for a quarter of a century. There were few surprises in the show, no gogo dancers or massive sets, just a few video back drops of things like the New York skyline, all done in the best possible taste. She entered the stage marching up some sunken stairs like Love's Soldier in a black cat suit with her signature look. The only woman in the world who can make scraped back hair, huge hoop earrings and fire engine red lipstick look classy. Looking stunning she drifted through the 80's and 90's with her extensive but also select back catalogue.

During her absence from the spotlight there had obviously been no crack smoking or the like as every note was pitch perfect and those huge notes filled the O2. She changed into a white shirt and waistcoat and came back with the Live Aid classic, Is It A Crime. A timeless classic, in spite of the 80's saxophone heavy vibe, class never goes out of fashion.

A 3rd very quick change which lost the pony tail and gave a perfectly coiffured loose look, in a white gown with dayglo bra brought her back for the highlight of the concert. Pearls from the Love Deluxe album. The simple video of the blazing sun fitted this so perfectly and the whole arena sat in awe.

There were a couple of uptempo moments, Sweetest Taboo was the only song that got the crowd on their feet but I was more than happy than to just sit there and get lost in the music. My only disapointment was that this was the last UK date or I would have gone again. I just hope it's not as long again until Sade comes back.

Director's Cut

2011-05-18T11:12:00.003+01:00

I'm not a big fan of anything that has Director's Cut, Special Edition or Remix on it. It just to me reeks of change for changes sake, desperation and cashing in. A few months back I was screaming with excitement when I read that there was a new Kate Bush album on the way, this turned to disappointment when it was revealed it would be a reworking of The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.

The lead single from this new album Deeper Understanding didn't really inspire me and I hated the video. I thought why is Kate doing this, she doesn't need the money, shuns the limelight so why would she take some of her most amazing work and destroy it by bringing it up to date. There are some things that should stay as they are and there is no need to gild the "Lily".

I had decided I wasn't going to buy the new Director's Cut album and I was going to keep Kate where she belonged in my mind. I bought The Kick Inside and Lionheart when I was still in school from my paper round money. Those songs were written whilst she was still a teenager and 30 years later, gentlemen of a certain age are still listening to them. Will the same be said for songs like Judas Jugaga ?

Obviously in spite of my protests the first thing I did as soon as it was released was buy it. After a single listen I was hooked. This album is just beautiful and amazing. The songs are still old familiar favorites but sound completely fresh and new. Kate's voice is sounder better than ever, it has definitely improved with age and seems so much richer. I was terrified this album was going to be a disaster but I am in love with it. I also love that everyone is hearing different things in these songs and everyone I have spoken to has a different favorite. My personal favorites are This Woman's Work and Moments Of Pleasure, the songs I was the most worried about. If you do not get verklempt listening to these 2 songs you are not human.

The labels are cashing in releasing all her back catalogue but what I want now is a Director's Cut of Hounds Of Love and Kick Inside.

This album is a true work of genius.

Shrek The Musical

2011-05-13T17:42:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I stopped off in London on my way back home to see Shrek The Musical which has just opened this week in London's glitzy West End. I had booked it through the Dress Circle shop as one of their theatre evenings. I was really sad to hear when I got there that they are facing closure in the near future. When I first moved to London in the 80's there were 2 places I knew the way to, the Brief Encounter bar and Dress Circle.

Part of the theatre evening is a drinks reception at the shop, I kept getting my glass topped up as I was told I'm going to need to be half cut as Amanda Holden is playing Princess Fiona.

I took my seat at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the show started. I already had the soundtrack from the Broadway show so was familiar with the songs and although I liked the music I wasn't sure about the show. It was, by nature of the product a bit pantoish and cartoony and I was sitting there saying what was I thinking of coming here. All the characters seemed to be horribly miscast. I just wasn't feeling Shrek, Donkey or Fiona at all. Nigel Harman as Lord Farquaad was the only one I took to, and although I didn't laugh out loud he was the only one to make me chuckle.

The jokes were all so contrived and childlike, the farting/belching got old real quick and I was considering leaving at the interval, then something eventually happened.

Enter the dragon, a huge dragon, worked by puppeteers, similar to the horse in War Horse. It was really amazing, and she had a song, sung off stage by the best voice in the theatre. I decided to stick with it and the second half really picked up. It was fun, camp, silly and I found I was actually enjoying it. There was lots of random scenes with things like the three blind mice, and a cross dressing big bad wolf.

I'm sure it will be a hit once it settles down and it will survive as the score and effects are so good, but it needs to get recast once the opening hype is over.

The story ended with Shrek getting it on with Fiona and the dragon made a reappearance, it was all going so well, what could possibly go wrong? For some unknown reason once the show had ended and the cast took their bows, they suddenly burst into I'm A Believer. I just didn't get it and Amanda Holden screeched her way through it painfully. I was just embarrassed for her. The only good thing about this was that the voice of the dragon came on stage and she sung the rest of the cast off the stage.

I think the show will get better, hopefully when Amanda Holden disappears and let's an unknown who can sing take over the role. She was pretty dreadful in it. It's not the best thing to hit the West End and it's not the worst but very enjoyable.

Cerys Matthews

2011-05-10T15:38:00.006+01:00

On Sunday I headed off to the Leicester Square Theatre for an evening in the company of Cerys Matthews. The ticket said 7.30 so I thought get there for about 8.30 but thankfully due to the power of Twitter I tweeted our Cerys to see what time she was on stage and she replied back 7.30 with no support. We downed our pints and legged it over to the theatre in time for her very subtle arrival on stage.

There were a number of instruments on stage and she wandered on sitting down with a guitar and treated us to a few of the folk songs from her Welsh language album Tir. One by one the band arrived on stage and we journeyed through her many post Catatonia albums with I think only one Catatonia song making the set list.

Cerys indulged us in a lot of chat and I thought her Welsh accent had gotten even stronger so I don't know if any of English folks there would have understood her. She said that although we were in the heart of Soho there was going to be no Burlesque tonight. There were a lot of ex pat Welshies in the audience and she said that even back in the day when Catatonia were on tour they'd fly all the way to New Zealand to play to an audience of Welsh people. My favorite line from her though was that one day Lady Gaga will be doing this and playing to a small middle aged audience.

There were a lot of songs from Don't Look Down and Cockahoop and I loved Chardonnay, my favorite song of the evening.

She didn't stay in Wales all night, there were songs from Nashville and for the Irish Celts in the audience there was The Galway Shawl. This was really quite beautiful and Andrew went into raptures about it, he can't help not being Welsh I guess.

Cerys mentioned Barons and Mothers, nightclubs from my old home town Swansea which made me laugh and Cerys and I had a little interaction about the motorway services at Sarn.

It was a great night and Cerys Matthews is not only a great musician and outstanding vocalist, she is also a lovely girl and more importantly Welsh royalty.

I was a little disappointed that the encore wasn't Road Rage but I guess she has her reasons for not singing those songs but it was still worth the horror of the rail replacement bus service to get home, which did actually give me road rage.

Explorer, the new album is out this week.

Ghost The Musical

2011-04-03T20:32:00.006+01:00

As I was in Manchester I decided to go and see the Saturday matinee of Ghost which just started previews this week. The show is doing it's out of town try outs before opening in the West End in June. In view of this I was expecting there to be some technical problems, unpolished performances and due to there being a lot of effects in the show for it to all go horribly wrong. It was though a perfect performance and you would never know it was only the first week as it was excellent.

Richard Fleeshman plays Sam, he was in Coronation Street and I knew him from winning Soapstar Superstar a few years ago. He was just a boy then but he has since hit the gym and filled out and you would never recognise him from his Corrie days. Molly was played by Caissie Levy who I saw in Hair so was excited to see her again, she was more SJP than Demi in the role due to her curly locks and she had the best song in the show and the voice to go with it. Oda Mae was played by Sharon Clarke who was just brilliant. Previously a Motormouth Maybelle and Mama Morton she was perfect for the role. She has a great number when she gets the cashiers cheque based on what she's going to spend it on which really brought the house down.

Willie Lopez was however the hottest one in the cast, it's always the bad boys.

I had a few minor criticisms in that the ghosts veered towards extras from Thriller on occasions. They were also in period costume which didn't match the ages of the people they were wanting to make contact with. Also the ghosts were different shades of white whilst Sam still looked the same dead as alive? That is just me being finicky though.

The set is an amazing piece of computerised video extravaganza, sometimes a little distracting and could have been used for the video of Madonna's I Love New York. Unlike previews for Priscilla and Chitty it all worked as it should.

The ghostly effects were incredible and I could work out about 90% of how they did it but that still didn't detract from it. On a sobometer level I would give it 10 out of 10 as there were women sobbing and sniffling all around me, which surprised me as everyones seen the film and the title sort of gives it away that he's going to die.

Dave Stewart has written the music for the show, some of his stuff post Eurythmics can be a little dodgy and I wondered can he put together show tunes, the answer is yes absolutely. This was Molly's big number which brought out the tissues.

The show is already massive in preview, it's going to be colossal hit in the West End and I'm sure will be playing Broadway very soon.

Aphrodite:Les Follies

2011-04-03T12:35:00.006+01:00

On Friday I found myself in Manchester at the M.E.N. arena to see Kylie's Les Follies show. I love the Aphrodite album and the reviews have been great saying Kylie is back on form. It was in fact the most fabulous, theatrical, technically advanced camp fest I have ever seen. The stage was massive to start with, a huge Greek temple with a heart shaped runway stretching out into the arena. Kylie ascends into the arena on a huge golden shell with her handmaidens and mini toga clad dancers genuflecting at her presence.

Water is a big feature in the show and as she goes from song to song some more speedo clad men are dipped in and out of the fountains doing all kinds of water aerobics whilst human harps played. Dolce & Gabbana have done the costumes and there were a number of changes, my favorite segment was the huge black dress and top hat and this section was my favorite bit of choreography for Cupid Boy.

A further change of costume led to her arrival on a golden Pegasus and it really got dramatic for Looking For An Angel with amazing lighting effects an angel appears like something out of Angels In America and Kylie climbs on his back and flies across the arena to land safely at the other end and burst into the Eurythmics There Must Be An Angel, fabulous.

She is also pulled around the arena in a chariot (gold again) by 4 scantily clad men. Better The Devil was a sort of Rio carnival mix with lots of feathers and the audience participation bit was a request which was an acappella version of Got To Be Certain.

I was a bit worried with all the water and electricity and dancing on a wet floor with heels but there no accidents. When the Bellagio fountains started she was walking along the runway and like the Bille Jean video when Michael stood on a paving stone it lit up, as Kylie walked along a fountain exploded behind her, it was awesome.

There was no interval and she is doing back to back shows so she is back to full health and back to giving outstanding performances. In these times of austerity it's not a royal wedding the country needs to lift it's spirits but a night out at Aphrodite:Les Follies.

Rumer

2011-03-28T00:46:00.003+01:00

I had booked a ticket for Rumer's Brighton concert the day they went on sale months ago. I was really looking forward to it as I love her Seasons Of My Soul album but then I was stuck at work when the night came. I managed to get out just in time to take my seat, with no time for a drink just as the show was about to start.

Rumer's band and backing singers took the stage and then she arrived peering through her fringe and started the first of a string of smooth, schmaltzy, syrupy numbers which filled the Dome with her gorgeous voice.

The audience was a mix of well dressed attractive gay men and middle aged women who looked like they didn't get out much, I veered towards the latter group. It was all very sedate and everyone just sat and enjoyed the music and I felt like I should be in smoky jazz club listening to her.

There was not a lot going on, no costume changes or videos just a super chilled evening of lovely songs from a voice to die for. The comparisons to Karen Carpenter keep coming at Rumer, and it is easy to see why, she sings in that style and I really did feel Karen being channeled through her voice.

The spine tingling number was of course Aretha, very apt as it was Aretha's birthday, but it was just absolutely gorgeous to hear this sung live.

Rumer saved a big Bacharach number for her encore, Alfie, and you could hear the roof raising on the Dome.

Rumer is working on a new album which will I'm sure be as fabulous as Seasons and I can hardly wait.

A fabulous evening spent with a lovely lady

My Beautiful Launderette

2011-03-02T09:48:00.004Z

Last night I went to the see My Beautiful Launderette at the very intimate Above The Stag theatre in London's glitzy off west end. Considering that it was the first night, the limitations of space and the budget it was a pretty terrific performance.

It stayed very true to the iconic 80's film which starred Daniel Day Lewis, featuring Thatchers Britain, race issues and the shock and horror of boy on boy action. The part in the film that featured the champagne was pretty worn out on my VHS video tape and although they didn't do that on stage it was acknowledged. All of the cast was great but during the post show drinks we were divided on who was the favorite. Dennis and Mark were on team Omar whilst Andrew and I were definitely on team Johnny. The music used in the show was classic 80's pop with Madonna, Pet Shop Boys and The Human League being used. And when the launderette was all done up it was decorated with pictures of Madonna and Bananarama which was a nice touch.

It's a great story of love against the odds, 80's London and life in an Indian family. It's running for 6 weeks and well worth seeing, if only for Rachel's tonged flick ups.

Tell Me On A Sunday

2011-03-01T13:14:00.004Z

Last night I went to see the latest touring version of Tell Me On A Sunday staring Claire Sweeney. I love this show and have great memories of Marti Webb belting out Take That Look Off Your Face on Top Of The Pops when the single was a hit back in the early 80's. I've seen it touring a few times, with Marti Webb still and a few years ago it hit the West End in a great production with Denise Van Outen and a revolving stage. Rewritten and brought up to date with a lot of Essex girl references it couldn't have been better.

Last night's show was however, definitely a touring version as there was no revolving stage, and the songs had been mixed around, given a Scouser tilt for Claire Sweeney and a lot of it was cut out. It's a one woman show and is sung right through so it is hard work, but for £30 I was kind of expecting it to last more than 80 minutes.

Claire Sweeney was OK in the role, her voice was fine although she did go a bit "Christine" in parts. The audience loved it especially the big numbers so I guess it was a success, it just wasn't as good as other productions of it I have seen and I don't think anyone will be as good as Denise Van Outen in it.

I was also a bit distracted by Miss Sweeney's boob enhancement as well, they seemed to have a life of their own. It was a pleasant evening, I just didn't expect to be out on the pavement at 9.30 !

The Children's Hour

2011-02-23T09:40:00.004Z

Last night I caught the play du'jour The Children's Hour at the Comedy Theatre in London's cold but glitzy West End. Inflated ticket prices and impossible to get a seat are down to the fact that it stars Keira Knightley, the movie star and Elizabeth Moss, Peggy from one of my favorite TV shows Mad Men.

I wasn't that fussed on seeing Keira, I find her somewhat overrated, plain and boyish but I love Peggy so was quite excited to see her. The play caused outrage when it was first written and was banned everywhere, and was made into a movie in the 60's with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. The story is based in a girls boarding school, the stars are the teachers and after one of the pupils was scolded by them she made up a story that she had caught the 2 women in a lesbian embrace and all hell broke loose. The scandal this caused ruined the women's lives, carears and families. After a slow start with too much time spent on having the school girls on stage it picked up the pace and the ending was immense. There was some doubt along the way as to are they / aren't they but this was answered in the closing scenes and Keira threw her all into the tragic ending.

I have to retract everything I have said about Keira Knightley as she was both incredible on stage and absolutely stunning. An immaculately cut bob, fabulous figure and a truly beautiful face, I was getting a bit of a crush on her. The star of the whole production though was Elizabeth Moss, some of her facial expressions reminded me so much of Peggy but I loved her. It is certainly deserving of all the hype it's received.

Clybourne Park

2011-02-10T22:32:00.004Z

I braved a very wet West End today to see Clybourne Park at The Wyndhams Theatre. This is basically a sequel to Raisin In The Sun which I love and I had heard mixed things about it. Raisin In The Sun tells the story of how a black family from the projects in the 50's manage to buy a house through an insurance windfall at a knock down price and so become the first black family in Clybourne Park (the Puff Daddy version is the better film in my opinion).

This production features the family who were selling the house, their black maid and the person from the residents association who is trying to stop the sale because "there goes the neighbourhood". We find out the reason why they were selling the house so cheaply, why they don't care about their neighbours and a number of their demons. There is a big sign outside saying "The Funniest Play Of The Year" which always makes a little wary and there was a lot of faked audience laughing from the opening lines but eventually I was joining in with the laughter.

After the interval we have fast tracked to the present day, the house, now an almost derelict eyesore is for sale again. This time a white couple are the prospective buyers in what has now become an all black neighbourhood. The house looked like it had been used as a crack den, which was a bit of a cliche. The same cast played the new roles and the maid from Act 1 is now on the residents association not keen on white folk moving in. She spills the history on the house and how she "had a dream" after her great aunt was the first "person of colour" to move into an all white neighbourhood.

It all gets a bit heated and there were enough warnings as you went in saying very strong language is used so any outraged of Tunbridge Wells types wouldn't faint in horror. There was a point though, which was probably the funniest part of the whole play that my jaw just dropped to the floor in shock.

I think it's wrong to describe this as a comedy as it in fact a very hard hitting drama, with some dam funny lines and characters thrown in. Go see it.

Brighton Rock

2011-02-08T16:50:00.003Z

I caught the new version of Brighton Rock today and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been set in the 60's for the updated version and has echoes of Quadrophenia, which is never a bad thing. It looks gorgeous, filmed beautifully and has some great performances, especially from Dame Mirren. She was moaning recently that there just aren't the roles for woman of a certain age, but this role was perfect for her. Ida was forthright, matter of fact, fearless but still a vamp.

It was a bit distracting spotting all the places in Brighton and Eastbourne, and thinking Ive sat on that bench that Helen Mirren is sitting on but I soon got back into the story.

Sam Riley was great as Pinkie and Andrea Riseborough in a totally different role from Made In Dagenham showed what a great actress she is and why Madonna tracked her down.

I love the original version of this movie but this new adaption is like a whole new story. It really did rock.

GILT Trip

2011-02-03T09:30:00.004Z

Get Into London Theatre or GILT is a scheme that lets you buy drastically reduced theatre tickets during the slow season of post Xmas and pre half term. Loads of shows sign up to it to fill their theatres during this tough time. I have seen most of the shows included but it was an opportunity to get to see a couple of things I would never pay full whack for.

For £10 I got a ticket for the matinee of Love Story. This show has had some great reviews but it is struggling and has just posted early closing notices. It's the musical version of the Ali McGraw / Ryan O'Neal movie and I thought it might be a bit too lovey dovey for me. On collecting my ticket the guy in the box office said you're right at the back do you want me to change your seat and he gave me a ticket for front of stalls centre stage , result.

The set was all white with an orchestra on stage and from the opening number I totally loved it. The music was great in it, the acting superb and they'd totally turned down the syrup making it a hard hitting great piece of theatre. As one song went into the next I was loving it more and I can't wait to get the soundtrack when it is released next week. We all know the story, she dies in the end, and it was an even more clean death by cancer than Ali McGraw's, but in the death bed scene the blubbering started all around me. The female heavy audience started rummaging for tissues and sniffling and I thought FFS shut up. To my horror then I felt a huge tear running down my cheek as the orchestra pulled out all the plugs and she died. I manned up quickly and there were no more tears but it was a very bizare feeling. The show has everything, death, tragedy, sex, swearing, cooking the lot.

I composed myself with a couple of pints and then the evenings show was a £35 ticket to see Jersey Boys. This has been running for years, won a load of awards but I had never had any yearning to see it but for half price I thought I'd give it a go. It's a juke box musical, (shudder) of The Four Seasons. I'm not a big fan of their music and only know the big hits and thought what could possibly go wrong ? The answer was everything, I hated it. The set was just scaffolding with some fencing, there were really fake New Jersey accents, the story was fast tracked faster than the speed of night through their carear narrated by a founding Season. The story was basically some bad boys form a band, spend time in jail, treat their women badly, end up in loads of debt, sell a load of records and get inducted into the Rock n Roll hall of fame. The Seasons keep changing, wear a lot of different jackets, there was clapping and whooping from the audience every time a hit single was played. It was just ghastly. Even when they played one of the big songs and you thought this is good it was cut short.

It was the best £10 and the biggest waste of £35 I have spent on show tickets in my life.

And The Rest Of The Oscars Go To .....

2011-01-26T17:38:00.004Z

Today I caught the other big Oscar movie Black Swan. I've heard quite drastically different opinions on this film, as with Inception, but I loved it. Natalie Portman was just mesmerising as the tormented ballerina. I'm still not sure what was going on, so will have to see it again to see if my logic is correct, but that won't be a hardship.

Her pushy mother, who gave up her ballet dreams when she fell pregnant was also incredible. Did she want her to succeed or fail ? It was good to see Winona Ryder back in the saddle as well, even though she was playing the washed up has been. I screamed out loud and leapt from my seat in one scene with Winona.

The music was beautiful, obviously all from Swan Lake but they used it in the non ballet scenes as well. Everyone look awesome in it, the make up and costumes fabulous. It did show that a ballerinas life is not all glamour though with some shots of emaciated under fed bodies in the tu tu's.

It's got everything in it, horror, suspense, drama, romance every genre going. The girl on girl scenes were a little too graphic for my delicate disposition, but they were also beautifully shot.

One of the most amazing films I have ever seen.

And The Oscars Go To .....

2011-01-25T16:35:00.006Z

I went to see The Kings Speech today and thoroughly enjoyed it. It has Oscar Winner written all over it, not only as it was so good, but it fits the mould of an Oscar winning film perfectly. Colin Firth tackled the role beautifully, he has it in the bag I'm sure. I really liked Helena Bonham Carter as Queen Mum in it though. She was brilliant as the sly, underhanded nasty of piece of work that Queen Mum was. It was good to see her as a young woman, not the dear old granny she was portrayed to be. Her contempt for Wallis Simpson was great and I loved her horror at what Wallis was doing to Balmoral.

I loved Wallis in it and would have liked more time spent on her but we had the war , coronation and abdication to fit into the movie.

There were no surprises in that the Royal Family were shown as being totally dysfunctional, hard, self absorbed scoundrels who hated the invasion of "wireless" exposing them to the common man.

A lovely, amusing, very interesting film about a big part of history.

The God Focker

2011-01-11T22:55:00.002Z

I went to the movies this afternoon to catch Little Fockers. The first Focker film was funny, the 2nd was immense when we actually met the Fockers, Babs and Dustin, but this third movie seemed a little bit like wringing that Focker towel dry. It was a little lame, the jokes predictable and have been done to death in the other 2 films and the plot non existent.

The film was however saved totally by Babs, when she does comedy she rocks. She only has to speak about Jewish food in her Brooklyn accent and she's every bit as funny as she was in Whats Up Doc ?.

She was totally underused, would have made it a fantastic movie if she'd had more lines and basically saved the day. Her gold nails were to die for as well.

She is nearly 70, looked fantastic, her Star Is Born do was reborn, has a figure and nails to die for and enough screen presence to save a dire script. I can't wait to see her as Mama Rose!

Hits And Misses

2010-12-30T21:36:00.003Z

2010 comes to an end and it's a time for thinking was it a good year or not. For me it hasn't been the best year of all time but I won't say I will be glad to see the back of it. This is mainly due to the fact that nothing is going to change dramatically in the next 2 days. Shit happens and it will continue to happen, it's just up to you how you deal with the shit.

My hits for the last year however are as follows.

Best album of the year, Sade's Soldier Of Love. A classic that I will be listening to years from now. Her voice as stunning as ever and some great songs. Looking forward to seeing her next year.

Best single, Kylie's Get Out Of My Way. My most played song of the last year and an instant love affair with it the first time I heard it. It was the bridge that brought us back to together after her disappointing X album and tour. The video was the only thing that let this song down.

Best Concert, very difficult as seen some great gigs this year, mostly from vintage stars but I think Mary J Blige at The O2 takes the crown this year. Amazing.

Favorite movie of the year goes right back to the beginning of the year with Precious. It really moved me and the performances were amazing, and yes I'm including Mariah in that.

There can be no competition in the book category when there is a new one in your favorite series of books out. Mary Ann In Autumn was anticipated throughout Spring and Summer and she didn't fail to deliver.

I didn't see as much theatre as normal this year, but everything I did see was very good. I would say best musical was Hair and best play was Canary.

As for the misses, every disappointment this year was overshadowed by my malaise. I felt so hideous for the first 6 months of this year, with too many visits to the hospital that I have just written 6 months of my year off. That with all the crap at work, losing my job, having to reapply for it, finding out it's not the same job after all. It all sucks, the only good thing about a new year is that it's another year closer to retirement.

The other major let down of the year as well was those 2 goons seizing power at No 10 by default. I am glad it was actually pre coalition that I took ill as there won't be an NHS for much longer. Bastards!

Less dramatic, yet still earth shattering disappointments were Whitney's grotesque performance at The O2. After looking forward to it for the best part of a year, willing her to be back to her old pre crack pipe self, she let me down badly. I haven't been able to listen to a Whitney song since that night.

Another person who failed me this year was Cheryl Cole. I have been a fan since Geri picked her on Pop Idol and took her away from that awful estate and made a pop star out of her. I loved her feistyness and say it as it is attitude. After getting hooked on X Factor this year and seeing her every week I have grown to really dislike her. She knows nothing about music, is really annoying and not even that attractive anymore.

Worst film of the year for me was Inception, I have tried to watch it again and it just does nothing for me whatsoever. I know everyone else in the whole world loves it but I jut don't get it.

The other let down for me this year has been no holiday. Due to my family commitments I have spent any time I have had off dealing with things with my mother. If I added up how much I have spent on train tickets alone this year I am sure I could have flown round the world twice. I keep promising myself a holiday but finding the time, and in these days of austerity, not knowing what's going to be cut next it is very difficult.

So that was the year that was. I shall be working the next 4 days so will not be joining in any of the festivities. Which is fine as I hate, loathe and despise new year.

Happy New Year to everyone who enjoys it though.

The image of the year, that sums 2010 up for me is this.

Jennifer Hudson I'm Here

2010-12-30T17:26:00.001Z

This is amazing, Jennifer Hudson singing I'm Here from The Color Purple. I'm not quite sure what Oprah is doing with her hands or why Macca is there but JHud is sounding and looking good. She would never get the role of Effie now as she is too thin. I just hope this is going to be some kind of audition for the movie of the musical as she would be major in it.

Welcome To Burlesque

2010-12-28T22:02:00.005Z

Today was the first chance I have had to do something for myself for weeks and the Picture House was calling me. Burlesque has been out for 10 days and I have been gagging to see it so I booked a ticket yesterday using my Odeon points and headed off downtown. I had to force my way though the most miserable looking buggers I have seen in years, just trudging around the shops on their 4th day off work, looking as if they were thinking I spent a fortune on this bitch at Xmas and I realise now I hate her, but that's another story.

Burlesque has had some scathing reviews so I was surprised to see It was jam packed, and not just with the Cher appreciation society, there were a lot of annoying teenage girls there.

The film starts with Xtina working in some dead end bar in nowheresville middle America. Like any normal person she jumps on a Greyhound and gets the hell out of there and ends up as a waitress in the Burlesque club Los Angeles.

The club is owned by Cher and it is her life even though she is about to lose it through money problems. Our first sight of Cher is in a Bob Mackie ringmaster outfit singing "Welcome To Burlesque", she was incredible. Cher's lines were a little bit cheesy sometimes but let's not forget why she won an Oscar, she has a mesmerising presence on screen. In some scenes, in a certain light she did look a little like Pete Burns but most of the time I was obsessed with her.

Xtina was really slim, very natural looking (I must admit I prefer it when she looks like a total slag) and was amazing in her first movie role. I'm glad she held out for the right offer and script (yes I'm talking Britney and Crossroads) and her incredible voice sounded stunning in the sound system , drowning out the coughing, chit chat and teenage girl annoying giggling.

The story was bit predictable, Cher realises Xtina can sing, makes her the star of the show and saves her club from repossession but I loved the journey of getting there. Cher's second number, the gorgeous "You Haven't Seen The Last Of Me" was kind of shoe horned in but I forgave this when in the next scene she reacted to some drunk slut telling her she'd slept with her husband, note to self, don't cross Cher!

You would think a film starring Cher, Xtina, Alan Cumming and Stanley Tucci could not get any gayer but right in the middle it bursts into Madonna's Ray Of Light, immense.

Absolutely loved this film, along with every other normal gay man in the Universe I will be purchasing it as soon as it is released.

My Xmas Moan

2010-12-27T21:23:00.004Z

Xmas is now officially over and even though I didn't "do it" I still feel drained by the whole sorry affair. It all started going wrong for me a couple of months ago. I was due to be off from work for the first time in years, but some idiot thought it was a good idea to change every shift around and I was then down to work for the whole of the holiday again. It played havoc with my plans, I was going to go and spend the time with my mother and Paul was going to work. I had a load of stuff booked on what was gong to be my days off but I then had to take my remaining few days holiday to go to my concerts. I had to make a frantic dash up to my mothers to make sure she had plenty of stuff in for Xmas and this is where it all started to go wrong. The killer storm hit up North as I started my journey and all trains were cancelled from London. I had to make Sophie's Choice by choosing between the pint I had just bought and hurling myself on the last remaining train out of London that was going no where near I needed to be but I jumped on it.

I got there in the early hours wading through the drifts to find the pipes had frozen and all other kinds of snow related dramas. After taking care of all that the food delivery eventually made its way through. As my mother was gong to be on her own, apart from the carers coming in, I had got her lots of Xmas niceies in. She then proceeded to offer said items to every passing randomer, the postman, the plumber, the chemist delivery man etc etc. This annoyed me, I said I've battled through snow and ice to make sure you have provisions and you just give them all away? She was horrified when I said I don't give my postman a Xmas present ! I said well nobody gives me anything for doing what I'm paid for?

I could go on and on about Xmas traditions that annoy me but anyway, after making sure she was OK for the rest of the holiday I had to dig my way out to the station and got back home very late at night just to be in work at 7am on Xmas Eve. This was an awful day as people get so poorly on a Xmas Eve and phone in sick so after working solid for 10 hours I got home to realise we had forgotten and not had time to get anything in for ourselves. This is not a big deal as the shops are only shut for 1 day, we dealt with it.

Xmas morning Paul left for work and I just did what I needed to do at home and then went for a drink down the road. What I really don't get about Xmas and I find quite repugnant is the absolute excess and gluttony of it all. Sitting quietly in the pub with my pint I was checking Facebook and Twitter and people were just updating how much they had eaten and photo's of plates loaded to the ceiling with more food than an elephant could easily digest. I know I am a miserable old fart but you know you are going to feel like shit after eating all that and why do you need to eat 60,000 calories in one day anyway ?

Traditionalists say as well that Xmas has lost it's true meaning, which is something that also annoys me. If it's meaning is to eat and drink until you hurl then don't do it but if you think the meaning is to spread love and kindness around, why is this limited to 1 day a year, you should be sharing the love on the other 364 as well.

Paul had had a bit of a rough day at work and by the time he eventually came home we just had a chat and that was it, end of. We had no tree, no decorations, no presents, no ton of food to throw out on boxing day. I really don't feel like I missed out on anything.

I was back in work at 7am boxing day and it took me a couple of hours to realise that no one else was coming in. It was total hell, the same thing today as well. Tomorrow is also a bank holiday, which is utterly ridiculous, why does the country shut down for so long. I had to fight my way home tonight through people laden down with bags buying last seasons tat , that was too crap to sell, at a tenner off, why ?

I know people do actually enjoy Xmas and enjoy being able to spend time with their families but it's all about spending on any old rubbish, children being either really spoilt or deprived, families falling out as they have to spend too much time together and just the most grotesque gluttony I have ever seen.

If people want to do all those festive things then it's fine do it, but I just don't think I have the Xmas gene as the whole thing from start to finish just disturbs and puzzles me.

Anyway, that is my opinion, I hope everyone had a lovely time and I wish you joy and happiness for this special time. If your'e one of the many who have said to me, "it was ok, you know quiet" then cut the cord, it's liberating and makes you feel ever so smug.

Aladdin With Lily

2010-12-15T23:07:00.007Z

This morning I got on a train and headed West along the coast to Southampton. This was the first time I have ever been to Southampton and I hope it will be the last. It was a dreadful place, all 60's concrete and drab and basically just hideous. I was expecting a Victorian seaside town but it was more like Chernobyl.

The reason for my trip was to see the local pantomime, Aladdin (A Wish Come True ?) which was starring the one and only Lily Savage. Lily was a big part of my social life in the 80's when she did the pubs and clubs. She saw the light a few years ago however and took the veil and headed off to a convent in France, when I heard she was making a comeback I had to be there.

I'm not a big fan of pantomime and when I saw the hoards of children lining up to go in I shuddered. There was though a very adult theme going on, which was subtle enough for the children not to be scarred by.

Lily arrived on stage at her husbands funeral in the most outrageous widow drag you've ever seen and found out she had inherited a launderette. There then followed adventures of her son Aladdin falling in love with the princess etc etc. There were the obvious jokes of the T in the sign Widow Twanky falling off, to the less obvious of the palace guards wearing leather harnesses that you would only normally see in specialist night clubs.

The costumes were outrageous and the songs used must have cost a fortune in royalties, even though the lyrics were changed a bit. Be Italian from Nine was Be A Scouser ! They also used When You're Good To Mama from Chicago, Almost There from Shirley's last album and a Take That song. Lily also did a great You Gotta Get A Gimmick, complete with flashing boobs.

There were some really spectacular moments like an actual flying carpet, which had both the children and myself going Wow as Aladdin flew out into the auditorium.

Aladdin was played by Jon from S Club 7, fresh from Les Miserables who had a great voice. I really enjoyed it and it was great to see Lily again, and even hear the same old jokes. Some things never get old. I just wish it had been on in London or anywhere else in fact.

Scissor Sisters

2010-12-13T09:44:00.006Z

Last night I went to see The Scissor Sisters at The Brighton Centre. I got there early as I wanted to catch the support act Hurts. I really like their album, especially the track they did with Kylie and they were great. Moody and tortured but great to watch, they even did a cover of Confide In Me. The pace picked up after they finished with lots of Frankie being played as the stage was reset. This was really appropriate as when the show started there wear lots of lasers and lots of leather and rubber on stage. They are like a modern day Frankie.

The Scisstors had done a matinee show in the afternoon, rescheduled from the one cancelled with the snow. I worried they would be a little burnt out by their double header but they gave a totally energetic outstanding performance.

Ana was as always a brilliant show woman and her potty mouth and racy comments went down a storm with both the crowd and myself. Babydaddy just smiled quietly and looked sultry behind his guitar, Jake had his top off as soon as possible to show off his highly toned body. Del, who I have never really paid much attention to before looked really hot and when he fell over at one point was so cool just carrying on playing the guitar whilst Ana picked him up.

Jake did lots of stage diving, and walking through the audience to squeals of delight from both the men and the women. At one point he appeared on a platform at the back of the arena to sing Mary. Ana had a costume change from a black rubber dress, which she said made her feel like a penis in a condom, to a very prim pleated skirt and matching hat, made out of red rubber. She ripped the front of this off at one point, but fortunately there were no wardrobe malfunctions with pierced nipples showing as she had a bra on. They said they were going to play a new song we wouldn't have heard before, I thought it may have been something from the upcoming Tales Of The City musical, but they were just playing with us as they burst into a frenetic Don't Feel Like Dancing. They are touring the States next year as support for Gaga, which is a disgrace as she should really be sweeping up after them.

Another fantastic night out but 3 gigs in 5 days is a killer.

Human League At The Royal Festival Hall

2010-12-11T12:55:00.004Z

I managed to time my trips into London around the urban warfare of the riots on Thursday and went into a somewhat peaceful West End last night to see Human League at The Festival Hall. There were quite a few boarded up windows, "where there use to be some shops" but thankfully no sign of snipers hiding.

Once we'd maneuvered the concrete jungle of steps to get into the venue there was a quick drink, which I split, and took our seats for the highly anticipated League show. The show opened with Phil in a hoody covering most of his face and a track from the new album out next year. l thought it was a great song I was glad though that they didn't use the concert to try out never heard before songs. Next they hit Mirror Man with the girls in black either side of the stage. Susan was rocking a really busy hair doo, a sort of sliced off beehive, bun and a side plait. She looked fabulous and was giving it hell on stage twirling and spinning around non stop. Jo on the other side of the stage had just clipped a nylon hairpiece on and raised her arm every now and then and to be honest looked bored through most of it. They did the 80's hip wiggling thing though which is really infectious and exhausting after a few tracks of it.

Phil looked very handsome once the hoody was removed and in fine voice running back and forth and also enjoying himself as much as the crowd were. The girls had 2 costume changes, Susan in a great white frock with glitter boots and her final Dita Parlo look which I loved. It is impossible to pick some favourite tracks as they were all classics and I loved each and every performance of them.

I love a Xmas Human League concert, maybe as they had all those Xmas number 1's, none of which are dated. Brilliant show and here's hoping for another tour when the new album is out.

Pet Shop Boys At Hammersmith Apollo

2010-12-09T16:25:00.006Z

With the snow in Brighton all gone I was able to get into London yesterday for my next festive concert, Pet Shop Boys at the Hammersmith Apollo. It was freezing in London so all I did was check the Xmas lights on Carnaby Street, the only light show worth bothering with. This year's theme is Santa in Space with lots of glittery planets and Santa in a space suit

I got out of the cold by having a warming pint and waited for an as usual late Andrew before heading down to Hammersmith. The support act were the Ting Tings who I chose not to see and then we secured our spot for the Pandemonium show. This was the fourth time I have seen this show since it started in June 2009 and it still wasn't old. It was the same show with just the insertion of the latest single Together and like at The O2 last Xmas they finished with It Doesn't Often Snow At Xmas complete with the dancing Xmas trees.

The show had been arranged as a one off final of the tour as a charity fund raiser for Mencap. So I not only had a good time but I felt like a do gooder giving back to the vulnerable in society, as opposed to taking from them as the current government is doing. I guess that's the new Big Society in operation, Dave should be very proud of me.

There will be nothing from Pet Shop Boys for the foreseeable future as they will no doubt be working on the ballet they have written opening next year so it was a last chance to see one of my favourite bands of all time. A great night out with just a slight headache from the Apollo's somewhat ropey wine to deal with today.

Snowed In

2010-12-02T21:41:00.004Z

Right now, I should be in London at the Marc Almond concert. Due to the blizzard last night there are no trains running and the M25 is closed so I am at home cursing the white stuff. We really are pathetic in this country when we get snow, everything just falls apart. If they can't get London up and running what hope has the rest of the country got.

We had plenty of warning about the coming snow storm and I made preperations, turned the heating up and ordered in provisions from Tesco before the roads closed. This morning when I looked out of the window at the massive drifts I was shamed into going out and clearing it off the pavement outside my house, after I had dug my way out to the gate. I also dug out my neighbours house as they're in their 80's and checked if they were OK and needed anything. They gave me a bloody list ! I also asked another elderly neighbour if she needed anything, and I don't even like her (she complained I was playing Ray Of Light too loud once, heathen).

The rest of the afternoon was spent checking if the trains had started running yet, getting really annoyed by a crowd of really shrieky teenagers who chose right outside my house to have snowball fun and high jinks. I had to turn the news off in the end as I was sick of seeing people sledging and hearing about Dave Cameron's latest failure, securing the World Cup for us. If he thinks we can't afford a bit of grit on the roads how the hell are we supposed to be able to afford a World Cup ?

All I have to look forward to now is for the snow to turn to ice overnight ready for me to go back to work tomorrow and probably break a hip.

Penthouse & Pavement

2010-11-30T23:21:00.006Z

Tonight I braved the sub zero temperature to go and see Heaven 17 perform their 30th anniversary tour of Penthouse & Pavement at The Corn Exchange. I last saw them on the Steel City Tour a few years ago but this was a full concert from a band that was never off my turntable in the 80's.
The show started with obviously the first track, We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thang, a song originally banned by radio 1 for being too political ? The craptastic DJ Mike Reid was behind that along with his take that Frankie's Relax will corrupt society?
It was very apt that the songs performed tonight were anti war, anti bankers greed and anti Tory, as 30 years later we are faced with world war 3 erupting in Korea, a financial mess and even anti Tory demonstrations in Brighton this very day.
It was a fantastic performance, the backing singer looked like she wasn't even born when this album was released. She did however, have an incredible voice and embraced the 80's by wearing the Dynasty Di dress, sequins, one sleeve, fabulous.

Once P&P had been performed, they did a few BEF tracks, an acoustic version of Don't You Want Me, with claims that he was still friends with Phil. Then Glen mentioned the work they did with Tina. Let's not forget if it wasn't for the production on Private Dancer Tina Turner would never have had a come back. Glen said Tina was stuck in snow so her part was sung by the amazing backing singer. With nothing left from P&P they then hit Luxury Gap and the last song of the night was an amazing version of Temptation which sampled Love To Love You.
The Luxury Gap is 30 years old next year and Glen said they will tour with that as well. I will most certainly be there.
This is the first night of my own personal 80's revival as I seem to be, weather permitting, seeing a number of my favorite artists in the next few weeks.
I just hope they are as amazing as tonight's show was.

Catching Up With Old Friends

2010-11-22T17:25:00.003Z

A day off to myself today was spent indulging in silence and reading the new Tales Of The City book, Mary Ann In Autumn, in one sitting. Like all of Armistead Maupin's books it is not a story you can read a bit of and then come back to. Set in the present day, 40 years after Mary Ann first arrived in San Francisco, she has returned and ventures out to 28 Barbary Lane which has been converted into a single family house, the horror.
After abandoning everyone for her new life on the East coast a series of events has brought her back to find that friendship never ends and in her hour of need her "logical" family are still there for her. Instead of the patchouli oiled, pot smoking hippies of the 70's this story is full of references to Facebook, iphones and Amy Winehouse. Without giving anything away the excitement picks up as the story comes full circle and we get closure on something that happened in the first Tales story. Presiding over everything is Mrs Madrigal, not judging anyone or anything yet still being bohemian. It was a great read and felt so good having the whole family back together again. The only sad thing about this book is that at the age everyone is now, will there ever be another ?

The End Of The Rainbow

2010-11-18T21:31:00.007Z

Last night I swung by the Trafalgar Studios in London's glitzy West End to see the new show The End Of The Rainbow. It was a flawless, amazing performance by an incredible cast. Set in her London hotel suite it tells the final days of the tortured soul that was Judy Garland. Judy is played by Tracie Bennett, who I fondly remember as Len Fairclough's foster daughter Sharon from Coronation Street in the 80's and Shirley Valentine's daughter in the movie. She has morphed from gritty Northerner to West End diva having recently starred in Hairspray and La Gage Aux Folles and her portrayal of Judy was mesmerising.

The wig, make up, costumes and mannerisms were spot on as she rolled from comeback diva, to pill riddled boozed up mess. The tragedy of it all, how she became this early version of Amy Winehouse, broke and having to do a massive residency at The Talk Of Town to make ends meet, whilst coming off booze and drugs was incredibly sad. It was lifted though with some fantastic humour as Judy got drunker and drunker and eventually scoring some pills that had been prescribed to a cocker spaniel.

The set were all the action took place was the hotel suite, but as she appeared on stage each night it quickly changed into the Talk Of The Town as she either belted out her greatest hits or fell about the stage singing the wrong lyrics, yet still the audience loved her.

We all know how the story ends yet it was still a shock to hear her longtime pianist announce that Judy was dead and Tracie sang "that song". I saw a very similar show Off Broadway a few years ago, called The Property Known As Garland, a one woman show set in her dressing room. This however is a full production piece with a great band and outstanding cast and all the hits. I felt drained coming out of the theatre having been on a roller coaster ride of highs and lows and feeling really sad about what happened to Miss Garland.

I give it 10 out of 10 and definitely want to see it again.

The Love Thing

2010-11-07T15:36:00.003Z

Last night I went to see Mari Wilson's new one woman show, The Love Thing at the Leicester Square Theatre. I saw her here a couple of weeks ago in concert but this was in the more "intimate" Basement.
The small stage just allowed room for Mari, a piano player, which she performed around and a series of telephones which changed as the years rolled by. The show is based around the Dolled Up and Emotional Glamour albums but with some new songs thrown in as well. It is basically the story of Elle, a backing singer for Duran Duran in the 80's who goes on to have a hit single, meets her man, gets pregnant, then dumped and finds herself at 50 with bingo wings and just Simon Cowell for company on a Saturday night. It has all of life and loves ups and downs covered in the story and the songs and I loved it. Mari's voice was in great form and it had some really funny moments as well as tragedy, especially with my favorite song, Getting There.
Some of the links from the story to the songs were a little contrived but it is still a work in progress I think which with a little bit of fine tuning could be a massive success.
Another great night spent in the company of the Neasdon Queen Of Soul, marred only by the horror of a rail replacement bus service for part of the journey home.

I See English People

2010-11-04T22:25:00.002Z

If you don't subscribe to cyndilaupertv on You Tube then you are missing out on some really hysterical antics like the little clip below. This is Cyndi at her best, it's been doing the rounds on Facebook etc but for anyone who's missed it , enjoy a "little depth of field" !!

Mary J Saved My Life

2010-11-03T22:08:00.005Z

After weeks of bitching about X Factor last night was spent in the presence of a true musician and utter star when Mary J Blige brought her Music Saved My Life show to The O2. I arrived there uber early with the news that the tube would stop running at 7pm due to the strike, and everyone else seemed to have had the same idea. I was slightly concerned about how I was going to get back home, but not concerned enough to let it spoil my night with the Queen of Hip Hop.

The opening act was Lemar who I chose to ignore and instead spent the time in the O2 star bar with Owen and Chris.
With the news that Lemar had finished it was safe to take to our seats and a great light show with loads of "Mary J Blige" announcements, similar to the opening of the Share My World album and then there in silhouette was Ms Blige. When the light hit her she was in a glittery Shakespeare's Sister type cat suit, a great blonde weave and a colossal pair of Fendi shades and for the next couple of hours she just banged out great song after great song. She had some really funky moves and in true X Factor speak she actually did "own the stage". She was occasionally joined by 2 of the most ungay looking, gay backup dancers, but even their cuteness couldn't distract me from my Mary. The shades must have been glued on as they didn't fly off when she was giving it hell and she did take them off after a couple of songs so you could see the full emotion in her face.

Highlights were without doubt "Drama", "Not Goin' Cry" and "Going Down" and "Take Me As I Am" was really beautifully done as a stripped down version.

I'm Going Down was the audience participation number of the night, which is weird to think it was one of her first songs from all those years ago and she hollered out The Mary J fans are in the building!!!. I truly loved this show and there wasn't a single missed note or dull song or lacklustre performance. With my feet killing me from grooving all night as the curtain fell I had to leg it to get to the front of the taxi queue but with news of a single tube on the platform I forced myself on like a crazed veal calf and managed to get home with No More Drama.
10 out of 10 !

X Factor The Return

2010-11-01T21:12:00.004Z

I was never going to watch X Factor again after last week, then I heard that Cher Lloyd was going to actually sing rather than rap so against my better judgement I caved in and spent another 10 hours watching this absurd TV show on Saturday.
Cheryl was looking less than perfect again, which is a worry for such a beautiful woman. Dannii looked stunning, if a bit too much shoulder on show and there was a lot of hatred going on at the judges table throughout the show.

The theme for this week was Halloween, I use the term "theme" as loosely as they seemed to have. First up was Tesco Mary, her contribution to Halloween was to wear some cheap plastic devil horns. I bet she's one of those knobs that have flashing antlers on at the checkout come Xmas. As the majority of the TV audience would have been playing the Take That greatest hits cd on a loop whilst they failed to get tickets, the judges seemed to think Take That songs would be appropriate as everyone would be so familiar with them. Tesco Mary did Relight My Fire, to show how versatile she is. It was a mistake she just looked like a fool, would they make Subo sing Hip Hop ? I take back what I said last week, stick at being a one trick pony it's what you're good at.

Aiden did Thriller, in his signature "intense" style. I happen to know he was intense as the judges kept saying how intense he was. If that's his thing then they should let it go, but then as soon as the songs over he keeps doing these stupid grins and looks like a knob. If you're going to be Gary Numan then be Gary Numan, don't be a tourist.

Belle Amie were absolutely shocking! Their attempt at Halloween was to do Venus, as Bananarama had coffins and devils in the video. The singing was just grotesque, the styling was quite good but they just can't sing in harmony. Even at her worst, Jaqui O'Sullivan carried Venus better than these 4 did.

Rebbecca the Scouser was next, bored, bored, bored. Looked naff, did nothing with the song, was so forgettable I can't even remember what it was. Sang the end of each line out of tune. She will slip under the radar for a few weeks yet as she's neither good or that bad. Simon likened her to Leona Lewis, I thought not the f'ing L word again! Anyone who can make you think of Leona Lewis should just leave.

Treyc, another Take That song. Looked ridiculous in black lippie (her effort for Halloween) and lay on a couch for some reason?
A pretty lame performance only spiced up by Simon attacking Cheryl. He started ranting that Cheryl has no connection with her, she looked like she was going to kill him, then he did a spoilt brat thing saying, where does she live, where does she live, where does she live. Cheryl obviously had no idea and why should she? she's trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear not do lunch with the girls family. Emergency ad break then as they removed a stiletto from Simon's forehead.

Matt did Bleeding Love, anyone who knows me will know how much I loathe this song and he actually made me hate it more. The only Halloween connection was that it was originally done by a witch! He was slated by the judges and deservedly so.

Wagner did a cartoon version of Bat Out Of Hell. This joke is getting really old now.

Paije might have been in 80's fancy dress and wearing rosary beads, but this sista ain't no Madonna. Back To Black was his Halloween song of choice. Am I missing something or was he white last week ?

The most horrible part of the evening was brought to us by the Weasel. The hair and make up was just pathetic, she looked like she'd had a really severe chemical peel and burnt her eye lashes off. I didn't even notice the song cos I just wanted to pull the ridiculous wig off her head and tell her you can't do quirky,then punch her.

The boy band did Total Eclipse, allegedly dressed as vampires from Eclipse, trying to work out the Halloween connection was getting exhausting by now. They looked like Louis had given them all a hickey before they went on stage. I don't why people cover this song as it never works, only Bonnie can pull it off. And someone please tell Louis to keep his hands on the desk when One Direction are on, it's most unsavoury.

Everyone seemed to have had a difficult week, with illness and personal difficulties. The top spot was held back for Cher who did Stay, dressed as Madonna from the Frozen video. I hate this chav, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I think the fact that she didn't rap made it seem better than it was. At best it was average and very amateur dramatic. Simon hailed it as the performance of the series, which goes to show how bad everyone else is. She broke down into tears at the end which was really lame and has obviously been coached not to be such a cocky prat as it's doing her no favours, so she played the emotional lost for words card. Turns out she's had a really difficult week with personal problems.

The results show was just as dire. Bon Jovi, Jamiriquai and Rhianna, mmm all my favorites. There was no room for a group song with so many guests hawking their latest albums. Everyone did a cats chorus as back up to Bon Jovi, I still can't get the image of Tesco Mary in jeans out of my mind.
Jay Kay made an utter knob of himself giving out attitude that X Factor was beneath him. Denise Van Outen tweeted that Rhianna was gracious enough to not be too much up herself to appear on X Factor. I guess she's still not speaking to Jay Kay then. Rhianna's set was wedding themed with the guest's all having a food fight, didn't work for me and I'm sure I saw Tesco Mary eating the cake.

The 2 acts up for eviction were Belle Amie and the Weasel. I was hoping for the Weasel to go as Belle Amie can't possibly last much longer, but Louis copped out and it went to deadlock. Both performances to stay in were dreadful, the Weasel went bare foot, cos she's all about shock! But it was bye bye Belle Amie, who vowed this isn't the last we've seen of them.

I won't be watching next week as I am going out, thank god !

The X Factor

2010-10-24T17:46:00.003+01:00

I have always been able to maintain a slight air of superiority by saying I don't watch The X Factor, a bit like people who say they don't play the lottery. I watched it occasionally when I worked nights as it was repeated at 3am, but it was always really intense, people disagreeing about performances and a mega drama one night when someone let it slip who had been voted out. I hate Simon and Louis and loathe Leona Lewis so there is no need for me to tune in.
I watched one of the audition shows as Geri was a judge, which was a big mistake as I got dragged into the contrived drama of it all and became slightly addicted. I loved Gamu and thought she was going to win the show, but it makes me sick the way they have brushed over it and the judges keep repeating how the shambolic singers they put in her place show they made the right decision.
I have become one of those people who have nothing better to do than spend 3 hours on a Saturday night watching this drivel, but I have to say as a singing contest it is pathetic, but it is good TV. Which would explain the massive amount of revenue being generated from advertising as there is an ad break every 2 minutes. The thing I love most about X Factor though is the live Twitter bitching. The judges fawn over themselves how fantastic everyone is, but the real view of the download buying public is shown in the scathing comments on Twitter. It is definitely more entertaining than the show.
I will be going back to working weekends shortly so will just cold turkey myself from watching it but my opinion on last nights fiasco is as follows.

Paije, another stylist faux pas putting him in a red box jacket with a wheel trim round his neck. He's black, fat and gay, he's never going to get to the final if the voters up North have anything to do with it. He murdered a slowed down Chaka Khan track and deserves to be out.

Next up was someone who I don't even remember his name or anything he sang before, it was a black guy in an Alice band, deserves to be out.

Rebbecca, the one they liken to Sade, please !!!!!!!!!! Had a cheap nylon purple wig on, a gown with a side bustle and subtitles were needed when she spoke in scouse. Can't remember the song it was so dull and Simon dared to diss Elton (ooh handbags), saying Elton says this show doesn't create any stars, Elton, 40 years in the business, billionaire and still filling stadiums knows nothing about the music business obviously.

Next up was Cher Lloyd, I absolutely detest this vile chav. They had all done an advertising buy in to go to Top Shop, every other word was Top Shop to get the product placement in and it got old really soon. After a video of Cher gurning she appears on stage looking like Boy George circa The War Song. A grotesque tranny mess who did a chav MC version of a Tears For Fears song. My favorite Tweet was "The real Cher would say tone down the hair and makeup a bit boys" The judges of course are all under orders to love this one trick pony post gamugate to justify sending her back to face a firing squad. Cher is everything that is wrong in society today, she is hideous and can't sing at all. Bad drag who should go back to school and learn some social graces.

Matt Cardie, the only good looking one in the contest was next and he did Britney's Baby One More Time, as a slowed down acoustic number. He sung it well but I hated the overselling of he made the song his own, so original from the judges. It is really easy to do this and in fact everyone has from Christopher Dallman to Travis. He looked good in a tight top though.

One Direction, the pre pubescent boy band that Louis loves were next. I had to look away when Louis had his sex face on again and said they were like 5 Justin Bieber's. A middle aged man swooning over teenage boys is really unsavoury. They sang a Pink song, the theme was guilty pleasure and I though WTF ? At least Dannii had the guts to question how Pink was a guilty pleasure.

Treyc, the one who can't spell her name was next. She has a lot to answer for cos she took Gamu's get out of jail card. She looked repugnant, as if she had cropped down one of Alexis Colby's more fierce gowns and put extra feathered shoulder pads in it. She did a hideous attempt at Led Zeppelin and when she did Leona's trademark of falling to her knees I went for a piss. The judges were obviously pre programmed to love her.

Tesco Mary was next. Tesco must have only paid for one show as no one mentioned Tesco it was just called a supermarket this week. She is a very good singer but another one trick pony. She did a Shirley Bassey song, Louis cornered the gay vote by getting her to do Dusty the week before, whats next week Judy ? They showed a video of Mary at Top Shop, she must have bought her earrings there cos I don't think they do much in her size. She didn't cry this week which was a relief and Cheryl had that girl on girl action glint in her eye again. She is my favorite in the show but Dannii is right, she needs to sing something different, and not be filmed sans makeup again.

Aiden did another Shirley song, she must be loving all the royalties. He just stood on a really high platform for no explicable reason and looked like he should be sectioned. Next.

Belle Amie, Simon's other group, although he just doesn't care who wins as long as the revenue keeps coming in. They chose a Pretenders song, probably just to get Cheryl's vote as Girls Aloud covered it. They just looked cheap, were whorange and had weird Helga plaits in their hair. Can't sing for toffee.

Wagner, the joke entrant who is entertaining with his Elizabeth Duke jewelery and sheer awfulness chose to do Spice Up Your Life. The horror of it !! It will take years of therapy for me to get over that. Simon then went on to diss The Spice Girls, the biggest girl group ever, whilst maintaining Belle Amie have girl power and will be the next big thing. He is insane.

The top spot, closing number was saved for the Weasel. Someone who I have grown to hate more than Cher Lloyd. They tried promoting her as Gaga which backfired on a colossal level. They then showed a clip of Madonna arriving at Heathrow for the Who's That Girl shows, followed by the Weasel going into Top Shop. She said she knows what it's like to be Madonna now? As If !!!! When did Madonna last swing by Top Shop for a start you tragic bitch. She did a really lame effort of the Jungle Book, looked awful and with Gamugate still fresh the judges all loved her.

As for the judges, Louis looks ridiculous with his dyed hair and drunk antics. Cheryl has never looked so awful, the purple hair and nylon hair pieces look dreadful and she hasn't worn anything decent at all. Simon is just a controlling money grabbing freak who knows nothing about the music business. Which leaves Dannii, who is the only one who has stood up to Simon so far, the only one who seems to know anything about music and the only one who looks half decent. She does in fact look stunning, her hair has been flawless every week, and she has been wearing dresses by Victoria Beckham which have all looked stunning on her. Sorry Cheryl time for a make over.

The Social Network

2010-10-13T22:36:00.003+01:00

Tonight was the last date night before we return to work so we caught the Facebook movie, Social Network. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I really enjoyed it. Mr Facebook was a nerdy, geeky, not good with the ladies type, but you're going to hate him anyway as he was a billionaire at 25.
It's not surprising he made so much money as the cinema was packed and everyone was facebooking before the movie started. The Facebook featured in the movie was the original basic no bells and whistles but still as addictive. It's the equivalent to the twitching net curtains I guess wanting to know what everyone is up to.
It was more the story of the court case which came about by a set of twins saying Mr Facebook stole their idea, he eventually settled with $65 million, which "was like getting a speeding ticket". Justin Timberlake was in it, I don't why he gets so much grief for his acting as I have enjoyed him in every film he's done, even after what he did to our Britney. He was very convincing in this role.
A good insight into what has become a phenomenon and part of culture, started in someones bedroom. There were a lot of Facebook jokes in there, like changing your status to single rather than telling someone to their face it's over. Well worth seeing.

Money Never Sleeps

2010-10-12T23:57:00.002+01:00

With a slight hangover today I headed off for some sea air and then caught Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, or just Wall Street 2.
It was really good, the excesses of the 80's were still there for the bankers and the global collapse of the finance industry was very realistic. The cast were all great, Carey Mulligan and Susan Sarandon are in it, enough said. It was Michael Douglas' film though and his Resurrection of Gordon Gekko was great, I thought he might have gone all soft after being in prison and lost the greed but no he did the banking profession proud.
A little bit long but very enjoyable. The split screen thing got quite annoying after a while but New York has never looked so good on film. One of the better sequels and well worth seeing.

Mari Wilson's Threesome

2010-10-12T12:44:00.005+01:00

After 2 weeks at my mother's I came back to Brighton yesterday. I just dropped off my stuff at home and caught the next train back to London which was very deja vu going past Gatwick airport etc again. Life in rural Shropshire was very quiet to say the least so it was good to hit a few bars and have dinner and see people doing fun things as opposed to watching them do this.

The reason for the mad dash to London though was to see the fantastic Mari Wilson at the Leicester Square Theatre. It was an early show but for some reason the venue was only half full. Billed as Mari Wilson's Threesome it was just Mari with a pianist and guitar player. Her voice was stunning as she drifted through her Dolled Up and Emotional Glamour albums, but not a lot from the Showpeople album. What I've Always Wanted was of course saved for the big encore but I was disappointed with the absence of Baby It's True. Mari chatted a lot between songs and explained how she's been working in LA with the Wrecking Crew and then did a great cover of some Carpenters songs and was really channeling Karen. Dusty was thrown in as well which was awesome and showed the reason why she starred in Dusty The Musical.

Mari talked about her other projects like her upcoming one woman show and also her work singing for adverts. She explained how she was asked to sing in a scat style for one, and she just couldn't do it as she's not a scatter, which brought a lot of giggles to the mostly male crowd. My favorite song of the night was Getting There from Dolled Up, just amazing.
The night wasn't without drama though, we were in the front row and during the interval I looked down and there was a mouse by my foot! Luckily I managed to control myself enough not to let out a big girly scream but the dam thing just sat there giving me evils. This mouse friendly queen came to my rescue in the end and picked him up by his tail and put him in a pint glass, I was heaving by now, and he then released him into the wilds of Leicester Square and was back in his seat in time for part 2. I kept thinking I could feel mice and rats crawling up my leg all night then though.
Apart from mousemare it was a great night though and I am looking forward to seeing Mari again next month, a truly wonderful singer and lovely lady.

Made In Dagenham

2010-10-09T09:33:00.005+01:00

Last night I went to see Made In Dagenham, the brilliant new British film about the 1968 Ford strike by women demanding equal pay. I loved it, it was brilliant and had a great dose of 60's styling. It's very much a feel good movie, witty, moving and has the dreamboat Bob Hoskins as the girls foreman and the always fabulous Geraldine James in it.
It was set in the time when industry filled the banks of the Thames rather than yuppie flats and Ford chose to locate here as they could get away with paying women much less than men, a bit like companies locating to China now as they can get away with paying 3 year olds peanuts to make things.
The girls took their campaign around other factories and to the trade union conference in Eastbourne, which looked great. Having had dealings with the unions in the 80's I have to say I found the portrayal of them (and their expenses) very realistic.
Andrea Riseborough (currently being directed by Madonna as Mrs Simpson) was a fantastic beehived good time girl who looked fantastic in every scene. There was a funeral scene where she walked through the cemetery and you could have sworn it was the Back To Black video.

The film ended with the government getting involved, Harold Wilson was a bit of a joke but I loved Miranda Richardson's Barbara Castle. She met with the girls and to avoid a spoiler the rest is history. A great film all wrapped up in a Biba dress with a great new song by Sandie Shaw.

Pad Or Pro

2010-10-04T21:49:00.003+01:00

Today is my 48th birthday and it has been pretty monumentally uneventful, which is fine as that is just the way I like it. I am still at my mothers and haven't even left the house today, we have however had a full stream of people passing through, nurses, carers, neighbours full of stuff and nonsense and delivery men.
The highlight of my day though has been playing with my new shiny Macbook pro, a little birthday present to myself. Black Beauty, my old Macbook is look rather sad and neglected next to his sparkly more attractive younger sister but I will be leaving him here so when I travel up I wont have to cart a laptop around the country and worry about it getting nicked and my life being over. I love the new iphoto gizmos where you send them straight to Flikr or Facebook and have had hours of fun doing the face recognition thing. The only faux pas my new iphoto made was when I was stood in front of a poster of Abba it asked if Bjorn was Paul !
I was in 2 minds whether to get the ipad or a new Macbook, as much as I love the ipad and think that they are the way forward, for what I need now the Macbook is the baby for me. It's like driving a Ferrari and I love it to bits, plus I get a discount on apple from work so I saved myself £70, bargain!
I ordered in a pizza and cracked open a bottle for the birthday festivities, I had an email from Yo Sushi saying happy birthday and offering me a third off the bill for my birthday dinner, that's the one thing lacking in rural Shropshire, sushi bars !!

I'm Still Here

2010-10-03T19:58:00.004+01:00

Last weekend when I was still in Brighton I met up with some old friends from Wales who were in for the weekend. It ranged from drunken, to awkward to various people falling over but on the whole a good laugh and a good chance to reminisce. With over a quarter of a century since we had last seen each other there was a lot of catching up to do on people we used to work with and knew. The whole 6 degrees of separation thing kicked in with their children knowing the children of friends of mine and even a friendship with someone who I knew in my party years in London who is now a pillar of society back in Swansea.
I spilled a few of the lesser beans of the shenanigans we used to get up to and the girl involved said she was seeing him at a doo this week and would mention me.
Anyway, I get this email to say that she had said we have an old friend in common and mentioned my name and it was an OMG moment. He asked her to step out of the room and then said I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you but David "is no longer with us" There were shocks all round when she said well he was very much alive and kicking when I saw him in Brighton last weekend. I don't know where the story of my demise came from but it's not the first time I've bumped into a long lost acquaintance who thought I had pegged out and looked like they had seen a ghost. My only regret was that I didn't have Madonna's comeback in Desperately Seeking Susan when someone said to her I thought you dead, she say's No, just in New Jersey !.
Anyway all these stories of my passing would account for the lack of Xmas cards I get these days, but like an episode of Randall & Hopkirk Deceased I am now Facebook friends from the other side with some old mates.
For the record though, I'm Not Dead !

Get Lost

2010-09-24T09:38:00.003+01:00

I am currently enjoying a month long break from work. I always take a month off at this time of year, usually to get a fix of what's happening on Broadway. Due to family commitments though like last year I shall be enjoying the delights of rural village life, rather than the Great White Way.
I have spent the last few days at home though, just enjoying the break from work and dealing with mundane stuff like washing machine issues and my own hospital appointments. I also picked up season 6 of Lost and have watched the whole thing back to back. Because I never watch TV I didn't catch it when it was on and tried to keep my ears closed after the finale so as not to get any spoilers. Lost has been one of the best things on TV for many years, I have really enjoyed it from season 1 but it was time for it to finish. The last season still didn't answer everything, but in a way I was glad about that as the whole WTF is going on was part of it's appeal. It also of course leaves an opening for a movie in a couple of years like Sex And The City. I also liked how you interpret the story yourself, my take on it was that they all just died in the plane crash, and the whole Island thing was them just in Limbo / Purgatory waiting to move on. The flash sideways thing was just so they could have seen what life would have been like if they hadn't crashed, but then what do I know as that wouldn't explain how Jack was married to Juliet ? I enjoyed it much more watching it all in one sitting over 2 days than over a couple of months. In the flashbacks Mathew Fox looked a lot hotter than he did in the last season, and we didn't see enough of his tattoo either, I was sure that was going to be part of the story.

Five On The Fifth

2010-09-05T23:12:00.004+01:00

Here is my contribution to Five On The Fifth, you take 5 random photos on the fifth of each month or the days leading up to it and post them here at State Of The Nation.
This month's theme was The Blues.

The Blues Brothers playing in Brighton this week.

The Blue Box

Me in a blue shirt (lame I know)

Not blue but sparkly

Brighton Belle (no connection to the blues again)

Cry Salty Tears

2010-08-26T09:04:00.006+01:00

I have just finished reading Cry Salty Tears by Dinah O'Dowd, aka Boy George's mother. A fascinating story about being in an abusive marriage, and putting up with things like being punched in the face for being too friendly with the postman and for some bizarre reason staying in the relationship. The only explanation can be Catholic guilt, you've made your bed so lie in or just pure and simple love.

Mr O'Dowd was suspected of suffering from Asperger Syndrome, which resulted in him hoarding things like millions of carrier bags and junk and locking them in rooms. It is also a condition that would explain how he treated his wife, the violence, physical and mental, the insecurity that would lead to giving her a good hiding if someone even glanced in her direction. He could also just have been a monster and all that was an excuse for his crazy behaviour.
The strange thing is there was no violence to the children and he was really cool with George being "different" from an early age. Like George's books this is very honest and open and it makes you think if growing up in that environment had an effect on how things turned out in George's life.
It all sounded very exciting and bohemian that George left home at an early age to live in a squat in London but maybe it was just an escape. You also don't think of what home life was like when Culture Club were at the height of their fame and living the glamorous life.
When Dinah was pregnant with George they had to sleep rough on Clapham Common as they were homeless and Gerald beat his wife repeatedly whilst she was pregnant. You'd think when George had hit the big time his mother would have been able to escape that life as he could have set her up with a home of her but she chose to stay with her husband. The story takes a very strange twist at the end that you weren't expecting when he decides to leave her !
It's a great read, the horror of domestic violence, the Tina Turneresque fight back when a victim decides enough is enough and all mixed up with the nightmare of drugs, popping on Concorde to see your son play Madison Square Garden and Irish Catholic tradition. Having listened to Boy George's music after reading this story I am sure you pick up references to his upbringing and what his mother went through in the lyrics.
Although I was totally on Dinah's side through this incredible story she did something to George that I don't think I would have been so quick to forgive as he was. Fair play to her for the honesty though.

Elegies

2010-08-21T20:52:00.008+01:00

I stopped off in London on my way back to Brighton today as I had booked a ticket for Elegies For Angels Punks And Raging Queens at The Shaw Theatre. I love this show and the last time I saw it I had traipsed out to deepest darkest Essex to catch it so I was glad it was playing just by Euston. It's only playing for 18 days as a fundraiser for the Terrence Higgins Trust, with all (the many) performers giving their time for free. Before the show started someone from the THT came on stage to explain the work they do and how the new Tory government has decided to cut funding to Aids work and sexual health in general. It seems crazy to me that now that AIDS/HIV is a manageable condition rather than a death sentence, due to funding for treatment and awareness campaigns that this should be cut. Back in the 80's there was an AIDS benefit or fundraiser happening every week, are we really going back to that or do we just wait for a new epidemic ?,
Anyway, the show started with the opening number and the cast of thousands started appearing. The show is basically individuals giving their story after they have died, together with songs from those left behind. It has been brought up to date from the original production with references to PEP, Tiger Woods a disco scene to Blue Monday and 2 new characters, a South African woman and a gym toned Internet slut. The whole production was brilliant so get some tickets booked before it finishes next week.

There are some fantastic songs in the show, like the amazing I Don't Know How To Help You, which was sung beautifully by Miguel Brown. My favorite though is the lip quiverer, My Brother Lived In San Francisco, which was stunning. The show finished with Learning to Let Go, and although it had changed the story slightly to living with rather than dieing from, it is still a heavy piece of theatre. After the final bows a disco beat started up and Miquel Brown's famous 80's Hi Energy hit So Many Men, So Little Time started up and she started singing it with everyone dancing on a Saturday Night Fever dance floor. I thought it was just a way to give her a chance to sing her hit single and end the show on a high. I was clapping along and half way through I realised the cast had all leapt off the stage and Miquel had danced off stage with the song still playing to just an empty dance floor, intense, emotional and very moving.

Saved

2010-08-16T22:22:00.003+01:00

Last week I had to go through the torture of 2 different interviews and a role play to try and secure a place on the Schindler's List that would guarantee me remaining in my current job. It was pretty horrific and I really hated having to big myself up and go head to head with friends and colleagues for the positions that would be remaining. I felt a complete and utter pratt in the role play and the experience was extremely unpleasant.
It was like The X Factor in that no one was safe and no matter how long your tenure or ability you were being judged by someone who didn't even know you on your interview and acting skills. Today we all had the news and I was one of the lucky ones who got through and I will remain in the job. It was difficult to be pleased when others I have worked with for years are now out of the job and have to start scratching around for another job there, a position I have been in before and hated.
Now I can go back to what I've been doing for years and resume marking off the days until retirement.

Time To Celebrate

2010-08-16T06:48:00.002+01:00

Happy Birthday to Madonna, who has given me years of pleasure. May we have many more years together.

Looking stunning at her birthday party this week.

Toy Story 3

2010-08-10T23:03:00.003+01:00

Today I popped into my local Odeon and caught Toy Story 3, and I loved it. I felt a little bit dodgy being the only middle aged man on his own there, with all those sniveling kids, but as they didn't have an adult only showing I dealt with it.
It took a while to actually start as there seems to be an endless supply of upcoming cartoon films for the kids which were previewed, none of which made me want to see the films. Toy Story was different as the original one was so ground breaking that I really wanted to see it. Technology has come a long way since Toy story 1 and it was in 3D, but this was quite low key 3D so it didn't just rely on the gimmick of it.
Some of the toys had gone missing over the years, I was sorry to see the slutty Bo Peep was no longer in it, but Barbie was a welcome new character, not to mention Ken!

It was all totally entertaining, and it knew what it was as a movie. A great story, adult story lines running in synch with the nonsense and a very evil Big Baby doll, who seemed to have a tattoo and a drink problem?
A thoroughly enjoyable movie which made me feel all warm and happy inside.

Five On The Fifth

2010-08-05T12:51:00.007+01:00

Here is my contribution to Five On The Fifth, you take 5 random photos on the fifth of each month or the days leading up to it and post them here at State Of The Nation.
This month's theme was The Road.

Walking down the road to the beach.

These rentabikes have sprung up all over London. The first half hour is free, I walked.

The Bulldog is flying the flag.

This road sign was from last years Pride, but it makes me chuckle.

The Fandango Ballroom

2010-08-04T23:45:00.005+01:00

I treated myself to a day in London's glitzy West End today. I got on a jam packed train with sniveling kids, how long is this summer holiday going on for? After a few coffees I looked for a bargain for a matinee and I sure found one. I scored a ticket for Sweet Charity, which has been getting rave reviews. I hadn't rushed to see this production as it starred Tamzin Outhwaite who I'm not very keen on but as luck would have it she was "indisposed" and the understudy was playing Charity Hope Valentine. That's what you get for having bloody soap stars as leading ladies I suppose.

I had last seen Sweet Charity on Broadway when Christina Applegate was starring in it who was amazing so Tamzin didn't have the big pull for me. I took my seat amongst the coach parties of seniors from Tunbridge Wells and I have to say I totally loved the whole show. You can't go very wrong with a score like this show has but it was brilliant. The best part was the Fandango girls, they were so cool in their 60's wigs and makeup and taxi dancer dresses and had all the right moves. Charity was a lot more than adequate in the role and by her performance I would guess Tamzin has quite a lot of sick days.
There were so many high points, The Rhythm Of Life, Big Spender and the Chita Rivera character doing Something Better Than This.
It's a great production of a timeless classic and well worth seeing.
I didn't want to get the rush hour train home so I grabbed some noodles and a couple of drinks and I was home for 9pm. I'm slowly turning into one of those seniors from Tunbridge Wells.

The Regency

2010-08-03T21:46:00.003+01:00

When we first moved to Brighton one of our places of choice was The Regency Tavern. One of the oldest pubs in Brighton, complete with a couple of ghosts, real ale, excellent food and two of the nicest old queens running it you could imagine. Prior to running the pub they were window dressers and they turned their flair for design to create an overdecorated, gold cherub filled escape from the outside world. Their Xmas decorations had to be seen to be believed and there was a power surge in Brighton when they turned their twinkle lights on.
Sadly they decided to retire and the pub fell into straight hands and dust started collecting on the cherubs as trade moved on. The Regency fell out of favour and become another faceless Brighton boozer. Rumour has it that the ghosts were displeased with the current trade and boil in the bag menu and the pub changed hands again.
It reopened last week after a bit of a makeover with a tranny at the helm. The decor is not subtle but more like an explosion in a La Cage Aux Folles drag queens dressing room. Everything is red and leopard skin, the cherubs are bigger and golder, the chandeliers are like the Hope Diamond and that tranny knows how to change a barrel. Her choice of real ale was delicious.
It is now also a piano bar with a baby grand were the slot machine used to be. The ghosts and I are very pleased.

Inception

2010-08-03T18:29:00.003+01:00

Today we went to see Inception, I had very high expectations as people had told me it was the best film they have ever seen and such like. The jury is still out with me as I am undecided if it was in fact a unique, inspired work of genius or a cleverly disguised James Bond / Matrix rip off load of old bollox.
It didn't get off to a good start as I had failed to realise it was not an 18 and the schools are off so it was packed with really annoying teenagers. The film was too long and the teenagers attention span had fizzled out so there were numerous trips to the toilet, texting and chit chat.

It was shot beautifully though and Marion Cotillard was as mesmerising as ever on the screen. Leo is looking better with age but he was just Leo and Ellen Page was just pointless and irritating.
I really hated the zero gravity thing were they were all tied together with the eclectic flex when it went all Matrix. I wanted it to end then but it did redeem itself a little when the bus eventually landed in the river and we got off that bloody Die Another Day mountain top.
I didn't find it totally unwatchable but its definitely not as good as the hype would suggest. Maybe if I had it on DVD and watched it a few times I would appreciate it more, but then again, I've got better things to do with 2 and half hours than sit through that again.
Every time someone mentioned a dream within a dream as well my mind wandered off to the Propaganda song and I just started singing that in my head. All that we see or seem, is but a dream, within a dream. The song is much better than the film.

60 Days

2010-07-28T11:59:00.004+01:00

I had a phone call from work yesterday whilst I was on the train back to Brighton. They needed to tell me something urgently that day and before I read about it on Facebook. I was being given 60 days notice that my current job will cease to exist. The whole department is history. It wasn't that much of a surprise as I had seen the writing on the wall but it's still annoying all the same. This is the fourth time this has happened to me in my working life, the third time in this company and now that I have been there long enough to get a decent redundancy payout there are to be no redundancies.
My job is being combined with the work of about 10 other people and I will have to apply for it, go through the interview process and if I'm lucky enough to get a job I'm overqualified for and have been doing for years I will just carry on doing it with a massively increased workload. If unsuccessful I will just have to go to the bottom of the food chain and work with school leavers and such like, as we have all been guaranteed a job.
It's all very tedious and annoying that I will have to big myself up and perform like a circus poodle in an interview, which I am really crap at. The irony of the whole thing is that the whizz kid who thought this whole thing up will get a massive bonus and promotion and in a couple of years time someone else will have to sort it all out and put things back to how they were as it will be a massive fail. I've been there before and seen it all happen over and over again.

Minister For Culture

2010-07-25T16:27:00.003+01:00

On the Andrew Marr show this morning the new Tory minister for culture, Jeremy Hunt was interviewed. It made me realise that the new regime we are under are totally incapable of running the country on every single level.
He is now responsible for the Arts in this country, and he is obviously the best man for the job. I mean he described Coldplay and Leona Lewis as exciting new acts ?? He also justified the BBC Licence fee by saying that we are all looking forward to seeing Anne Widecombe on Strictly Come Dancing, really !!!!!
He seemed a bit light in the loafers as well when he was being interviewed so I was surprised to see when I checked him out on Wikepedia that he was married, but he does enjoy Latin dancing in his spare time, hmmm interesting.

It's Gone Viral

2010-07-24T20:44:00.003+01:00

This video was sent to me by a number of ex pats knowing I'd appreciate the Welsh factor. Within a day it's gone viral with everyone posting it on Facebook for their chums to share and it is no wonder as it is a work of genius. I love this sort of stuff and it has been done so well as anyone with the slightest knowledge of South Wales will appreciate. I only went to Newport once, it was on a date in the early 80's and I was horrified, it's shocking. The relationship never took off after that. My favorite line is the girl singing "50 quid if you're sick on the back seat" classic. Everybody say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

Stepping Out

2010-07-21T22:02:00.004+01:00

Last night I went to see the 25th anniversary production of Stepping Out at The Theatre Royal. I had only seen this show once before but I loved the movie and have seen it millions of times on VHS. For some bizarre reason it's not available on DVD so I haven't seen it in ages and I really enjoyed it last night.

Anita Harris was playing Vera, the Julie Walters character and she was great and looked fantastic in leotards at her age. Brian Capron, the Coronation Street murderer was the nervy Geoffrey and was a total different kind of character to what he normally plays but he carried it off really well. The star though for me was this massive blonde woman, who was playing a really rough bird and she didn't care what she looked like in lycra. She also turned out to be a great dancer in the big finale with her huge lamb kebab legs just in tights. I loved her.
The story is about a group of women and 1 man who go to a tap dancing class in a church hall, all individuals and sharing their stories with each other. It's a bit of poor mans A Chorus Line, which isn't a bad thing. They kept it in the 80's as well with leg warmers and the like which was good as I don't imagine people go to classes these days if they want social interaction, they just tweet from their back bedroom.
It wasn't a patch on the movie, which it never could be with a cast like Julie Walters, Shelley Winters and a pre crazy Liza Minnelli but I thoroughly enjoyed it and laughed a lot.

Panemonium x 3

2010-07-19T23:55:00.005+01:00

Tonight I went to see the Pandemonium show by Pet Shop Boys at the Brighton Centre. It was the third time I have seen this show live and about the billionth on DVD but they were playing at the end of my road so I couldn't not go. It's over a year ago I saw the show for the first time when it just started with them playing Amsterdam and in that time the show hasn't got old or stale at all. To think they've been doing it around the world for all that time Neil and Chris were as enthusiastic and fresh as if it was their first time.

There were no surprises or changes for me except for the support act was Sophie Ellis Baxter who I made a point of getting there in time to see and she was really rather good. Being the old pro's they are the show started bang on time at 9pm and they took us through their back catalogue of hits and I loved every minute of it. I heard a quote this week which was Pet Shop Boys music is misery that you can dance to and I agree. The irony and angst in the lyrics backed to a disco beat, just too fabulous for words.
The highlight again for me was Dusty joining them on video but it didn't have the same impact on the smaller set as it did at The O2. The tour finishes very soon so let's hope it's not too long before a new album and tour. A massive 10 out of 10 !

Dangerous

2010-07-10T11:41:00.003+01:00

Last night I went up to a scorching London to see an off West End production of Dangerous in the Above The Stag theatre which is strangely enough above The Stag pub in Victoria. The play is based on Dangerous Liaisons and is very true to the book / film but with an all male cast and based in the modern day London / Brighton gay scene. There is the intrigue, scheming, backstabbing and struggle to be the top A gay in a truly bitchy gay scene which translates from the original story really well.

It is obviously a low budget, low key production but they make the most of what they have on the small stage and my only criticism would be for such loaded queens a few more high end outfits would have enhanced the performance. Everything else worked really well, they had the London / Brighton thing spot on and the gold digging and oneupmanship was perfect. Being set in the 21st Century there was no need to send hand written notes which took weeks to arrive to cause trouble, they just posted incriminating photos on the web and videos on Xtube with everyone corresponding by iphone.
The set changes were pretty basic but accompanied by a blast of pop music, whoever knew Girls Aloud would one day feature in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The acting was really good and I especially liked the guy playing Marcus who did the most scheming and didn't care about the fallout or who got caught in the cross fire but what goes around comes around and he had his come uppance in the closing scene.
With some money thrown at it this could easily transfer to the West End, it's a familiar story but with a great new twist. It's only on for another week so book now, it's a blast.

Get Outta My Way

2010-07-09T10:56:00.004+01:00

I have only got through a shitastic week at work by heading off down to the beach in my lunch hour with my little sandwich and putting in my earphones and switching the world off. My nerves have been jangled and I have been physically exhausted, which is strange as I don't dig holes for a living. The fact that I have not been able to do my work on auto pilot and actually have to think about it and concentrate on all the new stuff has been draining, plus the fact that it is really really busy doesn't help. I couldn't speak when I got home (much to Paul's approval) but I'm hoping that in a couple of weeks I will have got through the pain barrier and be able to go back on auto pilot.
So all that has kept me sane this week is Aphrodite, the new Kylie album. I loves it! It is classic pop with a great club feel and a welcome return from her recent R&B vibe. My favorite song of the year is Get Outta My Way, which has to be the next single if the record company has any sense. I can already visualise the video, lots of wind machines blowing her hair as she pushes lesser mortals outta her way. There are loads of hit singles on this album which will be filling dance floors for years, obviously I will be enjoying them in the privacy of my home. It is soaring up the charts in America as well so that mini tour there last year has really paid off her.
I have been mixing up Aphrodite with Night Work the Scissor Sisters new one which is equally as fantastic. I have got a ticket to see them when they play Brighton in December but am tempted to catch them at The O2 as well, just in case Kylie redoes her Glastonbury guest spot on Any Which Way.

Here she is performing the song at Madrid Pride last week. It sorta puts a couple of beer tents in Preston Park for our Pride to shame, think I may have to go to Madrid next year.

Five On The Fifth

2010-07-05T06:45:00.005+01:00

Here is my contribution to Five On The Fifth, you take 5 random photos on the fifth of each month or the days leading up to it and post them here at State Of The Nation.
I forgot to do this last month and I've been away this weekend so here are a couple of random photos.

Pride

2010-07-03T18:37:00.003+01:00

Today was London Pride, being a bad gay I didn't go but I'm glad it was a nice day for it. Pride used to be the highlight of my year, I'd have the outfit planned, saved up loads of money to be parted with on that great gay day of days and generally have a really good time. Talking about Pride last week someone said to me why don't we have a straight Pride. A few years ago this would have really annoyed me because I'd say have you no idea about gay history and the struggles etc. Now it seems like a perfectly normal thing to say, if you were never gay under Thatcher or the years before then you would wonder why we have a big gay day. It's sign of equality I guess that people do ask why there isn't a straight Pride.
I have as much equality as I want in my little world, I don't want to be like everyone else and just ape the 2.5 kids lifestyle, I also don't want to be like the A gay's either. I guess I just want to be my own special creation!

I have some fond memories of the ghosts of Pride past though, seeing Kylie and Divine on the main stage (sadly not dueting though), Lily Savage introducing Boy George, dancing in the women's tent, meeting numerous kindly gentlemen, some who shared chocolate dipped strawberries and champagne with me, others who thought a brown ale and a whiff of poppers would do it! Staying till the end of the fireworks and crying at the balloon releases, having too much sun and too much booze in one day and having to be carried home on the tube, the shame!
It used to be a dam good day out and if I had my time again I would go to them all over again. With the benefit of hindsight though there are some situations that I would avoid, like the year I stood in a lesbians quiche and nearly got murdered or the year I found myself in an "after party" on the 28th floor of some awful dive in Tower Hamlets which was overrun with cats and stunk (I made my excuses and left). There was the year I told a child to F Off after he sprayed me with water and his heavily pierced, tattooed mother chased me round the park or the year I lost my wallet, phone friends and had to walk from Brixton to Victoria and slept in the park behind the Vauxhall Tavern before jumping the first train back to Brighton. The ultimate thing I'd avoid though is at the end of the day going into a mobile urinal thing, it held about a dozen or so guys and it stank! Whilst relieving myself of all that overpriced warm lager someone thought it would be funny to tip the thing over and I went hurtling into a group of men in mid flow whilst a tsunami of stale pee came flying at me. I still have nightmares about it.
Happy Pride !

Canary

2010-06-29T23:01:00.005+01:00

Tonight I went to see Canary, the new play by Jonathan Harvey which arrived in Brighton this week. I was looking forward to it as I loved Beautiful Thing by him so it had a big play/film to live up to. It started off a bit awkwardly and I found it difficult to follow the connections. It covered 50 years and different actors were playing the same character in different decades and they merged into the same decades as voyeurs of the goings on. Once it got going and I got it though I started to enjoy it. As it started getting a bit racy and an uptight couple left I knew I was going to enjoy it more.

The 80's was the decade all the action really happened, that caused the domino effect of the present day dramas. It had it all in there, the miners strike, AIDS, leg warmers, gay men marrying women, Heaven, Thatcher, Mary Whitehouse and The Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence. The best line of the night was Maggie in full Thatcher blue suit drag doing her famous comments about gay people wanting rights and they brought AIDS on themselves, when she proof reads a press release about AIDS and says "I don't like anal intercourse!" It was hysterical.
The play takes it name form Peter Tatchell's quote "women and gay people are the litmus test of whether a society is democratic and respectful of human rights, we are the canaries in the mine."
Being a middle aged gay man nearly everything in the story struck a nerve with me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It also had Patti Smith's Because The Night as a recurring song in it which is always a good sign.

Kylie At Glasto

2010-06-27T09:32:00.000+01:00

Loving Ana's funky moves !!!

Shambolic !

2010-06-22T22:07:00.002+01:00

I am really hacked off at the moment. For all of last week and this week I have been on a training course for something that will become part of my job as of next Monday. I have not only had to give up my days off for it and have my usual 4 days off replaced by 2 , annoying in itself, but the dates kept being changed so everything I arranged for my days off has gone by the wayside. It was the first time the trainer had done this course and it became apparent yesterday that the whole thing was a disaster, we had learnt nothing and the whole thing was a big shambolic mess. After regrouping in the pub lunchtime we decided we had to do something as we were expected to hit the ground running next week so on our return we presented our vote of no confidence.
It felt a pretty shitty thing to do but we had no choice. We sat anxiously in the training room this morning ready to face the music and bad atmosphere but she no showed. After an extended coffee break we were introduced to the new person presenting the course and told that the previous one will no longer be taking them (guilt deepens). The only thing is we are starting from day 1 again and it will now go on into next week, meaning another 2 day weekend and there is a whole week of my life that I will never get back again. Not happy !

Margaret

2010-06-19T22:16:00.003+01:00

I've seen some pretty disappointing films lately on my Love Film DVD rental subscription. They've all been just on in the background making me realise why I never bothered going to the cinema to see them. A DVD turned up today though, it was a BBC film that I missed when it was on TV about the final days of Margaret Thatcher's dictatorship. It was flawed in many ways but I totally loved it. Having lived through Thatcher's Britain and her ultimate de frocking it was very true to life and really accurate and I was engaged in it the whole way through.
Lindsay Duncan played Maggie, she was too young, too thin and too glamorous but she had the determination of Maggie down to perfection. It showed her rise to power in flashback with lots of 70's wallpaper and the marching up and down stairs in Westminster was very Evita. The film showed that Margaret had balls of steel, no sense of humour and was clinically insane whilst running the country which even her strongest supporters had to admit to in the end to get her out.
For a BBC production it was so much better than a lot of the big budget Hollywood crap I have seen lately. The film ends with her just about to go through the doors of No 10 for the last time and I remember that day so well. I really hated Thatcher and Thatcherism, the whole time of her dictatorship was the darkest time in recent history but I remember feeling very sorry for her that day. As she blubbered into the mike that she was leaving Downing Street for the last time she was no longer the psycho bitch who had caused the miners strike, poll tax and clause 28 but a very sick woman in need of psychiatric help who had been stabbed in the back by her so called friends. It is a really fascinating film.

Last.FM Milestones

2010-06-19T12:42:00.003+01:00

On Last FM you now get your milestone stats as well as your personal charts. You can customise it to what you want to get. Interesting little whatnot on one of my favorite sites. These are my 5000 track milestones.

Last.FM Milestones

1st track: (14 Jan 2007)
Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky
5000th track: (02 Jun 2007)
Erasure - I Could Fall In Love With You
10000th track: (28 Sep 2007)
Erasure - Storm In a Teacup (Single Version)
15000th track: (08 Jan 2008)
Sugababes - Easy
20000th track: (23 Apr 2008)
Céline Dion - Then You Look at Me
25000th track: (20 Jul 2008)
The Boy from Oz - She Loves to Hear the Music
30000th track: (08 Nov 2008)
Girls Aloud - Whole Lotta History
35000th track: (16 Jan 2009)
The Smiths - Girlfriend in a Coma
40000th track: (19 Apr 2009)
Paul Baker et al. - Freak
45000th track: (16 Jun 2009)
Bananarama - Love in the First Degree
50000th track: (01 Sep 2009)
Whitney Houston - Nothin' But Love
55000th track: (28 Nov 2009)
Soft Cell - Memorabilia
60000th track: (04 Mar 2010)
Gabrielle - Gonna Get Better

Bionic

2010-06-14T08:59:00.003+01:00

Xtina's Bionic album was out last Monday as well as every other album I wanted. Although this was the one I had been looking forward to the longest it sort of took a back seat to Variete' and it has taken a few listenings to get into my very being. Whilst listening to it yesterday on my way to work it just clicked and I love it. I adore Not Myself Tonight and enjoyed every performance she has been doing of it on the promotion trail. There is everything from tortured ballads to futuristic electronica and good old fashioned pop here.

There has been a hate campaign against Xtina and this album, led by the monge Perez Hilton, loads of articles about floptina and Xpiredtina and Clonetina. It got to such a tragic state, saying she was copying everything Gaga did, ie being blonde and wearing black ?. I have deleted his website from my favorites as he has nothing worth saying and is just a paid stooge for the Haus Of Gaga. Xtina is now an album artist and makes music for grown ups. Gaga is just a novelty act, making pop records in fancy dress. Christina Aguillera has an incredible voice and looks like the love child of Gwen Steffani and Madonna, she is hot!. In her latest video Gaga looks like an anorexic 12 year old in a dirty bra and a Purdy wig.
To date as well Perez hasn't reported how Bionic went straight to No 1 in the UK. It's a great album up there with Stripped and I prefer it to Back To Basics. The tour has been put back to next year which is disappointing but I so can't wait to see her doing these songs live.

On the subject of gaga and stealing ideas I have stolen this video from Chris which goes to show that you can either see thief of idea's or just coincidence in anything. The evidence here though is that gaga is actually the clone making pale imitations of the Queen. She most definitely is not Her.

How To Tell You're In A Gay Bar

2010-06-12T14:43:00.002+01:00

There may be chain mail curtains in the toilet.

But there's L'occitane soap in the sink !

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Didn't She Almost Eat It All

2010-06-11T22:36:00.005+01:00

When I saw this photo from The Enquirer I just thought it had been doctored and photo shopped to make it look as though Whitney had eaten all the pies. It's only a couple of weeks since I saw her shambolic concert and she was regular sized then, how could she have put so much weight on so quickly?

Then I saw this photo and she has definitely piled on the pounds. Maybe all the bad reviews are making her addictive personality start binge eating. For over £100 a ticket you not only expect your diva to sing like an angel but to also look like a diva. It's all very sad and the latest you tube clips are far from flattering. She is back in England now for the last 2 dates of what I'm sure will be her last ever tour. She also looks like she's had some dodgy plastic surgery as well, shocking

Non Stop

2010-06-08T22:29:00.002+01:00

Another album I downloaded yesterday was Andy Bell's new one, Non Stop. It was bad planning to release this the same day as Marc Almond's as I became obsessed with that immediately. Non Stop is still however another brilliant album. It's not as immediate as Variete' but a few listens in I'm feeling the love for it. Pure unapologetic disco, closer to Erasure than Electric Blue was and I'm feeling a bit of a Studio 54 vibe to it.
There's not a torch song in sight on this album, it's all about "Let's Disco". Call On Me is the lead single but DHDQ, with the lyrics, Debbie Harry, Debbie Harry Drag Queen is my current track of choice.

Variete'

2010-06-07T23:06:00.003+01:00

I downloaded mac Almond's new album Variete' this morning and it is just stunning. I fell in love with it on first listen and I think it is a total work of genius. His 2008 album Stardom Road was my most played album of that year and I love this one even more. I enjoyed last year's Orpheus In Exile but Variete' is in a totally different league. I was actually laughing out loud when I first listened to it the lyrics are so funny. I love every single song but my favourites are Trials Of Eyeliner, a song that spreads over 3 decades on the "scene" , Sandboy, which sums up every tortured queen you've ever known and Soho So Long, which is a sort of goodbye to Soho of old and all it's characters now it's been replaced with everyone looking the same. The ultimate though is Lavender, a song he has sung the last few times I have seen him and is totally amazing.
The songs include lyrics like, "My life is like a drag queens dressing room, my mind in like a prostitutes bed" and "You splashed on some Brut and lowered your voice, when Charlie was really your choice" It's an album full of drama, torture, liaisons with sailors, seedy films, and the underworld.
I cannot recommend this album enough, it is immense, it is Heartache Noir.

Mortified

2010-06-06T21:57:00.002+01:00

I am working my new hours now and finish work at 8pm so last night I took the opportunity to go for a drink after work. I intended it to just be 1 or 2 but it turned into few more but that's another story. Anyway, the bar I was in was quite busy and it had 2 doors but one of them was closed off and sealed with a table in front of it leaving just one door for entry. The door had a window in it and I noticed someone trying to get in through the closed door. He wasn't giving up even though it was sealed up and kept trying and I found this highly amusing. I was trying to direct him to the real door through the window but he just ignored me so I started taking the piss and saying things like what a monge and have you seen that idiot really loud. Eventually he gave up and found the proper door and got into the bar. I turned around to have a look at the object of my amusement and I just wanted to floor to open and swallow me up. He was stood at the bar trying to get a drink with a white stick in his hand. It very quickly wiped the smile off my face and I stopped laughing, obviously I no longer found his struggle with the door funny, being visually challenged myself.
I got the evil eye from everyone around me as if I was some kind of callous monster making fun of disabled people. It was monumentally embarrassing and I was totally mortified. I am never going to go out again and just dedicate my life to helping others. I am ashamed.

Happy 2010

2010-06-01T19:59:00.003+01:00

I have decided that I am going to write off the first 5 months of this year as they have been absolute shit for me. I am therefore declaring today, 1 June, New Years Day and I will just have a shortened 2010 and pretend the last 5 months never happened.
I have spent the last 5 months in turmoil, agony and distress but I am pleased the say that I think the bug that put my whole life in disarray has left the building.
I have hit rock bottom with depression and been through levels of pain that make childbirth seem like a walk in the park. I have seen more doctors, been to hospital and shown my underwear to strangers more in the last 5 months than I have done so in my whole life. My last hospital visit I had the all clear and only have to go back once this month and then at the end of September for a check up. I still have a slight pain but it is improving every day and I would say I am currently at 90% my normal self.
I have no showed or had to leave half way through concerts and shows. I have been dropping off at inappropriate times due to medication and life has been not worth living.
I am hopeful now that all that is behind me and I am back to my annoying, self righteous and perfect self.
I have an empty diary as I haven't been able to think of anything other than medical appointments so new opened eyes must look ahead. To start with next Monday sees new releases from Xtina and Andy Bell, hopefully tours to follow.
I have had the luxury of working reduced hours and the downside of being back to normal is that I will have to resume working full time, every silver lining has a cloud I guess.
So have a great 2010 everyone.

An Observation

2010-06-01T17:01:00.008+01:00

I am a bit puzzled about the difference of views about the new SATC film. It seems that every straight woman who has seen it thinks it is just utter dosh. One "cynical" person whose film reviews I usually agree with thought it was the worst thing ever to be shown in cinema. Yet all the gays I know who have seen it have loved it and thought it was fabulous.
As the TV series audience was made of both these groups what has caused such drastic differing views from the two audiences. One of the things the ladies have been saying is that the clothes were awful and age inappropriate. I can't believe that so many women would go to see a movie based just on the wardrobe but maybe they have a point. The only dress that really stood out for me was the newspaper dress from series 3. I don't really remember much of the other clothes but I never really watched the TV series for the fashions, just the gags. Although I do think that both these ensembles were pretty stunning.

Maybe it lost it's way with the ladies as it did get a bit preachy. Lots of conversations about how hard it is being a mother, especially for those who don't have full time help and the like. Should they have just carried on being invincible and able to cope with everything.

As for the gays, what needs to be remembered about this franchise is that it is written by gay men, for gay men about gay men. Those 4 characters are only women because no TV company would have picked up a TV series with gay men behaving like that. Just look at Michael Patrik King, could he be any gayer.

Maybe he went too far with the sparkle stick, although no gay man would ever want a gay wedding like that you can see the funny side of it all. I think every gay man has behaved like the 4 characters at some time in their life, ( I have just turned into Mr couch guy like Mr Big though) . The metaphor of Samantha finding herself in the Middle East and having to suppress her sexuality is what every gay man finds when he leaves the city and finds himself in the suburbs. But maybe I am looking too deeply into it all. I think it's bit harsh as well that SJP is being likened to a horse so much. She has that unconventional, un classic beauty look that made Babs so popular with the gays.

What seems to be a massive hit for it's gay audience, is a massive disappointment for it's straight audience. I for one am happy, if a little puzzled about that as you can never have too much glitter and sparkle in these types of movies.