Constant Reader, sorry to have been so quiet of late but my three month assessment with the dole office has made me a bit depressed all week... in April when Flashbacks closed I was out of work for 21 days and I thought that was an eternity.
It's now just over three months since I left Borehamwood.

My stats? 89 jobs applied for, 7 interviews.

While I was happy to show them the scant reject e-mails and letters I have received and justify my efforts to find a new job it would be nice if somewhere along the line the people I have sent my c.v.s to could be questioned as to why I have not even been given an interview. It would also have been nice if the woman I saw at the job centre actually listened to what I was saying and stopped staring at her computer screen.

The week has had a couple of highlights... We went to see Estelle at the O2 on Saturday, you could tell it was an 'urban' gig... having to go through a metal detector and be frisked didn't happen at Alphabeat.

We were sat to the right of the 'circle' and at first I thought it would be a good view onto the stage - until someone in the front row leaned forward... which led to a domino effect and for the most part I saw her intermittently. Like.. why doesn't the person behind the twunt in the front just tell him to lean back?
He's in the front row... what's to lean forward for??

This was the first time I had seen Estelle and was a bit nervous as I have been a fan since her first album THE 18th DAY and SHINE is definitely one of my albums of the year... would she be able to do it live?

For all her paling around the US with Kanye West and John Legend it's nice that Estelle is still a West London girl. She was certainly up for a chat with the audience - all in a stream of babbling words "Thisshitisforreal,right?" She did ask first was it all right if she swore - then proceeded with a fuselage of shit and fucks that made poor Owen wince as he was sitting next to a family outing of about seven 13 year olds. I am sure they have heard worse. The ultimate hilarity was when Estelle asked us what we thought of her support act Laura Izibor (who was quite good) who had said her first cd was out early next year:

Estelle: "WhatyouthinkofLaura? Sheisfierce,right.... Ican'twaitforhershittocomeout, right?" I am sure neither can Laura's proctologist.

But apart from that, she was great - a real personality who was genuinely excited to be playing in her hometown and rightly proud of all she has accomplished this year. Like Beverley Knight, an early Estelle supporter, she has had to fight UK record label apathy and it was only after making the bold move of relocating to NY that she luckily met Kanye West and through him, John Legend. Legend was so impressed that, after touring with her, he signed her to his own record label giving her the space and creative foundation for her SHINE album.

She treated us to the whole album but presenting the songs with new slants on them - "Pretty Please" was given a thumping 60s beat while others were presented in bite-size versions as Estelle related her troubles with the men in her life "SoIsaidgetthefuckout, right?" Finishing off with a roof-raising "American Boy" and "1980" I think I would definitely want to see her again.

We also had a second helping of the revival of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES which has transferred from the Menier to the Playhouse where it looks like it will be playing longer than the wonderful THE HARDER THEY COME.
I am definitely mellowing towards LA CAGE... when I saw it first at the London Palladium apart from the performances of Denis Quilley, George Hearn, Les Cagelles - where IS Scott St. Martyn now? - and the outrageous performance of Phyllida Law as Jacqueline, I didn't like the show. Purposefully so as Jerry Herman had won the Tony for Best Musical over Sondheim's SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE and so I was agin it.

But I guess what goes round comes around and I now appreciate the ground-breaking feel to the show - a big splashy Broadway musical, just right for the family, which features a loving gay relationship at it's centre and promotes the idea that gay men are equally adept at parenting. However I think this production is what has won me round to the show - at least in this one George and Albin share a kiss... in the original they wandered off arm-in-arm as I recall.

There are still parts of the show that betray the pull between Herman's out-and-out populism and Harvey Fierstein's hard-edged book and I will never warm to the "Conversation Piece" patter number but an enjoyable time was had and Terry Johnson's production sits better on the Playhouse stage than cramped into the Menier's proscenium.

Douglas Hodge has grown into the part of Albin more and although he appears at various times to be channeling 'Mrs. Overall', and Dick Emery's 'Mandy' he does make the character endearing - I wonder if it was the intention to make him look like Camilla Parker-Bowles as his partner's son's mother (that has to be said very quickly). It is definitely an actor's performance - as opposed to George Hearn's more obvious musical comedy performance. He also ends the first act on a great coup-de-theatre when at the end of "I Am What I Am" he storms off the stage through the stalls exit and - luckily we were sitting close enough to see this - bangs through the fire exit doors into Northumberland Avenue outside. The only way to top that song really!

He is partnered by Denis Lawson who - though his accent hopped from California to the Gorbals - also turns in an excellent performance as the diffident, long-suffering George. His performance of the show's big ballad "Song On The Sand" was marvellous.

There were also nice supporting performances from Paula Willcox as the brow-beaten Mme. Dindon and Tracey Bennett as a scene-stealing Jacqueline... and of course the ferocious Cagelles are worth a show of their own. Their can-can is still one of the wildest numbers seen this year.