Did I mention that I have been in New York Constant Reader?

Well I have. I have been to New York.

Nyah nyah ny-nyah nyah.

I also surpassed all other trips by going to the theatre every night - and twice on Saturday. I will be quietly amazed if Owen EVER suggests going to New York again.

Our first visit was to see Alfred Uhry's DRIVING MISS DAISY playing at the Golden Theatre with the jaw-dropping double act of Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones.

This was the play that I was most looking forward to but I was left feeling that two fine actors are saddled with a less-than-roadworthy vehicle.

Surprisingly this production marks the play's Broadway debut, it originally premiered in 1987 off-Broadway where it remained for three years which lead to the Oscar-winning film starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. The play appeared in the West End in 1988 with Dame Wendy Hiller in her last theatre role alongside Clarke Peters.
The Broadway production is directed by David Esbjornson who moves the play smoothly along it's short running time of 95 minutes with no interval and Redgrave, Jones and Boyd Gaines respond with performances of great subtlety and nuance - although there were moments when Jones was mumblingly incoherent and of course you really shouldn't ever give Vanessa an accent. And I'm her biggest fan!

It's just a shame Uhry's work is less of a play and more a series of short scenes that give these fine performers nothing really to build up to - an emotion is hit but then the scene is over and they have to move on another few years. It was a strangely fitful affair and riddled with the optimistic passivity one finds in so much American drama.Despite video projections on the back of the John Lee Beatty's rather distractedly sparse set, there was never any real feeling of the momentous times Daisy and Hoke are living through in Georgia.

It was left to the performers to suggest the passage of time. Vanessa in particular, brought a great physicality to the role - when first seen she is furiously beating eggs to make a cake and moving with a ramrod back and slowly you watch her getting more bent and slow. The final scenes have a poignancy that is, again, the result of the onstage chemistry of the three actors rather than the play itself.Although I was a bit disappointed in the play, I wouldn't have missed seeing it or them.

New York New York: Day 6

We Metrocarded up to the Guggenheim which I have always wanted to see but never got round to. Typically they were renovating the front so I didn't get to see it's impressive frontage, however once inside I was thrilled by the spiralling rotunda. 

The main exhibition was RUSSIA! an overview of Russian art. Sadly most of it was very easy to be given the go-by... icons, religeous art, court portrature, vast landscapes of St. Petersberg a la Canaletto, many paintings depicting the life of the humble peasant - all quite ironic bearing in mind what was to come. 20th Century art movements were adopted but rarely it seems understood, then there was the Soviet Art extolling the revolution - there is an bizarre one of a teenage girl meeting Stalin surrounded by applauding party members - all of whose heads could easily be painted over at some time. 

However there were paintings which drew you to them, there were some fine 'social realist' ones - depressive as Hell but at least they gave a sense of real life. Landscapes of startling clearness - almost like digital photographs and an amazing painting by Vasily Vereschagin "Defeated: Service For The Dead" of a priest and officer under a darkening sky standing in a huge churned up field that stretches off into the horizon which is filled with the bodies of hundreds of dead soldiers. 

Off the main rotunda are separate galleries given over to the Thannhauser collections and the museum's substantial Kandinsky paintings. The first contained some glorious works by Picasso: "Woman With Yellow Hair", "Mandolin and Guitar" and "Le Moulin de Galette" and the Kandinsky gallery glows with colour and imagination. Looking forward to future visits...

After lunch in a crowded Madison Avenue eaterie that left me feeling more hungry after I left than when I went in, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking leisurely though a Central Park turning golden in Autumn and getting ready for the invasion of runners for the NY Marathon on the Sunday. 

The park looked lovely and after a bit of hunting we found the ice-skating rink - the last time we were there it was surrounded by huge banks of snow!  By now I was seriously flagging, made it back to the hotel and had about an hour's snooze which was much needed. We were both in two minds about going to see the show tonight - but we had the tickets and thought we could always leave in the interval if we were not enjoying it.  Enjoy it?  We loved it - AVENUE Q at the Golden Theatre.

What a great show - the most enjoyable one of the trip. To say it's a musical with puppets is putting at it's most basic - it's a laugh-out-loud collision between The Muppets and the best American sitcoms. The cast of seven - three actors, four puppeteers - work their arses off and the show fully deserved it's Tony Award for Best Musical - among it's hilarious songs are IF YOU WERE GAY, EVERYONE'S A LITTLE BIT RACIST, THE INTERNET IS FOR PORN - 'Grab your dick and double-click' and THE MORE YOU RUV SOMEONE (sung by the Japanese character) - hugely recommended!