I am sure you all know this but 472 years ago today Anne Boleyn was executed on Tower Green.

It is unknown exactly what age she was definitively - various sources claim between 29 and 35.

She has been a heroine of mine ever since falling under the spell of Genevieve Bujold's performance in ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS in 1970.

The late 60s and early 70s saw four top actresses trying on Anne's French Hood headdress - Vanessa Redgrave in a non-speaking cameo in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, the afore-mentioned Bujold, Dorothy Tutin in the BBC's THE 6 WIVES OF HENRY VIII and Charlotte Rampling in HENRY VIII & HIS 6 WIVES.

On Thursday I saw my favourite actress Vanessa Redgrave give her tour-de-force performance in the one woman play THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING at the Lyttleton. I had hoped to see it on Broadway last year when Owen had booked to see Buffy Sainte-Marie but his back operation 86ed that so I have been looking forward to this.

The play is by Joan Didion based on her memoir written after the death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, from a heart attack. Just as the book was published her daughter Quintana also died at 39 of pancreatitis after a year of near-fatal illnesses. The play was written by Didion to encompass these two devastating blows and how she has come to accept them.

The play has had mixed reviews citing what Owen overheard two women saying afterwards, that they didn't connect with it. I can't say I 'connected' with the play totally. The fact that these real life events have been distilled twice through Didion's analytical mind - onto the page then stage - and are re-interpreted by Vanessa Redgrave leads to a definite distancing from the events. But apart from that... I found it an extraordinary experience.

It is only in retrospect that you realise the character has changed during the course of the 90 minute play. At first she is analytical and deals with the death of her husband in a rational, intellectual way - noting how the hospital staff treat her, her social worker referring to her as "a cool customer" to the doctor, checking the times of the ambulance crew entering & leaving the apartment from her doorman to get straight in her mind how long they worked on her husband lying on the dining room floor. She extends this then to her ill daughter in an Intensive Care Unit, buying medical books to understand what the doctor's jargon means and what each of the medications are.

Rational thoughts lead to irrational conclusions however: calling a friend in California on returning home from the hospital she realises they are 3 hours behind New York so that means he's not dead yet on the west coast; that she can't give his shoes away as he will need them when he comes back. She calls this Magical Thinking such as "if we sacrifice the virgin the crop will be good". Her ultimate Magical Thinking happens when Quintana is hospitalised during a trip to LA. She takes a deliberately longer way from hotel to hospital so she won't pass any of the places she remembers from living there in the 70s which will remind her of her husband or daughter. Oh and she has taken to wearing hospital 'scrubs' thinking she can then fit in easier among the medics. Yet by the end of the 90 minutes she is no longer thinking like this, the death of the daughter who was always told "It's all right, I'm here" to comfort her when a child or to as she lay comatose in a hospital room has humbled her rationale. Ultimately she comes to the understanding that they eventually must be let go of, that the shoes must be given away.

It sounds a depressing evening but there are quite a few moments of humour. It's beautifully written, a joy to hear prose like this onstage. The direction by David Hare is perfectly attuned to the rhythm of the play and special mention must be made of Jean Kalman's atmospheric lighting. Bob Crowley's set design of a series of collapsing backdrops help separate the 'chapters' of the play while being visually arresting. None more so than at the very end of the play when the last backdrop is revealed - a blowup of a 70s photograph of the family in California which is poignant after what has been revealed earlier. It's the perfect photograph for the production: Joan's husband and daughter together looking at the camera, she looking at them slightly apart.
The reason for the play's success for me lies with Vanessa. Always the most emotionally true of her generation of actresses Vanessa has mined every word of the script, witness the different changes she can ring with a phrase such as "I'm here, you'll be fine" with each repetition. I didn't believe her as Joan Didion but I fully believed her as the voice of Didion's book. Looking luminous in white and gray with her long white hair pulled back she simply mesmerizes even though at times the dry Didion style is at odds with her usual acting style.

Although I always cite GUYS AND DOLLS as the catalyst for my theatrical conversion 3 months before seeing it I saw Vanessa and Ian Charleson in two Sunday afternoon benefit performances at the old Roundhouse for the Youth Training Centres she was sponsoring. They performed scenes from Ibsen, Shakespeare, solo pieces, songs... they even did the first scene between Sky & Sarah in GUYS AND DOLLS - yes show fans, I have heard Vanessa sing "I'll Know"! Actually these benefits were the 'light on the road to the National Theatre' showing me the alchemy possible on a stage.

Since 1982 I have only missed 5 of the 24 productions in which Vanessa has appeared in this country. She has not always been at her best - it's usually dependent on the production - but her performance in MAGICAL THINKING is up there with Miss Tina in THE ASPERN PAPERS, Arkadina in THE SEAGULL, Cleopatra in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, Mrs. Alving in GHOSTS, Lady Torrence in ORPHEUS DESCENDING, Isadora Duncan in WHEN SHE DANCED and Ranyevskaya in THE CHERRY ORCHARD.

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING is on at the Lyttleton Theatre until July 15th.

Today the nominations for the Tony Awards were announced and there was some good news for shows I saw in New York.

XANADU is nominated for Best Musical, Best Book, Best Actress In A Musical for Kerry Butler and Best Choreography. What a shame there is no nod for Cheyanne Jackson for his delightful performance.

GYPSY is nominated for Best Musical Revival, Best Actress In A Musical for Patti LuPone, Best Supporting Actor In A Musical for Boyd Gaines, Best Supporting Actress In A Musical for Laura Benanti, Best Director, Best Costume Design and Best Sound.SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE is nominated for Best Musical Revival, Best Actor In A Musical for Daniel Evans, Best Actress In A Musical for Jenna Russell, Best Director, Best Orchestration, Best Scenic Design, Best Costume, Best Lighting and Best Sound.

Somehow CRY-BABY has picked up nods for Best Musical (huh?), Best Book (Huh??), Best New Score (HUH??) and Best Choreography.

Oh and Stephen Sondheim is being honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

In the other Awards, the Brits get a good look-in: three of the four Best Play nominees are written by British or Irish writers - which probably means the American playwright will win! Ben Daniels, Mark Rylance, Rufus Sewell, Patrick Stewart, Eve Best, Kate Fleetwood, Conleth Hill, Jim Norton, Sinead Cusack are all up for acting Awards and Maria Aitkin, Mathew Wachus and Sam Buntrock for Best Director.

Seats 21-22 of row 35 in Block 123 at Wembley Stadium on Thursday 11th September are TAKEN!

Well... I've started! Thursday May 8th at 9.30am found me at the Kinetic Business Centre - which looks like a travel lodge - to start work for an online furniture company who are soon to launch their first website on the world. I know... what do I know from furniture? But I know how to data imput and how to work eBay so hopefully I can do well there. First off I must say what a nice place it is to work. There is a nice communal feel to the place with a nice cafe just by the reception - hell I even discovered a shower on my travels! I think I'll move in. It would help with the 9.30 start. Actually it's not the 9.30 start.. it's the getting up at 7.30. Here is my desk and computer in the compact and bijou office where I work with Jonathan our glorious leader. I need to get a bit more up to speed about the ranges on offer etc. and as the business has only just moved in to the office we need to sort phones and stuff but I haven't made any disasters yet! So... if anyone is looking to buy new furniture.....

What a strange month April was.

I flew back from New York into a life of unemployment which I expected to last for months and months and months but in fact lasted for a total of 21 days!

All in all I applied for six jobs and was offered interviews for five. Oh and I signed on once... and even that was the morning of Monday 21st. Oh and how did I find the agency that offers "the job you want, the help you need"? Pretty piss-poor. The best my adviser could suggest was "Have you considered working part-time? Theme parks will be recruiting for their summer retail staff". Bloody idiot.

Monday 21st was a very odd day - an interview in the morning for retail and one in the afternoon for office admin work. Both seemed very keen so I had to make a choice which of these two areas I wanted to work in.

The retail one was hounding me for a decision about working a trial week for a job as assistant manager of a London souvenir shop - what was putting the break on it was I would have to work a lot of evenings. In the early evening I was called by the admin office and offered me the job flat out. So I accepted!

The nice thing was Owen was with me when I accepted the offer so we could celebrate straight away and use free drink for the purpose!

We were at the launch for Jean MacColl's book SUN ON THE WATER at Kettners which is her account of the life and tragic death of her daughter, singer Kirsty MacColl. It was a nice event made nicer by the company of Owen, Alan Officer and Norma, Claire and Barry.

It was nice to finally have an excuse to introduce myself to Jean, I have always felt a bit odd about doing it at one of the October bench events. She gave a nice speech and told us all to make lots of new friends... so here I am, first with Jean and then with my new very dear close personal friend Alison Steadman.

I didn't have the nerve to tell her it was my ex-boss who once smacked her up the tradesman's with his briefcase at the bar at Stratford East.

A certain someone has confirmed a World Tour is coming up. I have even seen provisional dates.

Now the countdown to the box-office opening.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock....

Local election television all through the night.... I love it - and I don't have any work to get up for! The bummer is they won't be announcing the Mayoral (I like that word) election results till tomorrow.

First result in: Tamworth held by the Tories. Oooo they are talking about voting swings *faint*

As a filmbuff in the 1970s Julie Ege was unavoidable.

Her pneumatic figure, explosion of honey blonde hair and classic European looks exuded from the pages of Photoplay and Film Review magazines, forever promoting a new or upcoming film and always seemingly free for a photo shoot. The former Miss Norway and Penthouse model's appearance in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE earned her the Gaumont-goers most prestigious female honour: A Bond Girl.

She could never be accused of being an actress but she was a definite presence and could have been given a bit more to handle than the sexy siren roles she was given in a run of British comedies and horror movies in the 1970s.

She later turned her back on acting to become a nurse in her native Norway. Julie had battled breast and lung cancer since the 1980s and sadly she succumbed to the illness yesterday at the age of 65.

Well I've sucked it twice already since this afternoon...
There are enough tracks on HARD CANDY to make my mouth water for a new tour but... but...

Are Madonna and Guy Oseary *this* keen on getting back on top of the singles chart?

None of the singles off CONFESSIONS... made the US Top 5. Enter The Neptunes and Timbaland to bring their trademark sounds to HARD CANDY. And there's the problem for me. Too many of them sound like Pharrell Williams or Timbaland tracks that Madonna is guesting on and that's not right.

What I am loving are the 80s influences - I can hear echoes of Luther, Pet Shop Boys, Shannon, Italian House, Jam & Lewis, Change - I can even hear Donna Summer and a whiff of UK Garage.

But... but... too often I am just hearing Kelis or Justin Timberlake cast-offs.

I'm sure after another few listens I'll be more receptive but all I can think of is come back Stuart Price... there is nothing to forgive.

ps. The track SHE'S NOT ME is a bizarre listen for any Madonna fan... I can't remember her ever singing a song where a relationship is being threatened by another - THIEF OF HEARTS maybe... but M definately has the upper hand there. It sounds very odd to hear her so threatened!

This month I have had two theatrical events. Well... sort of theatrical... Owen and I made the journey out to Greenwich to the main O2 auditorium to see DELIRIUM yet another production by the always-busy Cirque de Soleil boys and girls. The big surprise was that the stage went across the length of the auditorium giving us a 'widescreen' production. As usual for their productions the arena looked fairly well sold out.
This show is built around music which has featured in previous Cirque productions but remixed and given a more tribal, drum-based performance. The main character in the show is a man dangling from a huge balloon - as you do - slowly drifting back and forwards across the stage while the standard acrobatics took place below and around him. On each side of the stage were enormous video screens which were utilised every so often to give it a real avant-garde multimedia vibe. Needless to say it was all set in the floaty man's dreams.

It was all very entertaining in that there was always something to gawp at but I can't say I was fully connected to the show primarily because despite the fact it was only 90-odd minutes long there was the usual constant stream of people up and down the arena aisles. What is it about arena auditoriums that make it impossible for people to stay in their bloody seats for any length of time without nursing a plastic glass of drink? I mean I know these places are impersonal hanger-like spaces but it does my head in every time!

I did enjoy some of the turns though but they are the Cirque acts that I always enjoy. We had two Chinese lads who went twanging up to the flies and back down again on elastic straps who gave us a bit of a chance to go Oooo and Ahhh and best of all were the four East European lads who balanced on each other - practically holding themselves upright by one hand on the one of the others' head. They would be handy to have about the house if there was nothing on the telly. It all came together for an all-hands-on-stage uplifting finale which culminated in huge inflated orbs being bounced over the front stalls. The shadow of Slava hangs over Le Cirque obviously. On Wednesday I went to the National Theatre - courtesy of Angela who could not use her ticket - see a new play called HARPER REGAN by Simon Stephens. It was all rather glam as it was the opening night with critics and actor-y types dotted about which, from my 2nd level eyrie at the side of the Cottesloe, made for occasional viewing when the play started to lose my interest. I looked at the audience quite a bit.

Harper's father is dying and she is desperate to see him one last time. When she is told by her boss that she cannot have the time off she simply leaves her job and her home in London but arrives in Stockport too late. She has a bit of a wander, encountering a boorish journalist in a pub who gets a glass in the neck for his attempts to pick her up, a married man she meets in a hotel room after scanning an online singles site, has a confrontation with her estranged mother then goes home having faced her demons and ready to challenge the particular elephant-in-the-home that is affecting her marriage.

Dear God was it wordy. From it's Pinteresque opening scene where Harper nervously asks for time off from her creepy boss to it's countless two-hander scenes in various locations it just kept striking me that this could easily have been done on radio and not lost anything in translation. It would appear all the strands of the playwright's oeuvre are here, I just wish it wasn't all so damn predictable. If you haven't guessed the problem that is eroding Harper's relationship with her husband after their first scene then you just ain't trying hard enough. I was second-guessing this play all down the line.
Lesley Sharp is a fine actress but here, although handling with skill the taxing demands of a role which requires her to be onstage for the entire running time, I can't say with all honestly that I enjoyed it. Her delivery in a flat hesitant monotone conjured up the excesses of Mr. Michael Leigh and I frankly couldn't give a toss whether her profoundly slappable character found out anything about herself on her walkabout.
I did enjoy Marianne Elliot's direction however and as usual she elicited nice turns from various supporting actors - Troy Glasgow (a porn name if ever I heard one) is good as a young black lad she connects with, Nick Sidi was also fine as her husband as were Jack Deam and Brian Capron as the bad and good men she meets on her Stockport visit. As forceful as Susan Brown was as Harper's mother the scene smacked too much of soap opera confrontation. Within that scene though there was a delightful cameo from Nitin Kundra as her builder step-father's assistant. But ultimately there was less to this play than meets the eye.

I have been to see two singers in the past few weeks - both hugely enjoyable.
Owen and I went to the always swanky Bush Hall to see and hear the honeyed vocals of Beth Rowley (Row as in arguing not something you do with a couple of oars - ahem!)

We saw her last year at the IndigO2 where she was the opening act on a bill headlined by Kiki Dee and this is what I thought of her "Imagine a Joss Stone without the hype and a liking for Billie Holliday. I really liked her, great voice, a couple of good songs and how good to hear a new Brit girl singer with a BIG voice - unlike the Mockney twitterings of the Allen and Nash bints". Since then she has recorded her debut album which is out in May. This was her first official headlining act and it bodes well for the future.

She has a really great natural voice - a mixture of Etta James, Rachel Sweet and Ronnie Spector - and has some great tracks: the Motown-y "So Sublime", the rolling "Oh My Life", "Angel Flying Too Close", "Almost Persuaded", "You Never Called" and "Beautiful Tomorrow". She sang a nice reggae version of "I Shall Be Released" and a soulful "I'd Rather Be Blind".

If there is a problem with her it's that she is still hiding behind her hair, the microphone and her hands. It's nice to see that she still sees herself as a singer with a band but come on girl... it's time to step out into the spotlight.
The next evening was spent in the Vauxhall Tavern for a special performance at Vauxhallville of chanteuse Adele Anderson of Fascinating Aida fame. With names on the guest list and a free bottle of no-frills fizz thanks to Dawn Right Nasty (it's handy having a birthday sometimes) we were treated to Adele giving us a whirlwind recap of her life. Highly fictional sadly as lord knows she has a tale to tell!
I was hoping Adele might have treated us to "I'm Still Here" - she was a memorable Carlotta Campion in FOLLIES at the Landor Theatre in 2006 - but I guess Mr. Sondheim might have had his hand out. I enjoyed her tart but hugely entertaining show and it was nice to meet her afterwards.

NY round-up

Here are some scattered moments from our trip:

The first view of the NY skyline from the cab from JFK Airport and the delightful combination of laxatives and rubcream at Duane Reede.

Me outside one of many spiritual homes the Brill Building and Owen and I and our best new friend Tara the Radio City Rockette who pestered us for a photograph when we did the Radio City Music Hall tour.

On the Friday we went to see Owen's favourite singer Buffy Saint-Marie at the Highline Ballroom down on W. 16th Street. She was great showcasing songs from her new cd due out in the summer and - much to my relief - not only did we get a front row table but she came out so Owen could get his photo of the two of them from the Canada trip signed. I had been worried she might not come out and O would be disappointed which simply wouldn't do. Here I am with Buffy and yes... I do look a bit relieved that the evening had been a success all round!

Here is the lovely lobby of the Algonquin and also me walking up 5th (as opposed to Walking Down Madison)

One day I will stop taking pictures of the same things in NY - Times Square, the ice rink in Rockefeller Plaza, Central Park and the cityscape from high up... but I like this one from early evening at the Top Of The Rock and here is me in the room also on the TOTR where lights follow the movements of people as they walk around it.

From our last day when the lowering clouds matched our moods, my obligatory Bathesda Fountain photograph and a view of the park from Fort Belvedere. Oh and my obligatory photograph of the Central Park ice rink