Tuesday marked the first official day of my week off so how to celebrate this new-found freedom Constant Reader? By watching French married couples implode, you big silly.

First, a matinee of the National Theatre's THERESE RAQUIN at the Lyttleton. I was in two minds about seeing this recently-opened production: on the one hand the Zola novel is one of my favourite books and I have also seen a bad stage version in 1993 at the Young Vic. However this is directed by Marianne Elliott whose PILLERS OF THE COMMUNITY was such a success in the same theatre earlier in the year, the production is based on Zola's own stage adaptation and in the cast are a couple of favourite performers, Ben Daniels and Judy Parfitt.

Therese (Charlotte Emerson) is married to sickly Camille (Patrick Kennedy) and they live with his fussing mother (Parfitt) above a shop in a dark arcade in Paris. She is secretly having a passionate relationship with Camille's boyhood friend Laurent (Daniels). Therese and Camille's frustrated passions are at boiling point when a chance remark from one of the husband's friends about how quite a few murderers go unpunished sparks them into action, drowning Camille on a weekend visit to the country. A year later Laurent engineers Camille's grieving mother and friends into agreeing that Camille's supposed dying wish for Laurent to protect his wife should come true. Laurent marries Therese but by now the couple are being eaten away by the guilt of what they have done. Sleepless nights are endured and Laurent is haunted by the sight of Camille's eight day-old corpse in the morgue. Their bitter recriminations are overheard by Mme Raquin who suffers a heart attack and is left speechless and paralysed, staring at them both day and night. For them there can only be one escape...

As much as I admired Elliot's clear and direct approach to the production there seemed several problems. Sadly Zola probably wasn't the best person to adapt his novel as so much of what makes the novel great is lost in this pared-down version, the drowning of Camille occurs between acts and gone is the frightening vision of the morgue. With so much of the inner voice missing Therese is reduced to spending half the play staring into space - and Charlotte Emerson can do nothing to make her watchable during this. There are two actresses who are called on for these dramatic roles these days - if you want obsessed-without-shagging you get Eve Best; if you want obsessed-with-shagging you get Charlotte Emerson... BABY DOLL, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE and now THERESE RAQUIN. Rarely has such an underwhelming actress been cast as such ripe broads. Ben Daniels is always watchable but while he was totally believable as a man being haunted by ghosts he didn't strike many bells as the impassioned lover. With the two leads mis-firing in the passion stakes one looks to the supporting cast for inspiration, Patrick Kennedy made a good impression as the doomed Camille, Judy Parfitt was fine as his doting mother and Mark Hadfield stole most of the scenes as the toe-curling M. Grivet, the tedious friend of Camille who visits every Thursday to play dominos. The production values helped, Neil Austin's subtle lighting and the ominous soundscape by Christopher Shutt kept the tension going in the second half. Hildegard Bechtler's set is like the production itself - effective but slightly off. A large drab corner of the rooms above the Raquin shop it conjures up the interiors of Degas and Sickert but hardly squares with the frequent references in the text to being a cramped space as it fills the vast Lyttleton stage and the vital feeling of the lovers caught in a claustrophobic prison is lost. I think the production would have faired better in the Cottesloe.

After that it was up to the Curzon Soho for more marital misery, Patrice Chereau's new film GABRIELLE. Based on a Joseph Conrad novella written in 1898 it starts with Jean (Pascal Greggory) walking home from a train journey. He speaks in voiceover about his life as a successful publisher and how with his graceful and cultivated wife Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert) he now plays an active social life, delighting in the knowledge that more than 50 of the most well-to-do couples are eager to be invited to their soirees. He boasts of his business acumen in managing to keep a newspaper he bought afloat despite his dislike of the editor and how he leads a life that many would envy. On arriving home he finds a letter on his desk from Gabrielle.... a Dear Jean letter. Completely thrown by this bolt from the blue, he is further bewildered by Gabrielle's return a few hours later. When he interrogates her she simply replies that she made a mistake. Later in a conversation with her maid she admits that after ten years of a soulless marriage she found herself infatuated with another man and that you must try and grasp the few moments of true happiness when you can. At the delayed evening meal Jean further berates an impassive Gabrielle until he tells her that after much consideration, he will forgive her. Gabrielle's hysterical laughter at this is proof that nothing will ever be the same again in their presumed ordered existance and, when the identity of the lover is revealed to be the editor of the newspaper, the marriage disintergrates further into one of emotional and physical rejection.

Although it is never stated as to what went wrong with her escape - although the editor is seen at a dinner party ruefully saying that some promises should never be carried out - Gabrielle's sadness at having to return to the cage she had fled from is palpable but that hurt is chilled into cold indifference, her detached and baleful stares shrivelling the husband to nothing until all he can do is to rape her in an attempt to establish his authority. This leads to a final scene of cold capitulation from Gabrielle which destroys Jean totally. Isabelle Huppert is a past mistress of these films of emotional devastation and she delivers another memorable performance to add to her gallery of women whose sexuality is trapped by circumstance.

The novella is written totally from the husband's perspective and so carrying the majority of screen time Greggory has the tougher role in that Jean is such a selfish prig it is hard to feel any sympathy for him when his life implodes and I felt he didn't altogether succeed in making the character at all interesting. The film itself is compromised too by Chereau's intrusive stylistic conceits - I didn't mind the film changing from black & white to colour several times but the freezing of the frame occasionally to superimpose the words just spoken on the screen was jarring and the heavily orchestrated score constantly playing against the mood of the scene was plain annoying. At one point the score was so doom-laden with swelling strings I expected Gabrielle to bump into Hannibal Lechter, Norman Bates and Freddy Krueger in the darkened hall. The cinemagraphy is excellent and although the production design is fine too, the idea to possibly suggest the emptiness of the couple's life by having them live in a huge mausoleum of a building is laughable; in some scenes it looks like they resided in one of the sculpture rooms of the V&A.

I try... I really try. But I laugh out loud everytime I see this advert

I had been looking forward to Tuesday evening for sooo long... going with Owen and Angela to see the first London revival of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS at the enterprising Menier Chocolate Factory. Can it REALLY be 23 years since Mushnik's Florists first opened for business at the Comedy Theatre? I have to declare a special interest - having seen the original cast well over 20 times. As is well-known I was a front-row regular in 1982 for GUYS AND DOLLS at the National Theatre, the first production to really make me believe in the alchemy that sometimes happens between actors and audience resulting in a truly memorable theatrical experience. In 1983 the main bulk of the cast left GUYS to go on to other work including Harry Towb who went from being the gamblers' nemesis Lt. Brannigan to the down-at-heel Skid Row florist in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. Because of him I went to a preview - and BANG it happened again. Another musical, another great night in the theatre. In the intervening years I of course saw Frank Oz's film version and a naff touring production with Su Pollard but the original stayed fresh in my mind and the cd of the original Off-Broadway cast is one of the most played from my Musicals stack.

So onto the current production... I had a great time. As it was only the fourth preview - history repeating - the show was a little too powered on nervous energy with a lot of butterstumps handling of props and set abuse from the banging of doors etc but that was forgiven by the cast's full-on and enjoyable performances. When they have relaxed into their roles a bit more and learn to trust in the material they should be on top of their game.

The all important question was... who could play Audrey other than Ellen Greene? Ellen originated the role Off-Broadway then played it in London and against huge studio pressure was cast in the film immortalising her performance for future audiences. However she seemed swamped in the film, being a natural stage performer the need to tone down for the screen made her seem tame compared to the amazing star turn it was on stage, making you laugh and cry in the space of seconds.

Audrey is now played by Sheridan Smith and she was totally captivating, finding all the right areas in the script which give pathos to what could be played as a straight bimbo role. I saw Sheridan Smith eight years ago as a conniving Red Riding Hood in Sondheim's INTO THE WOODS at the Donmar and since then she has made a home for herself in BBC comedy but I had forgotten what a lovely voice she has: her version of SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN was competing against offstage set-building but she held her own and turned in a lovely rendition which she then built on for the second act big ballad SUDDENLY SEYMOUR.

Seymour was played by Paul Keating and he's fine if a little too hyper, still it's certainly a different performance to the last one I saw him in - the bisexual lead in the Pet Shop Boys musical CLOSER TO HEAVEN. He could take a few lessons in nebbishness from Barry James - London's original Seymour now playing Mr. Mushnik, their extended version of MUSHNIK AND SON was great fun. The sadistic dentist Orin Scrivello DDS is here played by Jasper Britton and he was on good form too - though he could actually do with a gas mask for his death scene - as opposed to a visor which he had to keep holding over his face! And the 3-girl chorus - Katie Kerr, Merlitza Nicola and Jenny Fitzpatrick - were good although not a patch on the original fierce threesome of Dawn Hope, Shezwae Powell and Miss Nicola Blackman who became a personal friend! The plant - which in a new design resembles a carnivorous green pedal-bin is ably manipulated by Andy Heath and voiced by none other than Mike McShane.

If you've never experienced LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS as it should be experienced - ALIVE on stage - book now!

My dear the shop is Celeb Central...

Sean Pertwee on Wednesday, the afore-mentioned George Costigan
and Deborah Findlay yesterday and today... Lanah Pellay!

I can't think what's keeping Huw Edwards.

Constant Reader, it's not often that I am excited by my punters. To be honest the only people to be excited by most of the oxygen-thieves who walk through the shop door would be serial killers and psychiatrists. But today was different. Would you believe two of my favourite actors walked through the door namely George Costigan and Deborah Findlay.

Yes I am imagining your blank faces staring at the names... well *SLAP* Snap out of it!

They came in as they had seen the posters I had put on the wall as a tribute to Tom Bell and complemented me on the tribute which was nice. So over the course of a chat I managed to sneak in how the poster for RITA, SUE AND BOB TOO! which George C starred in was a big seller for us and how gob-smacked I was by Deborah's performance as Ian McKellen's icy wife in "The Cut" at the Donmar earlier this year. I said how happy I was to have two of my favourite actors in the shop and they seemed quite abashed! They left the shop chattering away about how the shop would be a source of good opening night presents! It right cheered my Thursday up I can tell you. Oddly enough I first saw both of them on stage in1983....

I first saw George Costigan in the original BLOOD BROTHERS at the Lyric where he originated the role of the tragic Mickey Johnstone and then saw him in back-to-back shows at the now-closed Half Moon Theatre in the sprawling but enjoyable LOVE ON THE PLASTIC (with mate Nicola Blackman, Belinda Lang and Nicky Croydon) and AS IS in which he played one half of a gay couple coming to terms with his partner getting AIDS. He appeared in the first series of WIDOWS as Maureen O'Farrell's co-worker in a Soho amusement arcade and in the truly bizarre CONNIE starring Stephanie Beachum and Pam Ferris. Apart from RITA SUE AND BOB TOO his best known screen role was Dougie the awful English tourist in SHIRLEY VALENTINE.

Deborah Findlay is one of the rare breed of actresses whose stage work are a genuine must-see. Whether lead or supporting role she never fails to deliver a performance that lingers in the memory.
I first saw her as the chemist's assistant who befriended Julie Covington's Vivienne Elliot in TOM AND VIV at the Royal Court and over the years she appeared in supporting parts, getting more attention in productions like TOP GIRLS again at the Royal Court and Nuria Espert's production of THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA as the plain oldest daughter Angustias. After her breakthrough role as Spencer's spurned wife Hilda in Pam Gem's STANLEY at the National Theatre (winning her an Olivier Award) she started a run of great performances there - a wonderful Paulina in THE WINTER'S TALE, the voice of fiery conscience in Alex Jennings' Blairite court; her 18th century working class widow who becomes the madame of a male brothel in MOTHER CLAP'S MOLLY HOUSE and her great performance as Poncia, the sardonic housekeeper of THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA last year. Next year she will team up again with ALBA co-star Penelope Wilton in the Donmar's production of JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN with Ian McDiarmid in the title role. This coincides with my birthday.... *whistle*

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

And to think I thought I'd been to quite a few places...

Tonight, thanks to the magic of Immodium, I went to the Comedy Theatre with Owen to see the revival of Michael Frayn's 1976 comedy DONKEY'S YEARS starring one of my favourite actors David Haig.

Written before his best known comedy NOISES OFF (more on that later) this farce centres on a group of men returning to their Oxbridge College for a 25th anniversary reunion. Life has been good to this group of men as they number a Junior Education Minister, a civil servant, a doctor, a vicar and an author. However over the course of one drunken night all decorum is thrown to the wind as alcohol and the fun of being in their old rooms turns them into anarchic tearaways again.

The catalyst for the misunderstanding is Lady Driver (hoho) now a magistrate and wife of the college head but who 25 years ago was one of the few girls there so had liasions with most of them. However there was only one she still carries a torch for and she later confronts him in his rooms. The trouble is she has taken her glasses off and can't see that the man she is talking to is a complete stranger. He knows her however, he was a student at the same time as the others but because he had to live in the town in digs rather than in the college he has been totally forgottten by everyone. When the men discover her in his room all hell breaks loose - cue dropped trousers, hiding in bedrooms and behind curtains, slammed doors and wrong conclusions jumped at.

The production is directed by Jeremy Sams who also directed the National Theatre production of NOISES OFF. Now whether it was an off night for me, an off night for the cast or his direction all I know is I sat in the Lyttleton stoney-faced while all around me rolled on the floor in hysterics. I must admit I am no particular fan of farce - if they all stayed in the same room for 5 minutes all the misunderstandings would be cleared up - but I look in puzzlement at people whose theatrical knowledge I admire go into reveries about it. The trouble with me is that I also don't believe Michael Frayn's comedies show a man with a sense of humour, it's like he has written them knowing that this piece of business will make an audience laugh... almost like it's a clinical exercise.

However despite all that DONKEY'S YEARS was good fun largely thanks to some exceptional comedy performances. Michael Simkins as the doctor, Edward Petherbridge as the seen-it-all college porter, Paul Raffield as the campy vicar and Hamish Clark as a snotty civil servant all delivered fine support to the two best performances, Janie Dee as Lady Driver and David Haigh as the Government Minister. Janie Dee is always watchable and her scene confronting the man she thinks is her long lost love only to realise he's a total stranger was great, her knowing seductive poise turning to sedate mortification.

Ever since first seeing David Haig on stage in '84 as Maurice, the uber-upper class twit in TOM AND VIV, I have admired him enormously. Here he plays a part made for his comedy talents, the seemingly affable Minister who when drunk turns into a posturing windbag who in the cold light of day is thrown into a frenzy of rising panic as his career looks like it will be ruined by scandal. The whole second act almost becomes a master-class in controlled hysteria as, crippled with a bad back, he hops around his room with his trousers around his ankles sending the others running off in all directions while trying to hide a woman in the adjoining bedroom - not knowing that she has in fact already escaped.

The production also pointed the fate of the college outsider - the way that the character who, because he never lived with them in college, is still a non-man to them 25 years later with no one remembering his name even after him just telling them it. He tries to tell them of his job in pharmaceuticals and they don't understand him and his excitement in finally doing things after hours with fellow-students in rooms is taken as mania and he is tranquilised and led off to an ambulance.

So it turns out the show should have been called HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE VON TRAPP?

Simon Shepherd has withdrawn from "The Sound of Music".

A statement on behalf of the production said "Following the first two previews of The Sound of Music at the London Palladium on Friday 3 and Saturday 4 November, Simon Shepherd, director Jeremy Sams and producers Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Ian agreed that his performance as Captain Von Trapp was not working within the production and therefore he has withdrawn from the show".

Still not fully shaken the dodgy stomach but went with O last night to see The Dresden Dolls at the newly buffed-up Roundhouse.

There was plenty to divert one's attention before the Groovesome Twosome appeared, we had Australian modern dance from Zen Zen Zo (not as ghastly as it sounds), a fun US beatbox improvisationalist called Reggie Watts and - I had to Wikipedia these two - Edward Ka-Spel and Phil Knight from The Legendary Pink Dots. Amanda took over from the sparky Margaret Cho to introduce the last two as they were "major influences" on her work. I can but hope that these influences are kept subliminal as they were electronica/miserabalism to the nth degree. Three tracks seemed to last an hour. I bet Gerald and Steven loved 'em!

After a tasteful strip by La Cho - again another 'alternate' event where stripping was featured - on boinged Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione... the two and only Dresden Dolls.

They fair ripped through over 2 hours worth of material - they sounded well fierce. Brian V is one of the best drummers around - always fun to watch with his facial asides, delicate touches and fearsome whacks and Amanda as usual played the bejaysus out of her joanna. My favourites from the set were "Sex Changes", "Backstabber", "Delilah" (where they were joined onstage by the still wonderful Lene Lovich), "Mrs. O", "Shores of California", "Mandy Goes to Med School", "Coin-Operated Boy", "The Jeep Song", "Mein Herr" and "Sing" - a fittingly epic finale with us at the front holding sparklers aloft and the DDs joined on stage by the entire company.

While there my mind skittered back over the years to seeing Blondie there in February 1978 and then in the summer of 1982 having one of the best theatrical experiences to live on in my mind. Vanessa Redgrave and Ian Charleson did two benefit performances for the Youth Training Centres which involved just the two of them doing readings and acting scenes from AS YOU LIKE IT, THE SEAGULL and GUYS AND DOLLS which Ian was appearing in at the the National Theatre. It was the first time I had seen either of these favourites of mine on stage and I remember sitting there suffused with pleasure.

As I said these shows live on in my memory only - the Dresden Dolls show was filmed for a future dvd release.

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I have been poorly since Sunday... yes Constant Reader... through the eye of that famous needle.

I am sure it had nothing to do with Dawn's launch party for her TRANNY HAG tranzine which also marked the Retro Bar premiere of San Francisco uber-tranny Peaches Christ's short films SEASON OF THE TROLL, A NIGHTMARE ON CASTRO STREET and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PEACHES CHRIST? It was a damn fine afternoon for an excellent cause. Um.. Dawn's bank account.

And yes.... I was the only one to frock up. Lightweights.

Went with Owen to see the new production of CABARET at the Lyric Theatre tonight.

I was looking forward to it but was also a bit trepeditious as from the tone of some of the reviews it appeared to be a case of Director's Theatre where the piece is shoehorned in to fit the director's concept eg. John Doyle's lamentable SWEENEY TODD. There were a few moments when I did want to say to Rufus Norris "stop being so tricksy - the show works goddamn it!" but on the whole I thought it certainly held it's own with the Sam Mendes production that I saw twice on Broadway - and made me look at it anew.

CABARET is an interesting show. An undoubted classic score by Kander & Ebb and a taut book by Joe Masteroff - no scene seems superflous - but one suspects that it's abiding appeal lies not in it's theatre history but in the 1972 film. This presents a problem to any theatre revival as the film bares little resemblance to the actual show and it of course runs the risk of comparison and bafflement on the part of the new audience.

For a start the actual warmth in the show doesn't come from Sally and Cliff but from the supporting roles of Fraulein Schneider, Cliff's landlady, and Herr Schultz, his unassuming Jewish neighbour who recognise the loneliness in each other but whose relationship is stifled by her fear of Nazi reprisals. When the decision was made that the film would ONLY feature songs in the Kit Kat Klub, these two characters were surplus to requirements and their two duets used as background music instead. However as I said the couple provide the only spark of warmth and genuine affection in the show and here the show is rewarded with exquisite performances by Sheila Hancock and Geoffrey Hutchings. Hancock is one of the rare breed of actresses that one instantly relaxes with, you know the character and the audience are in safe hands. Her non-singing singing voice adds to her charm and her final song "If You Were Me" is heartbreaking in it's simplicity. It's a shame the dialogue continues straight after she stops singing robbing her of a deserved round of applause. Poor Geoffrey Hutchings suffers from the Herr Schultz curse though as his song "Meeskite" sung by his character at his engagement party has been 86'd. Mind you this had also disappeared from the Sam Mendes production along with two other songs... although one of these appears again in this production! I guess the inclusion of WHY SHOULD I WAKE UP sung by Cliff all depends on how good a singer you cast. Michael Hayden certainly sings well - I also had seen him play the part in New York - but the role of Cliff is one that I've never seen played well. He may be the narrator of the show but he never seems to have much to do.

And so onto the two roles with the longest shadows cast over them by their film incarnations. As wonderful as Liza Minnelli was as Sally, strictly speaking she was totally wrong. What on earth was a belter of a singer like her doing in a low-rent club like the Kit Kat Klub? Sally is meant to have an average talent at best which fits in with her delusions of grandeur. The best stage Sally I have seen was Kelly Hunter in the production at the Strand - gulp! - 20 years ago which was a vehicle for Wayne Sleep as the MC - a bad idea - but Anna Maxwell Martin slowly gained my interest over the evening - her MAYBE THIS TIME was particularly touching - and by the time Sally had reached her apogee with the title song she had won me over. I could almost see Sally thinking during the song... realizing the lyrics grimly foretelling her own destiny. It's a brave casting choice and she rises to the challenge with a recklessness that is scary to witness but always suggesting Sally's own instability.

I was a bit anxious too about James Dreyfuss as the Emcee, it seemed such obvious casting especially after the huge success that Alan Cumming had in the role. How odd too that Alan Cumming is currently on in the West End in BENT - which is even more obvious casting really. However Dreyfuss was wonderfully malevolent, like a living Otto Dix painting. This struck me in particular during the MONEY SONG when he appears as a fat rich man who sits stuffing his face with money while the girls dance attendance on him. I had expected him to be a lot more camp than he was - he played the role in a gruff gravelly voice and with a hunched menace. As we know the Emcee ushers us in and he is also there to usher us out.

I was wondering how this production - which wilfuly ascerts the darkness of the piece at all times - could top the Mendes finale which was fairly bleak but this one ends in a coup de theatre which freezes the audience in their seats. The first act closes with TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME - here sung beautifully by Alastair Brookshaw - as a Hitler youth while behind him the chorus dance naked, suggesting the Nazi's ideal of Aryan purity and clean-living. The last act ends in a horrible mirror image of this. The Emcee in a dressing gown sings a muted reprise of "Wilkommen" in front of large letters spelling KABARET across the stage, he retreats to join the chorus upstage as a Nazi officer walks casually across the stage knocking the letters over one by one. The lights come up upstage to reveal the Emcee and the chorus slowly huddling together as the Zyklon B flakes fall and a hiss echoes around the stage.

It made me suddenly think of the name Kurt Gerron. Gerron, a successful German actor, director and cabaret performer, is now mostly remembered - if at all - as the owner of the club where Marlene Dietrich sings in THE BLUE ANGEL and who appeared in the original stage version of Brecht's THE THREEPENNY OPERA. His career was cut short as he was a jew and despite fleeing to France, Austria and the Netherlands he was arrested and sent to a series of camps until he was gassed in Auschwitz in 1944. No doubt one of the many cabaret performers from the heady days of the Weimar Republic who ended thus.

On Tuesday I went to my second outing at the LFF with Dawn and Toby to see the controversial new film by John Cameron Mitchell SHORTBUS. I wasn't overly impressed with his film HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH - it just seemed to try too damn hard.

SHORTBUS sees most of the cast damn hard too.

The film was the talk of Cannes due to the sex scenes - the most hardcore ever seen in a legit film. As Mitchell said to the audience before the film started "If you can get through the first 10 minutes you can get through anything" - and what a baptism by spunk. James (Paul Dawson) films himself first peeing in the bath then gingerly auto-fellating himself until he gives himself a money shot. Intercut with this is sex therapist Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) and husband Rob (Raphael Barker) going at it like the Taliban are on Ditmus Boulevard while dominatrix Severine (Lindsay Beamish) giving Jesse (John Hardman - O Dear) a young yuppy lad a sound thrashing in a room overlooking Ground Zero until he squirts all over a Jackson Pollock hanging over the bed! James and his partner of 5 years Jamie (PJ DeBoy - should by BJ by the looks of things) have deceided they need a more open relationship but seek help from Sofia first. The session results in Sofia confessing she is wound up over never achieving an orgasm. The Jamies' invite her to visit Shortbus, a downtown private sex club/cabaret where anything and everything goes. When she arrives she meets the flamboyant Madame Justin Bond (luckily played by Justin Bond of Kiki & Herb fame) and the Jamies' meet model Ceth ("It's Seth with a C", Jay Brannan) who becomes their first threesome partner. Stumbling into the Lesbian room Sofia meets Severine and they start a tentative friendship. But where does Caleb (Peter Stickles) the Jamies' voyeuristic neighbour fit in? And with whom?

And that is the set-up. We follow them through ups and downs and ins and outs, through epiphanies and climaxes, through swooping around a nice animated Manhatten, through sex attempts and suicide bids until it all culminates - oh ok CLIMAXES - in the 2003 New York blackout with all our protagonists in one place. Ok let's get it out of the way... the sex scenes are jaw-droppingly graphic. However Mitchell is right in filming them as he has. Too often in films where sex is the main theme it's seen as empty and almost the last dance in the Last Chance Saloon - how many of the shaggers in LAST TANGO IN PARIS, INTIMACY, ROMANCE, BAIS-MOI, IRREVERSIBLE, CRASH, MA MERE actually seemed to enjoy what they were doing? Here the sex scenes are seen as ways of affirming a sense of being alive... indeed there is almost a post-9/11 feel to the film - the characters seem desperate to connect and feel loved and wanted.

The performers all - sorry - handle their parts well, you find yourself liking the characters and enjoy their company. I liked Sook-Yin Lee's screen presence a lot, PJ DeBoy gave Jamie a likeable gaucheness while Jay Brannan and Peter Stickles are good as the men who come into the Jamies' orbit. Sorry about that. Justin Bond steals every scene he is in, slightly larger-than-life but with razor-sharp timing, none more so when he wearily surveys a room full of humping bodies as sighs "It's just like the Sixties only with less hope". How good it is that this unique performer has been captured on screen.

But why did this film I enjoyed so much in the cinema start to fade after a while? Despite the empathy generated by the cast, the characters remain fairly one-dimensional and none are ultimately hurt by this La Ronde trip Downtown - apart from an astonishing scene where Alan Mandell appears as an ex-Mayor of New York seeking atonement at Shortbus for doing so little during the 1980s AIDS epidemic (that's spelt K-o-c-h), the film maintains a fairly light feel that makes you wish for some real emotional grit. For all it's envelope-shunting and provocative content it all boils down to we just need to love each other. As disappointing an ending as any Hollywood rom-com. Or even a Lassie movie.

But see it, it's a hell of a ride.

What a busy weekend.. On Saturday Owen and I went to the reception for Angus and Clive's Civil Partnership at the sprauncy Little Ship Club in the City by the Thames. I have just checked... it's SIXTEEN YEARS since the last time I was invited to a wedding and/or reception! What does that say about me or friends? There was the usual guessing games as to how the combined guests fitted into the lives of our Civil Partners - why do receptions always appear to be full of the same cast of people? Dawn and Kevin high-tailed it to Duckie around 10 and despite saying that I didn't want a late night.... 1am found us flagging down a cab! It was good to shake my moneymaker with O, Stephen and Gerald (above) tho'.

Sunday afternoon brought my first visit to the London Film Festival this year.
Owen and I went to see STRANGER THAN FICTION starring Will Ferrall, Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah and Dustin Hoffman. It's directed by Marc Forster who directed the hugely enjoyable FINDING NEVERLAND. Annoyingly our screening was subtitled for the hard of hearing which was really distracting, you can't help but read them and it totally throws a comedy off-kilter when the audience is laughing ahead of the punchline. However the film was an absolute delight and will definately warrent a second screening. Harold Crick (Ferrall) is a total blank. An IRS worker, he lives alone, has one friend who is a geeky co-worker and lives a life governed by his hours at work, the hours he sleeps, the minutes to the bus stop etc. Suddenly his life is turned upside down by two women. He is sent to audit Ana (Gyllenhaal) a baker who has been withholding a percentage of her returns as a protest against the government and finds himself falling for her liberated free-spirit - despite her antipathy towards him. The other woman is more tricky. It's a voice in his head, describing his every move before he does it and knows all about him.. a voice that is driving him to distraction.

What we know is that the voice is that of Karen Eiffel (Thompson) a well-known novellist who is writing a novel with a character called Harold Crick... an IRS worker who lives alone etc. etc. Kay is going through her own trauma with crippling writer's block so her publisher has sent her an assistant Penny (Latifah) to help sort out her problem... how to end her novel with the death of Harold Crick! Harold is now desperate to find who the woman is and enlists the help of Jules Hilbert (Hoffman), a professor of English to find out whether he's living a comedy or a tragedy. The film twists and turns until the author and character meet - but that's far from the end of the story. The film took a bit of time to engage me but it soon had me hooked with it's inventive story-telling and in particular the fine performances - Gyllenhaal in particular in her role of the feisty baker. Emma again shines as the depressed and moody author and who delivers an off-screen narration at the end which had me quite moist-eyed.

Then it was on to see the New York Dolls at the Forum with O and Dawn. It was great to see David and Syl again and they certainly ripped through a set which included the classics and new solid songs from the new cd but I felt a bit outside it all. As usual there was the usual dozey twats in the audience whose spatial awareness was shot to shit leaving me bruised to buggery by the bloke next to me who wanted to dance like a monkey even though everyone else standing where we were realised that there was no room to dance and O left the Forum with a soaking jacket after having a pint of beer knocked by some clown. It's a shame they aren't playing a second night really. Maybe I was a bit spoiled by seeing them at the Royal Festival Hall last time. Would hate to think this was the last time I might see them though! How happy was I though that played GOTTA GET AWAY FROM TOMMY!

Friday night saw the start of the new series by Simon Schama THE POWER OF ART on BBC2. The first programme kicked off with an overview of the life and work of Caravaggio. Schama is the only one of this new breed of talking-head-against-expensive-location presenters that I like and being an art historian I was looking forward to this.

Needless to say, it was a bit of a disappointment. His reflections on the works are fine - but when did documentaries ALL turn into drama-documentaries? As is usual now we were inflicted with dramatic scenes littered throughout the programme so you do end up wondering "Is this from a documented text or is it fiction?" Invariably the budget for these scenes ain't that huge either so this episode featured endless shots of the actor playing Caravaggio emerging out of the darkness into close-up in various states of euphoria or narkdom. There was one scene depicting a fight Caravaggio had in an inn which had 3 different actors all talking to the camera describing what took place in their best RADA Working Class Accents... it was like a Crimewatch reconstruction directed by Mike Leigh. Do the directors/producers of these documentaries all assume that viewers can't actually take in what's being said by the presenter and that everything, even art histories, have to be turned into entertainment?

BBC2 are also currently showing a series on the Suez Crisis. Now I'll admit that a Caravaggio documentary covering his life from 1571 to 1610 showing just the paintings, some old buildings and Simon Schama might be a little visually spare but annoyingly the Suez documentary is guilty of the same play-acting. The first episode had ample interviews to camera from people involved in the period covered, news photographs and more importantly tons of archive news footage
of the whole subject - so why do we need James Fox playing Anthony Eden? Surely if it's just so we can also have his private writing on Suez from letters or cabinet minutes, why not just have his voice? Especially as no attempt has been made to make him look like Eden!

I'll keep watching both series' but I wonder how many times knuckles will be chewed?

Last night O and I went to a new venue for us, The Pigalle Club which is on Piccadilly Circus - for all it's pretensions it's still the old Cannon Cinema to me! By and large I preferred it to the other club we have been to recently - Too 2 Much - where the attitude of the staff was kinda off-putting but maybe that was because we, the non-eating Pigalle punters, were left to fend for ourselves apart from ordering drinks. The venue reminded me of the Jazz Cafe with the stage sideways on as you walk in and the low ceiling due to the seating upstairs. However the Pigalle stage and seating areas are on a lower level as you walk in so the only place to stand if you are there for the act only is by the bar which is furthest away from the stage or on a cramped ramped walkway facing the general dining area with the stage at your 2 o'clock. No I can't figure it out either. Allegedly it took 4 years to design this! We nabbed a place at the top of the ramp which was bad as it was so close to the bar area where punters of course didn't SHUT THE FUCK UP even when George came on but good as we had a clear view over onto the stage.

The support was Amanda Ghost who was resoundingly average - for a woman feted for co-writing the ubiquitous YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL with the Blunt none of the tracks she sang had anything even approaching a memorable musical phrase. As Owen suggested they all sounded like the album tracks you leave out of a live set! She also commited the cardinal sin of conducting a conversation with a member of the audience - a friend? - without including the rest of the audience into the gist.

Sister George bounced onto the stage with a fullish band and played a set which mostly boinged with Dancehall rhythm - interesting to see him embracing one of the earlier influences of Culture Club so vehemently. Opposed to when we saw him at Ronnie Scotts back in 2003 where a lot of his songs where a bit shapeless the current set featured a return to what he does best - writing great pop songs with great choruses. SHADOW-BOXING stood out particularly and indeed he said he was quite proud of it (there was also exquisite guitar from longtime collaborator John Themis). The opener CZECK was good too as was his ragga overhaul of GO YOUR OWN WAY! We were treated to EVERYTHING I OWN and CC's DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME and KARMA CHAMELEON which, as George's upper-register seemed shot to shit, we the audience duly filled in. He encored his hour-long set with the forthcoming single with La Ghost TIME MACHINE which actually sounded totally chartworthy. Oh and we got a short spiritual in tribute to the fact that Kylie was in the audience. Sadly this last fact appears to be the only coverage the gig received in the press today. He seemed in fine if somewhat subdued mood. Maybe he was thinking of the crash 'n' burn documentary that was on Channel Four at exactly the same time?

Who said Vaudeville is dead? They obviously have not been to the new Thursday night VAUXHALLVILLE at the venerable V Tavern. The VT looks all the better for having had a bit of cash thrown at it... bona bogs now tho' the tilted mirror over the oorinals was a bit of a worry. The Coates girl has been banging on about this night for the past 3 weeks so I gave in and went with O and The Poshest Paul Evah.

Dawn picked the table right in front of the stage, promptside... the things that she will do to get to fight a boxing Kangaroo. More of that later. Our Emcee, Nathaniel De-Ville, took us on a slideshow journey through gay history which culminated in him burning his Calvins on stage in protest against the CK Klones. He HAD stepped out of them I hasten to add. I have never seen such red bollies. It was obv quite cold up there too by the looks of things. Then it was time for the first turn off the rank, the Bearlesque boyz... bugga me if it wasn't Freddy, mate Andrew's ex-flatmate! I was VERKLEMPT. Of all the places in all the world I had to look at HIS bumcrack hanging over his leather shorts! Actually it was great fun which resulted in Freddy doing his Jennifer Beals/FLASHDANCE routine which ended up with our table sopping wet from being in the line of fire of a bucket of water chucked over him. Next up we had Luci Fire - executing a mean striptease while raining glitter down on us from her ostrich fans - oh and spots of fake blood when she crushed roses to her which bled all over her naked body. No hefty laundry bills for her. I must say I never knew what the female naked body looked like until I went to the VT. Us alternate gayers like a pair of knockers it must be said.

The last act was Luci's Firetusk Painproof Circus where her tattooed assistant - in a Kangaroo suit - boxed 3 members of the audience.... needless to say Our Dawn was up there faster than we could say knife and gave the hapless bugger a right old belting with her comedy club. There was really no need for her to belt him off the stage - and over our table resulting in us 3 being covered in our drinks! She was followed by Freddy looking very fetching in his leather shorts and glitter Viking helmet. The things he put that roo through had Steve Irwin doing a spin-cycle in his box. One more bloke had a go but in the final vote - Dawn won the free bottle of Champagne. Which we polished off. Our third. I only hope my Diabetnik doctor isn't reading this. The evening ended not only with the retina-burning sight of Freddy pole-dancing round one of the VT's columns, but also a quick dance to several standards - BEAT IT and LET'S DANCE to be precise.

It was good to see Freddy again after all this time and to tell him how good the act was. - Lord knows the dinner long-mooted between he, me and Andrew showed no sign of ever happening. It was a fun night and if there are 3 good acts on in the future I would go again... only maybe a little further back. I positively squelched home with soggy trousers and jacket!

EEEEK! Who wants a go?
I mean if it's good enough for Prada...

I suspect O is going to sit this one out....

Yes Constant Reader... that WAS me you saw with his arms folded on the BBC London News on Sunday.
Err... if you were in London. And if you were indeed watching the BBC.

It was on a small segment about the annual celebration of Kirsty MacColl, always held on the Sunday nearest to her birthday first at the bench the fans had dedicated to her in Soho Square and then at a local pub.

I was aware of a man skulking around worryingly at ankle-height with a camera around and about the bench and hey poncho, there I was on the footage, standing next to our Eunice. And there was I not wanting to go this year. I had signed off the e-mail group a few months back and what with the no shows of Chuffy, Rose and Kris I thought I might give it the go-by but I stayed about 2 and a half hours which flew by in the company of Johnny M from San Francisco, said Eunice and Irish David with their attendant other arfs.

Not sure how much longer the get-togethers will last in their current form. It is only natural that the ongoing Justice For Kirsty campaign should be represented on the day but the whole idea of the get-togethers was to celebrate her life and art and on the contrary they have been overshadowed more and more by the campaign. Claire who is now organizing the event seems to have noticed this too and stressed how the day should reflect her more and indeed at the pub it was good to have Kirsty's cds playing. Her voice has been missed in the all the get-togethers in the past.

So as today is the actual day - happy birthday where ever you are Kirsty.

Um. It's also mine and O's 4th anniversary. Happy Anniversary O!

Went to see THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA tonight at the BarbieCan with Angela and a full-ish audience of office workers and possible gayers.

Last night, I watched the last half of a BBC4 prog on romantic fiction which might have been the wrong thing to do before I saw this film as I sat there mentally ticking the chicklit boxes. The film is based on the bestseller by Lauren Weisberger who once was an intern in the office of Anna Wintour, the editor of US VOGUE.

Sweet but unworldly aspiring writer Andrea (Anne Hathaway) somehow manages to land a job as the 2nd assistant to the frightening editor of 'Runway' magazine Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep). In her jumpers, tartan skirts and clumpy shoes Andrea aka Andy is looked down on not only by Miranda but her Sloaney fellow assistant Emily (Emily Blunt). But of course Andy proves herself adept at fulfilling Miranda's most outrageous demands and soon finds herself being taken seriously by all including waspish Nigel (Stanley Tucci), Miranda's gay creative assistant.

But is Andy selling her soul to the fashion devil? Will she be able to extracate herself from this job at the end of the year as she hopes to go back to 'serious' journalism or will she be seduced by the Prada and size four Chanels? Can she stay true to her chef boyfriend or will she be seduced by the slick and stylish star journalist? FFS OF COURSE SHE CAN!!!

David Frankel's film is amiable enough but it desperately wants to have it's cake and eat it. It tries it's best to convince us that fashion is completely facile and self-regarding while positively drooling over the great frocks and just itching to give Hathaway her much-needed makeover to become almost a new Audrey Hepburn.

Anne Hathaway certainly has a gamin charm and reminds one at times of an early Julia Roberts - dark hair, ready laugh and ear-to-ear smile - but her large features are a bit scary in animation! Emily Blunt certainly has plenty of opportunities to shine as the bitchy workmate but her rhythms seem off with the rest of the cast. But bestriding them all is Meryl Streep who gives Miranda a frosty hauteur, the cruellest of stares and acidic asides all delivered in a scarey hushed monotone. She is quite magnificent, making bricks from the script's straw. She is given an "eleven o'clock song" scene where she shows cracks in her flawless composure over the news her husband is divorcing her which might have been mawkish in other hands but Streep's taste and restraint make it bearable. You sure do miss her when she's not on screen.

"That's all"

Tonight for the first time in eons we did the What's In Your Record mularkey. This time more than ever I just couldn't get enthused about a set list so came up with:

FALLING - McAlmont & Butler
MAMBO DE LA LUNA - Kirsty MacColl - to celebrate her birthday next Tuesday
DANCE FOR ME - Mary J Blige
FREE - Estelle
CRUSH - Jennifer Paige

Rob informed me that apart from the last one which was a guilty pleasure of his, he didn't care for any of the others. Like... I was playing them for him?

Apart from the thudding pleasure of seeing Don (with new dancing partner Roberto) and Hayley for the first time in yonks, the evening confirmed for me that a) the sooner the smoking ban comes in the better and b) nothing is as interminable as other people's set lists.