Tag: london

Send out the clowns

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kooza

Katy and I (along with a bunch of office folk) went to see Kooza at the RAH this past Sunday. I have to say, it’s not the best Cirque du Soleil show I’ve seen. I agree with the Guardian review I’ve included below. The individual acts border on brilliance. The clowns though… are simply BLOODY IRRITATING!!! They’re not funny. They take center-stage for waaaay too long, and they’re bordering on inappropriate for the target market. I do not need to see a clown humping a man’s leg or being spanked in the balls. Masturbation-based slapstick belong in a frat house, not in a Cirque show. Still, as I said earlier, the individual acts are amazing, but the whole packaging lets it down. I’m happy to have seen it for £35. I would have been pissed off to see it for £100.

Another new year, another Cirque du Soleil juggernaut rolls into town. This one – which has toured worldwide (the £10 programme comes in three languages) – may be new to the UK, but the formula remains the same. There are lots of costumes in easy-on-the-eye autumn hues, which make the performers look like indistinguishable aliens on their way to a Venice carnival. There’s an abundance of shopping centre-style muzak. There’s a great deal of symmetrical choreography, which lends the whole thing the air of a May Day parade in a minor authoritarian state, and the show is padded out to last three hours with clowns so deeply irritating that they are no laughing matter.

Strip away all the bombast and soft-focus window dressing, though, and you’ll find some truly remarkable circus acts on display. The main thrill is the wheel of death, performed with a devilish nonchalance by two men who seem to be out-running the grim reaper in the way they hurl themselves around and over the fast rotating wheels. There’s an impressive handstand act performed on a tower of chairs that never wobble, and you can’t help but admire the bravery of the teeterboard segment on stilts. Definitely not the sort of thing you should try at home.

Add to that a double high-wire act on bicycles and a swinging trapeze with triple twists, and there’s no doubt you are watching some of the most skilled performers in the world. So it seems all the more of a pity that the presentation deliberately strips away all personality and robs the performers of their humanity (there’s not even a cast list in the programme).

It makes for an evening that is impressive, but almost entirely soulless.

Original link: The Guardian

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Bill Bailey

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Katy and I saw Bill Bailey in London a few weekends ago. It was a good show, as usual :) Some quotes from the show:

Rejected BBC Shows:

  • Arab Spring Watch
  • Rhetorical Question Time

    • Heckler comebacks (there was a really, really annoying woman in the front row who thought she was hot shit):

  • You’re as insignificant as a like a cress leaf in a vindaloo
  • Talking to you is like catching the bouquet at a funeral

    • BB: Which one came first? DNA or proteins?
    Heckler (me!!): RNA!
    BB: You know, that’s why I like doing shows in London. You get a better class of hecklers.

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    Roger Waters, The Wall, O2 Arena

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    Phil and I went to see Roger Waters perform The Wall in London last night, and the show lived up to expectations – even considering that I’d already seen it in Ottawa. They’d revamped some of it, which was a fun touch. Because of the tablets I’m currently taking, I couldn’t follow through with my original intent, but it was a great show nonetheless.

      
     

    We’d decided to have a boys day out in town. We had lunch at a really nice sushi and noodle restaurant I’d seen online, called Taro, where I had a huge bowl of beef ramen. They didn’t kill me, which is a big plus. I need to bring Katy there next time we’re in town. Phil had never been to the British Museum and I’m always looking for a reason to pop in, so that was a nice way to kill a few hours. After that, we had a bit of a sit down in a pub and then headed back to the O2 to pick up the tickets and wait out the show opening. It was amusing to note that the average age of the concert goers was above 40, with some actually closer to their sixties and seventies :)

    More pics and a video at: http://flubu.com/various_pics/roger_waters_o2_may_2011/

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    Bill Bailey’s Dandelion Mind

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    Katy and I had a rare night out on Wednesday night when we went to see a Bill Bailey warm-up show for his new comedy project, Dandelion Mind. It’s described as follows:

    Featuring Bill’s trademark musical interludes, observations and stories of the road, Dandelion Mind will be based loosely on the theme of doubt (or will it?), as we follow Bill from his real-life saga of being trapped by the ash cloud, to his barely contained rants about celebrity, TV, creationism and Michael Winner. He demonstrates new instruments, both ancient and modern, he sings an internet love song, a lament about punk heroes, Iranian hip-hop, and plays a mean folk-bouzouki.

    Thomas the Doubter gets a new look, and Darwin’s curious obsessions and the myth of intelligent design are all worked over in Bailey’s own surreal style. He revisits the music of his youth, with a brand-new French Disco re-working of Gary Numan’s hit, Cars, played in his own inimitable way, and maybe some Wurzels-based remixes of classic German techno. Just your normal Bill Bailey gig, then.

    It wad a great show because the venue – the Leicester Square Theater – was rather intimate (less than 500 people, max) and it allowed for some really good (and some not so good) heckling. I really have to give mad props for the man to be able to improvise so much and so well at the drop of a hat. At one point, we were having a barnacle penis length auction. You need a very quick mind to be able to handle that :)

    The show was also a bit more raucous and raw than his normal material. It was interesting to see that.

    I also managed to find some bootlegs of part of the show. They’re quite funny :D

    Katy’s parents babysat doofus while were were at the show and spent the night. I took yesterday off and we went to see some bathroom designs. We topped off the evening with a BBQ and a couple of pitchers of spiked Margaritas. I had my first hangover in years this morning.

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    Bill Bailey in London

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    We got tickets to go see Bill Bailey’s Dandelion Mind in London in September, woot!

    From the newsletter:

    Featuring Bill’s trademark musical interludes, observations and stories of the road, Dandelion Mind will be based loosely on the theme of doubt (or will it?), as we follow Bill from his real-life saga of being trapped by the ash cloud, to his barely contained rants about celebrity, TV, creationism and Michael Winner. He demonstrates new instruments, both ancient and modern, he sings an internet love song, a lament about punk heroes, Iranian hip-hop, and plays a mean folk-bouzouki. Thomas the Doubter gets a new look, and Darwin’s curious obsessions and the myth of intelligent design are all worked over in Bailey’s own surreal style. He revisits the music of his youth, with a brand-new French Disco re-working of Gary Numan’s hit, Cars, played in his own inimitable way, and maybe some Wurzels-based remixes of classic German techno. Just your normal Bill Bailey gig, then.

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    New peeeeeeeeeeectures!

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    I’ve finally pulled the finger out and gotten some pictures online. You can go browse the galleries on the website and see:

    Pictures of the EMBL Staff Association Retreat to Edinburgh: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/edinburgh_may_2009/

    A really cool collection of night-time areal pictures of London: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/london_from_above/

    Some recently added pictures of Mr BenBen: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/ben/

    Of the last gallery, let me give you some teasers :)


      
      

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    What’s new and exciting in the world of Richard and Katy

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    It’s been a while since I last posted something more meaningful than an article lamenting the decline of the US (still, there’s lots to lament). I have actual, honest-to-goodness content to post today, so I might as well get started.

    Katy’s started coming on campus to have lunch with me a few times a week. It gets her out of her PJs and gives her the occasion to see Stephane and Sheila once in a while.

    We went to the NCT nearly new sale two Sundays ago and got the last bits of baby clothing we wanted (mostly some sleep suits and something suitable for what passes for winter in this country). After the chaos that was the sale (imagine a few hundred mommies vying to get the best bargains in enclosed spaces – I’m surprised there wasn’t any bloodshed!), we went to Saffron Walden for a late lunch. We tried Dish, a place we’d walked by countless times before but finally decided to go in. We were happily surprised. The decor tries a bit too hard to be jazzy and stylish, but the food is fresh, tasty and they even catered to my various allergies without batting an eye.

    We saw a hedgehog on the neighbour’s doorstep one evening last week. It was cute and spiky and wanted to be left alone, so we did.

    Katy spent another long Tuesday at Addenbrookes, getting poked, prodded and smeared in ultrasound jelly. The good news is that her blood pressure seems to be stabilizing, as are her liver enzymes. The less good news is that her blood sugars are still all over the place and aren’t even considering playing nice. It seems that the more insulin they put her on, the worse off her sugar levels get. It makes no sense… We’re going to have a long, hard chat with the diabetic clinic midwives tomorrow to figure out what options we have. Katy’s almost taking more insulin than her mom, which is wrong on so many levels it defies description. On the upside though, Ben is still dancing the rumba on a daily basis so he seems to be doing fine.

    We got the all-clear from Addenbrookes to go see Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall last Thursday evening. I’d taken Thursday and Friday off so we could take our time getting there and back. Turns out that Phil, a work colleague, was able to give us a lift to London in the afternoon because he and his missus also had tickets to go see the show.

    It had taken me the better part of a day to get the tickets when they first went on sale (and the website melted down!) but it was so, so worth it! We were 6 rows from the stage! Most excellent :) The show was great and we’ll be buying it as soon as it comes out on DVD.

    We had an al fresco picnic in the courtyard of the RAH before the show – chicken drumsticks, sausages, bread, cheese, olives and home-made coleslaw. All very yummy, but the experience would have been more pleasant if not the fact that we were freezing our butts off :)

    We had a show pootle back to the hotel after the show. 20 Nevern Square is, by far, our favouritest hotel in London. The rooms are great (especially given the fact that they upgraded us to a suite both times we’ve been there) and the breakfast is kick-ass. We’d planned to go to the British Museum and the V&A on Friday but Katy was feeling less than stellar, so we headed back to Cambs on the train.

    As you can see, Katy was tired and I was despairing at my ever-advancing hair loss.

    We were expecting Lennart, Leen and their son Reuben for Sunday lunch, so we spent most of Saturday cleaning house and prepping culinary delights. I made a ham and roasted a chicken. I haven’t been impressed with the quality of the chickens Tesco is selling these days, so the menu changed from roast chicken to chicken, mushroom & bacon pie. It was very well received :) We spent a very nice afternoon talking about babies and cats.

    Speaking of cats, our two are becoming increasingly clingy these days. Surprisingly so!

    No, I don’t have a night-vision camera (but I do have Photoshop).

    They had their first baby experience last night when Reuben was in a bouncy chair on the kitchen floor. Tolstoy was curious enough to try and sniff the strange creature, but his natural courage quickly reasserted itself and he scampered underneath the kitchen table.

    This week sees us at Addenbrookes again on Tuesday, and then we continue our Christmas shopping. We’re getting it done early for several reasons, most notably because Katy is still on full pay at the moment and we want to get it done before Ben shows up :) We’re doing the bulk of it online – yay, internet shopping! We’re going to go to Scottsdale garden centre on the weekend to see their xmas display though. That’s always fun.

    Oh, and I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – can I be a spoiled rotten cat in my next life, please?

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    That was hard work but, BILL BAILEY!

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    Woohoo!

    It took me an hour, two computers, 4 browsers, 3 credit cards and untold amounts of swearing, but I have finally managed to book 2 tickets to go see Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, in October!

    The show will be featuring a 72 piece symphony orchestra!

    Katy is on the BB mailing list and was informed of a pre-registration seat sale for those who knew the magic word (that would be sent by email). It’s been an ordeal, let me tell you. The magical, mystical email was over a week late, but it finally came. The seat sale started today at noon, sharp. People had been advised to go to the Royal Albert ticketing website.

    Which, at noon sharp, melted down.

    It was chaos, I tell you. I was using both my laptop and desktop to try and get to the flippin’ form to book the tickets. Pages would timeout, the webserver would throw error pages left, right and center. At one point, I was informed that all the tickets had been already sold (about 5 minutes into the chaos). What probably happened is that tickets were reserved for a web session, but then the server failed and all the reservation locks weren’t reset and had to timeout. After about 30 minutes of swearing at both computers, I’d finally gotten to a point where I had 4 tickets in my shopping cart and was ready to checkout. After a few more tense minutes, I had finally gotten to a form where I entered my credit card details.

    Except that it wouldn’t validate any of the 3 credit cards I tried, probably because the CC validation server was also melting down.

    At which point I gave up and went on the phone. 30 minutes later, I had a woman with a lovely phone voice selling me 2 tickets in no time (and no hassle) at all. We’re 8 rows from the stage, so I should be able to get a good view of the show :)

    This makes me happy.

    I’ve now informed Katy that, even if she has to give birth at the show, we’re going. Hell, it’s going to be filmed for a DVD so it would probably make the bonus features :D

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    Wicked and meatball subs

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    Now how random is this post title?

    It makes perfect sense though, then I tell you that I made kick-ass homemade meatball subs for dinner on Friday and that Katy and I went to see Wicked in London today.

    The subs were nummylicious! Take herbed pork meatballs, brown them and then simmer them in tomato sauce with lots of basil for 30 minutes. Slice open some nice baguette, dress with sliced havarti and then smother in meatballs in tomato sauce. Serve and enjoy but we warned, it’s a messy meal :)

    Wicked? was good. I’d booked some tickets for the matinee today. We took the train to Tottenham Hale and the tube to Victoria. We got some food from M&S and had some tea at the station. The timing worked out well because as soon as we’d finished our tea, Victoria station was evacuated. The rumour was a bomb, but it was more probably just some idiot tourist leaving his bags unattended and the powers that be making too much about it.

    We went for a bit of a walk but we didn’t go far. We ended up at a small belgian cafe having fresh waffles :) The smell suckered us in.

    After a very satisfying snack, we went back to the theater to pick up the tickets from the box office. I have to say that we were not impressed with the theater organization. There was a “line” to get the tickets but, once we were almost at the head of it, some overly-polished junior manager-type told everybody that they had to go outside and line along the outer wall of the theater. So of course everybody rushed out and we? were stuck at the back of the new line. So this message goes to the management of the Apollo Victoria theater: fuck you, you suck!

    The show itself was fun. I had to real expectations or idea what the show would be like. It was really fun because it took the well-known Judy Garland story and turned it on its head. The wicked witch of the west is actually a very nice girl with a kick-ass signing voice. I had two critiques about the show. The first is that some of the musical numbers with the whole cast were very loud and musically un-coordinated (and the acoustics of the place aren’t ideal). The second critique has nothing to do with the show and all to do with the stupidly big party of stupidly big (and loud, annoying, smelly and generally unpleasant) asian lads that monopolized the seats in front and next to us. They just made the experience less pleasant than it could have been.

    The nordic girl sitting next to me who showed me half her butt when she got up at the end of the show was an unexpected bonus though (her jeans had ridden down something fierce!).

    We got back home, had prawn, bacon and pea risotto for dinner and Katy is now inflicting some weird documentary about speed eaters and how they can train for their competitions. They mentioned a woman who ate 64 eggs in 6 minutes. What we have here is a failure to communicate, indeed ;)

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