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Showing posts from January, 2017

Monk Key

Monk Key, Songs of the Mist by Sashi The story line is good but everyone has a story to tell. It's how you tell it that matters. And a good author takes time to build characters before plunging into the story. Take the first couple of pages for example, about this woman who realised that the man she wrote letters to, for over a decade, and who just had a funeral, was still alive and his daughter who found the letters emailed this woman saying she is going to find her father. But that's not all is it? A woman who writes letters and lives away from civilisation has a smooth running life that she enjoys, which we are not told about at all. She then receives an email and we don't know how she felt when she received it so unexpectedly after she returned home from her usual (coffee? walk? music classes?) smooth floating life. So much could have been said in the first few pages. So much. Other obvious stand outs include the use of  'sparkle in the eye' which

Malta

We went up to Malta for Easter last year. Easter came too early that year and most places weren't warm enough. But I've had enough of the London's never ending winter so any sunshine is better weather. Hence, when we went to Malta it was slightly ahead of the beach season. It is most famous for its beaches but the beach crowd hadn't gathered yet and the 40min we spent on a beach was with jackets zipped up to the neck and hoodies protecting the ears from the cold wind. But that meant we saw Malta for Malta. Hagar Qim and Mnadjra temples - we saw these on our last day though this is the first thing on the list of why to visit Malta. These are the oldest temples in the world, pre-dating the pyramids by about 2500 years. These temples however are not the oldest structures in Malta only dating to about 3500-4000 BC. But certainly the most well-preserved and standing structures. You can see clearly the different chambers, the pinkness of some of these limestone bloc

The Libertine

I watched Dominic Cooper in and as The Libertine at the Royal Haymarket Theatre and give it a 3.5/5 rating. I wanted to watch it for Dominic Cooper. I started watching Preacher and the bad boy trying to be good role came off remarkably well from him. So when I read the synopsis of The Libertine, I pictured similar shades but with a lot more of the so-called royal excesses. I have to say, I was disappointed. You see, there is the talk of excesses. There is little to show what it meant. May be when it was written, what the play showed were excesses. But then again the scandalous excesses of Les Liaisons Dangereuses were certainly something. Wolf of Wall Street, now that's excesses. Great Gatsby, that too. Even the threadbare production of Doctor Faustus showed excesses. The Libertine didn't. It showed some crass noise about dicks and dildos, but not a lifestyle. The lifestyle was mostly of a pathetic man whose artistic outcry is that of a 14-year-old boy thinking dic

The Red Barn

I watched The Red Barn at the Lyttleton, National Theatre and give it a 5/5 rating. The sets were incredible. I think Lyttleton has always been very innovative with their sets. During the entire play, what we view is controlled by an aperture that the director, Robert Icke creates and sometimes moves it around. The scene with the snow storm through a white screen with wind bellowing is almost like watching a movie. And that's how the play starts. In a snow storm, Ray is lost and his young wife, Mona is left waiting for him at the home of the friendly couple, Donald and Ingrid Doff. And what ensues is a psychological thriller. There isn't much to tell without giving the game away. What I can say, however, is that I have been waiting to watch Mark Strong perform since I missed his A View from the Bridge last year. And perform he did! He managed to transform into this boring hen-pecked middle-aged husband with a mid-life crisis that I wasn't sure it was him at all

Nice Fish

I watched Nice Fish at the Harold Pinter Theatre last night and loved it. I would give it a 5/5. It's a crazy doodling piece of art. Two friends go ice fishing, well only one of them is fishing, but two go ice fishing. And then they talk about life and how things turned out in their lives. Except it's not in a boring meandering brooding way. But in a, well meandering brooding way, but not boring and not "artsy" deep, just plain hilarious. They meet some characters who may or may not be there but that doesn't matter. Because it's funny and it's true. I think that's where the play got it right - not just the funny bit but the true bit. Well not entirely true, but generally true. Mark Rylance was fantastic as this dim old fella. He was so good at the end, I almost cried (or was that because I was laughing so hard? I can't remember now). There were some incredibly funny lines that I would fondly recollect and start laughing all over again. I