A Weekend of Hmmm

I had a couple of events I was looking forward to this weekend, but they fell a little short of the mark. First I went to see The Seagull, featuring Kristen Scott-Thomas, at the Royal Court.

As I have mentioned before, my criteria for choosing theatrical outings is if I like the poster, I'll see the play. With The Seagull I didn't like the poster, but I did like Kristen, so I went anyway. I think I'll be returning to my old method in future. It's not like I hated it, I enjoyed it well enough, but I didn't feel any affiliation with the characters and I didn't really care what happened to them. Nor did they give me cause to think about stuff.

The story revolves around a kind of extended family and their relationships with each other - the tension between parents and their children and the pain of unrequited love - but it's decidedly short on action.

I kind of felt a bond with the tortured artist, Constantine, particularly his relationship with his mother. (His didn't read his plays and mine hasn't read my magazine but, unlike him, I'm not about to blow my head off over it.) I also quite liked Masha, the terminally depressed alcoholic with a tendancy for wearing black clothes (curious bond there, don't you think?) but the woman who played her was rubbish. Kristen as the hard hearted and selfish mother was quite marvellous, but I think I expected to see more of her and her part isn't a central role. Instead that goes to Nina, a determined but annoying teenage girl with big plans of becoming an actress. I kind of wanted to slap her.

Given my vast knowledge of theatre, having now seen five plays, I have decided that Chekhov isn't for me. I'm waiting for more Shakespeare or Ibsen ... or something about the queers.

On Sunday Nathan and I went to check out some of our VauxhallVille competition, in the shape of All That Jazz, the new cabaret night at Soho Revue Bar. It starred a few of the acts we have had on at VauxhallVille, those from the more mainstream end of the market. Sandwiched in between the spit and sawdust acts we present they seemed refreshing, but an entire evening of slick production and happy clappy and it all got a little bit sickening.

Nathan commented during the interval that he felt like he'd been sound blasted with Tate and Lyle sugar. I nearly asked what the hell he was on about, then I realised he was right - my teeth were actually aching from the sweetness of it all. Paul L Martin is a great singer, but his straight forward show tunes did little to inspire without any kind of ironic content. Scales of the Unexpected did better with a barber shop quartet version of Kate Bush and a rousing compilation of one hit wonders.

I don't think the Soho Revue Bar is marketed as a gay venue anymore, the audience were largely straight and, boy, were they easily amused. A man announcing he's been shopping and then pulling out a tub of Vaseline and a cucumber is apparently *hilaire*, and God help them when we got to the posh girl who didn't mind admitting she jolly well like a bit of porn, thank you very much. She then fell into the usual female trap of whinging about failed relationships, losing weight and moany, moany, moan. I was starting to pine for our Bearlesque boys - bring on the tubby camp lads doing handstands in shorts.

Thankfully an edgier element was injected by Dusty Limits (pictured) who simulated sex with a chair, then later performed a moving version of Think About You which he sang to a bottle of vodka, before collapsing to the ground, drunk and weeping.

If it hadn't been for him I think I'd have done the same.