Something For The Weekend

Seeing more good stuff - The Tate Triennial and playing at being a luvvie

Move mouse to the left, move mouse to the right. Count total number of paperclips, adjust screen monitor settings. Check outlook, update twitter. Eat mouthful of dry supermarket sandwich, drink mouthful of tea that you forgot had gone cold. Get crumbs of said dry sandwich between the keys on your laptop. Attempt to remove the crumbs with (in successive order) plastic ruler, metal ruler, pen, pencil, staple, post it note and finally used envelope.

Never again have a lunch break like the above. The UK is chuck full of things that last around 40 minutes. On Thursday we headed down to Tate Britain to try and enlighten ourselves and learn more over lunch than the recommended daily amount of salt that is contained in a tuna and sweet corn baguette.

Our supposed photo shoot is scuppered by the fact that you can’t take photos in the Tate, but don’t let this put you off. Around 100 years older than it’s more celebrated cousins (Tate Modern, St Ives and Liverpool), this may actually be the most accessible of the family Tate. To the casual art observer, modern art curators appears to hedge their bets between the comic style escapades of Lichtenstein and the absurdity of the modern British Artists. They seem to hope that their pithy 50 word write ups will keep us interested.

This isn’t so much of a problem in Tate Britain. The scenes are recognisable to us, they simply look appealing and heaven forbid seem to actually have been painted using brushes (rather than a potato peeler held upside down in bio degradable hemp and organically sourced violet juice). They are pleasant to the senses and in a refreshing change, no one bumped me with a oversized rucksack and there were no unorganised scrums around the most popular of pieces.

It’s just the right size for a 40 minute perusal and for some reason you come out a tad happier than when you went in.

The Triennial is on until 26th of April and the entrance to the gallery is dominated by an enveloping mushroom cloud of pots and pans. Rather than stack their gallery full of oversized sculpture, the curators here seem to pick and choose only best. (cue spontaneous mass applause).

Best of all there are free tours at 12:00, 14:00 and 15:00. Helping you come back to the office full of insightful anecdotes (without even having to try) and giving you and excuse to fill the afternoon with dramatic hand gestures and dramatic scarf wrapping.

Sean Collins

12/02/09

Sean and Dan are escaping the shackles and trying to fit in more good stuff. Follow their adventures at  http://sftw.typepad.co.uk/

Never Forgotten - No need to wait for the summer stadium shows

Nervous, very nervous would be the best way to describe walking into the theatre to see Never Forget. Not because I thought it would be a bad show, more because I though that I might embarrass myself by joining in too much. Sadly I was so right, and I don't even like Take That.

At the moment, the West End seems full of musicals set to the tunes of formerly top selling bands, with We Will Rock You and Mamma Mia dominating both the box office and the headlines. Never Forget though may well beat them to the crown of the most fun show out there this year.

There is definitely a difference between shows that are funny and shows that are fun. This falls fully into the later category. It's the story of a group of friends who try to raise money by entering themselves into a tribute band contest. Imagine someone managed to condense a years worth of Coronation Street storylines into a 2 hour stage show and you have some idea of the plot of the show. If it can happen to these boys, then you better believe that it will. Only on stage (or possibly the East End of London) do you ever consider having business meetings in a strip club!

This is definitely one of those shows where the audience are up on their feet for most of the show. Don't worry, no matter how much you fight against it, you'll be joining them. Even when the entire stage turns into a giant shower!

Get your mates together, have a few drinks before hand and get down to The Savoy Theatre before this show closes. It really is that good.

Sean Collins

Never Forget is at the Savoy Theatre until November 15th 2008
Book tickets here

Piaf (Vaudeville Theatre, The Strand)

Drugs, dodgy men, a voice of painful, soul-aching honesty. Yup, 50-odd years before Amy Winehouse, the world was being wowed by the powerhouse vulnerability and gripping back story of Edith Piaf. Heat magazine wasn’t around in those days of course, so Piaf had the added allure of mystique. In light of our ongoing obsession with the supernaturally talented royally messing up their lives, Jamie Lloyd’s production of Pam Gems’ play Piaf, is indeed timely.

Having played to rapturous reviews at the Donmar Warehouse, and now settling into a stint at the Vaudeville, Piaf is a slight but never less than enthralling journey through the icon’s mysterious life. Even if you only have a passing knowledge of the songs and that distinctive rasping voice, Elena Roger’s performance as Piaf is worth the ticket price alone. Detailing Piaf’s ascent from Parisian street prostitute to diva addict, Roger is uncanny in her vocal impersonation and captivating in her portrayal of Piaf’s bedevilling unhappiness, reliance on men and electrifying personality.

Soutra Gilmore’s minimalist set is compellingly claustrophobic in the madness, only becoming serene when Piaf is in the spotlight and her voice takes flight. Gem’s script undoubtedly takes second billing to the acting on show here, although it does have its inspired moments, particularly when Piaf and Marlene Dietrich (Katherine Kingsley) are in tandem.

So what price on a Winehouse play of similar content in 50 years time? Perhaps knowing the whole story already renders it rather pointless.

Dan Pilkington

Buy Piaf tickets here from £26

Jersey Boys - Prince Edward Theatre, London

If, as they say, the kids of 2008 think that fame is something thrust upon them after a few weeks singing other people's songs on X Factor, then things were a little different in 1953. The road out of blue-collar, Mob-controlled Fifties Jersey was somewhat rockier, with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons managing to clock up prison, alcoholism and financial ruin in between becoming the biggest pop group in America.

Jersey Boys, the musical story of the Four Seasons, is, at face value, an all-singing, all-dancing tale of the American Dream; four boys from the wrong side of the tracks made good through talent and determination. Thankfully this huge Broadway hit never sweetens the pill, showing the harsh realities of families and friendships falling apart on the road to the top, as well as the dizzying highs, making it somewhat darker than your average West End schmaltz fest.

Despite note-perfect performances from Ryan Molloy as Frankie and the rest of the cast, the star of the show is the songbook of Bob Gaudio, the awkward rich kid who wrote classics like Oh, What A Night, Big Girls Don't Cry and Can't Take My Eyes Off You. As each one drills into your head, along with the slick set piece Sixties dance moves, you realise just how many Frankie Valli songs make up the modern pop cannon.

So even if you're not up and dancing in the aisles by the final scene, you’ll definitely feel like you've seen an important chapter in the history of modern pop music. Perfect for any budding X Factor hopefuls out there.

Book your Jersey Boys tickets here - with no booking fee

Dan Pilkington

Dan is a former music journalist, our resident musical expert and loves bands named after inanimate objects. Never ever ever ever ask him if he knows anywhere good to go when the pub shuts,unless you want sit on sofas held together with gaffer tape in bar that only sells 1 lager (always overly strong). It will however have a great stereo and will have featured on the album cover of a 1960s EP that only ever sold 60 copies,

Back to High School

We broke out our pom poms last night at the Hammersmith Apollo for the High School Musical stage show. While my 4 and 3 year old companions knew everyword, I hadn't even seen the film!

The lunatics are running the asylum, making the most of the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy

We've heard all about the summer exhibition a million times this year alone. We knew that Tracey Emin was helping select the exhibits this year and we saw the truck delivering the latest sculpture to take pride of place in the courtyard, but we wanted more. How could we make the most of our visit to the Academy? Our intrepid reporter Kate, ducked through a side door and joined one of the free tours of the building itself.

 

Where are all the reality TV stars now? Les Miserables featuring X factor runner up Cassandra Compton

With I’d do anything crowning its winner, and big brother unveiling its new selection of overly desperate wannabes, we wondered how and where we can see our previous favourites after their 5 minutes of fame finish. Many of them have begun to appear in some of our most famous musical productions. The summer months can be the best time of year to get tickets for the top west end musicals so over the next few months we’ll be updating you on their performances in some of the new releases (and long running classics).

Hidden Treasure, get your hands on the gold bars of the Bank of England

We keep hearing about the credit crunch and how no one has any money any more. It seems to be in every paper and on every news show. Enough already, we set out to track down some gold and jewels.

The Queen's Dolls House

We all have memories of childhood. Some are good, some are bad; but we definitely all have them. I’m sure that for most of us, many memories feature the school summer holidays. In my memories the colours of green and blue seem strangely vivid and bright and they all seem to feature being outside. It got us all thinking what Queen Liz’s childhood was like. Where did William and Harry play? What did the royals, the rich and famous play with? Did they all have designer toddler specific hummers like Brooklyn Beckham? Or were they (hopefully) a bit more like us?

Visit City Hall for free

Every year we seem to be greeted by more and more consumer polls each time we open a newspaper. There seem to be endless lists of which is the most famous, most visited, most iconic or tallest building in the UK? Most of the ones that make these lists tend to be ones that you visited with your primary school in the eighties or that you always meant to go and see but never got round to. That got us thinking, which buildings are the most mysterious or least visited? Which ones do you never visit because quite simply you can’t?

A few beers later, and as normal, this discussion was still raging and we boiled it down to two main groups: Those buildings belonging to the Armed Forces and those belonging to Government.