Wrestling Elephants

Aah, theatre that I understand. Either I've got clevererer or I've dumbed down my theatre choice. I figure it's the latter.

First up a little wrestling and drag based comedy. Everyone loves wrestling. Everyone loves drag. Everyone loves comedy. What's not to love? This one was called As You Like It. Which, off the top of my head means I've now seen every Shakespeare play that I know a quote from. Is that something to be proud of? I am a bit, regardless.

Just seen Bradley Cooper in The Elephant Man: a play about a freakshow, with a pretty boy doing a pretty good job of being ugly. Not exactly high brow. Enjoyed it, mind.

I seem to be stuck in a confused-media rut. That was a play that seemed like a film. I've just read the new Nick Hornby novel (his best thing since About a Boy since you ask), which seemed like a play, and am currently watching The 100, a long form TV show which seems like a YA novel. So whilst I am understanding things in themselves now that it is summet, I don't seem to be able to distinguish between things. Which is a bit worrying.

Gadding Again

I didn't understand Carmen Disturbed at all. I got the impression that there were a load of references that went over my head. Maybe it was because I've not seen Carmen, or maybe it's just that I'm not clever enough. This not understanding malarkey does seem to be happening a lot lately. When out of the last four plays you've seen the only one you actually understood was the Shakespeare, I reckon it might be time to watch less pretentious theatre.

I'm not wholly sure that I understood the Essex Young Farmers' Show either. Don't get me wrong, it was a great day out but it was ultimately a field full of people looking at wellies and getting sunburnt.

I did understand Literary Death Match. Comedians judging writers in a pop-up dance hall, culminating in a classic-literature based quiz - what's not to get?

Keep the Masses from Majority

First gig in six years. You play the hits, right? Hermann Loves Pauline? God Show Me Magic?  Play It Cool? Or maybe you play some of the crowd pleasers - the smaller songs that you jump up and down to: The Teacher? Calimero? Guacamole?

Of course not. You've got to love a band that fills the middle of its set with five of the slower tracks from a deleted-for-fifteen-years Welsh language album. Fair to say the thirty-something Brixton crowd didn't seem to know what to make of most of the set.