In retrospect, the next musical I saw after My Fair Lady at the Sydney Opera House was never going to seem remotely as good. My Fair Lady was based on a play by George Bernard Shaw, using large amounts of his words, superbly augmented by Alan Jay Lerner – one of musical theatre’s greatest ever writers….
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Nov
I broke a four year self-imposed ban on visiting Sydney to go to a friend’s 50th birthday party, and to see Opera Australia’s production of My Fair Lady, directed by Julie Andrews, who starred in the original production that opened on Broadway in 1956. My friend JJ came over from New York, Cousin Jo and…
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Nov
… at the Smithsonian American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery
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Nov
At the Hollywood Museum … … I saw the bottle from I Dream of Jeannie … … Lucille Ball’s Emmy awards … … and another pair of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. (I say another because of the two I saw in Washington DC last year.) But I also spotted some errors. Mistake #1: The character…
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Nov
In 1972, the lavish Broadway musical Follies closed after losing close to a million dollars, despite obsessive admirers and a Tony winning score by Stephen Sondheim. At the time, Sondheim may have been surprised if he’d been told that 35 years later, a British techno version of one of the songs from that show (‘Losing My…
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Oct
Last month, I walked through Battersea Park … … to The Latchmere pub. I met my old friends Myles and Pete… … for a spinach and ricotta ravioli and chips (and more chips, walk negated). We went upstairs to Theatre 503, one of London’s fringe venues. The play was about Turkish Cypriots (or were they?), a…
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Oct
… but not for long. The gardens in question are of Leicester Cathedral … … which now houses the tomb of Richard III. Being the last Plantagenet king, he probably knew a thing or two about dynasties ending, though I guess he only realised it was about to end when he was surrounded and about to get his head hacked…
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Oct
As I was in Leicester for the wedding of my friends Sam and Susie, I went to the Richard III Visitor Centre, then to the Cathedral opposite … … where the king’s remains were recently re-interred. Richard wasn’t the only king in that time who had trouble holding onto his throne. His brother lost his in 1470,…
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Oct
