Play: Death Ship 666

Of course, I was originally supposed to go on a Meetup event today - Ken's Events, a walk around Wimbledon and Putney Commons. And then that was postponed, on account of the engineering works on the Wimbledon branch of the District Line. Which coincided nicely with a massive blister on my foot, courtesy of yesterday's walk - to be fair, the footwear wasn't really appropriate. So, instead, I booked to see Death Ship 666 at the Leicester Square Theatre.

My foot's been aching all night, so it's a pity this was matinee only - I would have loved a longer rest. Anyway, I applied a blister plaster and dragged myself out. I discovered I could only walk quite slowly, so the trek to Earl's Court was rather hard. I took longer than usual, so was rather worried about being late - but the Piccadilly Line whisked me there in good time, despite the obligatory stop halfway through (probably to "even out the gaps in the service", although no announcement was made). I hobbled with as much speed as I could muster to the theatre, and queued at the box office (I couldn't be bothered printing at home).

Again, I had a seat near the end of the row - three seats in, I wouldn't like to be at the very end. The view was quite sideways from there, but you manage. And of course, I needn't really have worried - they started quite late.

This is a parody of the sinking of the Titanic. So you get some nautical sets - well, bits of sets. And bits of the soundtrack of the film blare over the speakers. This turned out to be a nuisance right at the start, as it drowned out what the actors were saying. I think they might have noticed this quite quickly, because it wasn't a problem for the rest of the show.

Six actors portray lots and lots of characters. They achieve this by running off one side of the stage (frequently) and reappearing on the other side in a slightly different costume. Which actually works really well! One scene even has the captain / evil electrician adopting both personas, an arm through one sleeve of each of two different jackets, clipped together at the back. So he can adopt a different character, depending which sleeve is turned towards the audience.

This is excellent! I recognise some of the actors from previous comic productions, and they are as skilled as always. Their comic timing is perfect. The story is utterly and delightfully daft, and well worth an afternoon indoors. Runs to 90 minutes, including interval, and only one more performance, on the afternoon of Sunday 24 May. Trot along if you're free.. recommended.

Afterwards, I was starving, given that I'd eaten all the food in the house and had had nothing left for breakfast. So I decided to head for Garfunkel's - uncomplicated and filling. There's one just across the square. Instead of my usual garlic bread, I had soup - mushroom, served with some excellent malted bread. And I had the reliably filling bbq chicken melt - chicken topped with some delicious bacon, smothered in bbq sauce. Comes with chips, and I had a side order of onion rings. Delish! Scoffed almost all of it, and predictably had no room for dessert - sadly, because they do an excellent chocolate fudge cake. Service was as friendly as you could hope for - she even drew a smiley face on my bill! :-)

Afterwards, I dragged myself to the Tesco just off Piccadilly Circus, where I bought tomorrow's breakfast. Then dragged myself onto the Tube, and home, where my feet are now up again, and hopefully not so much dragging shall be required to get me to work in the morning. And tomorrow evening, I've booked for Made in Dagenham - cheapest tickets available through the official website.