Play: Mood Music

Tonight, I was at Mood Music, at the Old Vic, with Ben Chaplin. Courtesy of Up in the Cheap Seats, second night in a row. Mercifully, work didn't prove too much of a problem - about time, I've been getting so stressed! Despite getting held up doing my quarterly goals - due today, in the midst of everything else! - I just nicely made my bus. And as I was travelling along, I actually prayed it'd take as long as possible - just because I really needed to relax, and this seemed to be working.

In the event, it was about five minutes behind schedule, and I strolled down to meet the others: outside the theatre, the crowds are so dreadful inside before a show! Of all theatres, this one is terrible at crowd management. Bloody 'ell, it was freezing though, with a stiff wind! I was glad I had a scarf. When it came close to time, we joined the enormous queue - most were in the Dress Circle, a few of us in the Upper (Lilian Baylis) Circle.

I see they've greatly extended the stage for this, with a long platform, steppable onto from the stage, housing lots of musical instruments. The story, you see, concerns a young, female artist, who's being exploited by the older music producer (Ben Chaplin) she's working with. Don't harbour any hopes, however, of the instruments being played - apart from odd snatches, they're just there for effect, as the whole play is a talking-shop. The girl bats snippets back and forth with him and with her therapist and lawyer, he does the same with his lawyer and someone else.

It tries to be far, far too clever - any hope of following a normal conversation is swiftly destroyed when they can hardly complete a sentence without the characters switching to talk to a different person, re-enacting a scene that they were describing just a minute ago. So we're back and forth between past and present, from studio to therapist's couch to lawyer's office with bewildering speed. And all the time, during the first half, absolutely nothing happens.

At the interval, we congregated in the Dress Circle Bar, and most concluded that this was a major disappointment. I'd actually come damn close to bringing my coat down with me, in preparation for leaving at the end of the interval - but there remained a glimmer of hope that this might get entertaining, and I stayed.

Boy, was I sorry I did. Several took the opportunity to leave - including all the people on the outside of my row, which was handy. The play dragged on.. there was an interesting story about her being transported, unconscious, across state lines while touring, so that she missed a concert, after getting into a row with the producer when he didn't credit her when their song won an award.

The whole thing was just a repetitive series of increasingly barbed conversations, where he proved himself obnoxious and she proved herself appalled. Oh, and don't get me started on the infantile audience, who tittered every time somebody swore! Don't get me wrong, the cast were excellent - Ben Chaplin does obnoxious very well! It's just the tedious playwriting. As I finally had enough and left, cursing myself that I'd wasted so much time, the usher warned me that I couldn't come back in. "Good!" I replied, "I can't stand it!" Runs until the 25th of August - seriously, avoid; there has to be something, anything, you'd prefer showing in town the same night..!

We were supposed to meet afterwards in the Dress Circle Bar again, where your ticket apparently entitles you to a 20% discount. So I made my way down there - unfortunately, the bar closes while the show is on, and tired and hungry as I was, I couldn't be bothered sitting there all that time without even a drink. So I headed, gratefully, home - after a frigid wait at the stop for a #4 that the Bus Countdown app assured me was coming, but which never did, I took another instead; I had a walk when I got off, but it was better than standing there in the cold!

Tomorrow, the London European Club is attending a lecture at the LSE, on Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration. Good luck to me, getting away in time - I'm taking my parka, sick of being cold. Then I'm back to the highly non-Eurosceptic Ireland again, for the weekend.

On Monday, back with Up in the Cheap Seats, for A Gym Thing - got a fright when I saw that, but no, it's a play - in the Pleasaunce.

On Tuesday, I'm back with North London Friends - to the Theatre Royal, Stratford East for Our Country's Good.

Next Wednesday, Up in the Cheap Seats is off to The Writer, at the Almeida.

On the 3rd, London Literary Walks is doing - ahem - Stalin's Doss House.

Then we're into the Early May Bank Holiday - and I saw an interesting trip, advertised by Carpe Diem, for a long weekend in Bulgaria. So I applied for a place - only to be told that there'd only been six, which were now gone. When I pointed out that the Meetup page advertised 12 places, and that some were shown as still available, they removed the event entirely. Instead, on the 4th I'm headed - with the £3.60 club - to Music Hall Monster: The Insatiable Mr. Fred Barnes, at Wilton's. Could be good.

And on the 5th, as of now, I'm signed up to an overnight trip to Newquay in Cornwall with Eddie's Excursions. This time, I got in the first six - ironically, they're not guaranteeing it'll go ahead unless they can fill a minibus! Watch this space..