Play: Vulvarine

Tonight, back with Up in the Cheap Seats, to the King's Head, for what promised to be another manic show. Vulvarine - ahem - is a sort of superhero story. With a female superhero, natch. We arranged to meet in The Bull, down the road, beforehand for food.

My cold has disintegrated to sporadic, violent coughing fits. Yesterday's happened in the office in the late evening, causing distress to the receptionist, who came to see whether I was all right and advised me to go home. Today's came upon me without warning in M&S, as I was about to get my lunch - I had to go outside for about 10 minutes until it subsided. Happily, they were isolated incidents - annoying, but not damaging to my plans.

I was in perfect time for the bus - for once - and arrived first at the pub.. which turned out to be full. (We hadn't booked, of course.) So I met the others, and we ended up in another pub - no shortage of eateries around there. The Fox on the Green has a appropriately foxy theme - and the portions are good.

And so we wandered the few minutes up the road to meet the others in the King's Head - a few tables had been booked at the side for our large group, which duly took over a substantial corner. We also picked up our tickets - what happened to the old laminated ones? They have some posher laminated ones now, with a picture of the building on the back - I got a posh, unlaminated one, and some just got a piece of paper with their seat number written on it! Maybe they're in the process of changing over..

We took over a good part of the front two rows - I was in the front row, which was nice, as there is a ledge under the stage, which you can rest stuff on. Or rest your feet on. Although I wouldn't advise it if you have a more central seat - they do use that ledge at a few points during the show.

The cast is undoubtedly energetic, and enthusiastic. And I admire the way they cope with special effects - real B-movie type stuff. And they can sing. And I liked the cat.

That's it, then. That's all I liked about it. I have done my duty in being fair to it. Otherwise, I hated every minute of what is a short, madcap performance, and prayed for it to be over. Sorry, I have a wide range of tastes, but this was too silly, even for me. There were certainly some in the group who liked it - good for you. Anyway, it was good to see people. This runs till the 6th.

On the way home, Google Maps suggested a combination of buses for me - with a substantial overlap of routes, just to make sure I'd have to walk as little as possible. I skipped the overlap, walked two minutes around the corner, and saved a lot of time. Tomorrow, back with London Literary Walks. He had to change his original plan - seems the pub we were to meet in is closed for refitting, and with no good alternatives, he had to come up with another walk at the last minute. So now, we're doing a Walk by a Canal. At least the weather seems to be drying a bit.