December 17th - December 23rd 2001
Sunday Bethlehem
Saturday Ghosts
Friday Palatial
Thursday Rose & Ring
Wednesday Aggressive camping
Tuesday New outlets
Monday Tempo
Sunday 23rd December 2001
Conspicuously missing-in-action in Bethlehem this year, seven little words: Peace on earth, goodwill to all men.
Saturday 22nd December 2001
Encountered at The Spiral last night, various ghosts of Christmas past and present: John (but no John), Max, Lawrence, Saunders (solo, sans a single one of his suite of strange suitors), Skinhead Barry (and his new teeth), Steve, Sean, Will!, Danny (taller than ever), that nice sardonic Irishman, Ozzie Paul, South London Tony, Black Hugh, Jonathan's Paul, Mother, Malcolm (dry-eyed for a change), The Man With The Plate In His Head, and other camp followers.
No sign of the Ghost of Christmas yet-to-come but no doubt he'll make himself known in the next few days.
Friday 21st December 2001
Last week, Berkeley Group unveiled plans for a 49 storey tower block that will be the tallest and most expensive residential building in Europe.
A 400-bedroom four-star hotel is also planned, as well as shops, restaurants and a fitness club. Many of the apartments are expected to cost well in excess of £1m.
Where? A stone's throw from the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. And Dukes. And The Hoist.
Whoah. Great place for a chill. Everybody back to yours, right?
Chas 1: Architects 2
Prince Charles, with his irritating penchant for architecture-for-the-masses, surely cannot fail to approve of this one.
Terry Farrell hates Buckingham Palace because "it gives the wrong message about the monarchy and treats us with contempt". Hence his plans to storm the palace for the people, knocking three huge arches through the frontage to provide access to the gardens which, though technically belonging to the public, can only currently be glimpsed from the top of a bus.
Reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution? Right on, Sir Tel.
Always a joy to see the press confounded by modern art, especially when presented by two such diverse British icons as Lucian Freud and Mrs Queen.
Unable to show Freud's tiny (9" x 6") portrait for copyright reasons, the Electronic Telegraph can't really do justice to the story, but the dead-tree version of the paper splashes the picture on the front page and airs its artistic credentials by pre-emptively explaining that "Freud says he wants his pictures 'to be of people, not like them'". So far, so credible.
Sadly for the paper's po-mo street-cred, however, a sub-editor has subsequently sabotaged this by adding a tiny photograph of Her Maj, captioned: "The Queen: as she is"
Funny: I expected her to be bigger in real life...
Thursday 20th December 2001
Tuesday: Rollicking drama on a panto tip in a London pub. Admission: £1
Wednesday: Rollicking drama on a panto tip in a London pub. Admission: £9
Both productions had a cast whose 100-watt dedication had an 100-strong audience cheering with enthusiasm. Both had a negligible plot whose sole purpose was to power a constant stream of hilarious routines. And both had a coach cut from a sheet of corrugated cardboard.
But The Rose & The Ring, unlike the Retro Cinderella, and despite playing in a space no bigger than a large lounge, is a thoroughly professional production: you get an awful lot for your money.
You get spectacle, for one thing: a clever suspended-disbelief set of swivelling turrets and cottages on curtain-rails, excellent make-up and some scrumptious costumes.
You get choreography, in a variety of styles that ranges from Broadway minstrel-slapstick to morris-dancing on acid.
You get singing, mostly excellent (though not without some quavering and the odd bum note) and entirely audible - a vital quality given that most of the belly-laughs in the show are provided by lyrics with some of the most outrageous rhymes this side of Cole Porter ("You clearly are my nemesis, I must insist you leave the premises").
And you get acting, excellent acting. Which comes a surprise.
As with last year's production at The Hen and Chickens, the production budget for this show is plainly tighter than an agent's arse. As the lights go down and the single electronic keyboard begins its accompaniment, your heart sinks: knit your shoe-strings how ye may, bog-standard lighting plots and cheap painted flats inevitably conjure a potentially fatal miasma of school-hall amateur dramatics.
But then, after just a few moments, you notice that, by God, these people really can act, really do act. This is not the bank manager's wife and the post-mistress filling in time between coffee mornings; these are real actors, real singers, real dancers: case-hardened professionals who are delighted to appear anywhere, even in a room above a pub, rather than rest at home refurbishing their scrapbooks.
And, darlings, you were quite quite wonderful. Each and every one of the eleven actors in this show is a joy to watch - a catalogue of winsome innocence, unbridled nastiness, greedy lust and suave villainy. You get a lot for your nine quid.
Plus: you get Paul Keating. Those of us sat panting over Mr K's principal boy in Closer to Heaven earlier this year may be mildly disappointed to find him looking slightly (but only slightly) chubbier in this production: that may be the result of seeing him from a distance of six foot rather than sixty, or it may be (our favourite theory) some interim stage on his journey towards a starring role in Boy George's up-coming quasi-autobiographical 'Taboo'.
It would have been nice to call a sight of the fabled six-pack in evidence here but, much to the disappointment of the four degenerates in Row B, in this show Keating keeps his clothes on.
Never mind, he's still pretty toothsome: dedicated stalkers may care to note that The Hen and Chickens has no stage door as such - once the show is over, the cast have no option but to descend to the bar and mingle...
'The Rose & The Ring' runs until January 5th. Box Office: 020 7704 2001
Wednesday 19th December 2001
So far this year, I have received (amongst others):
One Christmas card without my name on it, whipped out from a pile kept in a back pocket and distributed as needed
One Christmas card with my name on it, signed with a simple scrawl and no message, handed to me in person at the beginning of an evening spent with said person
One email message saying, quite fairly: "I'm not sending you a Christmas card this year because you never send me one! So naaah. But I still luv you and hope you have a really good time with everything you want in great abundance and hope to see you in 2002!"
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND! Will somebody please explain what on earth is the point of distributing graphically-insignificant content-free cards to people you often see on a weekly, if not daily, basis. What purpose is served by this ritual? Am I an ungrateful Scrooge? Am I missing something? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND!
P.S. I am not sending Christmas cards this year. The money that I would have spent on cards is being donated to a very good cause, namely: chucking large quantities of beer down my throat. Thank you.
Much consternation in Fleet Street at the news that Stuart Wells, the actor who played Billy Elliot's fey friend, has signed up to join the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. You can almost hear the head-scratching, as the hacks try to find the angle that will turn this simple fact into a proper story.
The Telegraph has no such problems, of course. For them, it's a story about how the Army will make a man out of Stuart. ("Stuart will now be able to build himself the kind of active, enjoyable and rewarding career that he's always wanted.") They liked the story so much they even ran a follow-up piece.
For me, it's an excuse to air a quote I've been hoarding, a description of the field trials which have 'proved' that women are perfectly capable of serving in front-line combat units.
Brigadier Seymour Monro, the Army's director of infantry, feels that the trials were deliberately rigged, and claims they amounted to little more than "aggressive camping".
Stuart should feel right at home.
I've always been fascinated by pantomime, surely one of the few English folk-traditions to have survived with its traditions relatively intact.
Indeed, I even started to write a pub-panto once, a script that rapidly, and predictably, got lost up its own arse, and which I dropped like a hot brick when it became clear that I was expected not only to write it, but organise it as well.
Major props, then, to wonderful Wendy who wrote, produced and directed the 20 minute version of Cinderella that premiered to a packed house, for one night and one night only, at the Retro Bar last night.
As you'd expect in a gay pub run by a lesbian, the Retro-Cinders seized the time-honoured travestie elements of Christmas Panto and ran gender-bending rings round them, pulling in all the traditional ingredients along the way: bawdy ("an invitation to see Prince Charming's Ball"), slapstick (custard-pie make-overs), audience involvement ("Oh yes we are!" Oh no we're not!"), comedy schtick ("You!" "You who?" etc), pop-culture tributes (Blind Date), transformation scenes, in-jokes and more drag than you could shake a stick at. And all on a budget of approximately £12.50.
A rich Christmas cake of a show, marzipanned with a carol service and royally iced with a visit from Santa: undoubtedly the best Christmas party I'll see this season. Roll on next year.
Tuesday 18th December 2001
I see Captain Fez has picked up on a picture that has haunted me for a long time now: Ernest Hemingway in a frock. But I wonder if Luke knows the coda to the story: Ernest's son, Gregory Hemingway, doctor, writer and (by all accounts) a heroic drunk died this October in a women's jail in Miami. "He often dressed as a woman, and Hall said jail officials had classified him as a woman and believe he had undergone a sex change operation."
As Cranks closes, a company spokesman claims that long-term plans may include "opening new outlets." Those of us who are familiar with the effects of a wholemeal diet chorus: "No change there then."
Dame Edna recruited to rescue Ally McBeal. Admit it: you think I'm joking. Wrong.
Office conversation being what it is, I can't quite recall how we got from a bizarre story about wasps being trained as mine hunters to miniature pets and the need for miniature donuts for your miniature elephant (because otherwise the donuts would simply slip over the trunk). But we did.
Monday 17th December 2001
I may finally have found the answer to the hedonist's perennial problem: how to guarantee a Truly Top Night Out. The answer, to no-one's great surprise, is tempo.
Friday: Opt to potter into work to make a few exploratory chips at the cliff-face of chores outstanding. Get diverted en route by the olde itch. Waste several hours in itch-related activity and never actually make it into work. Eventually end up, rather against better judgement, in the Limehouse Health Club. Scratch itch. Several times. Follow with low-key hour or so at The White Swan. Andante
Saturday: Invited to join Andy and Guy at The Hoist, but working till at least midnight. Low itch-factor drains appeal of Hoist somewhat, but anxious to see A and G. Wear leather trousers to work on the off-chance. Approach midnight chanting "Please lets finish in time for the last tube. Please lets finish..." Last minute hitch. Another last minute hitch. And another. Crawl home at 0130 hrs for an early night with a can of beer. Rubato
Sunday: Wake up bright and early and, ooh, without a hangover. Ring A and G to confirm they will be attending the ritual pre-Vauxhall lunch at The Beehive in Kennington.Adagio
Remember that Wayne is celebrating birthday with drinks at Comptons from 2. Bathe, shave and dress (leather trousers again) and make it to Compton Street by 3. Rob and Wayne arrive, bleary-eyed, at 3.15. Quickly down pint-and-a-half and head towards Kennington. Largo ma non troppo.
Beehive proves to be exactly where I expected it to be. Table-full of nine gay men proves to be exactly where I expected it to be. Lunch proves to be exactly what I expected it to be: friendly, intelligent, more comfortable if slightly pricier alternative to Vauxhall pavement-chat. Drink another pint or two, plus several random gulps of red wine. Laugh a bit, smile a lot, then share a cab to Vauxhall Tavern. Allegretto.
Worry about leather trou being slightly over-the-top for RVT. Recall man last-week in hand-knitted hessian strait-jacket; observe solicitor and head-teacher with tops off and illuminated red antlers slung round neck. Giggle.Affrettando
Find David and Marcus amidst the throng. Other faces join us. Attractive faces: itch twitches. Great show from Dame Edna. Drink beer, flirt. Drink more beer. Itch. Decide leather trou best clothing choice for RVT ever.Vivace
Move down the road to Dukes. Indulge in intense drunken conversation such that other party doesn't even notice man taking clothes off behind him. Ignore everybody else in room. Itch, itch, itch. Run for last tube. Scratch.Appassionato con affetuoso
Points arising:
- There's always a cheap cabaret act at The White Swan around midnight on Friday; this week it was some awfully jolly songstress whose patter had been given a seasonal twist with the line "Well. Christmas, eh. Shall we all sing a carol?" A moment passed, in which I flicked through the entire English Hymnal searching for an appropriate carol for a crowd of drunken Essex rent-boys ('..how still we see thee lie'?), before she started in on 'Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer'...
- There's a man out there whom we call 'Knows-us, Doesn't-Know-Us' on account of his habit of sometimes giving us a friendly nod, and other times looking straight through us. We always blamed it on the chemicals, but a more charitable explanation cropped up over lunch when a health-worker was complaining about how difficult it was going out to venues where he could never be sure if recognised people from the scene, or the clinic...
- When you're out of credit on your mobile and hurriedly spend your penultimate tenner on a phone-card and then find yourself without any coin with which to scratch off the covering that overlays the secret code-number, do not under any circumstances attempt to rub off the overlay on some nearby brickwork: this will obliterate not only the covering but half the numbers as well, leaving you no choice but, in the short-term, to spend your very last tenner on yet another card and, in the long-term, the prospect of playing a tedious game of extended mobile bingo...
- When your cash-machine advises you that the service will be down for maintenance at some obscure hour when you're perfectly confident you'll have no need of it, stock up on cash. If you don't, you will hop in a cab with no cash and only discover half-way home that the service has gone off-line three-quarters of an hour early and that you are going to have to make the cabbie wait whilst you pop indoors and find you have no cash anywhere in the house and write him a cheque that includes a five quid tip for messing him about...
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