Sunday in the Park

Summer was London's coquette this weekend: teasing, flirtatious, by turns brazen and shy; the city panted at the season's skirts. Good for them both. Let's hope the affair is long, lovely and civilized, rather the usual scrappy psychodrama steeped in bitterness and recrimination. Keep it together, you two. Do it for the kids.

Ian's birthday presents took their maiden voyage and I'm variously stiff and achy as a result, with a rime of dried sweat and a touch of the sun but no significant injuries to report. A fine afternoon in good company to fill out the criminally short weekend. (Damn it, I was just getting used to those long ones.)

Obviously, today's jaunt was undertaken solely to provide the opportunity for some kind of coincident reference to Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim's musical about Art and stuff, which I saw on Wednesday night. If only I knew someone called George I would have taken him along as well.

In any case, the Menier Chocolate Factory production of this brilliant but not unproblematic show is really splendid, with some excellent performances and very smart use of technology to portray the tricksy settings. It's certainly a sight better than the ENO's Ariodante, which I saw on Saturday, in which some vaguely pretty music and some staggeringly good singers were overwhelmed by a grotesque pantomime staging too bombastically stupid to be believed. I should have stayed at home to watch Doctor Who.

I'm sure there's been all sorts of other stuff going on, but most of that would be work-related and let's not even go there.
Posted by matt at June 4, 2006 10:26 PM