A theatre review, by me!

 

I reviewed A Curmudgeon’s Guide To Christmas Round Robin Letters for The LGBTQ Arts Review last week. I really enjoyed the play (letters! lesbians! audience participation in a good way! hats! a small cry!), the venue is fantastic, and I felt all Christmassy and wonderful afterwards.

Read my review and get yourself a ticket – it’s on until 23rd December at the Hope Theatre in Islington.

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Frieda Loves Ya – Vault Festival

On Friday night, I saw Frieda Loves Ya at the Vault in Waterloo. I reviewed it for The LGBTQ Arts Review: check it out here.

London Lies Beneath – Stella Duffy

A bone angel, all that was left of a farm and a view and a hope of prosperity. An angel that Ida prayed to, not believing it was magic, not believing that it wasn’t. Beautifully carved it was though, lovingly made, meant to pass on and protect.

Alice in Wonderland – The British Library

A few weeks ago, I met up with some friends to go to the Alice In Wonderland exhibition at the British Library. Despite having lived in London most of my life, and working in a library for over three years, I’d never actually been into the British Library before: I’d been to a talk about women and regional diversity in media, and I went to an Amanda Palmer gig there, but as those were both in the auditorium, I don’t feel like they really count as actual visits… So I was very pleased to finally go!

A Winter Walk

Many of my family memories are of going on walks, but, what with my brother being away at uni, and me working some Saturdays, we don’t go on as many as we used to, except when we’re on holiday, so we took the opportunity of the post-Christmas bank holiday to go for a walk in London.

On being a luxury bitch

Last Saturday, I had an accidental day of luxury. Well. It started out accidental, until I embraced it. “Today is luxury bitch day”, I declared, and I meant it.

Book challenge #30: A classic romance

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Winifred Watson

“All these years she had never had the wicked thrill of powdering her nose. Others had experienced that joy. Never she. And all because she lacked courage.”

Back in April, Kat Brown wrote about how, when doing her tax return, she discovered that, in one year, she had bought seven copies of Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day as gifts, and “it’s got to the stage where I dole out my favourite like medicine”. So when, several months later, I was feeling particularly rotten, she suggested I read it. I dutifully went into Waterstones on an otherwise dull shopping trip, and picked up the spectacularly beautiful Persephone Books edition, and have been reading it on the train.

Reading challenge #2: A book set in your hometown

The Room of Lost Things, Stella Duffy

This is cheating a bit, maybe.  I grew up in London, which is too big to choose as a hometown, really, so probably I should choose a book set in my borough.  But that’s more difficult than it seems, when so many novels forget that south London exists at all: there are countless books set in the rich houses of the west, the alleyways of gritty east, always north of the river, but the south, not so much.  My part of the south, hardly ever.  So it’s a treat to find a book that really talks about the places I know, places within a single bus ride.