London, Baby!

The excuse for the trip was that Vicki had to go to a Dance conference in Middlesex. It seemed a shame to get a hotel room for only one person, so I came along in order to get full value for our money. It turned out to be London Fashion Week so I went to a catwalk show while Vicki was at the conference.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but models are extremely thin. I hope they fill out a bit once their adolescent growth spurt ends. I'm sure this one woman had a bit of giraffe in her parentage. Her neck was like Rubberman's. Perhaps that's what they mean when they talk about "supermodels".

"Oh No, my little Morris is stuck up that tree! Call the fire department!"

"No need, kindly old woman," says the expensively dressed young woman stepping out of the limo, "Rubber-Babe is here!" Suddenly she doubles in height, her arms stretching out to pluck the frightened kitty-cat from the dangerous elm and swing it down into the arms of Mrs. Mortimor. Then, with a faint twanging sound she snaps back into the limo and is off.

Aside from the unpleasantness of having to watch attractive young women prance around in revealing clothes, the show was quite fun. I also got a grab bag filled with face cream, perfume, Diet Pepsi, and discounts at Debenhams.

That night Vicki and I took in a West End musical at the Shaftesbury theatre. It was called Rent and is a modern broadway musical based extremely loosely on La Boheme. It premiered in new York in 1996 and won a gazillion awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

It's about a bunch of struggling artist types living in the East Village. AIDS plays the part of Tuberculosis. There's a documentary film-maker who shares an unheated loft with an illegal wood-burning stove with a musician with AIDS who is the Rudolpho character who falls in love with a dancer with AIDS who comes looking for a light for her candle so she can cook some smack. The film-maker's ex-girlfriend is the (can't remember her name -- Collete? -- the flamboyant chick in La Boheme). She is a performance artist now going out with a black feminist lesbian lawyer who has been cajoled into becoming her manager. The film-maker and musician used to have another roommate named Bennie who married into money and bought the building. He is planning to turn the empty lot next door into a high-tech cyber studio. This offends the artist types because a bunch of homeless are living in a tent city on the lot. Bennie is also the ex-boyfriend of the Mimi character. There is another friend in the circle named Mark who meets and falls in love with Angel who is a drag queen. Both have AIDS. Angel dies towards the end of the film. As does Mimi of course. Throughout all of this there is much singing and dancing. The music is biased towards the rock end of the spectrum rather than the Andrew Lloyd Webber end of the spectrum but still sounds like a musical.

The story is engaging and the music is enjoyable. However, none of the songs stayed with me much after leaving the theatre, nor were they particularly original. At least the motivations made more sense to me in this than in the original Boheme. It always bothered me that Mimi spends the winter in Paris, then goes south in the summer in the hopes the weather will help her, then comes back to Paris the next winter and dies. What the hell? I know people in love can be butt-stupid, but come on...

Overall, "Rent" was a flashy, fun show. I think the tunes from the original Boheme will end up having a bit more staying power, but "Rent" had much more exciting choreography.

The story behind Jon Larson, who wrote "Rent", is as tragic as the play itself. "Rent" was Jonathan's first produced play and he died the night before the play's first preview.

Vicki's conference was a one-day affair, so on Sunday we met a couple of friends at Liverpool Street Station and wandered through some of the East End markets. I almost bought a ten foot long, magnificent, solid wood table for only 500 pounds. Fortunately, before I consummated the deal I realised I didn't know anyone in the entire country who had a room it would fit in.

Feeling flush after saving the 500 pounds on the table, Vicki and I had dinner that night at fancy Covent Garden restaurant called "Tutton's" and returned by train the next day to historic Lancaster.

"No day but today" -- lyric from the show "RENT"