nessymon.com

Tag: West End

  • I Remember That Summer In London

    I Remember That Summer In London

    i remember that summer in London - nessymon

    Three months into 2017 and I’m still not sure what this year holds, where I’ll end up or what I’ll be doing. Most people when they say they’re unsure have some sort of a vague idea what path they’re following. But, honestly, at this point, I have no idea.

    Saying that, the next couple of months will definitely decide if myself and Talulah are going to stick around London for another while or head off to pastures new.

    I’ve worked out that there’s about 26 weeks between now and the end of August. So we’ve come up with a list of things we really should do / go to / visit before then. I guess, a bucket list of sorts.

    2017: Making a summer to remember

    The idea is to try and do one thing at least every weekend. And I’ll write about our experiences.

    I’ve already shown this to some friends and extra things have been added. If you think there’s something else we should do, let us know. Every time, we do something on the list, I’ll add a link to the blog post about it.

    London 2017 – The Ultimate Summer

    Princess Diana exhibition at Kensington Palace
    Kew Gardens
    Victoria & Albert Museum
    Natural History Museum
    Wallace Museum
    Baseball in Finsbury Park
    City of London Museum
    Thames Barrier
    National Gallery
    London Eye
    Sky Garden
    British Museum
    Portobello Road Market
    Buckingham Palace
    Westminster Cathedral
    St. Paul’s Cathedral
    British Museum
    British Library
    Carol King Musical in the West End
    Book of Mormon in the West End
    Les Mis in the West End
    Science Museum
    Tate Britain
    Tate Modern – The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection
    Houses of Parliament
    London Lions basketball game
    A football match / Premier League or First Division
    Take the Woolwich Ferry
    Take a cable car ride at the O2

    We have done / visited some of these things before, I just haven’t written about them. We may add to the list and there are some that we might’nt do at all. Either way, we’re gonna to share it all.

  • Review // The Commitments at The Palace Theatre, London

    Review // The Commitments at The Palace Theatre, London

    TheCommitments

    Tuesday June 9 2015 –  *Contains spoilers*

    I’ve never read the book but I do remember the first time I saw the film. I saw it in Navan, Co. Meath in the Lyric Cinema on Brewers Hill. At the time, many people could relate to it in Ireland. Unemployment was rife, it was pre-mobile phones, if you didn’t see your mates, you could always meet them down on the dole queue on a Tuesday. Alan Parker’s 1991 film captured it perfectly.

    That’s the way Ireland was and The Commitments, combined with a fantastic soundtrack, summed what everyone felt. We all wanted to escape. Fast forward, twenty four years, I live in London and I go to see the stage show in The Palace Theatre.

    Director Jamie Lloyd does pack a punch with his production and once the curtain raises, the first reaction is Wow! The ‘Barrytown’ high rise flats aka Ballymun (5 minutes walk from where I lived in D11 in Dublin) is recreated on stage in different levels. Different parts of the flats pull out to reveal the Rabbite household and the local pub are cleverly pushed back to create the square in the centre of all the flats. The Rabbitte household is really well executed with the front room, stairs and Jimmy’s bedroom all on show.

    You can’t beat a bit of Dublin humour and The Commitments provides that. It’s impossible to recreate everything from a book or film and at the beginning of the show, it feels a little rushed to get to a certain point in the story by a certain time. But this adds to the comic feel. The laughs are there as well as the ‘Say it once, say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud’ line. I’m always going to compare this to the film, there’s no way around it. It’s a little disappointing that the love triangle / square between Joey the Lips and the three Commitmentettes isn’t drawn out a little more. Unfortunately this leads to Joey not being the smarmy git he is in the 1991 film. The authenticity of Dublin life is kept intact. The stage show remains true to Dubspeak in all it’s fucking glory.

    But The Commitments is all about the music and it doesn’t fail to disappoint, although a couple of the big songs from the film are placed at the end of the stage show. If you like your soul music, you’ll be in heaven. It’s loud, it’s in your face and the energy from the stage is just electric. Heaven knows how they managed to do it eight times a week. Denis Grindel excels as the slightly cocky band manager, Jimmy Rabbitte. Brian Gilligan commands the stage with his vocal performance as front man and nutter, Deco. However, it’s a pity The Commitmentettes don’t get more time to shine, they’ve bloody good voices.

    Overall it’s a great night’s entertainment, the set is fantastic and I couldn’t help but laugh my bag off at the ‘Heroine Kills’ banner in the community centre, ‘The Hot Press journalist’ and ‘Eejit Records’. These people are speaking in my tongue. It’s Dublin through and through, a little rough round the edges but ye love it to bits.

    *Keep an eye out for ticket deals, we got ours for £20 each and our seats we upgraded when we got to the theatre. Nice work!