In which Orlando Wells arrives precisely on time
I took a random day off work yesterday to spend walking in the Oxfordshire countryside with Terrie, but alas my ankle joint was suddenly strucken with the most exquisite agony and so pleasure walking was all but impossible. We opted instead for a day out in London's fashionable West End. After all, when life gives you lemons you just have to make limoncello.
We started off with a breakfast of popcorn and coffee while 'watching' The A-Team. I say 'watching' because we really spent most of the time giggling to ourselves and discussing why The A-Team is so awful. Usually we'd refrain from chatter to avoid irritating other members of the audience, but in this case we were the only people there (apart from a tramp who sat at the back, who didn't seem to mind at all).
The A-Team is such an awful movie because: (a) They seem to have spent as much time working out the plot as I did writing this review; (b) They weren't quite sure if they were doing camp comedy, serious action movie or A-Team parody, and ultimately it just ended up being a mess; and (c) The action scenes - even if tongue-in-cheek - were poorly conceived, poorly executed, poorly directed, poorly edited and poorly received. Charlie's Angels II: Full Gusset this absolutely was not.
After our cinema disappointment we headed into China Town for a fabulous lunch of sushi, sashimi and miso soup. It's odd they call it China Town as it's only two streets, and there is a good mix of Korean, Malaysian and Japanese places there too (possibly China Town is a last outpost of the Qing Dynasty). The sushi was staggeringly fresh - knocking Yo!Sushi into a cocked hat - and the fresh, unguent fish oils must have worked wonders on my ankle since while it took great effort to hobble down the stairs into the restaurant, I bounded right back up on the way out. It was only as I strode through the streets of Soho with Terrie struggling to keep up that I realised my ankle was completely healed.
We celebrated my miracle by going to see Twilight: Eclipse, about which the only positive thing I can say is: It Was Better Than The A-Team. The plot was complete shite (recipe: take two parts of Dawsons Creek, add one episode from the last season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, shake until ruined). I thought there might at least be some appeal in seeing hot werewolf boys wander around topless, but they all looked about fourteen years old and were completely bland. The lead werewolf Jacob was also profoundly ugly, like he was permanently screwing up his face, and spoke in a whiney high-pitched voice (I understand this is known in WAG circles as the 'Beckham Effect'). Rob Pattinson was also precisely as unattractive as I expected: he has the nose of Sylvester Stallone on the face of Richard O'Brien, and it's not a combination I'll pay to see again.
A glass o' wine at the Grape Street Wine Bar and a retro 1970s supper in a decrepit Italian restaurant on Bow Street rounded off the afternoon (think veal escalopes and duck in orange sauce), leading us to the real entertainment of the evening: An Audience With Orlando Wells at the Fortune Theatre off Drury Lane.
Orlando was performing in a brand new play called The Woman In Black, which starts out as comedy and quickly evolves into a horrifying ghost story. The scares were all achieved through standard mechanisms - loud noises, sudden darkness, screaming - but they did so particularly well and it was really very well written. I didn't find it especially scary myself, but two young children in the seats directly in front were visibly distressed and so I enjoyed it vicariously through their eyes. As we left, I heard one wee boy remark in a feint voice, "Its only made me more scared of the dark... I'll sleep with the light on tonight, mummy."
It's only been showing at the Fortune since 1989, so if you fancy seeing it you'd better book now.
And then bed.
We started off with a breakfast of popcorn and coffee while 'watching' The A-Team. I say 'watching' because we really spent most of the time giggling to ourselves and discussing why The A-Team is so awful. Usually we'd refrain from chatter to avoid irritating other members of the audience, but in this case we were the only people there (apart from a tramp who sat at the back, who didn't seem to mind at all).
The A-Team is such an awful movie because: (a) They seem to have spent as much time working out the plot as I did writing this review; (b) They weren't quite sure if they were doing camp comedy, serious action movie or A-Team parody, and ultimately it just ended up being a mess; and (c) The action scenes - even if tongue-in-cheek - were poorly conceived, poorly executed, poorly directed, poorly edited and poorly received. Charlie's Angels II: Full Gusset this absolutely was not.
After our cinema disappointment we headed into China Town for a fabulous lunch of sushi, sashimi and miso soup. It's odd they call it China Town as it's only two streets, and there is a good mix of Korean, Malaysian and Japanese places there too (possibly China Town is a last outpost of the Qing Dynasty). The sushi was staggeringly fresh - knocking Yo!Sushi into a cocked hat - and the fresh, unguent fish oils must have worked wonders on my ankle since while it took great effort to hobble down the stairs into the restaurant, I bounded right back up on the way out. It was only as I strode through the streets of Soho with Terrie struggling to keep up that I realised my ankle was completely healed.
We celebrated my miracle by going to see Twilight: Eclipse, about which the only positive thing I can say is: It Was Better Than The A-Team. The plot was complete shite (recipe: take two parts of Dawsons Creek, add one episode from the last season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, shake until ruined). I thought there might at least be some appeal in seeing hot werewolf boys wander around topless, but they all looked about fourteen years old and were completely bland. The lead werewolf Jacob was also profoundly ugly, like he was permanently screwing up his face, and spoke in a whiney high-pitched voice (I understand this is known in WAG circles as the 'Beckham Effect'). Rob Pattinson was also precisely as unattractive as I expected: he has the nose of Sylvester Stallone on the face of Richard O'Brien, and it's not a combination I'll pay to see again.
A glass o' wine at the Grape Street Wine Bar and a retro 1970s supper in a decrepit Italian restaurant on Bow Street rounded off the afternoon (think veal escalopes and duck in orange sauce), leading us to the real entertainment of the evening: An Audience With Orlando Wells at the Fortune Theatre off Drury Lane.
Orlando was performing in a brand new play called The Woman In Black, which starts out as comedy and quickly evolves into a horrifying ghost story. The scares were all achieved through standard mechanisms - loud noises, sudden darkness, screaming - but they did so particularly well and it was really very well written. I didn't find it especially scary myself, but two young children in the seats directly in front were visibly distressed and so I enjoyed it vicariously through their eyes. As we left, I heard one wee boy remark in a feint voice, "Its only made me more scared of the dark... I'll sleep with the light on tonight, mummy."
It's only been showing at the Fortune since 1989, so if you fancy seeing it you'd better book now.
And then bed.