We saw Damon Albarn's Chinese Opera at the weekend... It was incredible! For those of you who don't know (this would've included me before the weekend) Monkey is based on an old Chinese fable about a monkey who is born from a stone egg, eats too many peaches of immortality in heaven and is imprisoned by Buddha for 500 years before being released and being tasked with helping a monk to bring scriptures back from the West, facing lots of obstacles and challenges like the Skeleton Demon and Spider Woman. Oh and there's a pig man, some other guy and a horse helping too. So the storyline is pretty easy to follow...
It's a great production, although I must confess to thinking "That's just a guy in a tracksuit with a tail... where's the monkey I was promised?" when we first walked in. It was especially odd because we arrived just as it started and they were very disorganised. I asked the usher to help us find our seats and he looked at the tickets, gestured vaguely with the torch and said "go round the back, they're over there". Obviously not the best directions, so we ended up watching the first half crouched in the aisle!
Anyway, it mixes Jamie Hewlett's animation with Gorillaz-style beats with chinese opera with buddhism with martial arts with Cirque Du Soleil type acrobatics with a bunch of girls spinning plates while doing forward rolls.
It's a real spectacle, I think it's only on a short while longer, but I'd recommend it. Plus you get to see the Millenium Dome and think "Hmm, not as big as I thought".
Here's a link to a trailer for the Opera: http://www.monkeyjourneytothewest.com/the-opera/gallery-video/opera-videos/opera-trailer
Enjoy!
Bex xx
Showing posts with label Monkey Journey To The West. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monkey Journey To The West. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Friday, 21 November 2008
DO'D and Monkey!
Hello!
We saw David O' Doherty last night at Just The Tonic at the Approach. While the food was revolting - so bad we took it back and the manager actually looked embarrassed - David O'Doherty was great. If you've never been to Just The Tonic it's a comedy club which used to be at The Old Vic (now Escucha?!) and has had just about every big comedy name who's not shit playing there. It's really worth going along even if you haven't heard of the people playing because generally the standards are pretty high.
Anyway, you can see David O'Doherty here.
It's really very rare to enjoy musical comedy. A few years ago we saw him and Flight of the Conchord on the same night. We hadn't heard of either and were gutted to see two musical acts on the bill, given their high propensity for shitness, but both were amazing and we had to eat our words. Like when we saw Alan Carr at the Christmas JTT special and I booed a little bit when he came out because I thought he was crap from the Friday Night Project, then I laughed a lot and had to eat humble pie. He's very funny in person.
Anyway, DO'D was great! Next we're off to see Monkey Journey To The West in London this weekend. I don't actually know what it is much, so I'm off to do some internet research...
BYE!
Bex
x
We saw David O' Doherty last night at Just The Tonic at the Approach. While the food was revolting - so bad we took it back and the manager actually looked embarrassed - David O'Doherty was great. If you've never been to Just The Tonic it's a comedy club which used to be at The Old Vic (now Escucha?!) and has had just about every big comedy name who's not shit playing there. It's really worth going along even if you haven't heard of the people playing because generally the standards are pretty high.
Anyway, you can see David O'Doherty here.
It's really very rare to enjoy musical comedy. A few years ago we saw him and Flight of the Conchord on the same night. We hadn't heard of either and were gutted to see two musical acts on the bill, given their high propensity for shitness, but both were amazing and we had to eat our words. Like when we saw Alan Carr at the Christmas JTT special and I booed a little bit when he came out because I thought he was crap from the Friday Night Project, then I laughed a lot and had to eat humble pie. He's very funny in person.
Anyway, DO'D was great! Next we're off to see Monkey Journey To The West in London this weekend. I don't actually know what it is much, so I'm off to do some internet research...
BYE!
Bex
x
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