My Grand Tour of England and Wales - Part 5 of X

Day 10 - Hampton Court-Bombay Dreams-Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (Cont'd)

At the station where I got off in London, there was a guy peeing in a corner and there was so much pee, it flowed back to him after it hit the ground. I was tempted to take a picture, but he'd have punched me, so.

Bombay Dreams was showing at the Apollo Victoria theatre, and the lobby was veritably full of Indians, mostly old ladies. After collecting my ticket, I had lunch at a nearby Subway because I didn't want to chance being late, and had a Southwest Turkey Bacon sandwich - the hottest sandwich I'd ever had in my life. The menu did not label it as "hot" (as opposed to some other sandwiches), so I shuddered to think of how fiery some of the "hot" sandwiches must have been.

My seat was in row E, 5th from the stage - at only 15 pounds: Lastminute.com is good. Nonetheless, the legroom left much to be desired, so me and this American sitting beside me moved out along the row, only to be thwarted when a couple arrived at the last minute.

Perhaps due to it being a Matinee, the production that I watched was lacking in some ways - in many scenes, the lip synching was obvious to the point that I couldn't hear them singing, especially when they were speaking in what I took to be Hindi. Of course, my noticing this was helped by the revelation last year that musical (and maybe others as well) performances in large theatres always play a pre-recorded track of song, on top of which the performers sing, and my sister playing music from the show to me before I watched it. My scrutiny also revealed to me that what I thought was, in common parlance, known as the 'self-destruct button', was actually their microphones, and the wires were quite obvious trailing down bare backs. Though I wonder where the base units were hidden - perhaps in their underwear, or the cracks of their asses?

Some way into the show, I noticed that some of the "Indians" were actually ang mohs dressed up as Indians (at least half of the ensemble had Caucasian names). All of the eunuchs were Caucasian, for example. Most ironically, the male lead himself was a Caucasian (from the cast lists, I found out he was actually a chorus boy drafted in in the absence of the main lead). Guess they couldn't find enough real Indians.

Generally, the musical was cliched yet still enjoyable. The ending, though, grated. Why is it in vogue these days to include tacky post-modernist, self-referential elements in your productions? Argh.

Other notes on Bombay Dreams:
- They had 2 people to play percussion instruments, each sitting on a raised platform on either side of the stage, and one of them had the classic 'Jesus Christ' look (long, slightly curvy brown hair, moderate length beard and moustache)
- They couldn't hide their UK accents, especially when singing
- The transvestites were funny
- The choreographed mass dance scenes where a million extras appear from nowhere and start dancing were also funny. And I was impressed by the scenes with water fountains and rain
- The jiggling of buns and breasts was funny
- The Ms World headdress was freaky
- The pink aerobic costumes were very 'funky', especially the guys' with pink bandanas
- The fight scene with nunchakus was fun
- They didn't wait enough to take their second bow, but the encore piece made up for it
- It's very rare to find a story without love these days. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Cats, the Wizard of Oz and Joseph and the Amazing Techniclour Dreamcoat
- There were binoculars for rent at the back seats - disgusting
- There were primary school kids who came out of the theatre dancing (badly and out of sync) to and singing "Shakalaka Baby" (out of tune)

After Bombay Dreams ended, I had another musical to catch - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. The nearest stop to the theatre was Covent Garden and being bored and having time to kill I once again climbed the 201 steps for what I think was at least the 2nd, and maybe the 3rd time. After my ascent, I was sitting by the side of the station to recover but got suffocated by cigarette smoke, so my head remained dizzy for a while.

After collecting my ticket at the New London theatre, I noticed that the place where I'd had a meagre dinner before catching Cats in 2001 was closing. I actually wanted to have dinner there again, but there was no food left. I walked a short distance over to an Indian restaurant, "Spice of London", which claimed to be a branch of a famous restaurant from India, which offered a pre-theatre set menu, including a "dissert of the day" (which so amused me, I took a picture of it). One of the staff probably mistook my photo taking for intense interest in their set, and came out, describing the Lamb Tariwala as "spicy". I figured that, this being a place catering to Ang Moh palletes, I should be okay. Besides, I think I'd passed it over for the joint that was now closing down 2 years ago, so I figured I should give it a shot.

So it turned out that I was right. The Lamb Tariwala tasted of a pleasant blend of spices, and in fact was less hot than the sandwich I'd had for lunch. The Naan was crisp and the rice fragrant. There was good food, and good service to boot, though I had to press the waiter before he served me tap water, attempting to pull off the "still or sparkling?" routine when I first asked, which I naturally did not fall for.

Entering the New London theatre and going up the escalator, it was striking how many shows had run at the theatre from 1973-1981, but only one from 1981-2002. I noticed that they'd done extensive renovations since Cats, with its unique stage, had vacated the theatre. At least half of the seats must have been reconfigured. As with Bombay Dreams, I got an amazingly good seat which also cost around 15 pounds, but that may partially have been because the theatre was rather empty.

From the start, Joseph struck me as being very much tied to its start as a school musical. From having a narrator, the campy children's choir, and a wealth of American cultural references, to the blow up sheep and Egyptian Cheerleaders, the music largely played on synthesisers and the corniness, it just screamed "school musical". There were notable attempts at making it look less cheapskate (eg fire eating, Brazillian dancers) but overall, they didn't succeed. But then, maybe they didn't want to.

I liked the lack of any direct, and the few indirect, references to Jehovah, in keeping with the spirit of the musical. But unlike most other musicals, the performers' mics were eminently visible. And I doubted Joseph's coat really had as many colours as were sung about in the song, though ("It was red and yellow and green and brown, And scarlet and black and ocher and peach, And ruby and olive and violet and fawn, And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve, And cream and crimson and silver and rose, And azure and lemon and russet and grey, And purple and white and pink and orange, And red and yellow and green and brown, Scarlet and black and ocher and peach, And ruby and olive and violet and fawn, And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve, And cream and crimson and silver and rose, And azure and lemon and russet and grey, And purple and white and pink and orange, And blue.")

Strikingly, Joseph had the most protracted encore scene I'd ever seen, which managed to get most of the small audience off their butts and up clapping and singing, except for a bellicose, diehard group centred around me which stubbornly remained seated. One happy side-effect of the cast's encouraging of everyone to stand up and sing along was that they got a free standing ovation at the end!


Misc notes:

Hwa is terrible at doing housekeeping. His camera's memory card still had images from before my last visit on it.

Some grafiti is quite well done, with artistic merit, even.

In some ways, the shadow of the SAF lingered over me - I even had (bad) dreams of camp, and often I found myself not enjoying myself as much as I should have.

There was this female tube driver whose verbosity rivaled that of the pre-recorded announcements in SMRT stations. At each station, she would offer a verbose, informative and polite announcement. Another day, there was a man doing an announcement over the PA system in the station with a level of enthusiasm approaching that of a football commentator - he told the ladies the next train would have no seats, but the gentlemen'd surely give up their seats for them.

The travel time from Leicester Square station to Covent Garden is about 2 seconds. What's the point? What's the point, too, of playing announcements in both the train and the station? The result is that neither will be heard nor heeded.

The Indian restaurant I had dinner in on Wednesday had this green (jade?) sculpture of a dragon and phoenix, with a ball rotated by flowing water - a uniquely chinese artifact.

They still sell 500ml bottles of Coke in London, unlike evil Singapore where we've had 390ml bottles at 500ml prices for many few months already.

I declined beggars' pleas throughout my trip. Yeh. I actually saw an anti-begging poster saying 80% of the money's used for drugs and alcohol - I don't know about that.

I wonder how the British stand summer with few fans and even fewer air-conditioners.

TO BE CONTINUED - The End Is Nigh