Catchin' Up with what I have been doing

I have had lots of things taking up my time lately so have not been so keen to sit at my computer to write this.  I am now back into taking classes; watercolour painting, drawing, bridge, photography and my latest and newest endeavour play reading.  Play Reading is so much fun!  We are a group of about 20 people who enjoy theatre, and we sit around and take turns to read aloud the parts in a play, a different one each week.  It is a great way to enjoy plays that you wouldn't always get to see and is a lot easier than actually trying to perform them, which I would probably never do anyway.  I think it is a nice change from the general book club idea, which I must admit I am a little bored with.

I have not been neglecting going to see shows, this month I have seem some excellent performances.  At our local college, Sheridan, I saw their rendition of the musical Sweeney Todd, the students in the theatre arts program at Sheridan are so good, as good as anything I have seen in Toronto, or in London or New York for that matter!   Then I saw War Horse at the Mirvish in Toronto, I think this was better than the film version.  The life size horse puppets are amazing and all round it was a very clever and moving show.  Next up, was another performance put on by the National Theatre in London, (I adore this theatre) This time I saw the encore performance of "One Man, two guvnor's" which was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time, I would say it is my favourite from the National so far.  This show is going to be on in New York this summer, so if anyone reading this will be there do try and get tickets, but good luck because in London it was sold out all the time.  Finally, on a recent UK trip I saw Hayfever at the Noel Coward theatre, with Lyndsey Duncan and Jeremy Northam, this was no so good.  I do not know if it was because the play is not really so relevant now or the humour was just not working, but I found it slow and a bit of a disappointment.  Shame. 

I do not have any films to mention at the moment, a bit of a slow time for films right now. However, I have been catching up on a few TV to DVD series and some were well worth mentioning.  Two BBC productions that I really enjoyed were the new adaptation of 'Great Expectations' starring Gillian Anderson as Miss Havesham, of course this is where the BBC outdo everyone else when it comes to adapting great novels for the screen.  The other BBC mini series,  is 'Birdsong' an adaptation of the novel by Sebastian Faulks.  This is about a love affair between a young British officer in WWI who had fallen for a beautiful married French women and in true dramatic form their love is destined not to survive.  It is beautifully filmed, and terribly sad, but get yourself a big glass of wine, some sweeties, and hankies and settle down to enjoy.