Filth & iodine

Went to the Old Vic yesterday evening with dogrando & kitty_goth to see Aladdin, and utterly splendid it was too. Featuring Sir Ian McKellen as Widow Twanky, Joe McFadden as Aladdin in tartan bondage trousers looking like a boy-band member (he played Prentice in the BBC adaptation of 'The Crow Road'), Roger Allam as Abanazer (neverheardofhim, but investigation reveals that he is another Proper Actor, RSC stalwart, etc etc), Maureen Lipman as Dim Sum, & so on. It was Proper Panto, with audience participation & transvestism & wall-to-wall smut (of the sort that the 9-yr-old in front of me doubtless didn't get a word of, it being all double-entendre & raised eyebrows & so forth), and Proper Actors, none of your fifth-rate soap-star nonsense. Sir Ian was fantastic, appearing in a wide & exciting variety of costumes, including a varicoloured neon funfur coat, a gold & white Abba jumpsuit thing, a rather short black & pink shiny dress, & most impressively of all, a Britannia costume: gold bodice, shield, Union Jack sparkly pants, & not a lot else. He's not got a bad pair of pins on him, for a chap his age (P commented on 'the wonders of support tights...'). All appropriate panto cliches were indulged in, Abanazar was splendidly villanous in a very dry & tongue-in-cheek fashion, the songs were a bit rubbish, the audience participated gleefully, and much fun was had by all. There was a small technical hitch in the middle (just before the interval) during which Abanazer & Aladdin ad-libbed for a bit before they gave up &
brought the curtain down for a couple of minutes; we did get Maureen Lipman telling bad jokes until the stage manager reappeared, though. Much fun. Hurrah for panto.

In other news: Luthien was back at the vet yesterday - wound got infected :-( They put her under a general to clean it out, and have left it open to allow us to flush it out to keep it clean (sewing it back up again would risk further infection). So the poor little ratgirl is currently having her wound washed through with a syringe full of diluted iodine-based mixture 3 times a day, which is Not Fun for any of the participants :-/ Still, she was back at the vet this morning for another antibiotic jab, & Andrew-the-vet was pleased with how things were going, so that's good.

Filth & iodine

Went to the Old Vic yesterday evening with dogrando & kitty_goth to see Aladdin, and utterly splendid it was too. Featuring Sir Ian McKellen as Widow Twanky, Joe McFadden as Aladdin in tartan bondage trousers looking like a boy-band member (he played Prentice in the BBC adaptation of 'The Crow Road'), Roger Allam as Abanazer (neverheardofhim, but investigation reveals that he is another Proper Actor, RSC stalwart, etc etc), Maureen Lipman as Dim Sum, & so on. It was Proper Panto, with audience participation & transvestism & wall-to-wall smut (of the sort that the 9-yr-old in front of me doubtless didn't get a word of, it being all double-entendre & raised eyebrows & so forth), and Proper Actors, none of your fifth-rate soap-star nonsense. Sir Ian was fantastic, appearing in a wide & exciting variety of costumes, including a varicoloured neon funfur coat, a gold & white Abba jumpsuit thing, a rather short black & pink shiny dress, & most impressively of all, a Britannia costume: gold bodice, shield, Union Jack sparkly pants, & not a lot else. He's not got a bad pair of pins on him, for a chap his age (P commented on 'the wonders of support tights...'). All appropriate panto cliches were indulged in, Abanazar was splendidly villanous in a very dry & tongue-in-cheek fashion, the songs were a bit rubbish, the audience participated gleefully, and much fun was had by all. There was a small technical hitch in the middle (just before the interval) during which Abanazer & Aladdin ad-libbed for a bit before they gave up &
brought the curtain down for a couple of minutes; we did get Maureen Lipman telling bad jokes until the stage manager reappeared, though. Much fun. Hurrah for panto.

In other news: Luthien was back at the vet yesterday - wound got infected :-( They put her under a general to clean it out, and have left it open to allow us to flush it out to keep it clean (sewing it back up again would risk further infection). So the poor little ratgirl is currently having her wound washed through with a syringe full of diluted iodine-based mixture 3 times a day, which is Not Fun for any of the participants :-/ Still, she was back at the vet this morning for another antibiotic jab, & Andrew-the-vet was pleased with how things were going, so that's good.