The Lonely Londoner: MY WEEKEND PT. 2

Bare with me people; it's been a weird one. I mean a weird time for me at the mo. I'm pretty busy now that the week has started and seeing as it's already Tuesday here and my weekend was spent in a puddle of tears, I decided that even though a blog is for dwelling on things, I think the best thing for me to do is not dwell too much on how bad of a time it was. I must remain positive about the here and now.

I can't say it was ALL bad though. I mean apart from breaking my shopping ban to buy a heavily discounted GHD hair straightener, not kissing and making up with my best friend from a raging religion-fuelled row(which is so taboo. NEVER TALK ABOUT RELIGION AND POLITICS WITH PEOPLE!), and crying once again into the wee hours of Monday morning on Skype with my ex, I had a great Sunday. My favouritest Londoner cousin Barmaid Becks turned 20 on Sunday and we had such a super and cultured day. I missed the Tate Modern Man Ray exhibition part of the day because I woke up late and was busy searching for Bjork tickets for us; which are now at £100! But after that we met up and went to Riverside Studios in Hammersmith for a Hamlet play.

Oh but this was like no other Hamlet play, my friend. It's a group of over 100 actors who take turns putting on this VERY VERY improv performance. I mean, the audience had to bring our own weird and interesting props, some of us had to play some of the roles, we were even ushered off to watch each scene in a new setting unknown to the actors, and Hamlet wore an awesome neon David Bowie t-shirt, skinny jeans and white Chucks. It was the coolest experience and it is very underground, so they gave every one a letter in the end to tell us more about them. It starts like this:

"Thanks for all your involvement in tonight's performance of Hamlet.

The success of each night is entirely down to you the audience members.

The production hopes to continue moving around each week, to as many varied and interesting places that we can find to perform in."

"Due to the nature of the show, we often don't know where we will be performing next. In addition, we have no money, and don't spend any money on advertising."

"We love the fact that since its first performances in September 2007, we have secretly performed to enthuasiastic audiences, who have kept their ear to the ground and have found out where and when we are performing."

So, I grabbed some of their uber cool badges, stickers and wallet cards at the door to spread the word. I think you'd like it. Also, you gotta promise to add their group 'The Factory' to your Facebook groups. I'm doing so right now. I especially liked that the crowd was so involved and had to supply the props. I walked with a particularly large push point pen which they eventually grabbed from me and used as a sword or something, not sure. Barmaid Becks' bottle of Heinz ketchup was of course used for the blood (Ophelia smeared it all over the stage and her face, and slapped some on people's wrists in the crowd. UGH!). Some of the cooler props I saw when they told us to raise them over our heads before each act for the actors to come around and choose were:

A Ghostbuster's ghost catcher pack (what were they called?)

A head of lettuce (which was shredded on stage)

A large carton of skimmed milk (which was poured on someone as poison)

Various goblin masks, and

Two large packaged cookies baked into the shape of breasts complete with M&M nipples

Convinced you have to see it yet? I love how they ended the letter as well, because it's true!:

"We'll hopefully see you again at another show, which will be entirely different!"

ACT 1 was in a cold dank tunnel just outside the theatre. We lined the walls while they performed runway style.

I didn't get very many good pictures but I like this one because it looks like my friend Fi(pink scarf) is in that scene in Garden State where everything is moving lightning speed fast around a motionless Zach Braff.