ohDearyme

‘My mind has been dull since the days of my youth’

Last night was my first ever trip to the opera house…no no no.. you’ve got it wrong.. I’m not talking about The Opera House in Bournemouth – I’m talking about the Opera House.. oh sorry wrote that wrong I meant to say ‘The *Royal Opera House’ you know – the one full of prestige – the one that started up in good ole 1728… you know that’s probably about five of your grandparent eras ago I reckon…

So anyway – I was very very excited to get a press pass to one of the hottest events in town. And I mean THE HOTTEST. As I enter the slick walls of the royal building I look worryingly around for the press desk.. on my way there.. I was cornered… ‘she looks different’ ‘yes her!’ someone shouts…. They wanted to take a photo of me. A photographer for a documentary on ‘art’ to be shown within the very same building it seems. So I stood there trying to look arty and sophisticated and that I go to the royal opera house nearly every Wednesday don’t you know… whilst they took photos of me for their exhibition ‘Wayne McGregor’s Deloitte Ignite 08’ – apparently of the different sorts of people that go to operas. As I said I go every week.

So I’m sitting.. waiting for the lights to go out.. at the front of the opera house.. when Phil Daniels asks me to stand up so he can get to his seat. Then Dave Rowntree enters and sits to the left. And I have a flashback to 1994. Of the billions of posters on my wall of Blur. ‘Are you reviewing?’ the lady on my right asks interrupting my thoughts on how although Dave Rowntree looks older he still looks pretty much exactly the same except for his glasses and maybe being a little bit chubbier. She is the classical reviewer for the guardian.. and I think fuck.. I bet she’s the dogs bollox when it comes to operas. I bet she could operaeat her way right through my blog and …as I’m mumbling some crap about blag blogs back at her.. thinking ‘why oh why didn’t I just say I was working for a nice respectful paper’.. she turns to me.. mid sentence …and looks me in the eye – ‘the most important thing in reviewing is to be confident with your opinions’.. she states… So BOOMshackalack… here we go..

It was shit. No only joking. I’m just trying to hold your attention here for more than a second. The performance started with an animation. The animation led into a great performance. Ok I’m stuck.. what do people say in these review things? I look over the guardian ladies shoulder to see.. nope. Its too dark. Damnit. Its like being at school again – why wont’ the *opera house let people take photos.. tsk.. writing is so..personable… so here we go – my review..

The Monkey starts of quite irritating in the beginning.. he is a show off and wreaks havoc around him. He is set aside by the Buddha for five hundred years however and is finally released to redeem himself on a mission to look after Tripitaka to India to bring the holy scriptures to China. And the basic story is – they meet people along the way. No not a tin man .. a pig.. no not a scarecrow.. a horse.. (see where I’m going with this) the tale does have a similarity to The Wizard of Oz but of course Monkey: Journey to the West is actually a 400 year old fable still read today in China… wikipedia however (good ole trusty wiki) does cite that –

“The Wizard of Oz has been translated into well over 40 different languages. In some cases, the story proved so popular in other countries that it was adapted to suit the local culture. For instance, in some countries where the Hindu religion is practiced, abridged versions of the book were published in which, for religious reasons, the Tin Woodman was replaced with a snake.”[8][citation needed]

So it could be questionable as to whether either of these have ever had any influence on each other. I would predict the wizard of oz would have been influenced by Monkey: journey to the west.. what do you reckon? Anyone still reading this?

So as the story commences – you really do fall in love with monkey’s characters as he begins his pilgrimage. The little guys got balls. Well he is a guy yes – but he has extreme cheek and charisma. He really is hilarious at the Volcano City – where he abruptly stops the romantic singing bringing the audience back to life like a bolt, as the storyline mocks the occasional slowness of the plot. Chen Shi Zheng – the Director and sidekicks – Albarn, Hewlett and Dalian– have done an amazing job of bringing this story to the West.. the martial art is truly amazing and the set design is beautiful. The only shame is that the subtitles are at the top of the stage. This makes it really hard to read them and watch the performance. To be honest I kept missing most of the storyline as I was far too enchanted with what was happening on stage. But this wasn’t much of a problem as I still got the story. Honestly. I did.

The performance ended with a standing ovation. (Did I cut that description too short? Sorry but I really do think you should just go see the show.. honestly.. I really cannot describe it as well as it will be visually pleasing to your eyeball).

As I leave the *opera house I see Paul Simonon standing with a group of people. My mind flits back to the story he told me of him blagging it into an art gallery in Paris (Latitude 2007 video diary).. and 50% of me wants to tap him on the shoulder and tell him about my first ever ROYAL opera house experience wondering if he’d appreciate the story. But instead… I put on my headphones.. and laugh to myself about how truly random life can be. About how important it is to be an irrepressible Monkey. And how lucky I am to be going again with my friends on Saturday…