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Saturday, May 12, 2007

An anonymous pea fan e-mailed me yesterday evening asking if I'm involved with this. Apparently they're on the verge of remaking The Poddington Peas without me. It's an outrage. I had a verbal agreement that if the peas were ever reheated and served up again, the powers that be would be straight on the phone. Unfortunately the powers that be are not the powers that were, and 'The Juice' have probably never heard of me. Although judging by the ninety-second clip on their website, they haven't found anyone to write the words yet. I might have to e-mail them and ask for my old job back.

FiaschettoBut vegetables aside, I spent yesterday afternoon wandering the Streets of Brighton, desperately trying to find something worth watching. Needless to say I failed. I don't know what it is about street theatre - I love the concept, but it's always so painfully dull, and full of people who think that all you need to do to be entertaining is to put on a stupid costume and act like you're on kids' TV.

I had high hopes for Fiaschetto, mainly because she'd come all the way from Switzerland, and I foolishly thought she wouldn't have made the journey for nothing. The programme described her act thus: "What's in a box? You decide! Step into a landscape of imagination and follow this playful performance through an abstract, imaginative and acrobatic world of boxes. It's not square!". No, but it was completely pointless. I stepped into her landscape of imagination and found it totally lacking in ideas. She basically just pranced about on stage for fifteen minutes waving boxes in the air. I'm sure it goes down well in Geneva, but I just didn't get it.

Something smells fishy.Mind you, Fiaschetto (which is Swiss for fiasco) (probably) did do well to keep going in the face of interference from the Deep Sea Jivers, a five-piece band who dress up as frogmen and march up and down in wetsuits and flippers. The question "why?" springs to mind.

I'm sad to say I missed The Alexandras, a trio of deaf drag artists doing Doris Day ditties (at least that's what they think they're doing), but I did catch The Cuddly Fluffkins, who were the best thing there. Mainly because their target audience were the under-fives so they weren't insulting anyone's intelligence.

Bash Street KidsThen there was Cliffhanger by the Bash Street Theatre Company, a fifty-minute "action-packed family show" which "relives the golden era of Buster Keaton". It actually might have been ok, and I liked the fact that they'd built a wooden box for their electronic keyboard to make it look like a piano, but unfortunately the vast crowds of people who'd been driven into the Pavilion Gardens in a desperate attempt to get away from the other acts, meant that I couldn't actually see much. But I could hear it from the public toilets, which was nice.

It's my pleasure.I made my way back via Hoodwink's Pleasure Garden, a 15-minute performance of "bees, blossom and extravagant characters - can you resist the temptation?" which took place in a square plastic hedge. Unfortunately you had to queue for the privelege, which didn't sound like pleasure to me, so I resisted the temptation and went home.

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