Great Monkey, shame about the Dome

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I'm meant to be posting every day and end up having almost a week off. Tsk - must try harder. Anyway, I'll be back at the blogface properly tomorrow but thought I'd quickly encourage you to go and see Monkey - Journey to the West which I saw today with fellow Green Blogger Sue.


I thought it was really excellent. Definitely one of the best Mandarin language operas combined with funky animation that I've seen all year in fact. Although I was sitting behind a man with one of the most enormous heads I've ever seen (we moved in the interval which was a sharp idea that certainly paid off) and we were in the cheap seats it was still a real spectacular and the fact that it wasn't in English didn't diminish the enjoyment at all.

A funny, quirky mix of the ancient myth, traditional Mandarin opera and modern pop with animations from the creator of Gorillaz thrown into the mix it was certainly an inventive show. Me being me I have to find something to critique... so I'll probably say that I'd have liked Sandy's part to have been enlarged a little as he seemed a bit of a spare wheel a lot of the time.

I booked late but I heard one woman in the queue moaning that she'd been bombarded with marketing calls and texts in the weeks leading up to the performance and the ticket office completely messed up my tickets so I did rather come away with the impression that the venue was rather poor to be honest.

This was only to be expected I suppose as it was at the Dome, the bastard child of Mandelson and Hesseltine, which appears to be a vision of hell. Jammed packed with chain stores, designed to inconvenience you to the maximum amount in order to bring you into as much contact with the merchandisers as possible and all made up of the most horrific shallow facades. At least I'll know to expect when I get there.