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Friday 2nd December 2016

5121/18041

Delighted to see Zac Goldsmith ousted in Richmond. Are the Lib Dems going to turn into the party of hope for the abandoned voters of the middle ground and those of us who wanted to Remain? I would never have predicted that even five months ago, but with the Tories going to the right to try to compete with UKIP and Labour going so far to the left that they seem to be agreeing with the Tories on quite a few things it would be great if a coalition of the middle could out UKIP UKIP, by electing normal people into power, and ousting the venal career politicians and billionaires pretending that they are vying for the working classes. Surely someone has to stand up to the craziness of us leaving the EU, but apparently paying for all the benefits of EU membership, so we end up having a shitter deal with slightly less stuff and no actual change in anything. I’ve even finally learned the Lib Dem leader’s name out of respect for what his party is trying to do. It’s Tim. Tim Something. I’ve only learned the first name so far, but it’s a start.

Another jaunt to the theatre for buy family (along with Nana, Grandpa and Unky Dunky) today to see The Very Hungry Caterpillar at the Ambassadors. Having read the book I was unsure how they were going to spin this out to an hour, but it turned out they weren’t quite (the show was more like 40 minutes) but that they were going to make it more than a 10 minute show by also doing some of  Eric Carle’s lesser known works. I thought it would be quite funny if they actually refused to do the Caterpillar story, like it was hack of us to want to see it. Or at least save it for an encore. But they just did it at the end. The puppet-manipulating idiots.

So the show was a good deal shorter than the Lyric’s Father Christmas show and also a lot more expensive with tickets at an eye-popping £26.50 each, including, of course, the children. So any family with two kids would be paying out over £100 for this short show. And of course, you don’t want a long show for little kids (especially in a theatre that boasts it has no baby-changing facilities), but I think that probably made it harder for the parents to have a good time. Or for any regular kids to come and see the show. 

I preferred Father Christmas as a show too, though Phoebe did have a good time today and joined in a little bit more. There were some great puppets and an enthusiastic cast and quite a lot of strange stuff about what seahorses and various fish do with their eggs. That latter story ended with a seahorse father telling one his seahorse children that he loved it, but that it needed to go out into the world on its own. Even though it had just been born. I told Phoebe that we’d brought her to the theatre to see this because we were about to do the same. She said, “oh!” but I think because of the poignancy/cruelty of the play rather than because I threatened to send her out into the cold winter.

I think Phoebe had fun, but I am not sure the show is quite worth the high ticket fee. Go and see Father Christmas at the Lyric two and a half times instead.



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