Loading ...- Category:
- Soap Box
- Author:
- Phil Scott
- Posted:
- Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Sunday. I head out early, nursing a hangover, to meet a friend for pre-lunch brunch. I wait in a churchyard just off High St, Kensington. The friend doesn’t show. When he gets in touch he’s all apologies but thinks we didn’t confirm.
Isn’t agreeing on a time and place a confirmation? Not to the English, apparently. You have to call them over and over again, because they hate going out and have to be convinced there’s no other option. I could kill time in the churchyard by doing a rubbing, but there are too many children around.
By chance, I watch the end of the St Patrick’s Day Parade. It’s a sexless Mardi Gras as seen through green-tinted glasses. After the brass bands, floats and fancy dress, the last group in the parade is a handful of tired old sods carrying a banner that reads: Irish Temperance Society. The quintessential afterthought.
I lunch at Nobu, an exclusive Japanese eatery on Park Lane. The tab for five people comes to over A$1000. I announce that the Star Observer will cover it. Sake makes you say things like that. One of the Priscilla producers generously pays instead. (Phew!)
Monday. The weather is warming up and Soho is teeming with boys in T-shirts and singlets. Some of the pumped-up arms indicate they have been working out right through the harsh winter. What dedication! They are like pale, exotic blooms that can only be viewed for a few days each year.
Tonight’s Priscilla crowd is mixed. On my right is a sour little man in a cloth cap who never laughs, smiles or claps. The odd one out, he doesn’t come back after interval. On my left is a chubby Scandinavian girl who saw the show on Saturday and has returned for a second look. I ask if she’s a fan of the movie. She’s never heard of it.
Tuesday. I’m at the O Bar for a birthday party, with my friend Fabian and his English rose boyfriend Tim. Tim choreographs, plays eight musical instruments, is currently appearing in Sunset Boulevard, and looks like Zac Efron with bigger teeth. Fabian writes a hip gay blog as Sam London. They’re clever boys.
The club is under the street, cramped, loud, with sticky floors. Dance clubs are the same the world over.
Wednesday. Tonight, Priscilla broke down. (The bus, that is.) It is run by five computers, which all have to talk to each other. In human terms, that’s the same as five drag queens working together.
The audience is offered refunds and sent home. This kind of problem is what previews are designed to deal with, but it’s still bloody scary. Last week, the bus behaved. Now she’s getting temperamental and we’re four days away from Press Night.
One of the senior creative people put it succinctly: If this happens when the critics are in, we’re toast. He didn’t mean The Toast of the West End.
Tags: London, Nobu, O Bar, Phil Scott, Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical
