Pirate Copy

It has been quite a week in all with 2 shows to attend and the chance to catch up with old friends both physically and metaphorically. The first old friend came in the shape of another production from the Carl Rosa Opera Company, to wit, The Pirates of Penzance. I was rather enjoying this production. It was a little hammy in places but I was very impressed with Ruth played by Beverly Klein, who I had seen last year in Fiddler of the Roof as Golde. Anyway things were going quite well and Roger, my date for the evening, was rather enjoying his first G & S. Well, I knew there were some highlights ahead, but even I wasn’t ready for Jo Brand as the Sergeant of Police. Now, don’t get me wrong, I find Brand an innovative and highly amusing comedienne. I have always been a fan of her stand-up comedy and usually enjoy her contributions to chat-shows etc. But here she was simply awful.

I have since heard that Brand has lent her talents to a number of unusual tasks lately and this is simply one of those things to accomplish - the West End Show. Well my comment is “Do that on your own time, honey, not ours!” Brands presence here is a con to the paying public; an experiment that should never had left the rehearsal room without the director saying – “Nah, the punters deserve better than this.”

Anyway, this aside, Pirate got me thinking and I thought it would be a great opportunity to post the picture of me as the Pirate King, circa 1992 – eeek, that’s 17 years ago!!!! Then as I pondered over this image, I suddenly remembered that for a long while this was my Gaydar picture. We are talking about 6 years ago or thereabouts. It was the only decent picture I had of me, remembering that this was in a period when it was still acceptable not to have a picture on Gaydar.


This is also the reason why I first read Howard's Blog - the incomparable Coterie of Zombies. There was a link somehow where he is called the Pirate King so I just assumed it was another G & S fan. Naturally having met him in person, he is a tad more Iolanthe, than Pirate King - hee hee!


Anyway the other friend I met up with after many months was Chris. I had spent the evening in the charming company of Maude Maggart - although I had actually spent the evening with Scott. Then we all headed over to meet Chris and finally ended up at the Retro Bar. It was good to see him again and looking so well. He should lay off the sauce, though......he always ends up with so many dodgy guys.