Circus on Stage, Circus on TV, Circus on the Dancefloor

There is one scene in Nights at the Circus, close to the end, when a giant two-sided mirror spins on stage while smoke spills underneath it, strobe lights flicker from the sides and spotlights run over the faces in the audience. It can make you want to reach for the paper bag; it can make you feel so queasy that not even a tuna & cheese melt from Liverpool's Weatherspoons can calm your stomach, nor a coca-cola bottle at the launch party for the label defDrive set you straight.

But I don't regret seeing Nights at the Circus. It was like the best of Angela Carter's short stories; it had a cute guy in wet underwear, an abusive clown, tigers, singing, buckets on fire, and a pig sooooo cute you just wanted to "roll her in chocolate and call her a truffle." And Kevin got to meet two of my co-workers, and we got to see something at the Lyric Hammersmith for the first time, and I let myself be seduced by the music, and we weren't too harsh on what we saw as the play's weak points.

It was a mistake, however, to go to defDrive's party at the Great Eastern Hotel. We arrived late, I couldn't drink (because of my antibiotics), and the smell of pot drove me into sad paranoia. Half an hour of standing by a column, jackets on, watching skinny gay men dancing to piercing dance music, then the last tube home, a walk through the desolate office buildings by Paddington's canal, pissing on the stones because I couldn't wait until home, and the happy news on arrival that Chantelle had won Celebrity Big Brother.

Davina: Chantelle, please don't change.
Chantelle: I won't change. I don't even know how to change! I'm just little old me.

And a nation's heart goes bust.

Review of Land of the Dead

We've rented three movies from Paddington Library. You wouldn't believe how cheap they are for Westminster residents: 4 pounds for three movies! We just watched Land of the Dead... what a disappointment. It felt like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video found its way into Mad Max's world. The idea of self-organizing zombies was interesting, but there were too many redundant scenes, and the world of the "living" was nothing more than a sketch. It was also annoying to see zombies so quickly grabbing people who were sitting down in cafes while the shopping mall was being invaded!!? If you knew a hoard of zombies were after you, wouldn't you run like crazy? Or hide? One minute the zombies were smashing the main tower's glass doors, the next they were upon people getting up from their tables. That's what I call poor directing and script-writing.

I confess that I jumped a few times, but that's only because I have reoccuring zombie nightmares; there was no way I'd sit through a zombie horror and not get a few thrills, even if the zombies were made up of cute couples holding hands, a gas attendant, and a university student with a pony tail. What's sad is that the franchise is now left open for some kind of global fight between humans and smart zombies, which can only mean that we'll get more military-based horror films and less actual spookiness. I never felt at any point that the main characters were in danger and that, to me, always means a weak horror movie.