Aladdin at Putney

As Brett hasn’t been back at work this week, he still hasn’t really adjusted from Texas-time and he’d asked me to kick him out of bed when I woke up this morning. As it happened I slept through until nearly 11am, but I took him at his word and made him get out of bed and bring me breakfast while I caught up with some investing tasks online.

Ping rang while I was drinking my coffee and we caught up a bit and discussed future cinema outings. He seems to have recovered from the funk that has enveloped him over recent weeks and was fairly cheery. He declined my invite to lunch though, as he was going out on a date this afternoon.

By the time we actually started on the day it was already half over, but we got some laundry done and took the Christmas tree down and I got all my bills paid and my money balanced.

Around four-ish, we took the bus into Putney. Brett went for his comics while I went to the Café Nero, had a mocha and read my book (currently; The Long Way Round, which tells of the journey of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman riding their motorbikes from London to New York by heading East. An enthralling read – I would so love to do something similar, although probably not on a bike!)

Brett came and joined me in due course before we met up with John W, Rich C and David S for a drink and then onto the Panto!

Stuart, the Chorus’ choreographer, was performing in an amateur production of Aladdin at the Putney Arts Theatre as The Slave of the Ring; a role which gave him plenty of opportunity to camp it up beautifully and have the audience rolling in the aisles with some very risqué double-entendres. (To coin a phrase; some of the humour was very near the knuckle!) He was absolutely the star of the show though and we congratulated him heartily in the bar afterwards.

We (John, Rich, David, Brett & I) went on for a late supper at Ma Goa, a stylish, modern Indian restaurant just across the road from the theatre. Afterwards John and Rich came back to Wimbledon and crashed in the spare room as it was gone midnight and (in fine Panto style!) most of London Transport had turned back into pumpkins.