[Yes, that title's a reference to Darby O'Gill and the Little People. It's still practically St Patricks' Day, so bite me if you disapprove of my obscure 'Irish' references.]
I have definitely been paying homage to my Irish roots this
weekend, and I know my liver will be quite happy to return to a state of
normality over the next few days. But, an awesome time was had throughout, and
I was able to engage in some much-needed catching up with friends…
Friday (16 March) found me meeting up with my friend EN—the
other student from Columbia who’s attending UEL—for a late dinner. And I mean late! Initially we had difficulty
finding anyplace that was still serving dinner because it was after 10 PM. Finally, on the verge of
absolute starvation, we stumbled into a place called Maxwell’s in Covent Garden...what we didn’t catch was the blub about it being the “best
American restaurant in London.”
Seriously.
After we caught on—somewhere between seeing the large
portrait of ‘Aunt Jemima’ that loomed over my shoulder, and the giant, golden
Presidential Seal that was visible over EN’s shoulder—I was forced to ask her why it was that we kept winding up in
American cafes? (You may remember from this post that the first time we toured around London together we also wound up in such a
setting—quite by accident, I assure you!) We never did come up with an answer.
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| You can actually catch a glimpse of the 'Aunt Jemima' poster on their website! *SMDH* |
At any rate, the food was both okay and reasonably priced. Sadly, the waiter sucked—he was so busy schmoozing with the table behind us about his time in Italy that it took almost 20 minutes (I was timing it) to get his attention so that we could request the check. In the end, we didn’t leave Maxwell’s until about 12:15 AM. That’s right: A.M. Suffice to say, I won’t be rushing back to dine there anytime soon.
Freed from Maxwell’s, we headed to Soho—turns out EN had
never been to a gay club before, and I was determined to rectify this grave oversight in funness. (Yeah, I know that's not a real word.) Though EN and I had wristbands to get into G-A-Y Bar from earlier in the night, they were already closed, and so we headed to Village instead. We had enough time for exactly one drink, accompanied by a bartop performance of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Think’
(the 'Blues Brothers' version, one of my favorite songs) as rendered by a queen and some scantily
clad men, before Village too shut down. Le
sigh. A bit disgusted, we called it a night.
Whereas Friday wound up being an early night (relatively
speaking), last night was anything but…but I’ll get to that in a moment.
First things first: my Saturday night started off with a
trip to Leicester Square Theatre in order to catch the divine (and problematic)
Joan Collins in her one-woman show ‘One Night with Joan.’
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| Two Sexy Bitches? |
It was everything I expected it to be, and more!
Basically, the gist is that you
have an auditorium filled with middle-aged gay men who are hootin’ and
hollerin’ as Collins sits back and tells them (us) about her sordid life—everything
form her childhood, to first-husband Maxwell Reed’s attempt at selling her to “an Arab sheik for £10,000”, to Marilyn Monroe’s
advice about the Casting Couch. In all, no big shocks there, and pretty much what you
would expect from such a performance.
But it really
was funny in that uber-campy way! Her stories about run-ins with the likes of Joan Crawford (her namesake) and Bette Davis were riotous, and she never once hesitated to make fun of her own acting abilities and/or the roles that she's accepted during her career! (And yes, she did make a dig at Linda Evans/Krystle, and joked about the shoulder pads being so large that the women had to enter rooms sideways.) There were so many names dropped during the show that I was tripping over them as I left. Also, putting her ‘bitch’ reputation
on display for the audience, Ms. Collins started heckling a drunken guy in the
audience during the second act for the way he laughed—that's right, she heckled an audience member. Fortunately he didn’t seem to mind.
And how
could I talk about the actress behind Alexis
Morell-Carrington-Colby-Dexter-Rowan-Colby without addressing her ensemble? Ms.
Collins spent the first act in a heavily sequined, black, off-the-shoulders
number that was highly reminiscent of the Catwoman costumes from the Adam West
era. (NB: This is different from the costume seen in the video and picture above.) And then, for the second act, she switched into a white-and-gold gown that
could have come from the Dynasty
costume department. Awesome!
As for the theatre itself, it was super-small! My ticket—though
it was billed as being off to the side and near the back—was practically in the
center and only twelve rows back, owing to the size of the place. I could see
everything perfectly, including the little puff of smoke (vapor) coming from
Ms. Collins’ cigarette. Also related to the performance space, I have to give
major props to the Leicester Square Theatre staff for getting in on the
fun: the announcer's voice at the beginning—the one that tells the
younger people to silence their cell phones and the older people to unwrap
their Wearther’s Candies—concluded with, “[If we catch you taking pictures] our staff
has been trained to go the 'full Alexis' on you!” HA!
In the midst of my night with Joan I received a text from TvH asking
me if I wanted to “drink like the Irish do?” For some reason, at the time this
struck me as a challenge to my Irishness by my German friend, so I replied that
I would meet him and his friends at Village following the show. Thus began my
St Patricks’ Day shenanigans in earnest…
In total, the
seven of us went from Village, to another place with overpriced drinks that we
never caught the name of (and which might have been a club for straights), back to Village, to G-A-Y Late (circa 1:00 AM), and, finally, Heaven (around 3:00 AM). By the time I left Heaven and made it to my bus, the sun was coming up.
Shockingly, I
got up before noon and didn’t really feel any negative side-effects. Mind you,
I also didn’t try to do anything mentally or physically challenging, opting
instead to spend most of the day in bed, watching old episodes of ‘Come Dine with Me.’
Then, a little
before 5 PM, I made my way back down to central London for the third time in as
many days, this time to meet K&M at a pub called The George. The pub’s roots date back to (at least) the mid-16th-Century, and it
has been connected to Shakespeare, Dickens, and even Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. Of course, I
simply had to celebrate the history surrounding
The George with a couple of Guinnesses (Guinni?)—it would have been rude of me not to. In
all seriousness, though, it was great to
finally have a chance to catch-up with K&M—they’re such wonderful people,
and have been so kind to this lonely American abroad in so many ways.
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| The George [NB: This is not my photo!] |
So, yeah:
crazy-long weekend, but one filled with good times and great friends!
