My Culture Show........and tell.....

Last week started well with a screening of West is West, the dung and dusted sequel to the brilliant East is East, although as a movie it does stand alone. It's been more than a decade since we first met George and his unruly Salford-raised sons. This time around it's the youngest, Sajid, who's the focus of his father's ire. Om Puri, a man whose nose must surly have it's own agent, reprises the role of the troubled George; watching him is like slipping one's foot into a well-worn pair of flip-flops, he just fits. Back too is the fabulous Linda Bassett, a woman who looks like her name sounds. Having deserted his first family, George now despairs of his second. The boy is his last hope and a return to Pakistan his only chance to save the rude young adolescent. Again drawing inspiration from his own life, the writer, Ayub Khan-Din, spoke eloquently about the loss of ethnic identity, cultural change and exchange. But this is no politiscised-God-baiting-soul search for the truth behind the lies of today's fundamentalists. There are no answers to the problems in Pakistan nor indeed are there any questions. He has instead, written a refreshingly comical romp through the heat and dust of the Punjab.

Next up was press night at the Hampstead Theatre to see Penelope by Enda Walsh. Apparently this went down very well off-Broadway. In fact the Sunday Times said:

'Best of all, though, is Enda Walsh's grandiose Penelope, which mixes classical myth with a bit of Beckett, as interpreted by Father Ted after watching an episode of Lost.'

...... if only. Personally I found it to be a load of gentleman's genitalia, of which there was rather too much on show in an ill-fitting, orange speedo, sported throughout by one of the four ensemble cast. But quite frankly, if I'd wanted to spend an evening listening to four Irish blokes shout at each other, I could have gone to Finsbury Park station.

Finally it was off to The Chocolate Menier Factory, to see the singer Judith Owen co-star with the comedienne, Ruby Wax, in Ruby's one-woman show...... as she put it ......Losing It. This is a jolly romp through the American star's life of ups and downs and depression. This is not a show for everyone, hence the small but perfectly formed theatre, but it is a show for me. The second half has Ruby and Judith on stage for a Q & A, a bold move considering the audience was made up primarily of celebrities, people with mental health issues and celebrities with mental health issues. Really, it was like one of those weired dinner-party-wish lists: Nigella Lawson and her dad Nigel, AA Gill and The Blonde and Samantha from Sex And The City to name but a few..... and for the record, Nigella in the flesh, of which we know there is plenty, looks amazing. Honestly, at 51 she looks like a fabilous 41. Really, I know she's had a bit of botox, but she is blessed with incredible cheek-bones and a jawline to die for..... Some of the comments and questions were tear-jerkingly moving. Ruby is quite genuine about her mental health and who her people are, but one woman, who clearly had not read the poster properly, said she'd found the whole thing so depressing and why would you want to talk about your depression? Oh how the rest of us laughed........

Top tip: M&S Pistachio and Almond Cookies.......I am quietly becoming addicted.....

My Blue Valentine......

For me, February is always the worst month of the year. I know many who think it is January. They believe the post-Christmas-dark-presentless month is the depth of winter and that February heralds the end of grim despair and the beginning of spring. They are optimists. And they are wrong. It's February. I try never to make a decision in February. For me, it is the month of dump, ditch and flee, an un-endingly dull-dank-relentlessly-depressing, gloomy month of long faces and short days. I've left good men and better jobs in February. I once sold my home and took my 2-year old to Mexico after one too many postcards from Koh Phangan interrupted my morning porridge....... but that's a whole other story. And this year is proving to be a bumper February with 2 funerals in 2 weeks, while the rain seeps up out of the pavements and drips down from the bare-spiked trees; the kind of damp, gray weather that blurs day into night and a good reminder why God invented long-haul travel...... And then, right in the middle, there's Valentine's Day.....

The joy of Valentine's is obviously dictated by the amount of lurve in your life on that particular day: at the beginning of a relationship it will be full of cute, funny, fluffy, handmade-never-let-this-fuzzy-feeling-end gifts and cards. Chocolates will be special, flowers big and champagne abundant. There will be ribbons and hearts and expensive dinners booked weeks in advance to fill restaurants offering 2-for-1 on every other day of the month. Or at least that's what you hope. I once hid delicious little chocolate hearts amongst the possessions of my loved one: behind his razor, in his underwear drawer, tucked in his wallet to be uncovered at work. Only to discover he didn't believe in what he referred to as a 'hallmark holiday' and gave me a supremely tacky card, bought hastily and without irony. I have however also enjoyed the gifts of love in the form of homemade-compilation CDs, heart shaped boxes of chocolates...... an instant way to secure my devotion...... a heart drawn in blood...... and yet still I was surprised at the outcome of that relationship........ monumental flowers and once a trip to Marrakech....... yes that was a good year.

Unfortunately, like the very chocolates and flowers themselves, this level of commercial love will be greedily consumed, wither and die........have you seen the utterly brilliant, if some what depressing, Blue Valentine? So to fend of the distress of this particular loveless February I shall turn the heating up to eleven, leave the postcards unread and wear my brand new, second-hand-Armani jacket ....... pinstripe, flared sleeve, Westwoodian style collar for only £30....... everyday. And on Monday I shall go to a screening of West is West, the sequel to the excellent East is East, with the screen writer himself, Ayub Khan-Din ..........I say with, I mean he'll be in the same room.

Top tip: Nurse Jackie is back, Saturday night on BBC2 and 30 Rock, Thursdays on Comedy Central....... add that to all those half-priced-post-February 14th-heart-shaped chocolates and who cares what month it is.