Brunch at Balthazar

Oh, to be one of the beautiful people...

I’m not sure if Belfast has many places where the beautiful people gather.  If it does, I don’t gather with them.  But as it was our last day in London, we decided to experience a taste of the glamorous life before we returned home, and headed for Saturday brunch in Balthazar, Covent Garden.

Balthazar first opened in New York back in 1997, but now London has its very own branch of the French brasserie.  It opened last year in a blaze of hype, with dinner reservations booked weeks, if not months, in advance.  The hype didn’t appear entirely justified, though, with initial reviews not exactly glowing about the food on offer.  General consensus was that the brunch was much better than the dinner, and as my friend Julie and I couldn’t say no to chance to start drinking in the mornings, we were happy to oblige.

Not that our morning started off very well...we made the mistake of relying on an iPhone to direct us to our destination, with some trademarked Hilarious Consequences.  We realised we were in the wrong part of London entirely ten minutes before our booking, and had to flag down a black cab to get us where we needed to be.  Which turned out to be a ten minute walk from our hotel.  I told you, Hilarious Consequences.

All of which meant we turned up at Balthazar looking less fresh than when we had set out that morning – especially as we had been carting our suitcases around with us, having checked out of our hotel. But that was fine, yes?  Just a relaxed Saturday brunch, who needs to look good?

Ah, yes.  The beautiful people.  I don’t think we expected the Balthazar staff to be quite so beautiful.  Wafer thin bodies, perfectly styled hair, expertly applied make-up...still even if we didn’t get a chance to be beautiful, we got to feel pretty cool.  Balthazar was packed, with even more people piling in behind us.  Requests for brunch from people who hadn’t pre-booked were met with a quick “we can only fit you in for an hour”.  Julie and I, on the other hand, were led to our table by our beautiful waitress, looking at the one-hour brunchers with disdain for not being as damn cool as us.

The interior of the London Balthazar all terribly New York – which is odd, really, considering the interior the New York Balthazar is a copy of French style brasseries.  The tables were fairly small, with not a lot of space between us and our brunching neighbours, but that was fine.  Or at least it would have been fine, if only one of our neighbours hadn’t been an unspeakably pretty, size 0 woman tucking into a giant sticky bun that caused me to a gain 7lbs just looking at it.  Ah, I love the taste of resentment in the morning.

We momentarily felt a pang of panic strike us when we looked at the menu and realised the mimosas we had been planning on drinking were not listed.  Fortunately when we mentioned this to our waitress, she was happy to have two mimosas prepared for us anyway.  Clearly, tourists with burgeoning drinking problems do not faze the staff of Balthazar.

It was decided we would start the brunch with one vaguely healthy dish each.  I opted for the granola with fresh fruit and natural yoghurt, while Julie ordered the fruit salad.  My granola was fabulous, which is not a sentence I say often.  It had a lovely nutty taste to it, and with a generous helping of the yoghurt and plenty of berries, it would have been perfectly filling on its own.

Julie also enjoyed her fruit salad, which appeared to have been covered with a sort of syrup or honey glaze which was beautifully sweet and went well with the fruit.

Healthy options consumed, we then ruined our good intentions with some rapid weight gain in a basket– a basket of assorted breads and pastries.  Balthazar has its own bakery separate to the restaurant, so we had high expectations for this part of the meal.

Our basket contained slices of fresh, white bread which came with three different types of spread to go with them.  Although the chocolate spread mentioned on the menu didn’t seem to materialise, the jams and marmalade we did get more than made up for this.  We particularly loved the marmalade, which tasted like pure oranges turned into a spread, and which Julie felt sure was slightly alcohol-infused.

We also had some chocolate bread to try out, though neither of us was very impressed by it, even if we both liked the idea.  We moved on instead to our croissant, which was the lightest, fluffiest croissant either of us had ever eaten.  The pastry practically melted on our tongues.  The same could be said for the pain au chocolat we had next, although we did feel a little bit more chocolate wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Next in the basket was a giant Danish pastry, filled with plump raisins and covered in sticky glaze with sugary icing drizzled over it.  I would normally avoid Danish pastries as I find them too heavy to be enjoyable, but this too had Balthazar’s light pastry and left us feeling as virtuous as a Danish pastry the size of a man’s head can do.

We left our favourite pastry of all to the end – the almond croissant.  In retrospect, this did mean that by the time we came to eat it, we were almost entirely bread-based, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Not to worry, though, as the almond croissant was as gorgeous and light as everything that preceded it.  If I had to be very picky, I would say it could have done with a little bit more almond filling,  but considering I was ready to be rolled out of the restaurant this is a minor point.

When our bill arrived, we noticed it came attached to a Balthazar postcard – not wanting to start an argument in the restaurant over who got it to keep it, we asked our waiter if we could have another one.  He returned with a selection of postcards for the pair of us, which we thought was a nice touch.  Bloody tourists, eh?

People were still crowding into Balthazar as we left, so I would say that booking ahead is a must.  As we emerged blinking into the Covent Garden daylight, our sense of being cooler-than-thou immediately evaporated, leaving us feeling like the travel-worn, pastry-stuffed women we were.  Still, it had been nice while it lasted.

Did we buy anything that couldn’t be bought at your average Caffe Nero on a Saturday morning?  Well, apart from the cocktails, no.  And at just under £70 for the two of us, Balthazar will never been a cost-conscious option.  But if you want a brief taste of being cool along with your croissant – and not forgetting the socially approved morning drinking - it’s a good choice.  

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

It’s never a good sign when the staff at a restaurant have to be told to “wash their hands more often” – but it’s perhaps an even worse sign at a two-star Michelin restaurant.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in London, appears to have fallen foul of the same norovirus that previously closed his Fat Duck restaurant in Bray.  So, what better time to write up my norovirus-free experience of the place?

The food at Dinner is apparently inspired by “historic British gastronomy”, meaning that each dish on the menu comes complete with a year of origin next to it, with dishes dating all the way back to 1390.

Our initial impression of Dinner wasn't great – the girls at the reservations desk appeared to be judging my Primark cardigan as if I had turned up for lunch wearing an unwashed dishcloth.  However once we entered the restaurant itself, we were met by much friendlier staff who appreciated that people paying nearly £200 for lunch might not like being glared at too much.

We loved the table we were sat at – from my seat I had a great view of Hyde Park on a winter’s day, while my Heston-loving companion Julie had a view of the kitchen (and the not-terribly-unattractive chefs inside).

The cheapest wine on the menu was £25, so a bit different from my usual £5 M&S number, but we ordered it anyway in a fit of extravagance (we don’t get out much) along with some tap water.  And then on to the task of ordering food.

For our starter, we both opted for the most Heston-ish thing on the entire menu, the Meat Fruit.  Normally, anything called Meat Fruit would cause to me descend into innuendo-mode, but as I found myself in a classy joint I decided to aim for some higher ground.  The Meat Fruit is, essentially, pate shaped like an orange – as you do – with a slice of grilled bread on the side.

I had never actually eaten pate before, but as all the other starters seemed to include snails, tails and frogs legs, I was sort of at a loss as to what else to eat.  I therefore gingerly spread it on my bread, in fear I had opted for a £17.50 disaster.  I was pleased then, to find the Meat Fruit was a beautifully smooth and creamy creation, with the mandarin jelly adding a nice touch of sweetness.  Owing to my scaredy-cat spreading of pate on bread, I found I still had over half of my starter left by the time I finished my slice of grilled bread.  However, I didn’t even have to ask for another slice – as soon as the waiter saw I had finished, he let me know a second slice was on its way.

While we were eating our starter, the couple next to us was treated to a display of Heston’s famous liquid nitrogen ice cream in the making.  A waiter wheeled round his giant ice cream trolley and explained the dish with full theatricality...until the ice cream appeared to curdle, that is.  The trolley was then wheeled away and the ingredients refreshed before the couple could finally get to sample their tiny, tiny cone of liquid nitrogen happiness.

On to the main course, where Julie couldn’t quite decide between the roast halibut and cod in cider.  Our ever helpful waiter was called upon for a recommendation, and on his advice Julie opted for the cod.  We were particularly pleased by this, as he had actually suggested the cheaper of the two dishes – so no pushing of the more expensive meal on the diners.  The cod, Julie thought, was creamy, buttery and not dry in the least.

Being the fussier eater of the pair, once again I had some slight difficulty picking my main.  I’m not a big fish eater, I didn’t care for the idea of eating pigeon or umbles (entrails, don't you know?) and I didn’t want to spend £42 on steak and chips.  I opted then for the slow cooked pork belly with spelt, Robert sauce and black truffle.  I would never normally order pork off a menu as it can be a very heavy main, but this was an incredibly light dish and I cleared my plate completely.

We split one order of Heston’s famous triple cooked chips between us.  When the dish arrived, I couldn’t help but think how small it looked and how we probably should have ordered one serving each.  In the event, there were more than enough chips to go round.  The chips themselves were perfectly cooked – crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside.  Not being a big mushroom fan I avoided the mushroom ketchup that came with them, but Julie thought it was a fantastic addition.  It was, apparently, quite sweet for something made from mushrooms and contained tiny chunks of mushroom within.

On to the most important part of any meal – dessert.  Julie ordered the caramelised apple tart with Tahitian vanilla ice cream.  The tart was shaped to look like an actual apple sitting in cup of puff pastry, and contained a custard centre, while the creamy Tahitian vanilla ice cream helped the cut through the sweetness of the apple.

I, however, ordered yet another signature Heston creation – the tipsy cake.  Tipsy cake is a rum soaked brioche and, due to the preparation time, has to be ordered at the beginning of your meal.  It arrived in a small, cast iron pot and from the first mouthful I was floating on a happy, rum soaked brioche cloud.  The tipsy cake is pure comfort food, right down to the gorgeous custard it’s filled with.  It comes with a slice of spit roast pineapple, which might seem like an unusual addition but gives a nice sharp taste that clears your palette in between each rich mouthful.

Not feeling feeing even remotely rushed by the staff, we hung around for tea and coffee after our three courses had finished.  My coffee came with frothed milk to pour into it, while the loose-leaf tea came in a lovely clear glass tea pot with built-in strainer.  And just in case we weren’t already full enough, we were then presented with Earl Grey tea-infused chocolate ganache and caramelised biscuits.  Fortunately, it was just a small serving of ganache so you didn’t feel too greedy for eating it all.

In total, we were at Dinner for almost three and a half hours and at no point were made to feel like we needed to vacate our seats so other diners take our places.  By the time we asked for our bill, the sun was setting on Hyde Park and the jelly mould-style lights in the restaurant began to really stand out against the dark wood interior.  I would imagine Dinner is much more impressive looking at night time than during the day, when it all looks very neutral and traditional.

Our bill came to around £190, so a pretty pricey lunch but worth it for a one-off treat, we felt.  Our only real complaint was that, apart from the meat fruit, nothing on the menu particularly stood out for us compared to the kind of food Heston has on offer at the Fat Duck.  It was all very typical gastro-pub fare, though admittedly, very well cooked and very tasty.  And expensive.  Don't forget expensive.

All of which is why we found the news it had been temporarily closed due to the norovirus outbreak so surprising.  It’s hard to imagine any of our well mannered waiters or waitresses wouldn’t be familiar with hand washing techniques, for example.  I wouldn’t let that put me off returning to Dinner again, but maybe a little bit more Heston Blumenthal flair could be added along with the clean hands...

Fish Are Jumping, Cotton Is High

If it’s Friday, it must be Ben Whishaw.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  You spend months planning out how you’re going to That London to see three plays in three nights, and before you know it you’re taking your seats for the final play.

Unexpectedly, I found myself more excited about going to see the revival of Jez Butterworth’s Mojo than either of the previous plays.  This may have been due to the presence of Ben Whishaw.  Or, it may have been down to the fact I had an ice cream sundae the size of Mount Doom for breakfast, and half a bottle of wine at dinner. 

Either way, I arrived at the Harold Pinter theatre full of excitement.  Which quickly evaporated when faced with a sea of people pushing and shoving each other in the lobby.  And then vanished some more when I took to my seat in the Royal Circle and realised just how poor a view it offered a Hobbit like me.   Once the man seated next to me knocked over my drink as he sat down, my good mood finally shrivelled up and died.

The play itself is a defiantly male affair, set in a seedy nightclub in 1950s London.  Club owner Ezra has discovered a rising star in the form of singer Silver Johnny, and is keen to protect his young protégé from the advances of his rival, a gangster called Sam Ross.  Club workers Potts and Sweets, meanwhile, sit in the back office dreaming about the easy life Silver Johnny surely has in store for them now – “The fish are jumping and the cotton is high”, Potts declares.

However, the following morning Ezra is discovered sawn in half by his second-in-command, Mickey, and Silver Johnny has gone missing.  Ezra’s psychotic son Baby takes the news of his father’s murder in a daydream-like manner, and as his mental stability begins to crack even further the men grow increasingly fearful for their future.

Mojo gets off to a great start – Silver Johnny silently gearing himself up for the evening’s performance, the sound of his female fans screaming in the distance.  But other than that, the first half of the play tends to drag a bit.  It’s definitely funny – Daniel Mays in particular steals the show with his portrayal of Potts, all zinging dialogue and nervous energy.  And the news of Ezra’s death offers some wonderfully dark humour.  When club doorman Skinny questions Mickey if he’s absolutely sure their boss is dead, Mickey shouts: “He’s fucking cut in half.  He’s in two bins!”

I had some problems with Rupert Grint’s performance as Sweets, mainly the fact I found it so hard to figure out what he was saying half of the time.  To be fair to Grint, it’s his stage debut, and when I could actually understand him I thought he delivered a good performance.  As Sweets essentially forms a comedy double act in the play with Potts, it would be hard for anyone to match up to Daniel Mays, nevermind an actor with considerably less experience.

My main issue with the first half of the play is that it’s all talk and very little action (though I’m sure both halves of Ezra would disagree with that).  At times, it all reminded me of the episode of Rock Profiles where Matt Lucas portrayed mockney Cockney Damon Albarn: “So I went up the apples and pears stairs and sat on an apple and pear chair and got an autograph from apples and pear Lionel Blair...”

The action doesn’t really get going until the first act comes to an end, when Baby – played with a real sense of unhinged menace by Ben Whishaw – dons Silver Johnny’s silver jacket and performs a dance routine that’s as menacing as a dance routine accompanied by silver glitter possibly can be.

The second act is much more interesting, right down to the set change as we go from the back office to the sequinned interior of the Atlantic club, where the two bins containing the dearly departed Ezra have been brought.  As Baby’s mental state continues to deteriorate and Whishaw is given more to do, the play gets more engrossing. 

Whishaw is excellent as Baby, going from a dreamy, trance-like state to an overtly sexual and genuinely threatening menace in the blink of an eye.  He also turns out to be an excellent singer and not necessarily as slight and willowy in the flesh as you might expect.  Whishaw also handles the black comedy of the play very well – after Baby has tracked down Silver Johnny, he describes his revenge upon Mr Ross: “he's got his yellow hair parted right down between his eyes...if he is coming he's going to need a jolly good lie down first”.

At heart, Mojo is a play about male relationships.  Baby’s decidedly fucked up relationship with the never-seen Ezra is just one example.  In the second act, we learn that Baby has been the victim of sexual abuse.  Later on, Baby talks about a childhood memory in which his father took him for a drive in the country and he noticed a bag of knives in front seat.  Convinced his father is going to kill him, he eventually finds out that Ezra actually plans for them to kill and cut up a cow, leaving Baby covered in blood.

The character of Skinny, played by Colin Morgan, is another interesting one.  With no father at home – just an “uncle” – he hero worships Baby, copying his hairstyle and dress sense with a barely disguised sexual tension simmering between them.  And when I say “barely disguised”, what I mean is Baby demanding that Skinny “kiss my pegs” before grinding up against him on the jukebox.  Considering the cheekbones and sharp hips on both actors, it’s a wonder the front row doesn’t walk away with paper cuts.

Another aspect of the play I really enjoyed was the real sense of claustrophobia that sets in once the Atlantic club goes into lockdown following Ezra’s death.  Daytime beckons and punters begin to gather outside waiting to be let in, but the club has become a makeshift prison for the men inside, with daylight only breaking in once as Mickey briefly opens a window.

Even if it’s not a perfect play, it certainly is an interesting one, perhaps more interesting once you’ve actually had time to sit down and think about what you’ve just seen.  Compared to the previous two plays we had seen, it may not have always held our attention to begin with, but once it got going it was very hard to look away.

Once the play ended, we decided that as it was our final night, we would carry on our tradition of being stood up by pretty-boy actors.  We arrived at the stage door just as the security man began removing the barrier, explaining that as it was raining and the actors had two performances the following day there would no be signings that night.  Failure, again!

As we were about to walk away before the pouring rain gave us pneumonia, a fellow theatregoer appeared behind me and happily exclaimed “I just got Whishaw – he’s over there”, pointing across the street.  Once I determined this wasn’t just some middle aged man toying with a fangirl’s emotions, I ran off down the street , arms flailing, Whishaw bound.

Despite the appalling weather he held court with his small army of admirers, signing whatever was put in front of him and posing for all photo requests (my own included).  A girl breathlessly explained that she had travelled all the way from China for the play.  I got overexcited and offered “We came from Belfast!”  Because, yes, travelling from Belfast to London is every bit as impressive as travelling from China.  Whishaw’s pen stopped working in the rain and I offered him my own, which he took – I am now considering designating the pen as a holy object and starting a religious order based around it.

My friend, clearly the only person gathered who wasn’t an oversexed fangirl, became Whishaw’s semi-official photographer, snapping both my picture and a picture for one of the Chinese fans.  “You were very good tonight” she said, like the friend of a proud parent who has been dragged along to the school nativity.  “You were BRILLIANT” I cried, still overexcited.

And so our final night of theatre ended.  As Potts himself put it, the fish were jumping and the cotton was high.  And most of all, the fangirls were flailing.

There's Nowt So Queer as Coriolanus

Staging a production of one of Shakespeare’s more difficult plays?  Unsure of how to make it more accessible to a modern audience?  Handsome men rolling around the stage together – it’s the answer to everything.

Of course, we were lucky to make it to the Donmar’s production of Coriolanus at all, considering we got lost on our way to the theatre.  We got there eventually, after calling into a nearby hotel to ask for directions – although even the receptionist had to Google the place for us.

After sitting down in our vaguely uncomfortable seats, our eyes were immediately drawn to the bare stage, with just a ladder and some plastic chairs making up the set decoration.  Well, I say ‘immediately’....I was also keeping my eyes peeled for Hiddleston fangirls on the prowl.  After reports of performances being disturbed, Hiddleston being chased down the street on his way home and post-show signings actually being cancelled, I was curious to see if any of the scarier elements of his fanbase had turned up.

The play itself is a fantastic production and does a great job of portraying one of the least tragic of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes.  We see him as a wounded war hero, washing off his blood in a shower scene that surely left most of the audience ever so slightly aroused.  As Hiddleston walked off the stage, wet and half naked, I could clearly see a happy theatregoer give her friend the thumbs up when he walked past her.

But he’s also a proud snob, and the scene where Coriolanus puts on the “gown of humility” in an attempt to gain the people’s trust (while at the same time being downright sarcastic to their faces) is handled with a lightness of touch that still gets across the sheer contempt with which he holds the plebs.

I also loved the transformation of Brutus and Sicinius into Brutus and Sicinia, a bitchy power couple who snipe from the sidelines in their attempts at bringing Coriolanus down a peg.  If I thought Elliot Levey was more successful as Brutus than Helen Schlesinger was as Sicinia, that’s probably just because I fancied Levey something rotten.  It was definitely a nice touch portraying Brutus as a slight, quietly spoken henpecked husband, considering the role he plays in the downfall of the buff Coriolanus.

And then of course, there’s the homoerotica.  Ah, yes, the homoerotica....If it’s fair to say the production rather overplays this aspect of the play, please understand this really is not a complaint on my part.

The scene in which Coriolanus fights the rough, Northern-accented Aufidius (Hadley Fraser) begins with swords and impressive acrobatics, but descends into what is essentially two well-defined men rolling around the stage together, panting heavily, grasping on to each other’s shoulders.  When Coriolanus offers up his assistance to his former enemy, Aufidius has him get down on his knees before (what can only be described as) caressing his chest with his...well, with his big sword.

Considering that Aufidius goes on to compare Coriolanus more favourably to the “maid I married”, and details dreams in which “we have been down together in my sleep / unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat”....well, I don’t think you need to have a particularly dirty mind to see what we’re going for here.

To be fair, Coriolanus might be unpopular with the common man, but Aufidius isn’t the only person who appears to want a bit of hot Roman action.  Witty patrician Menenius (played brilliantly by Mark Gatiss) displays an avuncular affection for Coriolanus that occasionally borders on the lovestruck.  And the mother – let’s not forget the mother.

The play ramps up the vaguely incestuous nature of Coriolanus’s relationship with Volumnia, his mother – made all the more awkward by the presence of his wife Virgilia.  If Virgilia is a character with not a lot to do in the course of the play, she at least signposts the sheer weirdness of the mother-son relationship, frequently standing on the side of the stage making barely disguised faces of disgust at what she sees.

The bare stage also serves the play well – the battle scene is conveyed surprisingly effectively with nothing more than well placed chairs and the odd flash of fire in the background.

I was less impressed with the costumes – a weird mix of traditional Roman battle wear and modern threads.  Virgilia in particular had to wear an especially ugly dress, paired with some nasty vagina-flapped boots that I’m sure stylish Roman women weren’t sporting at the time.

Performance-wise, I can’t really fault any of the cast, but it’s Hiddleston’s show and he delivers a commanding performance.  When he starts shouting in the Senate-house you genuinely feel the need to sit down and be shouted at.  Similarly, when he cries real tears in accepting his fate at the end of the play, it’s a properly moving moment.  As he takes Volumnia’s hand and sighs “mother, mother – what have you done?” you really sense this is man experiencing an actual emotion other than pride or battle-lust for the first time in his life.

And without wanting to give too much away – spoilers, sweetie (as much as you actually can spoil a Shakespearean tragedy) – the plays ends with a pleasingly gory death and one last shot at good, old fashioned homoeroticism.  All I’ll say is ‘Aufidius’ and ‘full facial’.  I’ll let you imagine the rest.

Once again, we hotfooted it to the front of house post-play to attempt some actor bothering.  We already knew Hiddleston wouldn’t show – the crazy fangirls, remember?- but we thought we should at least try for some Gatiss appreciation.  This was clearly a common thread of thought amongst the stage-door masses.  As the security guard explained why he wouldn’t be bringing Hiddleston out, a woman could be heard asking her friend “should we stay for Gatiss then?”.

We waited, and waited, and waited....”Thank you! We love you all!” a man shouted to the crowd.  It was a drunk on the way home from the pub.  The Donmar staff turned off the lights and locked the doors.  Life’s like that.

I Have To Return Some Videotapes

I can honestly say I have never read American Psycho and thought: “Ooh, that murder would be an excellent moment for Patrick Bateman to do a song-and-dance routine”.

 I was therefore a bit apprehensive about how Bret Easton Ellis’s cult novel could be turned into “a new musical thriller”.  Fortunately I had other things to occupy my mind before the show began – such as passing by a pub called The Famous Cock on our way to the Almeida Theatre.  Yes, we had to stop for a photo.  We are easily amused.

We arrived at the theatre with plenty of time for wine, and some chatting with the front of house staff about where to find Matt Smith post-play.  The lobby was buzzing with young men who appeared to have taken the American Psycho theme to heart, sporting suits and haircuts to impress Patrick Bateman himself.  Hopefully the trail of innocent victims they left on their way had been well disposed of before they arrived.

Wine downed, we took to our seats and I was quickly joined by an eager Matt Smith fangirl who was there to see the play for the third time.  “You won’t be disappointed!” she assured me happily, before we started comparing notes on what actors we had successfully bothered in our time. 

We noticed the theatre seemed to be partly occupied by uniformed schoolchildren, which seemed like a much better school outing than the time my English class got taken to a matinee showing of Pride and Prejudice – the Musical.  Then when two schoolboys started openly fondling each other...well, that also seemed like a much better school outing than I was used to.

The musical began with a jump, as trench coat-decked cast members starting singing at us and Matt Smith appeared wearing only a pair of tight white underpants.  The fangirl was right – I wasn’t disappointed.  We got straight into Patrick Bateman’s metrosexual inner dialogue, as he detailed his morning beauty regime to the audience while getting dressed. 

We were then introduced to Bateman’s social circle.  The scene in which he and his yuppie pals try to one-up each other with their business cards was brilliantly turned into a musical number – possibly the only musical number you’ll ever see that discusses fonts and paper stock to a dance routine.  Bateman’s girlfriend Evelyn and mistress Courtney were introduced to us by way of a ridiculously catchy eighties pop number called You Are What You Wear, in which every possible designer is present and correct: “I will not touch a drop of red wine, don't wanna ruin the Calvin Klein / Chanel, Gaultier, or Giorgio Armani / Moschino, Alaïa or Norma Kamali / Should I rock the Betsey Johnson, or stick with classic Comme des Garçons?”.

But of course, it’s pretty easy to transfer a tale of well dressed New Yorkers from page to stage – the real question is, how do you make a musical out of a serial killer?

As Bateman’s killing spree is seen to be a reaction to the blank, consumerist lifestyle around him, the production mixes his violence with scenes of rich twentysomethings enjoying their Christmas parties and hip restaurants.  Bateman’s first killing of a homeless man gives way to a scene of neon-clad business men following their hardbody aerobics instructor in the gym and later on, Bateman and Evelyn’s idyllic trip to the Hamptons is immediately followed by a genuinely horrible scene where Bateman is chatting to two blood-splattered prostitutes he has recently toyed with, their bodies still twitching.

Not everything in the musical is entirely successful – the actress playing Bateman’s secretary Jean seemed to struggle with her American accent to the extent I wondered if she had actually given up trying at one point.  And though she was a terrific singer, she was given some of the show’s most uninspired songs to sing in which she insipidly fantasised about settling down with Bateman.  Jean doesn’t do much more than that in the novel, but putting it to music doesn’t make things more interesting.  Admittedly, Jean’s misguided love for her boss does lead to one of the more delicate scenes in the play, in which Bateman spares her from becoming another victim.

The play also changes the scene where Bateman phones his attorney to confess, so that he now phones Detective Kimball – which is fine, but it’s highly unlikely that Kimball and Bateman would ever have a chance encounter in a fashionable nightclub, which is where they meet again in the play and where Kimball laughs off the confession.

And while the play doesn’t descend into the hallucinations and fantastical scenes towards the end of the novel, it does accurately portray Bateman as a highly unreliable narrator, leaving you questioning just how much of what you’ve seen actually happened.

Unsurprisingly, Matt Smith is the star of the show.  His newly buff physique and clean cut image are ideally suited to the image obsessed Patrick Bateman, while he also does a great job of portraying the  dead-behind-the-eyes blankness of the character at the same time.  Though not the best singer you’ll ever hear, he holds a tune nicely and if anything, his limited vocal range actually works very well for the emotionless character he’s playing.  You might never exactly sympathise with Bateman, but he still seems like a much better person to hang out with than his friends, with their conversations about different types of water and what shoes to wear with what suit.

I would also imagine any younger fangirls only familiar with Smith from Doctor Who will have got quite an education from watching him strip down to his underwear and fuck a giant pink teddy bear.  There may have been some debate about whether or not he was wearing a cup for the underwear scenes...I’m choosing to believe he’s just naturally blessed.  Very well blessed indeed.

Play finished, we skipped off to the lobby where we had been told Smith would appear if he was signing autographs.  We waited, and we waited, and the rest of the cast wandered off completely ignored by the assembled masses before the announcement was made that Matt had gone home.  Alas, there would be no Bateman bothering that night. General opinion is that his no-show may have been due to his win at the NTAs that night – I found out he won during the interval when my new fangirl friend showed me his acceptance speech on her phone.  “He’s SO CUTE!!!” she sighed, as he ruffled his hair.

In many ways, it was a fitting end to the evening – as Bateman says himself, “I simply am not there”.

Theatre Adventures in That London

So tomorrow, I’m heading off to That London for a theatre-binge-that-was-never-meant-to-be-a-theatre-binge-but-sort-of-turned-out-that-way type thing. 

Honestly, I only intended to go see Tom Hiddleston flexing his theatrical muscles in Coriolanus, then have a quiet wonder around the city for the first time in two years.  But other plays got announced, my credit card got unleashed, and now I’ve got three plays booked for the three nights I’m there.

On Wednesday I will (provided the transport gods are kind to me and don’t mess up my plans) be watching former Time Lord Matt Smith play Patrick Bateman in a musical production of American Psycho.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I have lost count of the amount of times I have thought American Psycho needed some killer song and dance numbers.  Will there be a catchy number to accompany Bateman running around with a prostitute’s decapitated head on his cock?  This blogger certainly hopes so.

Matt Smith is currently top of my laminated list of People I Desire To Do All The Things with, so I admit the prospect of watching him take his shirt off live on stage is highly exciting to me.  Not that I approve of objectifying people like that, so it is also highly exciting to be there to see my most favourite of Doctors move on to his first post-Gallifreyan project.  But mostly the shirtless thing.  I’m really shallow.

Come Thursday, we have the original purpose of my trip – Coriolanus.  I admit, Coriolanus isn’t exactly my favourite of Shakespeare’s plays.  But, oh my, isn’t that funny, there’s another pretty shirtless man involved in this production (I honestly didn’t realise quite how shallow I was until this point).  To be honest, Hiddleston, as lovely and fragrant and I’m sure he is, wasn’t the big draw for me here – Mark Gatiss as Menenius on the other hand, I’m all over that.  Since booking I’ve also discovered we get the added bonus of Hadley Fraser as Aufidius and good lord, we have ourselves a Shakespearean party.

Now, I understand there has been some bother at the Donmar Warehouse with this particular play.  Up until Friday, Hiddleston had been doing a spot of Meet & Greet with the fans afterwards, who subsequently ran onto Tumblr screaming “OH MY GOD I MET LOKI I MET LOKI” and so forth.  However, some over-enthusiastic fangirls chasing Hiddles down the street on his way to the tube and generally invading his personal space has resulted in the Meet & Greets being cancelled for the rest of the run.  Which is obviously a bit of a downer.  But it’s not often I go to see an actor pretty much on top of his game do some Serious Theatre Business, so there’s still plenty to enjoy.

And if it’s Friday night it must be Ben Whishaw, or more specifically Whishaw’s latest play, Mojo.  I admit, my knowledge of Jez Butterworth’s play comes from a not-entirely-brilliant film adaptation back in 1997 but again, the prospect of seeing Whishaw acting on stage was too good to miss.  Yes, yes, there are shallow forces at work here, he is after all the prettiest little deer in the enchanted forest.  But he is also generally agreed to be one best actors around at the moment, and watching him play a character whose mental stability basically disappears completely by the end of the play ought to be a treat.  In the weird sort of way that watching an actor’s mental state crumble on stage can be considered a treat.

The production appears to be geared towards a younger female audience if the rest of the cast list is anything to go by – Colin Morgan (you might recognise him as Merlin) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films) help make up the numbers, not to mention the terribly pretty Tom Rhys Harries.  Not that this is a bad thing of course, provided the intended audience can behave themselves in the same way the Coriolanus audiences perhaps haven’t been.

And that’s the rest of my week.  Throw in a Heston Blumenthal lunch and a trendy Saturday brunch, and gosh, it’s hard to be me.