The other night we went out for an evening with the intention of ticking off a few of the things we have been meaning to all in one go.
Beers, Burgers and then a little bit of Culture.
We started out the evening at one of our favorites – The Craft Beer Company in Islington. Every time we have been in the CBC we have always looked at the food menu and vowed to return to get something to eat. So we finally did!
Bob Ordered The Greek – One of the Vegetarian burgers on the menu with Onion Rings
Ash Ordered The Holy Smoke – One of the Beef options with Fries.
To go with it, we ordered a couple of our favorite Beers. The Mango Fruit Cider by Lilley’s and Fade to Black Weird Beard.
The Burgers were quite nice, large and messy to eat (not a bad thing) and the Fries and Onion rings were also good and large portions! The only problem was the condiments – Ash went searching for Mayo only to be disappointed and the salt shakers were all on the last grains.
After consuming all that food we walked down to Sadler’s Wells to see Carmen La Cubana
Christopher Renshaw directs this adaptation of Hammerstein’s Broadway musical, bringing a new salsa twist to the classic opera.
This seemed like the perfect event for us, mixing the latin temperament and Spanish language that Bob loves with the Ash’s love of the theatre and dance.
The performances were great, the operatic voices belted out renditions of The Toreador’s Song and The Gypsy Song, along with other lesser known or new arias, all in that unmistakable Cuban sound. The dancer’s flew around the stage, portraying life in revolutionary Cuba with passion and panache. The entire performance (with the exception of maybe three lines) was in Spanish which made Bob very happy and Ash rather confused – especially when the translator screens were at times two minutes ahead of what was going on and in the middle of the 2nd act went black for a few minutes. The only saving grace for this was that the script followed the Bizet’s original story close enough, save for changes, like the Bullfighter, was a Boxer, etc.
At the end the company took their bows, to a rapturous applause and then broke out in a little encore performance, which was possibly the best piece of the show!
Overall as we walked home, we agreed that it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t a wow! There were moments that stood out to us, Marilu’s solo in the second act made a number of people in the audience ‘ooo’ in surprise at her range. A few noticeable performances also from the company dancers caught both our attentions and the re-working of the score has had us humming notes of the Toreador’s Song ever since.
So there you go, our first theatre review and more beer and food too!
So have you been to see Carmen la Cubana? What did you think? what more should we go to see? Do you want us to review your performances? Then get in touch and maybe we’ll write more soon.
In the meantime remember to subscribe for a new post every week.
*Did you notice what the acronym of the title is?
Climbing Moss 