Pink Runway cocktail, with Pink Pigeon at CIRCUS

LFW has seen a week of celebrations and parties; on Friday I was invited to Circus in Covent Garden to try the extra special LFW Pink Pigeon cocktail. The venue is super exclusive and mimics the speakeasy bars of the prohibition to be found in New York. Initially we walked straight past, there is no sign or obvious entrance just a very inconspicuous brown door. Despite its plain exterior, Circus isn’t afraid of being in the spotlight and is often featured on TV, most recently in The Apprentice, when the winning team were treated to a special performance here.

I was amazed by the interior's glitz and glamour - it is an expansive space decorated luxuriously. Sequins flicker on the walls and silver balls dangle from the ceiling. In the main room a huge banquet table stands at which special guests may dine and for the extravagant acts to perform on, and around. We managed to catch one of the nine shows of the night, a talented and cheeky hula hoop dancer showing off his skills while stripping for the giddy audience.

The cocktail of the moment, named the Pink Runway and priced at £9.50, is made from Pink Pigeon Rum with chilli, grenadine, lime juice, pineapple juice & topped with ginger beer. It has been created specially for the trendy LFW crowd. Ten per cent of sales go directly to the Ethical Fashion Forum, a non profit organisation dedicated to the cause of a sustainable future for fashion. It is certainly a grown up drink with a warm vanilla taste from the sweet infused rum along with a fierce kick from the chilli and ginger beer. The lovely chief mixologist, who created this cocktail himself, came over to chat and talk about the different components and the art of cocktail making. He gave us a taster of the Pink Pigeon neat encouraging us to identify the flavours, which we got all wrong until prompted with the right answer, vanilla! We were also offered a delicious coconut and mango pudding to share while we watched the show.

This trip was a wonderful introductory taste of this lavish venue; I hope to return to Circus soon to report fully on the unique cocktails, exciting food menu and adventurous performing acts... watch this space!

Visit CIRCUS website here.

Puccini's Tosca at the ENO

The Original Poster for Tosca

The opera Tosca is, above all, an epic love story. Every year you are sure to find Puccini's masterpiece on somewhere, this summer it is being performed at the ENO.

My first encounter with the opera was at the age of 15 when I was given the part of Shepherd Boy (in my case they made it into Shepherd Girl) at Holland Park Opera. The power of the music blew me away, ever since it has been my favourite opera. This time around the music moved me close to tears.

The ENO's production is stunning. The three central protagonists: Tosca, Scarpia and Cavaradossi are all played by singers that seem fully engrossed in their roles; this makes the audience's job to watch and believe very easy. South African singer Amanda Echalaz makes a pretty Floria Tosca, her voice is unfaltering, but it is her acting which particularly impressed me. She is entirely convincing throughout and has genuine chemistry with her leading man. Tosca's suicide which concludes the opera is spectacular with Amanda falling backwards off the rear of the stage with shocking grace.

Julian Gavin who plays Mario Cavaradossi has a wonderfully creamy tenor voice, a pure delight to listen to. It is a difficult role to sing, but he easily hits the notes and manages to fill the entire theatre. The baddie, Baron Scarpia must be a fun part to play, in this production Antony Michaels-Moore takes it on with gleeful terror. Such a nasty character that the audience even booed when he came on to bow.

The set had a Neo-Classical feel that worked well with the production as a whole. Cavaradossi's painting in the first act is an important feature, and it is a shame that it is shown as a strange mosaic type picture, but apart from that the set is appropriate.

Conductor, Edward Gardner does a sterling job with the orchestra, although the music needs little help to sound beautiful. Puccini himself commented, 'Only with emotion can one achieve a triumph that endures' and this is entirely true of Tosca, which I believe has some of the most passionate, overpoweringly emotional music of all time.

Any well known opera is open to great criticism, but I have seen four productions of Tosca in my lifetime, and this is hands down the best. It is on until the 10th July, I promise you won't be disappointed, this is a show not to miss.

Book tickets HERE.

The Noise Next Door

The Noise Next Door are a five piece improvised comedy group (Tom Houghton, Charlie Granville, Matt Grant, Tom Livingstone and Sam Pacelli), who have been performing together since 2005. They use audience suggestions to create sharp witted brilliant improvised performances, that show great intelligence and a real understanding of their genre of theatre. On Saturday night I was lucky enough to see them perform at The King's Head Theatre in Islington.

Usually I find stand-up comedy difficult to enjoy, and feel as an audience member a real pressure to be at ease with the act in order to find their material amusing. And so went into The King's Head prepared to be cynical. The theatre is a cosy space and worked well with boy's interaction style of performance.

I really loved every second of it. All five guys were hilarious and seemed to have their own strengths. Tom Houghton would sometimes pick up the guitar to provide the accompaniment for short improvised songs that were genius in their creation and projection. A particularly hilarious song of the night was the umpa-lumpa dance song that used the theme of murder mystery.

With The Noise Next Door the audience are crucial, anything goes, and it is that uncertainty and element of surprise that made their show so exciting to watch. The onstage dialogue between the five guys indicated the obvious chemistry, and their ability to laugh at themselves made their humour even more infectious.

Check out The Noise Next Door's website http://www.thenoisenextdoor.co.uk/

or find them on Facebook.