Slippery Mountain – New World Restaurant, 9^th April 2008

I woke up the following morning feeling I’d relived a bit of my childhood: a magic world of wonder, not knowing what was going to happen next, but transfixed by it, and enjoying every moment. A heady mix of classic Beijing Opera (I guess), British pantomime with overtones of Greek tragedy, all framed in the economy and intimacy of the fringe. It was performed in Chinese and English, with Chinese music on (I guess) Chinese instruments. And all done in an hour, including a small Chinese meal.

This must be the best show in London. I was so impressed. I normally avoid “up west” like the plague, but this was just off Shaftesbury Avenue, and a fraction of the price. I bet this is going to reappear as a much bigger production, at a much higher price, in a much fancier location: and it won’t be nearly as good.

The cast, which included, appropriately, a Tighe and a Chie, played their parts well in this difficult mix. The songs were Chinese down to their fingertips and toes, quite literally. The blood-thirsty demons would have had a Christmas children’s audience demanding bloodier and bloodier penalties. The (highly) formal story-telling sailed smoothly through all this, scenery being conjured up in a flash with bits of cloth.

The musicians provided some distraction in wondering what exotic instrument was going to be played next. But all very professionally underpinned by the computer track.

But I shouldn’t really neglect the journey. Going up to town had a particular disappointment. At that time of the evening, there is a free newspaper, often two, left behind on nearly every seat. Unfortunately I chose a seat where someone didn’t know how to do sudoku, but were not deterred from trying. I once sat behind someone like that on a bus: he was trying to impress the girl beside him, but he was just writing numbers in at random. So I had to try the crossword, and I can’t do crossword, not even the simplest ones.

Actually, two disappointments: the other was the xylophone player. Yes, there was a young lady playing the xylophone, with greater dissonance than the Chinese music later. She thought she was txting, but the buttons had been programmed with xylophone notes, which we could hear but she, apparently could not. My interested attention was greeted with that look of belligerent guilt which children specialise in these days.

And there was a magic moment coming home. As I crossed the Charing Cross Road, in my usual exaggerated diagonal, I suddenly noticed, right at the end of Cranbourn Street, a doorway with the legend “The Spanish Guitar Centre” written above it. And I was transported back to February, 1965, and the day I bought my guitar there. So the whole journey home was lost in a reverie of events forty-odd years ago.