Christmas traditions!
Dec. 22nd, 2017 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearChristmas wouldn't be Christmas for me without the Olympia Horse Show and a Matthew Bourne ballet, and both those traditions were fulfilled this month.
We always go to the Saturday afternoon performance at Olympia, and it didn't disappoint. There was a new display by some Chilean cowboys, which had entertainment value mostly because of the female dancers who cavorted around the horses waving handkerchiefs in an alarming manner. We also got the Metropolitan Police Activity Ride, which is my favourite of the regular displays, as well as dog agility, the Shetland Pony Grand National, and some excellent showjumping. I was most amused, though, by the women who invariably queued for ages for the three toilet cubicles on the ground floor, totally ignoring the fifteen further cubicles up the stairs. It made things much quicker for me!
I saw the posters for Matthew Bourne's Cinderella a few weeks ago but wasn't going to go, because I didn't remember enjoying it that much last time. I kept thinking about it, though, and eventually looked up my review from January 2011, which turned out to be very positive. So, I snagged two of the last tickets available before Christmas and went on Wednesday. It was extremely well staged, and very pretty, and I enjoyed it a lot. I would maybe have preferred a bit more proper dancing (though the mannequin dance was excellent, and the angel had some good set pieces) and the angel's physical control and manipulation of Cinderella was a bit troubling, even if it had a benign purpose. But, it was still an excellent show, with a lot of really great characterisation and beautiful set design. And who doesn't love a ballet at Christmas?
This week, I also finished listening to Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan, the third instalment of the Lady Trent Memoirs. This was lots of fun, as I have come to expect from this series, and I'm glad to see there's another book coming out soon. I love Isabella, because she's a woman who doesn't fit in with the gender expectations of her society, either from a work or a motherhood point of view. She suffers for her scandalous activities, but forges on to fulfil her scientific curiosity regardless, and the memoirs are narrated with wry wit and plenty of self-criticism from the perspective of old age. This book had more to say about gender roles, with the presentation of a male island native character living as a woman, which added nuance to Isabella's own situation. Interesting, well-written, and highly enjoyable.
We always go to the Saturday afternoon performance at Olympia, and it didn't disappoint. There was a new display by some Chilean cowboys, which had entertainment value mostly because of the female dancers who cavorted around the horses waving handkerchiefs in an alarming manner. We also got the Metropolitan Police Activity Ride, which is my favourite of the regular displays, as well as dog agility, the Shetland Pony Grand National, and some excellent showjumping. I was most amused, though, by the women who invariably queued for ages for the three toilet cubicles on the ground floor, totally ignoring the fifteen further cubicles up the stairs. It made things much quicker for me!
I saw the posters for Matthew Bourne's Cinderella a few weeks ago but wasn't going to go, because I didn't remember enjoying it that much last time. I kept thinking about it, though, and eventually looked up my review from January 2011, which turned out to be very positive. So, I snagged two of the last tickets available before Christmas and went on Wednesday. It was extremely well staged, and very pretty, and I enjoyed it a lot. I would maybe have preferred a bit more proper dancing (though the mannequin dance was excellent, and the angel had some good set pieces) and the angel's physical control and manipulation of Cinderella was a bit troubling, even if it had a benign purpose. But, it was still an excellent show, with a lot of really great characterisation and beautiful set design. And who doesn't love a ballet at Christmas?
This week, I also finished listening to Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan, the third instalment of the Lady Trent Memoirs. This was lots of fun, as I have come to expect from this series, and I'm glad to see there's another book coming out soon. I love Isabella, because she's a woman who doesn't fit in with the gender expectations of her society, either from a work or a motherhood point of view. She suffers for her scandalous activities, but forges on to fulfil her scientific curiosity regardless, and the memoirs are narrated with wry wit and plenty of self-criticism from the perspective of old age. This book had more to say about gender roles, with the presentation of a male island native character living as a woman, which added nuance to Isabella's own situation. Interesting, well-written, and highly enjoyable.
