And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,/ She needs not June for beauty's heightening

Any literate person/robot would have noticed that this site has been void of updates since I’ve turned eighteen. Yet interestingly enough, the Blog Stats function that WordPress has so kindly devised has continued to reflect significant numbers of visits on the clever views per day chart found on the dashboard of the site, and it is these numbers that have compelled me to make this return to cyberspace.

Salutations, readers.

Plenty has been going on since the first of February. As someone enslaved to The Baccalaureate since 2008, life has centred around – and still centres around – work and academic activities; no surprises there. But fortunately there have been distractions that have kept my humanity in check: CATS – the musical, Shakespeare, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the occasional QI episode and my entertaining bunch of friends.

The newest addition to the list of musicals I’ve seen live (behind Les Miserables, Oliver, Chicago, The Phantom of the Opera and We Will Rock You), CATS was, in general, a lovely experience. More than any of the musicals I have named in the parentheses above, CATS is a musical that first and foremost calls for versatility in its performers. I must admit the singing was rather disappointing; Grizabella, of all characters, didn’t make an impact. Rum Tum Tugger was, for a CATS aficionado like me, far from perfection (though nonetheless very, very amusing), but the Esplanade Theatre audience clearly disagreed.

The choreography for this round of performances of the musical remained loyal to Gillian Lynne’s original choreography – which, despite the below-par singing, ensured the performance as a whole would satiate any true CATS-lover. Mister Mistofelees was particularly impressive, stunning everyone with his 2049583096 (excuse my inordinate exaggeration – but you do get the picture don’t you?) pirouettes, among other things. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer’s acrobatic sequence was flawless, and so was the Jellicle Ball sequence just before the intermission. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Another remarkable thing about CATS was how they worked the entire theatre into the performance, incorporating balustrades, aisles and audience members into the magic of the entire musical. “The mystical divinity of unashamed felinity” – in T. S. Eliot’s words – definitely filled the entire hall, and one will walk out believing that all cats you meet are indeed “feline, fearless, faithful and true” Jellicle cats. It is the spirit of the musical that makes it such a tremendously enjoyable experience, that endears it to many – cat-lovers, music-lovers, dance-lovers alike.

I just realised that among the list of distractions I have provided three paragraphs above, CATS is the only distraction that takes me far, far away from school work; I don’t have to travel anywhere to watch Monty Python and QI, marvel at their antics and laugh at their ridiculousness.

Like QI, Monty Python is terribly, terribly addictive. My close friends must have noticed a marked increase in the appearance of Monty Python quotes in my daily speech. Some friends have even benefited from my (I daresay) very entertaining impersonations of John Cleese and company. Thankfully my good sense (I do have this, mind you) ensures that my willingness to re-enact entire sketches stops short of driving me to the Ministry of Silly Walks. I have vowed not to go to such lengths to entertain unless I do join a comedy sketch group of some kind.