REVIEW - HAIR THE MUSICAL

HAIR at The Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London

Box Office: call 0844 482 5130 or visit www.hairthemusical.co.uk

Tickets: £16.50 - £65.00

Performances: Mon-Sat 7:30pm, Thurs & Sat 2:30pm

BY: HANNAH MARSHALL

So I have pretty much been ridiculously excited about seeing Hair since my tickets arrived two months ago. The Tony Award winning revival of the smash hit rock musical opened here in the UK on April 1st and the original Broadway cast is currently spreading the love at the Gielgud theatre.

Following the story of Claude, who is part of a group of hippies living in a USA torn apart by the highly controversial Vietnam War, and facing the prospect of being conscripted themselves, Hair has been described by the Daily Telegraph as ‘a beacon of hope in a fallen world.’ The show is certainly bursting with energy and has some truly beautiful, funny and touching moments. In comparison with other shows on the West End right now, it offers a truly unremitting affirmation of the power of belief in love, life, equality and freedom. The cast’s commitment towards the message of the show, (the lead Gavin Creel is a co-founder of the equality charity BroadwayImpact and the cast has also taken part in protests for gay marriage across the USA) is infectious and you’ll find yourself wanting to jump out of your seat and join in, something which is very much encouraged, or going home to paint a giant hippie mural for your bedroom (something which I definitely didn’t just spend the last day and a half doing).

Bring It Bitches.

So... Election, anyone?
As of today, it is on.
The politicians will be stepping up their bitchiness, desperately clawing each other down to get to the (or stay on) top. As if they haven't been doing that already...



Am I the only one freaked out a little bit surprised by all of David's (poor) pop culture references? American Idol? George Clooney? Shakira? I can only guess he's been spending way too much time channel-hopping on Sky looking for comedy material.

I can't vote, which sucks, so if you can vote then please don't waste it.
Unfortunately, the only kind of thing I'm qualified to vote in is my local Youth Parliament elections. Yeah, Youth Parliament's a real thing. Yes it is. Last school assembly we were forced to watch their campaign videos.

Highlights from the Campaign Videos- 

1.“Um, I want to reduce bus fares…” Yay! “…because, if youth can’t go outside then we’ll be bored at home and, uh, turn to crime.” Um, okay.
And then up pops that weird moving 3D Word Art everyone used to get really excited about using on PowerPoints in class presentations. It says: if U wan’t 2 B heard then Vote 4 ME. Agh, It’s like when local councils think their leaflets will better teach about chlamydia if they use the native “text language”, with random capitalization (only cool when John Green does it) and non-standard grammar thrown in just fo’ kicks.  Needs to stop.

2.The girl who raged about banning underage sex and alcoholism (Know. Your. Audience.), earning the crowd's observant and oh-so-witty comebacks e.g. “Just ’cos you can’t get any, fatty.”

3.“Vote for me because I have the dominant allele for effort”. A biology joke! Ahh. My vote: it's yours.


I can only hope the adults will do it better. But after watching an entire session of the House of Commons in which all the MPs were just sitting around jeering and booing at one another (what is with that?!), I'm not so sure that they could.

Maybe this vid right here isn't so far from the truth...

THE SECRET SAMPLE SALE

Evidently, I love free shit. Or at least that which has been greatly discounted. So I get  pretty excited by stuff like this, which my sister emailed me about:

Register at http://www.secretsamplesale.co.uk/, to get up to 90% discount on:

MAX MARA - VIVIENNE WESTWOOD - MONCLER - BELSTAFF - BURBERRY - CAVALLI - DKNY - MOSCHINO - D&G - COMING SOON BY YOHJI YAMAMOTO - YUCHI - YASUE CARTER - CHLOÉ - ARMANI JEANS - GUIDE LONDON - GRAB - REPLAY - BOLONGARO TREVOR AMBIGUOUS COMMUNE - GENTLE FAWN - UNKNOWN - GREEN APPLE TREE - GUCCI MUTINY - GLOW - CHAN CHAN GONSALVES AND HALL - ORION - EUCALYPTUS - UACT 030470 ATW STELLA - HUNTERS AND GATHERERS - SWAGGA AND SOUL - YAMAMA - TOFU JULY TWENTY NICOLA DEMAIN - PETER WERTH - BONSUI - TWINS DIVERSES - MIMOSA. And many more...


In addition to the Secret Sample Sale, the London Accessory Sale will be taking place at the same time and location so you can also expect discounts on:

A selection of designer bags, shoes and jewellery for men and women from the likes of Aquascutum, Balenciaga, Black & Brown, Blank, Belstaff, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Coccinelle, Carniani, Chloé, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Ebisu, Fendi, Francesco Biasia, Giuseppe Zanotti, Gucci, Grab, July Twenty, Jimmy Choo, Lama Peach, Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, Moda Italia London, Relax Garden, Patrick Cox, Prada, Sergio Rossi, Tokun Win, Tods, Vivienne Westwood & YSL. Plus many more boutique designers and brands.



Details:

Thursday 8th - Sunday 11th April

Thursday-12noon - 9pm (members)
Friday- 12 - 8pm (public)
Sat- 12 - 7pm (public)
Sun-12 - 6pm (public)

T2, The Old Truman Brewery,
85 Brick Lane, London,
E1 6QL

Admission is £1.
 
To get a members pass click here, or here.

Spark Unscheduled Tour

Behind it all the Chevrolet Spark Unscheduled Tour is simply clever promotion for a car. But who really cares when their launch features:

Mystery Jets,
WAH Nails (see http://www.wah-magazine.com/ for more on the WAH girls),
live graffiti from Lumacoustics,
and more.

"The launch of the brand new Chevrolet Spark also marks the launch of a new kind of live music tour. A tour where each venue is not just different but somewhere that provides a unique live music experience, an unscheduled, 'pop-up' event, somewhere you'll probably not see live music ever again. Where will the tour go? It’s up to you!"

Sounds pretty good.
The launch is at Vinyl Factory in Soho on 8th April.
Register online for tickets.

Hoodlums

Hoodlums = Five Londoners offering a polished and ridiculously infectious melodic pop, the nostalgic "Forget a Friend", will most likely be dancing around your head for a while. And I can't get enough of the hauntingly melancholy strain that lies beneath the upbeat-ness of this particular song. See them at the Lexingotn on the 26th March.

www.myspace.com/hoodlumsband





Check out their cover of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes for Indie Ghetto (below). It's very nice. Really, it is.

Crystal Fighters

Nu-rave is BACK people, in the form of Latin electro/folktronica (yeah, it’s a real genre) and it is going to make you party. Crystal Fighters are two girls, three guys, all Spanish, all pretty sexy. A big favourite is their fun tune, “I Love London”, where a beautiful, flirty and Spanish-accented voice laughs and sings over beats and basslines that may just run you down. They even manage to make the train station, Watford Junction, sound really exciting. Their music makes use of Basque instruments (think Spanish guitars and drums) that make you feel the heat, as well as ethereal harmonies under building up synthesisers. You are guaranteed to lose yourself in it all. And be sure to check out their Hey You and Black Magic remixes, okay? Time to rave.

Catch them at the Kitsuné x Ponystep event :