I’m sorry! Too much skating, not enough reading . I’ve got three things part finished but nothing to write about today so I’m giving myself a pass this week. In the meantime, here are some of my favourite performances from last week that might have gone under the radar if you only watched the final groups of the competition:
Josefin Taljegard from Sweden absolutely nailing her skate to It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, skating second in the women’s free programme (after the first person fell five times) and getting a standing ovation from the crowd for her performance, musicality and emotion. And we didn’t give many ovations.
We’ve had a lot of Moulin Rouge routines over the year but nothing quite like The Finns and their slightly unhinged but very entertaining take on it (that’s them in the picture at the top taking their bow).
And finally, my prediction for a potential viral moment at the Olympics: if Tomas Llorenc can land the triple axel at the start of this Minions programme for in Milan it will take the roof off.
This is the very final start of year post, I promise. But after the theatre lookahead yesterday, today there are a few bits and bobs that are happening this year that aren’t plays or musicals that I wanted to mention.
Obviously we are less than a month away now from the Winter Olympics, which are happening in Milan and Cortina. I am very, very excited about this, but at the moment I’m even more excited about the fact that the European Figure Skating Championships is happening in Sheffield this week coming, and even better: I’m going. It is not very often that we get an international figure skating competition here – but when they do come it’s usually in Sheffield and I go! I was at the Grand Prix a couple of years ago, and I was also at the Europeans last time they were here – all the way back in 2012.
Also happening in the UK (but that I don’t have tickets for) this year we have the Commonwealth Games which are back in Glasgow because all the other host options dropped out and the European Athletics Championships which are being held in the UK for the first time, at the Alexandra Stadium where I went to see the Commonwealth Games Athletics four years ago. It’s also the men’s World Cup football this summer which has more countries taking part than ever before and is also being staged across three countries for the first time in the USA, Canada and Mexico. This means that for a few weeks this summer, the nation will be gripped with hope that one of our teams will win. This feeling will be fleeting.
Away from the sport to something else that’s actually in the ticket box and this year I’m finally going to see Rufus Wainwright’s Judy Garland concert. This is based on the 1961 comeback concert series that Garland did. I’ve owned the CD of the Rufus version for about 15 years now, and didn’t think I would ever get the chance to see it live, but to mark the 20th anniversary of his original run of it at Carnegie Hall, he’s doing it at the Royal Albert Hall. For those of you who are counting, this will be my fourth or fifth time seeing Rufus – depending on if you count the two Proms on the same day in 2023 separately or not!
Rufus is actually my only musical event in the box at the moment, because the Boyzone reunion concert is happening on a weekend that really doesn’t work for me (and they didn’t add any other dates beyond the first two) and I’ve already seen Take That more than once. But we don’t have the line up for the Proms this year yet, and that’s often where a lot of my concerts come from. And I’m also eyeing up some comedy. As you may know we are deep in Taskmaster at the moment, and several of the comedians that we have really enjoyed on that are on tour this year and coming near us so bookings are definitely possible!
There are a couple of art exhibitions that I really want to see too. There’s a Seurat exhibition at the Courtauld. I have a real soft spot for Seurat and this is the first dedicated exhibition to him in the UK in 30 years. And looking right ahead to the end of the year there is a Renoir exhibition at the National which also falls squarely into my favourite bits of painting. So I’m already plotting when to go to both of those. This summer National Portrait Gallery has got a Marilyn Monroe exhibition to mark the centenary of her birth. The V&A has got a Wallace and Gromit exhibition coming to the Young V&A and a Schiaparelli one at the main museum. Sidenote: I still haven’t been to the new V&A Storehouse and really want to, but the David Bowie archive is already booked out, so I may wait for some availability there before I go there. Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of his death so combined with the fact that it’s only just gone on sale, I’m not surprised it’s popular!
It’s that time of year again – the new series of Drive to Survive has dropped on Netflix. Almost a year ago, on last season’s release weekend, I wrote about the “documentary” about Formula One and the accusations of Netflixification of my favourite sport. Well, I didn’t watch the end of last year’s season – because I couldn’t bear to watch the controversial ending to the season again, but I’m back watching the new season, once again to see what storylines they’ve picked – and which they haven’t and to see who it deals with the various controversies that hit the sport last year, including but not limited to all the headlines that FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem caused with his various decisions and statements before he decided to take a step back from being directly involved in the sport.
We’re two episodes in as I write this, and not going to lie, it’s tough to watch Lewis Hamilton in the aftermath of losing the 2021 championship and the struggle of the Mercedes team with their new car. However, Haas boss Guenther Steiner remains a delight – and his double act with Ferrari’s Mattea Binotto that opens the series is lovely, although a little bittersweet if you know how the season plays out. The release of the new series has coincided with the testing for the new season which starts next weekend in Bahrain so after a couple of weeks of motorsport deprivation, it’s all roaring back with a vengeance. Great news for petrolheads – but what does it mean for my reading list?! Stay tuned…
As you will have spotted yesterday, I was in Birmingham on Friday – and why was I there? Well, this is why!
Yes! I was at the first day of action at the Commonwealth Games to watch the Men’s Team Competition in the gymnastics. Side note for those of you of a certain age, the competition was held at Arena Birmingham, formerly known as the National Indoor Arena, host of the Eurovision Song Contest last time it was held in the UK but more importantly the venue for iconic 1990s TV series Gladiators, teatime viewing for me and my sister for years. Did have a conversation about where the travellator would have been, and how tall the Wall must have been? Absolutely. Anyway, we’ve never been to see live gymnastics before and it was absolutely epic. Excuse my terrible photos, taken on max zoom on my iPhone, but here is defending rings champion Courtney Tulloch doing an Iron Cross in his top-scoring routine (right in front of us!):
And here is home town boy Joe Fraser during his Horizontal Bar routine that clinched team England the gold medal. Honestly, Fraser was so impressive all day – we heard some people around us say that he had a foot injury and that was why he was only working four pieces and would miss the all around final, but we found out when we got home that it’s only five weeks since he had his appendix removed. Insane.
As I said, England won the gold – but Cyprus won the bronze after missing out four years ago and were totally delighted about it – including their top scorer (and second highest in the all around qualification) Marios Georgiou who appeared to hurt his hand (dislocated a finger or thumb we thought) in his dismount from his final apparatus the pommel horse. Team Cyprus’s celebrations were epic – and fingers crossed Mario is ok for the final.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 