More Jesus

I got my culture on last night by heading over to Islington and the King’s Head. This is a cool old pub with a small theatre at the back. It’s actually the second London pub I ever walked into, so I get some nostalgia whenever I go back in. I think it’s cool that there’s a small, laid-back, well-known, but definitely off-West End theatre space like this, though. I saw one other play here a few years back, a Sylvia Plath* piece (for which I was glad I didn’t pay for the ticket).

Last night’s production was called Fat Christ. It’s a little, one-room, four-person comedy. It came to my attention when the Underground refused to carry posters advertising the play for fear it might offend some customers. The production’s other claim to fame is that one of the actors is former ultra-popular glamour model / sex tape subject / reality TV star Abi Titmuss. Abi’s on the road to respectability, it seems, having won the West End’s Best Newcomer award last year for her part in an Arthur Miller play.

Fat Christ, though, was uninspiring. The acting was okay, if a bit forced, although the play provides a sort of reason why this might be the case. The written material was, itself, pretty weak, I thought. It boils down to: lads are a bit crude when they get together, relationships take work, and some people have hare-brained ideas. Also, calling it a “comedy” is a bit of a stretch, I think.

Better was Itsuka, a sushi restaurant down the road. It was nearly empty, but we managed a nice, quiet, comfortable meal there.

*For some reason, whenever I need to recall the name “Sylvia Plath” I always initially think of “Edith Piaf” and need to work hard to shift off that name.