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Stephen Fry at the Royal Albert Hall Review

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
1 Comment

I saw the most astonishing arse today.

No stop it.

I don’t normally comment on such things.  I’m a gentleman who keeps such thought private while others utter them without the aid of a quantity of strong drink.

Stay with me a little there is a point to all this.  It might even relate to tonight’s entertainment by the extraordinary Mr Stephen Fry.

It belonged to a young lady (the bottom that is) and was clad in tight white jeans and it was moving at speed through, appropriately, the Power Hall at the Science Museum.  I suspect she was in some way involved in the private event in the area of the museum that was closed.

The thing about the arse in question is that it was tight, pert, perfectly formed and had two exceptional halves.

That is also a good description of Mr Fry’s show.

It had other qualities.  It was quite clearly structural.  The young lady in question reminded me of a Radio Four Afternoon Play I heard while holidaying in my teenage years in Yorkshire.  An architect told the story in the first person.  He described his lover in terms of elements of classical architecture.  In this case her legs, like Corinthian columns, were connected to her finely tapered torso by the ornate capital that was her arse.

While a slightly wandering (although not Corbutesque) monologue the evening’s entertainment was similarly well structured.  There were anecdotes, answers to questions, personal insights and jokes.  There were impressions and a hint of technology without slipping into modern, ancient or Koine Geek.  His beta software didn’t crash embarrisingly.

There was laughter.  I’ve been struck on this trip to London how laughter can be so varied.  I’ll come back to that in another post.  I’m wandering away from the main point (if well muscled twin hemispheres can be a point) which isn’t really the very exception glutæus maximus anyway.

Meandering even further from the arse briefly I must comment on the footwear.  Good footwear is important.  It acts as a sound foundation for the support of the legs and on up to the…

Now really do I have to tell you again?

…top of the head.  It can also encourage the arse to wiggle in a most pleasing manor.  The young lady in question had a rather fine pair of black, or possibly extraordinarily dark brown, patent leather boots with unexceptional heals and turnovers at the top.  Maybe a hint of the pirate about them.  Or more than a month of my salary.

Mr Fry’s show had similarly well prepared footwear.  The lighting was simple, tasteful and focused the eye on the stage.  At first I thought the screens might be a little small but I realised they were in fact perfectly choosen to supplement his performance rather than replace it.  The choice of (I think) mostly ‘50s music before and during the interval between part A and part 2 put a little swing into the proceedings.  The quality of the audio throughout was pleasing on the ear.  I feel it’s important to mention such things having been to concerts ruined by a sound system, to strain the analogy well past the point of good manners, consisting of a single, broken down, flip flop and a high heeled wellington boot caught in a crack in the paving of acoustical amplification.

Now the arse (there I’ve used the word three five times in one post which is five times more than the proceeding thousand and something posts on Too Many Ideas) may have been clad in perfect, tight, white jeans but it had hidden depths.

No really stop it.  Don’t make me delete this post because you can’t behave.

That white fabric was of such a fine weave that it was absolutely clear that something black was under it.  Not some sort of indiscreet thong above the waist or visible fabric line.  No this was a black something that may well have begun at the neck and gone all the way down into the boots.  If it did I hope she didn’t need to make too many trips to the toilet on work time.  It may have been in two pieces.  My apologies I was distracted by the demonstration of complex oscillations.  Quite possibly it would have been more appropriate on the third floor in amongst the machines for examining harmonic motion.

And yes (and I’m not going to apologise for starting a paragraph with an and) Mr Fry’s talk had hidden depths.  There were moments of poignancy and his thoughts on Wilde were an excellent (almost) end to the show.  The fine white weave of light humour and a rather funny short story covered another layer, that was not dark but simply not what I was necessarily expecting of the evening.

Now I didn’t want to give too much of the excellent evening’s entertainment away.  I don’t know how much of the upcoming shows will be similar or if there will be a future broadcast, DVD or wax cylinder release that I could spoil.   Hopefully my comparison of a rather extraordinarily sublime arse and Mr Fry’s fun little talk will suffice.  I could certainly have watched either of them for significantly longer than the duration of the show provided.

As always (at least when I remember) a quick one line summary: Mr Stephen Fry’s one man show is a wonderful way to spend an evening.

Oh and if the lady in question should by some strange twist of fate see this: my apologies, this really is a moment of madness and poor taste. But good grief you do have an exceptional behind.  How many hours of step do you do to keep it in such fine shape?

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One Response to Stephen Fry at the Royal Albert Hall Review

Donna Doyle Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

Thankyou for a most amazing review not the kind I was expecting but very entertaing as I hope the show was .Will be unable to attend any of the performances due to teaching commitments in Eire hopefully a vinyl or cassette might be made available for us less tecno members of the community again thankyou and yes bottoms kind simpley take your breath away .Though I prefer mine on a man Stephens is at present quite sumptuous !!!

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