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After a sellout UK premiere Blaze continues in the West End until the end of March before starting a European tour.

Too Much Flavour – “Blaze is a brilliant show and visually stunning…the projection effects were sensational at extending the effect of the routines. Although the back wall of the theatre was an odd construction made up of what appeared to be stacks of drawers when lit fully, come time for those projections and the wall burst to life with action. Memo Akten and Robin McNicholas did an amazing job at putting it to use. One of its best uses was a solo from Lizzie Gough controlling a projected ball of light with her choreography making it a visual treat to watch.”

Guardian – “Es Devlin’s clever set, constructed from piles of boxes, cupboards, TV screens and doors, gives the dancers plenty of levels to move on, and, better still, functions as a three-dimensional screen on which the lighting and video team can project their most astonishing effects. A B-boy trio performing against images of melting snow acquire a rare luminous purity; Lizzie Gough (also a finalist from So You Think You Can Dance) becomes a fiercely demonic figure, conjuring a kaleidoscopic storm of flashing light.”

Sunday Times – “Spectacular. The company of 16 are superb performers”

Financial Times – “Here is the most blissfully energetic, sassy, to- hell-with-everything-except-street-dance show. And it is superbly designed by Es Devlin … Devlin has, tremendously, placed the action against a wall of grey, office-equipment- suppliers’ drawers and the occasional ice-box and a single bath. These serve as background, exits, launching pads for dance. There is stunning lighting by Patrick Woodroffe and Adam Bassett, and amazing video projections.”

The Times – “Blaze is a big, slick and exuberantly delivered package of wall-to-wall dance”

Mixing nightclub vibes with West End production values and the raw impact of a music gig, BLAZE is a high-energy show of non-stop dance from some of the world’s hottest DJs, B-Boys and streetdancers. Directed by top West End director and choreographer Anthony Van Laast (Mamma Mia!, Sister Act), BLAZE features 16 of the best streetdancers and breakers in the world.

BLAZE makes its world premiere at Sadler’s Wells’ Peacock Theatre before  commencing an international tour.

Could this mean we are all going to live longer?

A new version of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s eighteenth-century poem – a fantastical story of a man’s voyage through nature and his own mind – with music by Southbank Centre Artists in Residence Bellowhead, Lemn Sissay in the title role and a 150-strong community choir of children, teenagers and adults taking part in a performance billed as a ‘people’s opera.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When I was young I  hated rhubarb. That didn’t stop the good people of my home town of Wakefield having a rhubarb festival every year. To make matters worse my grandad is  a rhubarb farmer.  The location of his  farm is within the three hallowed vertices of the Rhubarb Triangle which covers the area in between Wakefield, Leeds and Bradford (some suggest it also stretches to Rothwell but i’m a purist when it comes to the sacred Triangle).

Over the years I warmed to the taste of this non native (it was brought back to the uk by soldiers who faught in the Crimean war),  sour,  herbaceous perennial to the point that I now relish a good crumble after my sunday lunch.  I also enjoy my Grandads frequent regailing of rhubarb based memories. One of my favorites is about 1953. That year the harvest was partuicularly good and my grandad and my uncle Norman went out and bought deluxe fur coats for their wives. I love this mainly because my grandad always maintains a desheveled, farmer look with tatty wooly jumpers and dungerees.  The thought of him ambling down the lane with my gran glammed up to the nines makes me smile.

My uncle passed away a couple of years ago and as I have an interest in photography my grandad gave me some boxes of his old slides. I was going through them a while ago when I  found this gem. Behold the bumper crop and the two rhubarb beauties.