Man Woman Woman Man

Yesterday was the perfect day; a day in London.

 I can't tell you how good London is for me. Don't get me wrong, I love being a country bumpkin, walking along the sea wall with the dog, digging the allotment and living at a slightly slower pace but the moment I step off the tube I feel energised. The bustle of people, the tall buildings, the things to look at, the choices to make all make me smile. 

We were in early. We joined the queue for day ticket sales of Kinky Boots at 9.30 and were 6th in the queue. Front row tickets for £25 - brilliant! Followed by brunch at Bills, a walk around Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square, all punctuated with several stops for coffee.

Once at Trafalgar Square I find that I am unable to resist the National Portrait gallery. Somehow, all those people, their lives , their stories call to me. My son humoured me although he did point out that it creeps him out, "all those people looking at you!" several times. 

I am always fascinated by the women. Maybe it's because there are fewer of them, or maybe their stories are more interesting and not so often told. On this visit, I had trouble distinguishing between the genders. Was the fact I was about to see a show about drag queens influencing how I saw these paintings?

Two of these are men and two are women. Top left is George IV (1780), top right is called The Ugly Dutchess (1513), bottom left is Radclyffe Hall (1913) famous lesbian poet and bottom right The Chevalier d'Eon (1792). The Chevalier is particularly interesting as for years it was thought that this was just another 'ugly woman' painting. He was however a famous French  soldier, spy and transvestite and accepted easily by London society as a woman. The feminists of the day such as Mary Wollstonecraft, who thought men and women were really the same and had a daughter who went on to write Frankenstein, embraced him as an icon and he offered to lead armies of Amazonian women against France's enemies.  Without defining clothes, make up and hair styles would we really be able to tell the difference between the sexes unless we examined their genitals? 

Then there was Kinky Boots. Never have I seen a musical where the whole theatre is standing at the end. It is such a feel-good show. The Angels were totally amazing and so likeable that even the most entrenched homophobe would have found it difficult not not be shouting "Oh Yeah!" at the end of the first half. My daughter and I have serious body envy. Those men have the best legs and bottoms I have ever seen and with front row seats we were possibly the only people having no doubts that they were actually men. 

The cast was amazing. Matt Henry's voice is just divine and Amy Lennox has absolutely brilliant comic timing. I don't think the songs will be ones you leave the theatre humming and some of the lyrics were a bit clunky but the energy of them left you in no doubt of Cyndi Lauper's rock God status. No matter how good the rest of the cast were it was the Angels that stole the show. (Marcus Collins an X-factor runner up showing just how little of a singer's talents the X-factor actually shows).

"Three days left.  St Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium bridge tomorrow," said the Chinese girl sitting next to me checking her maps and itinerary in the interval."
I was curious. "What's been the best thing so far?"
"This! This!  It has to be this!"

I've come away with a sore jaw from smiling too much and a curiosity about whether a woman can get away with that fabulous lipstick. 

Glitter kisses all round.