What use is sitting alone in your room

when you could go out and see Cabaret in the West End, which somewhat surprisingly starred Julian Clary. He was very good.

It was quite a strange experience watching it. The first half featured lots of sexual decadence, nudity, and smacked bottoms. The Clifford character was very non-descript, but others were strong. It just felt like 'something' was missing - it was quite low key even for numbers like Mein Herr. Then the first half ended with 'Tomorrow Belongs to Me', and as the curtain fell many of us in the audience just sat there with out a clue how to respond. Yes, he sang it very well, but tumultuous applause for a number sang by a Nazi who correctly predicts the immediate future didn't seem quite right as I am sure you can appreciate.

The second half was a lot stronger and the ending was very moving. It even shut up the 'Whoopers' in the audience. It was my first experience of Whoopers in a theatre audience. Gay kiss on stage - "WHOOP!" Topless woman walks cross stage - "WHOOP!" Simulation (I think) of sex doggy style - "WHOOP!" You get the picture. Reidski was ready to kill them by the interval.

The other thing about is was that for our second West End theatre trip in the past two months there were loads of empty seats and we got £55 tickets in great seats for £20. This is obviously a good time to get a bargain theatre ticket, but you can certainly detect that West End theatre is struggling.