Weekend Extravaganza

Last month I went to Madinat Jumeirah, where I saw a poster for “Whose line is it any way?” performing live in Madinat Theater on the same day. A fan of the show, I was somewhat disappointed that I didn’t know about it before hand, and so I got enrolled in the Theater’s notification e-list. I didn’t get any emails throughout the month, till last week. The email said that in recognition of my support of Madinat Theatre they would like to offer me two tickets for the price of one for the week’s show. Wow! I didn’t know I was supporting the theater, but I wasn’t going to tell them that! So I called Diana up and told her we can go to see Rainer Hersch for half price. Neither of us has heard of him before, so I checked his website, told her he is half German, and so she should support her fellow Germans!
On Thursday, we went to see Rainer’s show “All Classical Music Explained”. Rainer started with “As everyone knows, I am half German, half English which means I'd like to take over the world but I'm too polite”. I’ve read that “joke” in his website before going and didn’t think it was funny. I don’t get which part is the polite? The Nazis German or the Brit who invaded the whole world? I groaned internally and hoped that it won’t set the theme for the rest of the show. It didn’t. Rainer is definitely hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing all through the show and left with my cheeks aching from the stretching exercise. His show reminded me of the Seinfeld show. It had the cynical humor of Jerry, the pitiful wit of George and the physical silliness of Kramer (both looks- and moves-wise). Rainer is also a pianist and his talent was an integral part of the show. At the end of the performance, I wished I went to the Wednesday show, so that I could have told people not to miss the last show on Thursday. I also wished that my best friend Christine was in town, she would have loved it. During the Uni years, Christine, a pianist herself, tried hard to get me interested in classical music with no avail. My listening to classical music is still restricted to Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen!!

I recharged my sleep battery on Friday. I slept for exactly 12 hours. Now don’t get so jealous, it was not continuous. I was up for an hour here and there. It was goOoOod! Except that I couldn’t sleep at night and I had to wake up early on Saturday!


After doing a couple of errands on Saturday morning, I went to the cinema. Accompanied by a family size Mars Maltesers bag, I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp & Freddie Highmore). The first two minutes of the movie reminded of my trip to Hershey’s Park last summer and in particular the Hershey’s Chocolate World tour. Though I’m a chocolate junky, bombarding all of my senses with chocolate, turned me off it, so I passed the chocolate shops after the tour without much damage. (Not a fan of Hershey’s chocolates also helped!). For the first half of the movie, my Maltesers stayed in my bag, while I munched on the small popcorn I got (Yeah, popcorn, Maltesers and coke as a substitute for breakfast and lunch). My comments are:

• Great filming and delicious colors.
• The movie lacked depth. It was going annoyingly very fast. I imagined myself explaining the events to kids if they came and saw it with me.
• Freddie, who I loved in “Finding Neverland” was great till Wonka appeared. The lines seemed to have thinned down to silence or silliness.
• Charlie found 10 pounds and instead of taking it to the police, as the good kid he was portrayed to be, goes and buys another chocolate bar. Bad boy!
• Willy Wonka…urgh!! I Loved Depp in “Secret Window”, adored him in “Finding Neverland”, hated him in “Pirates of the Caribbean” and I’m bored with him as Willy. He must have studied Michael Jackson for this role. Willy dresses in a bizarre way, lives alone in his “dream” factory, acts in a very weird way (at least in a way different to normal people), has small people who lived on trees as his friends (Not Chimpanzees!), has a problem with his father, and invites kids to visit and spend the day with him!! (Need I say more?!)
• Deep Roy portraying the whole population of the Oompa-Loompas (the small people) was amusing at the beginning and maddening at the end.

All in all….it was better than the Fantastic Four!! And I only ate half of the Maltesers bag!


Of course the weekend isn’t a great weekend without going shopping. I bought brown shoes with a matching belt and bag. Why? I have no clue!! But it seemed a good buy then, even though they were not on sale! I really should learn how not to buy on impulse!