Last year, we had Barbenheimer – watching a low-brow, humourous film in the same week as a high-brow, serious film – in that case, Barbie and Oppenheimer.

This weekend, me and the missus did Gladdington.

I’m sure you can work out the two films involved.

We enjoyed them both, though I felt Ridley Scott’s epic stretched incredulity somewhat.

Whereas, a talking bear…

Anyway, yesterday, myself, Son and a couple of mates headed up to the NEC in Birmingham for our annual trip to the Motorcycle Live Show.

It was all rather fab, with so much to see and do… and eat.

A small highlight was the Isle of Man simulator, which gave us a taste of what it’s like to blat around the TT course on two wheels at stupid speeds. Now that’s out of my system, I have no need to actually go and do it (because that was really going to happen, wasn’t it?).

I also came away with a couple of carrier bags’ worth of merchandising, that I probably shouldn’t have been spending my hard-earned (cough) dosh on.

But that’s the thing with these shows: you just don’t know that you need a pair of overpriced, corrective boot insoles, until you see them.

The current Mrs Masher and I went to the pictures at the weekend, to see Heretic, starring Hugh Grant.

I’m not a fan of the horror genre and this film sort of fell into that category, but… it was alright. I quite enjoyed it, actually.

But this post isn’t about the film itself. Rather, I wanted to comment on the lack of people in the cinema with us.  It was a Friday night and the place was half empty.

Or half full.

It was the same last weekend, when Son and I went to see Venom – Marvel’s latest cinematic blockbuster – and so we saw it in the IMAX.

This particular screen, I reckon, was probably only about a quarter full.

Or, three-quarters empty.

Whichever way you want to look at it.

I know that cinema has never fully recovered from the Covid lockdown, but the numbers of people willing to go to the trouble of travelling to a picturehouse nowadays is dwindling and if it continues in this direction, then the industry will become unsustainable.  Following the great plague, so many cinemas closed down that many people now have to travel out of town in order to see the latest popcorn-frenzy inducing blockbuster, and plenty just can’t be bothered: “I’ll wait till it comes out on Netflix” is becoming the norm now, I think.

My family have always enjoyed going to the ‘flicks’ and, for us, a trip to see the latest visual feast is quite commonplace.  But, I can honestly say that I can’t think of anyone else within our extended family – or within our circle of friends – who still visit the cinema on a regular – or even semi-regular – basis.

Part of this is down to the hassle of – as I say – having to travel out of town, but I think a more likely reason is cost… it’s just so bloody expensive now.

As an example, in the cinema we go to (out of town) an adult ticket for a standard screening is now £14 … yes, fourteen quid!  Going into the IMAX will set you back a whopping twenty-one pounds.  And children’s tickets are only 50p cheaper, so,  going as a family can work out stupidly expensive.

Now, I’m no economist (far from it)  and I understand how with less attendance, they have been forced to put the prices up, but, surely,  wouldn’t it be better to reduce ticket prices and attract more people into the cinema, than to continually put prices up and drive people away?

A full cinema with tickets sold at £9 has got to be more profitable than a half-full one with tickets at £14.

Hasn’t it?

A few months back, the current Mrs M and I went to see Professor Brian Cox presenting his Horizons show, at the theatre in Milton Keynes.

We thoroughly enjoyed it and so, when we recently saw that it was now on in that London, but this time with a musical accompaniment from a live orchestra, we thought we’d go see it again.

And so, yesterday we caught a train into Paddington, dropped our overnight bags and had a quick shower in our budget hotel – because boy, was it hot and sweaty! – and then made our way to Covent Garden via the Bakerloo line.

I was amazed at how many people there were and at all the hustle and bustle on a week day. Yes, Friday night and the weekend, you’d expect that, but on a Wednesday…?

Anyway, we found a lovely little Italian restaurant and we sat and ate at a table outside on the pavement… because we are just so cosmopolitan.

If you stay in one spot in London for a day, the whole world will pass you by. Certainly, in the hour that we were sat there, a lot of weirdos strange people passed us by.  As fully paid-up members of the People Watchers Club,  we found this delightful.  The food was excellent and the Italian beer even moreso, and we could have quite happily sat there watching the world go by for a couple more hours.

But, we had a show to catch.

This was the first time either of us had visited the Royal Opera House and we were quite taken aback with the the splendour of it all… and also at the price of a bottle of beer!  Our seats at the front of the circle offered a decent view, but little leg room. Which was fine for me, as I only have little legs. Mrs Masher struggled with it though.

The show was exactly the same as the one we had seen previously and hadn’t been updated at all, as far as I could tell.  The music from the orchestra was good, but unrecognisable to me, as some of it had been composed purely for this show.  You know how pissed off fans get when they go to see their favourite band and all they play is their new unreleased stuff? Well, that’s how I felt. I wanted (and kind of expected, I suppose) the greatest hits: Holst; Strauss and even a bit of Vangelis.

Neither of us were enjoying it as much as we’d hoped and so, when the interval came round, we did a runner and spent some time enjoying the delights of Covent Garden by night, instead. More beer!

Back in Paddington, we stopped for a couple more drinks in The Sussex Arms – a commercial aircraft-themed pub with seating supplied by Concorde.  It wasn’t too busy and the music wasn’t so loud that you had to shout to be heard.  From there, it was just a short stagger back to our hotel.

It was a great night out and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

After going through a bit of a rough patch, I think I might be falling in love with London again.

On Saturday, I met up with a couple of friends in London and, after a quick sniffter in a nearby hostlery, we dropped in to the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue to see Fawlty Towers – The Play.

It was this: excellent.

The set was a faithful recreation of the original – as can be seen from the photo that I took, from our seats up in the Grand Circle – and the cast were brilliant.

John Cleese has taken three classic episodes from the nearly 50 year-old TV series (Mrs Richards, The Hotel Inspectors and The Germans) and merged them into a single 90 minute show.

And it works wonderfully!

It was evident from the cheers at certain points throughout the play, that much of the audience were – just like my mates and I – die-hard fans of the show and had likely seen every episode several times over, but there were many younger people in the audience too, who were possibly seeing it for the first time and they seemed to be enjoying it just as much as we were.

Catch it if you can… you won’t be disappointed.