Metropolis and coincidences

It's quite 'fun' to be back at work again. Not least it's all change with a new boss, the departure of an old boss and a new location within the building. Which Roman general was it who made the comment about constantly being moved/rearranged? Incisive seems to follow that plan, I've been here since June 2008 and have moved 6 times over 3 floors!

Anyway, it was good to see Julie again. She told me that she'd been to the Prince Charles cinema (just round the corner from our offices at Piccadilly) to see a restored version of Metropolis. Not a science fiction fan, she still thought it was excellent and 'iconic'. This took me by surprise - not that she should like Metropolis, but that she should have seen it so recently. Only the day before John had mentioned that they were showing the film at The Roundhouse with a live orchestra. (Mind you, showing it with a dead orchestra would have been a bit silly.) What a coincidence!

"Do you fancy seeing it again?" "Yes, that would be awesome."

So I bought tickets for the next evening (the last evening) and off we went.

What a performance! John and I reckoned it must have been at least 25 years since we'd seen it, so I had forgotten most of the storyline apart from the obvious clips. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the second half, due in great part to the emotive nature of the live orchestra.

If anyone is reading this, and you get the chance to see it with live orchestra - GO! And the reconstruction with the new bits they found in 16mm in S.America makes the whole film hang together so much better than its disjointed predecessor.

There were only 2 downers

1. They wouldn't let us take our bottle of wine upstairs where we were sitting so had to decant it into large plastic glasses which meant the white wine warmed up very quickly.
2. The seats in the circle at The Roundhouse are INCREDIBLY uncomfortable.

Such is life - we're going there again tonight to see Stevie Winwood, but hopefully we'll be up and dancing so the lack of padding on the seats won't be so much of a feature.