Design Museum & Merchants of Bollywood

Photos: View along Thames Path, the gherkin building, folding bike, bike rack+garden box combo, and show layout in the Brit Insurance show

As you ride the steep Tube escalators up and down (always standing obediently on the right), it's hard to miss all the print or video posters, that step up or down the walls. Around Covent Garden, naturally, all the posters are about the longrunning shows: Dirty Dancing, The Lion King, Love Never Dies, etc. I've noted a short run show, at Sadler's Wells Peacock Theatre, advertised as "Direct from Film City, Mumbai, the hit dance spectacular returns to London!" Who could resist? I picked up a £25 ticket from the box office in the AM. Buying direct saves the booking fee (at least they don't use the ephemism "convenience fee" here, they actually tell the truth). Also, these errands give me the chance to explore another part of London on foot.

The show didn't start til 7:30pm, so I rode the Tube to Tower Hill, checked out "the gherkin" building by Norman Foster, then walked across Tower Bridge ("London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down" - yes that one), back on the Thames Path, and back into Southwark and Bermondsey. I walked the cobbled street of Shad Thames, past places with evocative names like Ginger Wharf and Spice Quay. When I was last in London, the Docklands regeneration had barely begun. I can remember derelict warehouses and gritty streets, not really that far from the Dickensian slum London where Bill Sykes terrorized Oliver Twist and cholera was rampant. 30 years have passed, and what a different world it is: expensive conversion flats, swanky boutiques and nice restaurants. It's also where you find both Terence Conran's Design Museum and Zandra Rhodes' Fashion and Textile Museum. I bought a £12 joint ticket, and viewed the 3 small and fascinating shows at the Design: Brit Insurance Designs of the Year, Sustainable Futures and Urban Africa. Thirty years ago, product and graphic design really wasn't considered "art" and I remember stumbling into something called the Design Center, to look a bunch of cool (I thought so, anyway) products. I remember one hilarious object then on display: a Toby mug in the shape of Prince Charles' head, with his ears as handles. This was during the Charles and Diana royal wedding era, before everything went off the rails. Now, I read in the museum's catalog about their joint MA degree with Kingston University in curating contemporary design. So, design is finally real art. I'll go to the F&T later, as the ticket is good for 1 month.

And what about the Merchants of Bollywood? How about 2+ hours of high energy music and non-stop full-on choreographed dancing. I didn't know you could dance both rock-n-roll and disco wearing the glittering Indian pant/skirt with midriff top outfits (girls) or harem pants and jewelled vests (boys), but, yes, you can. And you can do it while galloping around in a pantomime horse, or a jewelled elephant mask, clanging cymbals and beating drums. Did I mention the Rajestani slap stick, all jokes about moustaches and cross dressing? "JAY HO!"