This morning, nothing grey about it all, a t-shirt-and-shorts kind of dat. We had coffee and breakfast at a Bluestone Lane cafe – quality coffee, and you can tell they were founded by Australians because they even offer an Iced Milo.

I forgot a detail from Moulin Rouge last night – currently for all the Broadway shows they’re doing some fundraising for an incredible Broadway-based charity the does an awful lot, for an awful lot of people. At the conclusion of Moulin Rouge yesterday, someone came out on stage describing the charity, and they ran a bit of an auction for someone to have a meet and greet with Boy George and a bit of a behind the scenes tour. To cut a long story short, the bidding went up to $7000! And then, the person who was outbid was offered the same thing for another $7000 — so in the blink of an eye they instantly made $14,000 for the charity which was pretty amazing. I dunno though, if you were the person that won it fare and square, would you be at all annoyed that someone had the same even though you outbid them? All for a very good cause, I guess.

Today we set off for a visit to ‘Rise NY’ – a bit of a history of New York told through a number of different spaces – but really I guess it was all a prelude to more of a theme park ride that was a ‘flyover’ over New York City. The different spaces were interesting, a brief history of the subway, radio and television, theatre, fashion, and the like.

The ride itself was, for reasons we might never know, set at minutes to midnight on December 31 1957. While waiting for the ride, we watched a TV broadcast all about it, it was all ‘Happy New Year! 1958!’ And so on and so on. Then we were ushered into the room for the ride itself, strapped in to a seat that was probably even narrow for skinny people. The moment the ride started it was if this room hadn’t talked to the previous one, all the historical stuff pretty much instantly out the window and forgotten. But it was a fun ride – basically a bit long tilting bank of chairs and a massive not-quite=wrap-around video screen, giving us the impression we were flying in, around, or even through the streets of Manhattan. We were so very fortunate so join this ride at the same time a whole school’s worth of teenagers. I mean, teens are gonna teen, but the whole thing just turned into a performative screaming competition which was equal parts to-be-expected and annoying-as-f. The ride was fun enough, anyway. Oh and when the ride propelled us under some firefighting boats and their jets of water, we too were hit with a bit of cold water from a nozzle, to give more of the effect. All good fun. In summation, a little bit silly, would I recommend it? If you can a cheap ticket, yeah I guess. It did fill a chunk of time and even though the history was kinda minimal I did learn a number of things so yeah maybe I’m being a bit harsh in my judgement.

After the ride was done and we exited through the gift shop, I checked my phone and am somewhat proud to report a victory – the Boston hotel, fond of throwing some mystery charges our way, finally agreed that yes that all quite wrong and they will all be refunded. It was a few (polite) emails back and forth, but in the end they did the right thing and I’m very happy about that.

We popped into the Krispy Kreme Times Square to kill a little time, had some of their Cinnamon rolls – they were nice enough but nothin’ compared to Cinnabon.

Next up was the Time Square Steps on top of the TKTS ticket seller. We were waiting here to catch up with one of Perry’s colleagues and a friend who were visiting BY as well. Always nice to meet someone from your part of town a very different part of town.

After that, very exciting things happened – another laundry run and a stop off at Starbucks to grab a drink. A “blackcurrant sage lemonade refresher” – or as I think we call it a home, basically a cold Ribena. 🙂

This was right near the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where buses fly through the air … well kinda.

Dinner was some grab-and-go Stromboli at Famous Famiglia. Don’t worry that sentence would not have made any sense to me either, yesterday. Stromboli is a square of pizza, rolled into a roll. It’s also delicious! We scoffed it down on the side of the footpath one our way to tonight’s show in West 45th Street. I think this particular section of W 45th St, between Broadway and 8th avenue, would have to be the theatre-y-est street imaginable. In this small section of road, there’s theatres shoulder-to-shoulder, showing Smash, The Outsiders, The Buena Vista Social Club, “John Proctor is the villain”, The Lion King, and of course the play we went to see – The Picture of Dorian Gray, at The Music Box Theatre. As you might imagine queueing to get in was a bit of a nightmare, I feel from the staff that have to manage all those crowds every night.

Very soon, we were in, front and centre, gazing up at a blank stage, no backdrop, just a large video screen hanging in the middle. Then, I saw the best play of my life (so far). Dorian Gray was played by Sarah Snook. The artist Basil Hallward was played by Sarah Snook. Basil’s close friend Lord Henry Wotton was played by … Sarah Snook. You get the picture (of Dorian Gray, heh) – Sarah Snook (which I have now learned rhymes with Luke, not Book), somehow, plays all 26 characters in the play. There are times she plays against pre-recorded video of herself, but it’s done cleverly and seamlessly. Props come and go, wigs come and go, a substantial camera crew comes and goes, as the action sometimes take place on stage, sometime on large movable video walls overhead, and often both at the same time. It’s an incredible use of technology yet still fits so well with the book Oscar Wilde released in 1891.

The show runs for 2 hours straight through with no interval – and somehow Sara Snook becomes more and more energetic with each passing minute building up to frenetic pace and a finale that showed who hadn’t read the book – you could tell by the significant number gasps from the audience. All this while going through a tightly choreographed dance (sometimes literally) with the camera crew, even using a phone at one point to project her picture on to the stage, her use of phone filters a modern take on Dorian’s ideas on beauty. Who knew something from 1891 could still be so relevant.

There was one part where it strayed significantly from the book – without too many spoilers it was related to what happens to James Vayne, I don’t know that it was necessary to add extra tension and drama, but if you haven’t read the book I guess it feels like it belongs.

It must be an absolutely exhausting performance, not to mention remembering two hours worth of lines, all the choreography, and yet doing all that and also bringing such significant emotional heft to the whole thing, all while walking the tightrope that is live theatre. Just stunning. It was no wonder that after the conclusion, the crowd, all standing, brought her out for four more bows. (Can one still have a curtain call when there’s no curtain?). To stretch my Masterchef analogy ever more thinly – this dish had one ingredient, and it was perfect.

After the show we had some health food – a delicious Cinnabon cinnamon bun and some (American) lemonade. Practically a salad!

There are three things to do tomorrow, so I’d better go get some proper sleep. Night!