Hamilton Fever

No, it’s not typhoid. It’s time for another dose, or rather a double dose, of the Alexander Hamilton story. Given it’s massive profile, it’s hard to imagine not having heard of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s global musical phenomenon. Its profile was given a substantial boost by the release of the Broadway recording on Disney+ in 2020 (check this). That’s when we first took notice and boarded the Hamilton train. Is it 100% factually accurate? Liberties are taken, and the timeline is a bit wibbly-wobbly but in his defence, fitting an entire life into two and half hours through the medium of song is not a straightforward endeavour.

After a few years of waiting, Hamilton finally made it’s way down to the South West of England. Last year we saw it in the Bristol Hippodrome. Good performance, but terrible seats. It’s an old theatre so they can only do so much. It was also anticlimactic. After waiting for years (we were willing to wait for it) the Bristol 2024 rendition wasn’t as good as we hoped. It’s fine for a director to have a different take, and it can be an improvement on the original, but this one wasn’t nearly as compelling as the Broadway performance.

Roll forward over a year and Hamilton has returned to the South West, this time making it down to the Theatre Royal in Plymouth (TRP). We were on the fence about getting tickets after our last experience. Was it worth the price of admission to face potential disappointment? We almost gave away our shot to see it again.

The experience started off in a more pleasant fashion as the lobby of TRP is much more spacious and open than the Bristol Hippodrome, and the seats are orders of magnitude more comfortable. We were down in the stalls near the front of the stage which also felt more immersive (compared to being in the gods in Bristol).

Aside from a slightly muted George Washington performance, this was an improvement across the board. Even the King George part didn’t disappoint with a slightly different take this time. If you’re a fan of musicals at all, I’d heartily recommend seeing Hamilton. In fact, we’re going back for a second time in Plymouth before it leaves the city.

Submergence by Squidsoup

We stopped in briefly to see this travelling light exhibit which stopped off at the Roland Levinsky gallery in the University of Plymouth. It’s a room full of hanging lights which cycle through a sequence of colours and patterns.

Fording Plymouth City Centre

Ford had a roadshow visiting Plymouth city centre over the weekend with an opportunity to test drive a few different electric models including the Explorer, Puma, and Capri. I’ve been interested in the new Capri mostly because it’s the spitting image of the Polestar 2. Knock-off? Convergent evolution? Ford wouldn’t admit taking design cues from the Swedes but it’s more than a passing similarity. In the profile the two are near identical.

I mostly wanted to sneak a look inside to see the interior quality as the asking price is substantial (the AWD model with all the optional extras is in the region of £58k, which puts it in competition with the Polestar 2, Tesla Model 3, and Hyundai offerings among others). Is it worth it? It’s hard to gauge performance in a short city centre test drive, but it seemed to handle itself well. I’m not a massive fan of the VW platform it is built on though, and the quality of the trim inside wasn’t on par with the Polestar 2. I appreciated the additional space gained by removing the transmission tunnel but putting the two cars side by side, the Capri doesn’t quite match up. I am a fan of the yellow, but what’s going on with that front end? I sort of wish they’d just gone whole hog and copied the Polestar completely without changing it for the worse.

Garden Update

I’ve done it! I’ve finally used the box of stuff I was supposed to use on the lawn months ago. In my defence, lawn management is incredibly tedious. Would you believe that with an immense amount of work and money, you could have a beautifully lush green lawn? Yes. Yes I would. Selling a “lawn pack” feels slightly disingenuous when you start to calculate the real cost of equipment, top dressing, and time. For these reasons and more, this will probably be a one off to try and boost the lawn (particularly in the somewhat bare areas).

In case you think I’m exaggerating the work, here’s a typical approach to improving your lawn: cut, aerate/tine, spray iron phosphate, rake moss, weed, top dressing, sow seed, add fertiliser, add growth stimulant. Water. Water. Water. Water.

And water forever more. A pity the grass folks weren’t fans of Poe, as I’d advocate watering nevermore.

I know I need more top dressing but I cannot bring myself to care about the grass any more. Whilst I understand weeds are bad for a beautiful verdant paradise, they are probably better for biodiversity and support a greater number of other species.

I had to get creative with my replacement for the old watering can rose. the lid from a food storage pot and a few holes and some hot glue later made a passable substitute. (The cracks were courtesy of my attempt to speed up the process by using a bradawl. Not a good idea)

It is functional but needs some fine tuning with regard to hole size.

The raised beds have also been growing well. As always tomatoes have snuck in without being intentionally planted and are out competing most of the other plants. Carrot and beetroot are ready to go, and I am interested to see if the cuca-melons and cucumbers grow as they were started quite late into the season.

Cinema History

The Reel cinema in Plymouth is up for sale, and a community group is raising funds for its campaign to buy the building in order to give it back to the community. This is a tremendous way to save a piece of cinema history dating back to 1938. The location is fantastic, being right behind the Theatre Royal and convenient to multiple car parks. This is the first step towards raising funds for a bid, so if you’ve got something to spare, chuck it their way. We need more of these community spaces rather than bland chain cinemas. Not only are you supporting cinema history, but you can walk away with some 1960s (or even 1938) cinema seats for a real piece of the action.

Zephyr Burger

It’s hard to resist a trip to Zephyr when we happened to be across the road in the University of Plymouth. This time I went for the buffalo chicken burger which was excellent. I haven’t been disappointed by the food to date, and thoroughly recommend this burger joint.