For God's Sake Feed It The Girl

After the euphoria of Crufts qualification, it's back to a small local event today, where we record placings of fourth, fifth, fifth and finally five faults in the last event because a tired Doggo wasn't listening to me. It's not a bad set of results and more points in our promotion attempt in their league.

Our 4th place wasn't really what it seemed. It was in something called 'Time Gamblers', which in the rules says that the handler has to estimate what time they'll do the course in. Which is really silly but what is even sillier is when they scrap this rule and instead the judge sets a random 'target' time. To make it sillier still, he doesn't tell you what this time is. So you end up with some random winner who just happened to do the course in some time plucked out of the air by the judge. At least if he told us what his target time was then at least you could try and aim for it, thereby adding a little skill to it. Farce.

It's not too bad a day weather wise. Plenty of sun punctuated by sudden sharp and heavy showers, which is a major step up from most of the weather we've had for shows this year. E.g. thunderstorms, lightning, gales and snow. The main problem was these showers seemed to come every time I tried to walk Doggo around the lake they have there.

We also had a good look at the 'Splash n Dash' event but decided we were wet enough and Doggo's not terribly good with water.

I do a bit of shopping whilst I'm there. I come back with a soft travel cage for the little squirt and assorted treats.

In the evening L has lined up a real treat for me, as a pre-Hathersage Triathlon AF night and we go see 'Little Shop of Horrors' at the Playhouse. At least I should be thankful it's not Kate Nash. She's 'topping' the bill at the unattractively named Splendour Music Festival on Wollaton Park. Suppose there's no way on earth you could do Kate Nash and be AF.

The sounds coming from the park during the afternoon are not too bad as 'Ocean Colour Scene' and the 'Charlatans' perform. It would be interesting to see how many of their fans hung around for Kate.

So, we head off to the Playhouse, a bit worried about leaving the dogs in earshot of Kate, which is probably more traumatic for them than Bonfire Night.

Almost immediately after the play starts, L casts a worried sideways glance at me as we are introduced to down town Skid Row by a trio of singing girlies called Shiffon, Crystal and Ronette. AF? I already feel that this would have been better with alcohol.

Then we meet a shop assistant called Seymour who is working at Mushnik's Florist, which is on the brink of financial ruin. His fellow assistant is the dizzy Audrey, who he inexplicably has the hots for. Regrettably, for him, she is going out with, and also being used as a punch bag by, a psychotic dentist, whom also delights in employing sadistic operating techniques on his patients while dosed up on nitrous oxide.

Seymour though is the hero of the play as he single-handedly saves the shop with a strange looking exotic plant that he acquires and names after Audrey. Oddly, she sees this as a compliment but the Plant starts to attract customers to the shop.

Then 'suddenly' Seymour discovers that it thrives on human blood and the plant grows with lightning speed whilst Seymour ends up with plasters all over his fingers. Once it has a taste for the red stuff the plant starts to talk and demands sustenance that is more substantial. So Seymour feeds it the dentist, which is a shame because I was enjoying his deliciously over-the-top performance.

I want to stand up and say 'for God's sake feed it the girl' but eventually he does anyway. Along with Mr Mushnik and finally himself as the plant turns out to be an insatiable extraterrestrial hell bent on world domination. Obviously.

Naturally the plot is ridiculous, well actually there is little plot. It's a bit like watching a low budget movie, trashy entertainment but the cast are good and the singing ok. Although I feel the use of microphones ruins it a bit. It disconnects the voices from the people and muffles many of the songs, making the words sometimes difficult to catch. In a small venue like the Playhouse, this much technology wasn't really necessary.

Of course, it's the plant that steals the show with its booming demands to 'feed me now'. We head home to the 'feed me' demands of Mini Doggo who is threatening to perform a similar leap in size.