Thoughts on 'The Drowned Man'.

Two whole Bank Holidays have passed since Moon and I took ourselves up to London to take in some culture in the form of immersive theatre with The Drowned Man by Punch Drunk.

So often with things like this I have every intention of writing up something straight away but then other things come up and I dunno, then it just feels like the moment has passed. I think it's even easier for me to do this when I have so many pictures on my blog and I wasn't even allowed to take any - nor would I have wanted to - on this occasion.

The reason I'm ignoring the fact that the moment has passed is because you really need to see this play if you can. It opened in July last year and is running until 6th July this year, so there's still plenty of time to squeeze it in if you're heading up to London but have no plans for what to do.




Set in and around the fictional Temple Studios, which is actually an old Royal Mail sorting office, The Drowned Man tells the tale of the suspicious failing of a once successful Hollywood studio. This mainly involves tragedy for the actors, those working at the studio and people living in the surrounding town. The story is neither here nor there because chance are you will see something completely different to, that's just what I took from it.

You are encouraged on your ticket and once you arrive that you should split up from you party. This was something Moon and I were actually a little skeptical about because it's basically a big dark warehouse with a load of people in masks. We did though, and it's probably the best decision we made because we came away with different experiences of what had just happened and could share our thoughts on The Drowned Man separately.

As it's immersive theatre, there is no stage and you follow the cast around the 5 floors of Temple Studios through sets that include a forest, a trailer park, a beach (including sand) and even a secret cinema. The attention to detail is incredible and you can really interact with the set itself too. I think you could go through just the set and appreciate it as an art installation without even seeing the play itself and still enjoy it. Even books that you pick off the shelves feature handwriting from the characters in them. There are notes and personal items everywhere, it's amazing to think of the amount of thought that's gone into just the set design.


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Things do get pretty intense and in the first hour or so, while you're still getting used to what the hell is going on, it's very surreal. You can stand centimetres away from characters or read over their shoulders and they completely ignore you. To differentiate between audience and cast, all audience members are to wear masks and there's no speaking throughout - you can see then why it's pretty clear that it would be silly to take photographs, not least because it's so dark throughout that it would be a major distraction and kind of ruin it (for everyone) but also, it's nice to have a little something that allows you to relax and focus properly on what's going on.

I've seen some audience members went away with fake blood spattered across their masks, the most I got was touched on the shoulder as a character moved through the crowd, that was pretty unnerving, especially since I hadn't spoken for around an hour and a half by that point. Not quite as freaky as the silent stampede of masked audience members as they move through the Temple Studios world.


It was the above Instagram photo from Nev Schulman (of Catfish-fame) that made me curious to find out what The Drowned Man actually was and I'm glad I did. We were lucky enough that Moon's mum had got him some theatre vouchers for Christmas a few years ago, the 5pm show on Fridays also includes a concession for people under 26, bit of a result. Still, I'd say less £35 each for an experience like this was well worth it, we spent the full 3 hours there and it was nothing short of a brilliant way to spend an evening.

With cameos from fancy famous people like Andrew Garfield and Florence Welch and so many different places to explore, even seeing this production a few times wouldn't allow you the same experience. I can't recommend it highly enough and will definitely be checking out Punch Drunk's future productions once The Drowned Man's run has finished.

What do you think of immersive theatre? Have you seen The Drowned Man before or would you like to?

Saturday Snelsmore Snaps.

I was going to say it's nice that the weather settled down but it hasn't really, that said, it's warm enough to go for walks after work and to get out in the garden in the evenings and play catch. It was warm last weekend though and even though it clouded over, we made the most of it and headed up to Snelsmore Common for a less swampy walk than our last visit.

We didn't get to see any ponies like we have done before but it was nice to walk around chatting, deciding which routes to take and talking 'big future things' without the distraction of the TV or our phones. Moon actually might love it up there and insisted we walk up there again the next day with some old (new) Newbury friends, they did help us find a new route from Donnington Castle though so I'm not complaining.




We've been obsessed by 'wild' pine cones since seeing huge one for £20 in shop when were in Bath at Christmas. I mean really, how ludicrous, they're free everywhere. Our favourite game is 'how much do you reckon this one's worth?', the amount we've even seen in other shops is getting a bit silly too!




50p of pine cone.











You might have guessed it by now but I'm quite liking a bit of this landscape stuff at the moment, not sure why, I think it's the changing of the seasons and being able to enjoy being outside again.

Teatox Detox.

Yesterday I finished up my first proper detox. After seeing a few bloggers mention that they were BooTeaing and feeling a bit low about the fact that any exercise I had been doing worked more to make me fitter rather than lose weight, I figured teatoxing might give me a little bit of a boost.

The BooTea 14 Day Teatox is designed to cleanse your digestive system while keeping you energised and speeding up your metabolism. The daytime tea claims to help your body to work harder at converting food into energy to burn fat while suppressing your appetite. The 'bedtime cleanse' helps to clean out your digestive system, preventing excess calories being absorbed and stored as fat.

I don't know what to tell you, I didn't get the exact results I wanted but I definitely feel a change, which is more than I thought would happen. I definitely have more energy than I did and found that as the 2 weeks progressed, my appetite was smaller, at least I didn't have as many cravings. While I've actually lost a couple of pounds, I would say it's mainly to do with exercising and snacking less, the latter of which the tea probably helped with but there would probably be hardly any difference without the exercise part.



BooTea do provide a healthy-eating plan but I'm pretty bad at diets so just figured I would see if there were any results through my normal diet, which despite the snacks, isn't really all that bad. Hey, it seems to have worked out alright. I think the main difference I noticed was that the fluctuation in my weight between teas, most likely due to dehydration, was pretty big, which is a little worrying but I'm hoping actual weight-loss might be factored in too.

It was just such an easy thing to fit into my routine as all I needed was a kettle and I drink tea all the time anyway. The tea itself is actually pretty nice too which makes everything all the more easy, I might even miss it now that things are going back to normal. I certainly think for a bit of a boost, BooTea is a great thing, if you're looking for a permanent lifestyle change, a 14 Day Detox is never going to be the one but if it fits into something your already working towards there's no harm in giving it a go.

Other things to know:

• You are going to make friends with your toilet: It's a 'digestive cleanse', even when put into more sophisticated terms it still means you're going to need to use the toilet. It's not pretty but don't be a priss about it.
• The Daytime Tea is nicer: It just is and sometimes I guess I just found it hard to drink a hot drink rather than cold water so soon to bedtime.
• Let it brew: I think this was where I fell down slightly and probably could have got more out of it. You're meant to let the teabag sit for 3 minutes, something I would never do with any other tea. To get the most of the herbs though, I found on days I didn't let the bedtime one brew it really didn't have the same effect. (tmi?)

I picked my BooTea 14 Day Teatox for £19.99 up from Holland & Barrett but they sell online themselves too. With a summer holiday coming up, I'm tempted to do it all over again in a few weeks and even if it isn't doing exactly what it says, it is a natural product that lists all its ingredients and I have finished the two weeks feeling boosted and ready to keep working on my fitness.

Downtime Hometime.

I had a pretty hectic week last week, in between photographing, editing and designing I had hardly any time to decompress and finished up my Friday feeling pretty exhausted. So it was quite a relief that our weekend plans were non-existent and we were free to laze about in the sun.

I think getting outside and doing a little home admin did Moon and I the world of good, here are a few snaps from our Saturday in the garden - it started with the perfect garden picnic ♥ and involved a lot of spying on what the cat was up to.




Doll recently graduated cat-school and has brought in (and killed) two critters for us in the last two weeks.
I'm really very sad about this.




We really have a knack for growing the ugliest tomato plants going. I really, really hope we can actually grow our own properly this year, rather than leech off a plant someone else gave us.




Now strawberries, we can grow! If I'd known they were that easy we'd have a full-on patch by now rather than just a row, it's a shame we probably won't be here this time next year to get to enjoy even more.


I really, really love our lilac tree.




Doll's two new favourite sleeping places, our bed isn't good enough for her at the moment...

The sun really had his hat on for us so I'm sad to see him disappear into the cloud leaving only mugginess. I'm still thankful for longer evenings and afternoons like this though, it's easy to forget that doing nothing is just as important as getting out and doing something.

Beale.

We had all our friends from uni over for a Eurovision party last weekend and had pinned our hopes on a barbecue. With the weather being as miserable as it could possibly be, Moon made chilli instead - which then went on to be lunch and dinner for the next three days after everyone left, chilli lasagne though(!) It was such a lovely weekend and so great to catch up.

Not letting the weather 'dampen' our spirits, after a late lunch at Newbury's new sports bar (weird place, no windows, pretty good food), we popped over to Beale Park. I think the price always put me off a bit but it was actually okay considering all there was see there. I'm glad that the gamble paid off as it was certainly a good way to kill a couple of hours in between the downpours.





Who knew this was what mongeese looked like?


Set just off the M4 turn off for Theale, Beale Park is kind of in the middle of nowhere and houses a small but interesting collection of weird and wonderful creatures, from owls to raccoons and even has its own herd of fallow deer. I just really like places with plenty of animals to see I guess and am looking forward to going there again when it's nice weather - hoping that doesn't mean everyone else decides it's time to go there to!


















I'd definitely say our Eurovision party was a great success, i may not remember a lot of the contest part but the party might have been one of the best we've hosted in our little flat. Looking forward to Portugal with a few of this lovely lot in just a matter of weeks! ♥