Voilala Land

 If I was to pinpoint the exact moment when my current burnout reached its peak, it must be November 2025.

A lot has happened this month, and I'm not even upset I didn't manage to write about the shows I've seen until today. There's heaps of them though, mostly from Voila. 

Generally, I kept an average of one show per day. Nothing on 1 November, but Sunday 2 November we've had The Last Oak Tree and The Black Burlesque Festival in Arches Lane, both of them proud achievements.

Moving over to Barons Court, I saw the most successful shows of Voila in one day, on Wednesday the 5th: Absent, which is making a return this week, and I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf Too, which needs a redrafting. I saw Mr Stevens in Arches Lane on the 6th, Invisible Border and Nadia in Barons Court on the 7th, and Everleigh's Codachrome at the Cockpit on Saturday the 8th. Semi-Automatic Smokeshow and Waiting for Julieta on a relatively quiet Sunday, the voice-only Facility 111: A Government Experiment on Monday and The Sea Horse at Golden Goose on Tuesday. 

Wedenesday 12 November I saw OffBeat at the Etcetera because Daniel, the guy doing the show is an interesting Moldovan-Portugese blend and he performed a 10 minutes bit at the festival launch. Then Dying to Meet You at Arches Lane and back to BC on Thursday 13 for The Extraordinary Life of a Rat Racer and Letters to Joan. 

Eat and 30 on Friday, and 13th house: The Basement and Identity on Saturday, which made me late for the Speakeasy and I fumbled the tech a little bit. The lesson was that I cannot watch the 3.30 pm in Barons Court.

And then, before a 3-days break that helped, but not as much as it should have, I saw Of Coincidences and Other Spells, a show from Mexico created especially for Voila, and When I Was Backpacking through Western Europe from Yoyo Chan.

Back on Thursday the 20th for the late night offering of Solo in Barons Court, then we did our own little cabaret for Sharon's birthday, which I'm counting as a half event. Maybe because I was on stage for half of it.

Elsa Siebert in Tannie Koekie's Birthday

The last Saturday of Voila was Tannie Koekie's Birthday and Unfinished Business for me, then the last week of November was a lot more chill: East of Adelaide in Arches Lane on Tuesday, A Christmas Carol at Alexandra Palace, invited by Michaela Bennison, Treasure Island at Imperial College on Thursday, invited by Lauren, our intern.

On Friday the 28th I had marked down Buried, and it took me a little bit and a look at the calendar to remember what it was. It was the reading organised and directed by Effie Loy in Arches Lane, and I also remembered why I've forgotten it. Will now do my best to reforget it.

And in the evening I finally saw La Bella Bimba, at Canal Cafe rather than Barons Court.

Saturday after the Speakeasy I came back to Arches Lane to see Stephen's Dog/Actor, and that's the month.

29 shows plus 3 kind of shows: the reading of Buried, the cabaret which I compered and Treasure Island at Imperial, which we abandoned at the interval in favour of food from the amazing ICL canteen. Let's round it down to 30 for the month, meaning we're at 145 for the year. December was quiet, but I still hit 150 shows without trying.