Yesterday turned out to be one of the most culturally rich days I have enjoyed in a long time. Not only did I watch an interesting, if fairly repugnant, film yesterday morning, but in the evening John and I met at The Barbican to watch The Buddha of Suburbia. I must admit I hadn’t heard of the play before J suggested it, but it had been so long since I last went to a theatre – possibly before the pandemic – that I was fairly eager to take him up on the suggestion. It would certainly beat yet another Saturday night at home.

The Barbican is fast growing on me: I don’t know much about how that area of London came about, but it seems to be a vast complex of galleries, theatres and cinemas under my nose which I knew virtually nothing about. It hosts the type of avante-garde art which I often find fascinating, and thanks to the Elisabeth Line, I can get there in minutes.

Thus yesterday evening I met John outside the Barbican Theatres. Truth be told I hadn’t a clue what to expect, but had a feeling I was in for a treat. As we went into the space itself, I got the impression that this was something I had missed; something I hadn’t experienced for a long, long time. I seemed to have forgotten that theatre wasn’t just cinema rendered into 3d, but something completely different and far more visceral.

As luck would have it we got to our places just before the performance began. There was no curtain and the stage was open before us. Soon the action started. I don’t want to spoil anything in case anyone reading this intends to go, but The Buddha of Suburbia is about Indian Immigrants living in South London in the late seventies. I must admit that the plot itself seemed to drag slightly, especially towards the end; but what struck me the most last night was how the story was told. Apart from the intermission, there were no scene changes as such: The action took place in one long go, with the actors using the various spaces on the elaborate, three-dimensional set to represent the various places in the story. I found it utterly intoxicating: watching the cast members seamlessly weave throughout the set, performing their lines, interacting with one another, periodically breaking into dance routines, was intoxicating. I had missed this though I hadn’t realised it, but either way was suddenly very eager to see more.

As I rode the Elisabeth Line back to Woolwich last night, it struck me that I had just experienced what London was best at. It is a city of theatres, of art, of music, of performance. It is a melting pot of a thousand intertwined, fascinating cultures. Places like The Barbican are where London comes to life. The Buddha Of Suburbia brings part of it’s south eastern corner into it’s centre, and in doing so brings the entire sprawling metropolis to life on stage.