Where were you in 1968? Not born yet? Babe in arms?? Or just a kid? Like I was. But old enough to dig that groovy music scene. The Beatles, The Who, The Stones. And the Kinks. Ahhhh, the Kinks. How we loved ’em.

They were ‘earthy’. Real people (ie common as muck and spoke badly, dropping aitches and glottally stopping everyfing in deir wake). So we loved ’em. Still do really. Especially as their songs were full of London. Waterloo Sunset. Lola in a club down in Old Soho. It was all very well the effin Bee Gees (Australian born Brits) singing about Massachussetts, but they’d never fucking been there. Should have sung about Basildon. Even Brisbane.

So the inevitable stage show emerged. Sunny Afternoon. The story of the Kinks. And I missed it when it was on at the Hampstead Theatre, 10 minutes away, because it sold out so quickly and I dithered because I’m never sure about bio-shows. They can be great and enlightening or they can be just a concert by a lookalike impersonation band. By the time the reviews went ‘rave’ it had sold out. So we went last night to see it in the West End. At 6 times the price and 9 times the inconvenience. But I’m not complaining. Grrrrrrrrr.

I had to see the show. Because one night, several months ago, Mel & I went for a curry. In East Finchley. Great little place. And into the very restaurant walked Ray Davies, of the Kinks. All 72 years old but instantly recognisable by the gap between his teeth. Ray lives in Highgate. We live near Hampstead. As any mathematician will tell you, the shortest distance between two points is a chicken tikka massala. So we ‘met’ at the Quality Tandoori in N2. A mathematical inevitability. And ‘a sign’.

The show is actually great. Not brilliant, but great. Fun and frolics and the coming good of lower class Muswell Hill scum and transvestites and psychological issues (Ray) and trisexual issues (Brother Dave; as Ali G once said; he’s a trisexual; he’ll try anfink sexual) and sleazy management issues and, most of all, brilliant music. Performed brilliantly by a truly fantastic cast of multi-talented people.

By the time Lola was played by the entire ensemble, half the audience was on its feet dancing away. Hmmmmm, but its basically a play. Does one dance at a play? Though it sounds like a really good concert. Hmmmmm. Let’s go round the corner to Chinatown and worry about it over some noodles.

Happy Sunday. It will be a Sunny Afternoon indeed.

A xxxx