On Saturday we took the train to Manchester to see Monkey: Journey to the West at the Manchester International Festival. Monkey is the collaboration between Damon Albarn (he of Blur and Gorillaz fame, whom I have previously referred to as a genius in this blog after another trip to Manchester), Jamie Hewlett (also of Gorillaz and well known artist) and Chinese director Chen Shi-Zheng. An awesome, overwhelming mix of opera (sung in Mandarin), music by Albarn, visuals by Hewlett and some 50 Chinese performers doing acrobatics, martial arts and other amazing feats. There was so much going on that I couldn't keep up with the subtitles and therefore missed most of the story (based on the traditional Chinese story from the 1590s), although I probably missed about half of what was going on on-stage as well... I could easily watch the whole thing again - it was truly a spectacle. For a review, go here.
