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In April my girlfriend Laura and I booked a week long holiday in New York for late July. As someone who spent their childhood reading Spider-man comics and watching Ghostbusters at least once a fortnight I can’t overstate how bedwettingly exciting it is to be able to visit this city. I don’t intend to be all pretentious about my stay. I’m not particularly bothered if I miss the ‘real’ New York. I want the full unashamed NYC experience, the Empire State Building, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty etc. I want to see a baseball game, a show on Broadway, I want the works!!! And with the pound being so strong at present there’s a good chance I can afford to do it all.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been looking into what’s on during our visit. My ideal choice of Broadway show would be Spamalot. I wouldn’t mind seeing The Producers again but it’s coming to Cardiff in the autumn so it’s kind of a waste. That said the roles of Roger De Bris and Leo Bloom are to be played by Russ Abbott and Joe Pasquale for the end of the British tour so I might not attend the Cardiff leg. Sportswise I’m not fussy, preferably baseball or basketball. Although I understand getting hold of tickets is notoriously difficult. I could settle for some soccer action with New York Red Bulls (cringe) with their new signing ex Villa player Juan Pablo Angel. I went on their official website earlier, in their last game they drew 3-3 against Kansas City Wizards (double cringe) It says that both teams played in the 6-2-2 formation…It’s a wonder anybody scored. I might give that a miss to be honest. I also wanted to catch a music act while over there but for weeks I was having no luck finding something that took our fancy. Rage Against The Machine are headlining a hip hop festival called Rock the Bells. Other acts on the bill include Cypress Hill and the Wu-Tan Clan. Sounds pretty cool but I feel it’s a little too hardcore for us and we could quickly find ourselves out of depth. That left a choice between Meatloaf, The Police, Michael Buble or Minnie Driver. The term ‘middle of the road’ doesn’t cover that pile of crap.

Then out from the darkness came a huge surprise. I switched from the usual websites I’d been scanning to a different one and about a minute later found exactly the kind of thing I’d been searching for. One of my favourite bands, The White Stripes, playing the world famous Madison Square Gardens…bingo, we have a winner!!! We purchased the tickets pretty quickly for a tidy $124.00 which worked out £64.00 for the pair of us. I was shocked at the amount of add on fees the Americans have when you by a ticket. I thought Ticketline UK were bastards for demanding a one pound booking fee, it’s nothing compared to them. But hey it’s worth it, I’ve wanted to see the White Stripes live for a while now and it’s going to take me leaving the continent to do so. If you take away Jacks ill advised Coca Cola advert from the equation they really are what a great band should be. I bought their new album Icky Thump yesterday and I’m really getting into it. Took me a couple of listens but I found that with the last one. Stand out tracks for me so far are Rag & Bone and I’m Slowly Turning Into You. Great to be able to warm up for July by watching them on the BBC interactive at the moment, if you haven’t caught it yet please press the red button!

The Producers - Palace Theatre, Manchester -19.02.07

Ever since watching the fourth series of the mighty ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ I’ve been hoping to catch the stage production of ‘The Producers’. Last Monday I finally got round to it when I travelled up to Manchester to watch the opening night of the show at the Palace Theatre. Cory English and John Gordon Sinclair will be playing the roles of Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom for the stint up north but it seems no one is slightly interested in the choice of the lead actors. The appointment of Peter Kay as super camp choreographer Roger DeBris has monopolised any publicity surrounding the show. Driving into Manchester that morning I notice there are posters of Kay absolutely everywhere while flags of him hang from most of the lampposts in the city centre. Peter Kay is undoubtedly the face of this run. If you weren’t British you’d probably be wondering what all the fuss about as he’s only playing a supporting role, of course any one from this island would know the marketability of brand Kay. To be fair he didn’t disappoint, lucky really as most of the crowd are fans of him rather than the musical. This became obvious with the ovation Kay received when he walked on to the stage eclipsed anything the other actors got. One or two people in the audience were annoyingly over zealous. At one point right in the middle of a scene a drunken woman yelled “C’mon Peter!” Clearly this woman thought she’d come to see a pantomime. He coolly brushed her off replying “The name’s Roger darling”. Despite the attention he never broke character and was very impressive in the role. I’m not the biggest Peter Kay fan, I thought ‘Phoenix Nights’ was great but I went off him when he did the John Smith adverts. Digging up fucking Tony fucking Christie for that fucking song didn’t help matters. Seeing him on Monday has really got me into him again, I’d forgotten how funny he can be. I like to see him get away from “Garlic Bread!” bollocks and carry on taking these kind of roles for a while because I’m sure he’s up to it. The rest of the cast were great too. Cory English was amazing as Bialystock, a real force of nature.

Fair play, the show was highly entertaining. I knew it was going to be good but not like that. I strongly recommend anyone to catch ‘The Producers’ while it’s at Manchester. I’m even contemplating going to New York to watch it. Hang on, I think I’m building it up a bit too much. I think perhaps if I hadn’t become so familiar with the show through my love of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ I may have not enjoyed it as much. Maybe watch the original film to test the water before buying any tickets. I suppose the humour is quite specialist, anything with dancing Nazis could be considered specialist.