A weekend down south is a rare event for me these days so en route to see Fiona's production of Bugsy Malone in Woking I lingered a while in London and walked down to and across the river, pausing on Westminster Bridge to check out the cityscape.  There was a new to me skinny pyramid shaped skyscraper going up that I later learnt is destined to be the highest building in Europe.

To see it from the London Eye I'd have had to linger all weekend but fortunately I had no wish to do so and sought refuge from the multitudes in the National Theatre coffee bar.  The Communist Party HQ in Paris is testament to the fact that you can create beautiful conrete bunkers but the NT, like the previous incarnation of the St James Centre, shows that mostly you can't.  But the coffee was good and the slice of ginger tiffin (a confection I had not come across before) was delicious.

A musical about gangsters and their molls and brawls doesn't seem on the face of it suitable material to be performed by child actors but that's how Bugsy started life.  It also started as a film but has become a popular stage show for youth groups.

This production was performed by adults.  I can't judge how much that added to or subtracted from the impact on the audience.  We were at least spared the oohs and aaahs of delighted grans and grandads though some of this cast must have brought along a few sympathetic followers.

The show looked lovely, was well lit and costumed and the singing and dancing was excellent as was the live band.  The plot and storyline such as they are didn't allow a great deal of space for drama and tension and not all the characterisations compensated for that.  But on the whole it was a good evening and I had the additional pleasure of a pre-theatre dinner with old friends.

Back in London on Monday I did see a bit of architecture to admire, the wonderful white fan of steel tubes that roofs the revamped Kings Cross concourse.