2008: Year of the Monkey

O.K, so actually it was the year of the rat, but 2008 saw the release of Monkey "Journey To The West", the album spawned from Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's opera of the same name. It was also the year that I traveled down to Charleston SC to see the opera at the Spoleto festival.
As an aside to my best show of '08 tournament, I thought I'd revisit the spectacle of the show. I took it out of consideration for the best show, since it's in its own category.
Currently in an extended run at the O2 Arena in a specially designed tent, the opera is enjoying rave reviews.
Thanks to flickr, I've assembled some images of its time there:

Bloophoenix's photo of the outside of the tent and Canary Wharf.

Paulmonkeypaul's picture of the show.

Mr Ush's picture of the show

One of the funniest bits of the show is at the very beginning. There's this giant panda perched at the back of the stage, not even facing the crowd, just munching on bamboo. It has literally no reason to be there, no purpose to the story at all. It's a fabulous detail because it's exactly like a real panda; sort of gormless, a bit "slow". It reminded me of those images of the pandas that survived the earthquake in China. They were so helpless and you just wanted to give them a cuddle (bad idea by the way). You can see the panda (in a bit more of a starring role) as Damon et al. perform Monkey's Travels on Later With Jools Holland.