May 16, 2026

Dateline: New York, New York

Those crazy madcap kids Andy and Patti slept in again this morning. Probably due to a little too much carrying on with $5 kiwi cocktails and karaoke last night (but it was fun). We emerged from the hotel about 11 am to run smack dab into the 9th Avenue Hells Kitchen International Food Festival which occupied the road from 42nd Street all the way up to 57th. We didn’t feel like eating on our feet so we ducked into a diner about half way up for coffee and breakfast food. Little has changed about New York Diners in the last century other than the prices which are a good deal higher than they once were. Patti bought herself a new jade choker at a booth. I didn’t feel the need for one.

We did some more midtown wandering (gorgeous weather again today but the temperature was definitely going up into the high 70s and low 80s). We stopped in at the Krispy Kreme store for Patti (alas, no vegan alternatives) and the M & M store for me (I didn’t buy any) and eventually ended up at the Longacre theater for the matinee of Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York. It’s a charming little bon bon of a show with dynamite performances from the two leads (who are the only people on stage). Young Dougal (Sam Tutty) is a Brit on his first trip to New York to attend a wedding. He has the personality of a Labrador puppy and it excited by everyting. He’s met by Robin (Christiani Pitts), the bride’s sister at JFK. She’s repressed and unhappy. Eventually the unlikely duo are charged with getting the wedding cake from Brooklyn to Manhattan leading to various complications and an unlikely bonding. The whole thing is charming and I thoroughly enjoyed it from the effervescent performances to the simple but effective set (a pile of rotating luggage that becomes all sorts of locations in clever ways). Sam Tutty would be a shoo-in for the Tony if Joshua Henry weren’t his competition. I saw Christiani Pitts some years ago as the leading lady in King Kong: The Musical. She has much better material to work with this time and is quite lovely.

After the matinee, we checked out the flagship Lego store on 5th Avenue, as one does, marveled at some of the constructions, and then went off for dinner at a very good Thai restaurant (Mitr Thai on 46th between 5th and 6th). Then it was time to fight our way back across Times Square to the Golden Theater for our evening show, Operation Mincemeat. This was a show that I had had recommended to me several times over the last few years but I was told it was best enjoyed going in cold with minimal knowledge. I was aware that it was a British show and that it had something to do with a real MI-5 World War II mission involving a corpse, that Ian Fleming was somehow involved, and I had no idea how that would make a musical. As the show started I was somewhat disconcerted by what I thought was some odd cross gendered casting but I soon realized it was because there were only five actors playing dozens of characters across multiple locations. As the show continued, I became more and more drawn in by the outrageous (but true) plot, the talents of the five performers and some incredibly inventive direction (and costume accessory changes) that kept it clear where we were, what was happening, and kept a consistent tone that was part David Lean and part Monty Python.

We have a rather full day planned tomorrow so we decided to retire relatively early. And so, to bed. And to dreams of singing and dancing on the streets of New York and in the underground chambers of Churchill’s war bunker.