17 June 2006
New job, better pay, good weather, 2 potential acting jobs - it's been a pretty good week. New office is a lot smaller and very laidback. We're smack bang in the middle of Marylebone and about 30 seconds from Selfridges Food Hall which is a disaster. It's also directly opposite the biggest M&S Food Hall, Waitrose is around the corner and there's just heaps of food everywhere.
Went to see Sunday in the Park with George again which has transferred to the Wyndhams for BB's birthday. It's such a good show. Beautiful language and music, fantastic set projections, great acting and singing, well crafted, full of imagination & intelligence and destined not to run for long. It's just typical. I'm glad they've done a cast recording though.
Went to see Sunday in the Park with George again which has transferred to the Wyndhams for BB's birthday. It's such a good show. Beautiful language and music, fantastic set projections, great acting and singing, well crafted, full of imagination & intelligence and destined not to run for long. It's just typical. I'm glad they've done a cast recording though.
2 April 2006
Sheffield was fun! There's a surprise. It's got a pretty cathedrally, oldy bit in the middle where we were staying. The city centre is in the midst of regeneration, so there are lots of new bars/restaurants, art galleries, an upcoming trendy shopping area, a refurbed spa and a modern Winter Garden which was linked to our hotel. All in all a very good time was had by us both and we could actually have spent more time there. We stayed at the Macdonald St Paul's Hotel which is smack bang in the city centre and pretty decent. Breakfast was very good (I had kippers, porridge, toast and fruit salad; while BB had full English with black pudding twice) and you can walk straight into the Winter Gardens and the new art galleries without stepping outside (which is good when it's cold, windy and rains intermittently). Bedroom was a decent size with plasma screen telly and the bathroom was smart with heated towel rail and good water pressure.
Assassins was very good. The singing was very strong and it was really great to see all the monologues and bits of dialogue that you don't get on the recording. All the actors were really good, as were their accents (only John Hinckley's slipped a bit). What a relief. It could have been a disaster spending all that money and time to go miles away to watch a crap piece of theatre. At least if it's on your doorstep, you don't feel so bad if you've only wasted the price of a ticket.
A former colleague of mine was in the show and halfway through the show he pointed at me and winked (I was sitting in the front row), so had to say hello afterwards. It wasn't that I didn't like him or anything, but just that I didn't know him that well so was hoping to sneak away unnoticed. Ah well. BB said, at least he didn't wave like Joey in Friends.
On the way back we drove through the Peak District as it seemed a shame not to see it as we'd gone all that way. Stopped at Matlock for a light snack and some tea. Just a tip if you're ever driving through the area in the future - don't stop at Matlock. It's not a beautiful town and there didn't seem to be many people there under the age of 50. Also, if you find you've stopped there by some mistake, don't head for the centre of town for eateries. When we were leaving, we found out that there are a lot more shops on the road out of town - just to be perverse.
Assassins was very good. The singing was very strong and it was really great to see all the monologues and bits of dialogue that you don't get on the recording. All the actors were really good, as were their accents (only John Hinckley's slipped a bit). What a relief. It could have been a disaster spending all that money and time to go miles away to watch a crap piece of theatre. At least if it's on your doorstep, you don't feel so bad if you've only wasted the price of a ticket.
A former colleague of mine was in the show and halfway through the show he pointed at me and winked (I was sitting in the front row), so had to say hello afterwards. It wasn't that I didn't like him or anything, but just that I didn't know him that well so was hoping to sneak away unnoticed. Ah well. BB said, at least he didn't wave like Joey in Friends.
On the way back we drove through the Peak District as it seemed a shame not to see it as we'd gone all that way. Stopped at Matlock for a light snack and some tea. Just a tip if you're ever driving through the area in the future - don't stop at Matlock. It's not a beautiful town and there didn't seem to be many people there under the age of 50. Also, if you find you've stopped there by some mistake, don't head for the centre of town for eateries. When we were leaving, we found out that there are a lot more shops on the road out of town - just to be perverse.
21 March 2006
Well, half of the office, including boss, was off today. Of the remainder, only a select few are not walking dead. Everybody else has the lurgy. So I might as well have stayed at home.
The flesh-eating bug virus demanded food just before 11am today, so I had a bowl of kitsune udon that I had cunningly stashed in my drawer. Thus pacified, I only had to eat M-A's leftovers for lunch. I wonder if I can live on leftovers for the rest of this week. Hee, hee.
Am interested to see that Mack and Mabel is going to be on at the Criterion starring David Soul, of all people. For some reason, I know all the songs but not the story of this musical. I shall investigate further.
BB has just told me that they don't check your passport when you arrive from Eire. Any prospective illegal immigrants should bear this in mind....
The flesh-eating bug virus demanded food just before 11am today, so I had a bowl of kitsune udon that I had cunningly stashed in my drawer. Thus pacified, I only had to eat M-A's leftovers for lunch. I wonder if I can live on leftovers for the rest of this week. Hee, hee.
Am interested to see that Mack and Mabel is going to be on at the Criterion starring David Soul, of all people. For some reason, I know all the songs but not the story of this musical. I shall investigate further.
BB has just told me that they don't check your passport when you arrive from Eire. Any prospective illegal immigrants should bear this in mind....
26 February 2006
There seems to be some sort of a Sondheim revival going on. Sunday in the Park with George is transferring to a proper theatre, Assassins is opening in Sheffield and Pacific Overtures at the Leicester Haymarket. Guess we'll be seeing a lot of the middle of England.
The Curse of the Were Rabbit was very funny. There were a lot more filmic references than there were in the other Wallace and Gromit movies. Gromit is very sweet but I don't know why he hangs around with Wallace.
My dance teacher at the gym is away on holiday and we all miss him. The replacement is some kind of a semi-jazz, semi-contemporary teacher but is trying to do street funk and his choreography is a tad naff. It's a good technique class though so shan't complain. Apparently, the teacher is in some programme called Pay Off Your Mortgage in Two Years and teaching is one of his making money schemes. Can't imagine it would do much to pay off his mortgage - not with what our gym pays. Anyway, the BBC may be coming to film next week's class. Not sure that that's a good thing.
Yesterday was blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and a side of bacon for brunch and leftover pad thai, chilli and salt pork choplettes and stir fried broccoli for dinner. And lots of grapes throughout.
London was heaving with tourists yesterday. I hate people. At the cash dispenser some blumming French tourists queuing behind me kept bumping into me and talking loudly. Do they not know that cash dispenser ettiquette demands that they stand a good distance away from the person at the till? Also, it's freezing, snowing and windy in London at the moment. Winter is our only respite from hordes of meandering, stupid, loitering about at all major pedestrian crossroads/through ways, pavement hogging tourists - so what are they all doing here in these Arctic conditions? Sheesh. Obviously London is not expensive enough, the public transport is not crappy enough, the service is not grudging and non-existent enough and the hotels are not rundown, grubby and overpriced enough.
The Curse of the Were Rabbit was very funny. There were a lot more filmic references than there were in the other Wallace and Gromit movies. Gromit is very sweet but I don't know why he hangs around with Wallace.
My dance teacher at the gym is away on holiday and we all miss him. The replacement is some kind of a semi-jazz, semi-contemporary teacher but is trying to do street funk and his choreography is a tad naff. It's a good technique class though so shan't complain. Apparently, the teacher is in some programme called Pay Off Your Mortgage in Two Years and teaching is one of his making money schemes. Can't imagine it would do much to pay off his mortgage - not with what our gym pays. Anyway, the BBC may be coming to film next week's class. Not sure that that's a good thing.
Yesterday was blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and a side of bacon for brunch and leftover pad thai, chilli and salt pork choplettes and stir fried broccoli for dinner. And lots of grapes throughout.
London was heaving with tourists yesterday. I hate people. At the cash dispenser some blumming French tourists queuing behind me kept bumping into me and talking loudly. Do they not know that cash dispenser ettiquette demands that they stand a good distance away from the person at the till? Also, it's freezing, snowing and windy in London at the moment. Winter is our only respite from hordes of meandering, stupid, loitering about at all major pedestrian crossroads/through ways, pavement hogging tourists - so what are they all doing here in these Arctic conditions? Sheesh. Obviously London is not expensive enough, the public transport is not crappy enough, the service is not grudging and non-existent enough and the hotels are not rundown, grubby and overpriced enough.
Labels: dance, films, food, gym, London, theatre
1 January 2006
Went to see Sunday in the Park with George at the Menier Chocolate Factory after dinner at Roast. It was very good. The theatre really squeezes them in because they are profit-making and it's all benches in the auditorium, so they can squash you in. Maybe they should make tickets for larger people more expensive.
The theatre is a studio and very small and it was hard to see how they were going to manage the set. It was done brilliantly, with projections on the walls of the paintings and people. Couldn't work out how they did it without the actors casting great shadows on the pictures. The ensemble were fantastic and all-in-all, after adjusting to not having Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin in the roles, the leads did admirably - particularly the Seurat character. Music direction was very tight and impressive.
We left the theatre and BB said 'Let's go again' before we even made it out of the foyer - so the highest compliment indeed.
The theatre is a studio and very small and it was hard to see how they were going to manage the set. It was done brilliantly, with projections on the walls of the paintings and people. Couldn't work out how they did it without the actors casting great shadows on the pictures. The ensemble were fantastic and all-in-all, after adjusting to not having Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin in the roles, the leads did admirably - particularly the Seurat character. Music direction was very tight and impressive.
We left the theatre and BB said 'Let's go again' before we even made it out of the foyer - so the highest compliment indeed.
Labels: theatre
27 November 2005
Went to the new Britten Midsummer Night's Dream at the ROH yesterday. One of the women at work, who has a very rich husband and so doesn't really have to work for a living, gave away her tickets because she couldn't make it.
The show is in all the Critic's Choice lists in all the quality papers but I didn't think it was all that. Let's face it - Britten isn't all that hummable. The production was sort of modernist in a sort of 50s sort of way but mostly looked like they didn't have a huge budget for costumes. There was a lot of neon lighting which is where the budget seems to have gone.
Good things about it (well, 'thing' about it):
Puck - he was some kind of circus performer who was very good at climbing ropes. I don't know this opera at all - but it seems weird to me that one of the main characters doesn't sing - but just speaks all his lines. I wonder if they sacrificed the singing for the visual interest. Probably a good thing as they really needed the visual interest. He was excellent.
The mechanicals weren't bad. But the mechanicals are really only funny the first time you see the play. After that it's all pretty contrived. Though would be good to see Johnny Vegas in the new BBC TV production playing Bottom.
Okay, the projections on the back screen weren't bad either.
Bad things about it:
Boy choir - sheesh. They could sing okay, but the acting and moving was atrocious. Choreography was really clunky and they looked like they thought it was. And the wings they had to put on halfway through for no reason that I can fathom must have filled them with joy when they saw them for the first time. Not.
Direction - all pretty contrived. Few nice moments but generally the choreography looked really forced and there doesn't seem to have been any direction for the acting. Just a few visual gags.
Music - sorry, Britten, but too avant garde for me. All my work companions left before the end. One left after 1st act because it was above her head. Two left after the 2nd act - firstly, because they thought it was over but when I pointed out that there was another third to go, they couldn't bear the thought of sitting through another hour. Plus, nobody knew what was going on till I explained it in the first interval. Even though the Dream is not the hardest of Shakespeare's plays to understand, if it's being sung through in a early 20th century modernist fashion and you don't know the story, it's almost entirely incomprehensible. Plus, the opera skips most of the first act, so you don't know who any of the characters are, or that Hermia and Helena are best friends, or who is in love with who, or who the Duke of Athens and Hippolyta are. Bizarre.
Altogether, this critic says - ill-conceived.
PS Just read a review which says that Puck is a spoken part. Ha, ha! I was wrong and am duly reprehended.
The show is in all the Critic's Choice lists in all the quality papers but I didn't think it was all that. Let's face it - Britten isn't all that hummable. The production was sort of modernist in a sort of 50s sort of way but mostly looked like they didn't have a huge budget for costumes. There was a lot of neon lighting which is where the budget seems to have gone.
Good things about it (well, 'thing' about it):
Puck - he was some kind of circus performer who was very good at climbing ropes. I don't know this opera at all - but it seems weird to me that one of the main characters doesn't sing - but just speaks all his lines. I wonder if they sacrificed the singing for the visual interest. Probably a good thing as they really needed the visual interest. He was excellent.
The mechanicals weren't bad. But the mechanicals are really only funny the first time you see the play. After that it's all pretty contrived. Though would be good to see Johnny Vegas in the new BBC TV production playing Bottom.
Okay, the projections on the back screen weren't bad either.
Bad things about it:
Boy choir - sheesh. They could sing okay, but the acting and moving was atrocious. Choreography was really clunky and they looked like they thought it was. And the wings they had to put on halfway through for no reason that I can fathom must have filled them with joy when they saw them for the first time. Not.
Direction - all pretty contrived. Few nice moments but generally the choreography looked really forced and there doesn't seem to have been any direction for the acting. Just a few visual gags.
Music - sorry, Britten, but too avant garde for me. All my work companions left before the end. One left after 1st act because it was above her head. Two left after the 2nd act - firstly, because they thought it was over but when I pointed out that there was another third to go, they couldn't bear the thought of sitting through another hour. Plus, nobody knew what was going on till I explained it in the first interval. Even though the Dream is not the hardest of Shakespeare's plays to understand, if it's being sung through in a early 20th century modernist fashion and you don't know the story, it's almost entirely incomprehensible. Plus, the opera skips most of the first act, so you don't know who any of the characters are, or that Hermia and Helena are best friends, or who is in love with who, or who the Duke of Athens and Hippolyta are. Bizarre.
Altogether, this critic says - ill-conceived.
PS Just read a review which says that Puck is a spoken part. Ha, ha! I was wrong and am duly reprehended.
Labels: theatre
20 February 2005
München town
Here I am in Munich. It has been all snowy and generally round about minus one to five degrees since we´ve been here. All proper snow too. The kind that drifts down slowly in large flakes, all silently and settles on your nose. It´s all crunchy under foot and the efficient Münchners have gritted everywhere.
Rehearsals are going well and we´ve ploughed through the first act. Only thing is we have had a trauma. We went to pick up our set from storage to find that two thirds of the main set covering has been binned in an act of mindless cleaning. It´s very sad as the set was so effective considering is was for touring. Now it will be very sad and little indeed. Berndt, the designer, is livid - as is our director and well, us, really. Ah well - the path of touring never did run smooth.
Nonetheless all is well and Munich is beautiful as ever. We went to see the Crucible last night at Amerika Haus and it was most excellent. Very powerful, well-acted and full of great imagery. Had dinner with the cast and they were all lovely and chatty.
So far have partaken of roast duck, kabeljau red Thai curry, paprika schnitzel, grilled swordfish, heaps of lovely salad and sauerkraut since being here. Paul got me a box of porridge as a pressie which is very nice indeed. (I know it seems strange to be excited about porridge).
Enough drivelling, don´t seem to have much exciting to say.
Rehearsals are going well and we´ve ploughed through the first act. Only thing is we have had a trauma. We went to pick up our set from storage to find that two thirds of the main set covering has been binned in an act of mindless cleaning. It´s very sad as the set was so effective considering is was for touring. Now it will be very sad and little indeed. Berndt, the designer, is livid - as is our director and well, us, really. Ah well - the path of touring never did run smooth.
Nonetheless all is well and Munich is beautiful as ever. We went to see the Crucible last night at Amerika Haus and it was most excellent. Very powerful, well-acted and full of great imagery. Had dinner with the cast and they were all lovely and chatty.
So far have partaken of roast duck, kabeljau red Thai curry, paprika schnitzel, grilled swordfish, heaps of lovely salad and sauerkraut since being here. Paul got me a box of porridge as a pressie which is very nice indeed. (I know it seems strange to be excited about porridge).
Enough drivelling, don´t seem to have much exciting to say.
Labels: acting, food, theatre, travel
