Glee!

[slemslempike]

I got a returned ticket for King Lear with Ian McKellen on Saturday! It is my reward for ringing them up, I feel. It would be my reward for giving a paper, but as I have not yet finished writing it, that might be a bit previous.

Lear! McKellen! I have seen one production before. It was at Tolethorpe Hall, and the highlight was when an audience member sneezed during the most moving speech. This was also before I had read the play, and my sister was annoyed because I told her there was a specific line in it that she was waiting for the whole way through, but it turned out I'd got that wrong. Tolethorpe is a bit wobbly a lot of the time. I've seen a really good Midsummer Night's Dream there, but King Lear was dismal. And not in the way it's kind of meant to be, either.

Must finish paper and do slides for it. Huh. I have been very good (though not if you judge goodness by actually doing any work) and not started the slides until it's finished, because I know I would just spend all my time messing around with background colour and turn up hoping desperately that the audience would be mesmerised by all the special effects and not notice that I hadn't said anything.

I watched Arabella Weir's Tough Gig last night, and was rather annoyed by it. She said that she hadn't done stand-up before, and it seems a very odd decision to have the only woman in the series not be an established comedian (as distinct from comedy actor). She wasn't terribly good either. Her crowd were paranormal people, and throughout the "before" bit where she spent time with them to get material she seemed really sneery, and making jokes at their expense completely, rather than finding out why they were interested in the subject, and what their experiences were. Her gig was more of the same, with the addition of a really stupid comment about the men in the group only being there because the women had big tits. Nice.

I didn't watch Three Fat Brides, One Dress or whatever that dreadful sounding thing is that Gillian McKeith was doing last night. I almost did, because it seems so, so awful. We in this house have been watching a lot of television recently designed to make us better women. Anthea Turner's Perfect Housewife, Trinny and Susannah Undress, and a weird thing about home decoration where they found a couple wanting to redecorate a perfectly serviceable living room, made two mock-ups and got them to design their perfect living room. Which they both duly did, without any thought about what the other might like. The man had a huge flatscreen TV mounted to the wall (and very little else), while the woman had a tiny TV housed in a cupboard, which you couldn't see from the sofa. And then she had her piano in there, and it hadn't seemingly occured to him that she might want that. Oh, bad. Mostly what we learned is that we are not good women.

But! The other day I was watching Trisha (while waiting for Orlando to be on Ellen), and they were doing a make-over of a woman whose daughter complained that she was too frumpy. The mother came out looking uber-swish, and the daughter cried in happiness that she was no longer to be subjected to a less-than-beautiful relative. The mother was a little nervous still, and said "I don't look like Lynn Scully?" and the daughter said "No mum, you look like Susan Kennedy!" Which is, I think you'll have to admit, the nicest thing anyone could ever say to another human being.

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Nothing on earth would induce me to watch Gillian McKeith, who is a quack (I'd link to why, but I dare say you already know, and if you don't, I don't want to deprive you of the joy of Googling 'awful poo lady' for yourself) but I have to say that I can't think of anyone I'd sooner see on the wrong end of a full-out Bridal Fury. I hope one of the fat brides hits her round the head with an ice-sculpture.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

Lear with McKellen!

*dies of jealousy*

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

I decided I'd avoid the fat bride thing, as I can see myself getting sucked into the dreadfulness. Plus McKeith is the worst advertisement for eating healthily. Can't stand to look at her. I want to eat crap just to annoy the woman.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

Woot! I pretty much joined the RSC friends club to snag early tickets for Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen (well, also it was only 15 quid and I'd just gotten some tax returned), and I booked my Lear tickets months in advance, and I'm so glad I saw the production and also glad that it will end in LA so my dad can see it too.

And I am also glad for YOU that there was a returned ticket.

I saw two eps of the T&S show and I did, even before that, feel that I should stop dressing in jeans all the time, but I don't really want to.

[peeeeeeet.livejournal.com]

Is that the one with Sylvester McCoy as the fool? ::jealous::

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Obviously the fat bride thing is politically horrendous, but I watched it because I cannot resist Crazy McKeith. It's patricularly weird to see one of her shows back on after How to Look Good Naked, with the gorgeous Gok Wan, given that he's spent weeks building up people's self esteem and telling them they're gorgeous, and now we're back to McKeith shaming people and making them cry. Eek.

But still. Can I just tell you about the best bit of McKeith last night? All three brides had to bring McKeith a poo sample, of course, and McKeith was suspicious that one of the poos was too healthy from the woman it had come from - and on investigation, it turned out that she'd brought in her fiance's poo to fox McKeith! McKeith said something like "he must really love you to do something like that," at which point they showed a montage of pictures of the woman and her fiance, with a soundtrack of Meatloaf singing "I would do anything for love...but I won't do that." Who knew that poo-lending was the 'that' to which Meatloaf was referring? I still laugh a bit just thinking about it. A moment of televisual genius.

[chiasmata]

Oh oh oh! Madly madly jealous about Lear, as you can probably imagine :)

I saw literally a flash of McKeith last night, and then had to go and watch some more ER to decontaminate my brain...

[bouncymonkey.livejournal.com]

Three Fat Brides? I have never heard of this programme, but just the mere title is making me seethe with annoyance.

"No mum, you look like Susan Kennedy!"

I think that is the best thing EVER. <3

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Well done, you. I've seen Ian McKellen on stage as Richard III: v. good. I can never, ever go to see Lear in the theatre because of the blinding of Gloucester scene. If it's on the TV or radio you can leave the room but in a live theatre I'd be frightened of passing out.