Theatre, mostly.
Apr. 21st, 2008 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeI had intended to go to the Women's Library again, but suddenly I found that I'd left barely 30 minutes to get from KX to the theatre. This was initially plenty, but then I found out that I'd gone the wrong way on the Picadilly line and so had to wait to pick up my phone until the interval. This was a shame as it meant that I couldn't join in with the woman sitting next to me when she got her phone out during the performance to receive and send texts. Am I mad or is this emphatically bad manners? I asked her not to, as she was additionally BLINDING me with her screen, but she simply replied that it was important and half turned her back on me in her seat.
I was seeing a Pinter double bill of The Lover/The Collection, with Gina McKee, Richard Coyle, Timothy West and Charlie Cox. I preferred The COllection, not entirely because of the beauty of the young man in his underwear. I liked the set, which was three places all at once, so that the front door to one flat went across another's living room. The Lover is about a couple, with the husband leaving for work and asking his wife if she's entertaining her lover that afternoon. Then it turns out that he's her lover and it's an elaborate role-play, but it's making him unhappy and so tries to stop it. The Collection is two couples, one m/f one m/m, and there is a weird thing where someone may or may not have slept with someone else.
Afterwards I went to meet![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gralyn and subject her to my incorrigible earliness for recordings. We grabbed food quickly at Starbucks after a close encounter with Pret a Manger and then stood and baked in the Shaw Theatre, which is actually part of the Novotel on Euston Road. While we were in the (blissfully cool, in retrospect) queue outside, the British Library was being evacuated and a fire engine showed up. The disembarking firefighters were sufficiently casual that I had no more than a momentary panic over this my nation's priceless heritage etc.
The seats inside were really terribly and unexpectedly comfortable. The Unbelievable Truth, for those who don't know it, is a R4 panel game chaired by David Mitchell in which the four comedians read out a preprepared lecture of lies, but with several true facts cunningly hidden within, which the others have to ferret out. The panellists for our double recording were Phill Jupitus, Simon Evans, Alan Davies and Tony Hawks. Oh, and the producer was Jon Naismith, who came out and talked just as if it were I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue*, only he told his Joke without reference to Barry Cryer (it was the one about the Child swallowing a condom).
David Mitchell had recently eaten a biscuit and was worried about his diction. Alan Davies pretended he thought he'd said dick, to hilarious effect. DM was rather good, ranting about the temerity of scientists overriding the discursive realities of the taxonomy of fruit and vegetables, and when someone did something sporting (left a paude for people to buzz in), said it was like the great bits on snooker where the players accidentally touch a white ball and immediately own up.
During the course of his lecture on Shakespeare Simon Evans claimed that he inspired the name of the true hero of Blakes 7, but this turned out not to be true. Alan Davies did think that Shakespeare might have been Welsh - and there was a lovely twisty bit on noticing anachronisms in his plays indcluding a character in Merry Wives of Windsor using the word anachronism 150 years (or whatever it was) before Shakespeare coined the word in MWW, but alas not so.
Tony Hawks mostly used the tactic of being modest in his lies and hoping people would buzz in and say it was true so that he could tell them how much better he was in reality - saying he was runner up in the Equity tennis championships when actually he'd won three years running. He was rather lovely all round. They all got a bit snarkily competitive at several junctures, and when they buzzed said that if it wasn't true it wasn't funny either. It was a lovely evening - I think that the first episode is going to be broadcast in the next few weeks, Monday nights at 6.30pm. (They did a trail mocking the technical ineptitude of the Today Show.)
Thursday morning I again fully intended to return to the zones, but instead left it just too late to make going to the library worthwhile, and so went and bought a lot of books from the stalls outside the NT. THen I went inside and finished my book on cheerleading (answer to how you choreograph a sensitive routice after 9/11 - with an American flag and a soundtrack of Auld Lang Syne, Born in the USA and Jungle Bells, apparently - audiences are reported to have wept). I then went to see Snowbound at the Trafalgar Studios. I chose it largely because it was one of the few Thursday performances available, and only £10. I had read that it was very moving, and the woman with the four-coloured boots on her feet next to me was saying that her friend had been twice and wept both times.
I liked the set. All the audience seats (red) were covered with white sheets, there was a creamy carpet on the floor, seven varied chairs and a table. The back wall was covered with b/w photos of people, many looking like family pictures. They all had blank price tags danging from a corner. When we came in, and occasionally between scenes, there was a b/w video projection onto the wall with people talking about love. This turned out to be Alex's project, later turned into a TV programme.
Alex has some sort of learning difficulty, and Tom, his older brother, has looked after him since their mother's death. They also have a sister, Sally, who at the start of the play graduates from Oxford and joins the BBS. Tom meets a woman called Mary, with a mother called Clara, and there is also a 30/40sish couple who help them family a bit. Basically, their marriage falls apart, Mary and Tom and very happy and going to have children and travel only she dies in a car accident, and the big secret is revealed (having been rather obvious throughout the whole thing) that their mother actualled killed herself. It was all terribly cloying, and I wasn't moved in the least. It probably didn't help that I found Mary intensely annoying from the moment she stepped foot on stage. Sally was drawn rather shallowly as a selfish girl, which was very basic.
Following that I went to meetslightlyfoxed. We had a very nice supper - I had chicken escaople and a really lovely golden syrup sponge. Then we walked around, looking at delectable but overpriced chocolate bars, various clothers that we might have worn in a clohting exchange, and dersses that not only we could not wear, but that I cannot imagine anyone wearing even for a laugh - Roman tunic frock with coils of plastic cable stitched to the front - £2230. We were in Liberty, where we fantasised about owning virtually everything and gave ourselves heart attacks by looking at the price tags. Sadly their toilets were not remotely special. We talked a bit about a vague but hopefully eventually practicable idea I have for my next project when I finish this up this and then I had to go.
On Friday I went to Preston for a work meeting that went quite well, and then after lunch withnerdcakes went to the library and read two books on fun at work - one of which never mentions it apart from in the title, and the other of which was written by a man who seems so keen on fun at work that I may start having nightmares about accidentally ending up working for him. Have a noticeboard on which people can put up jokes, amusing drawings, inspirational sayings and doubtless pictures of their cats! Oh god no. Have a DOOR that you can CLOSE. In the evening we went to see Jane Bond, a lip service production, which I loved hugely. The stunt man guy was great, and had lovely hair.
This weekend I lay around on the sofa watching snooker. This week I have far too much work to do.
* Poor Humph, I hope he is getting better.
I was seeing a Pinter double bill of The Lover/The Collection, with Gina McKee, Richard Coyle, Timothy West and Charlie Cox. I preferred The COllection, not entirely because of the beauty of the young man in his underwear. I liked the set, which was three places all at once, so that the front door to one flat went across another's living room. The Lover is about a couple, with the husband leaving for work and asking his wife if she's entertaining her lover that afternoon. Then it turns out that he's her lover and it's an elaborate role-play, but it's making him unhappy and so tries to stop it. The Collection is two couples, one m/f one m/m, and there is a weird thing where someone may or may not have slept with someone else.
Afterwards I went to meet
gralyn and subject her to my incorrigible earliness for recordings. We grabbed food quickly at Starbucks after a close encounter with Pret a Manger and then stood and baked in the Shaw Theatre, which is actually part of the Novotel on Euston Road. While we were in the (blissfully cool, in retrospect) queue outside, the British Library was being evacuated and a fire engine showed up. The disembarking firefighters were sufficiently casual that I had no more than a momentary panic over this my nation's priceless heritage etc.The seats inside were really terribly and unexpectedly comfortable. The Unbelievable Truth, for those who don't know it, is a R4 panel game chaired by David Mitchell in which the four comedians read out a preprepared lecture of lies, but with several true facts cunningly hidden within, which the others have to ferret out. The panellists for our double recording were Phill Jupitus, Simon Evans, Alan Davies and Tony Hawks. Oh, and the producer was Jon Naismith, who came out and talked just as if it were I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue*, only he told his Joke without reference to Barry Cryer (it was the one about the Child swallowing a condom).
David Mitchell had recently eaten a biscuit and was worried about his diction. Alan Davies pretended he thought he'd said dick, to hilarious effect. DM was rather good, ranting about the temerity of scientists overriding the discursive realities of the taxonomy of fruit and vegetables, and when someone did something sporting (left a paude for people to buzz in), said it was like the great bits on snooker where the players accidentally touch a white ball and immediately own up.
During the course of his lecture on Shakespeare Simon Evans claimed that he inspired the name of the true hero of Blakes 7, but this turned out not to be true. Alan Davies did think that Shakespeare might have been Welsh - and there was a lovely twisty bit on noticing anachronisms in his plays indcluding a character in Merry Wives of Windsor using the word anachronism 150 years (or whatever it was) before Shakespeare coined the word in MWW, but alas not so.
Tony Hawks mostly used the tactic of being modest in his lies and hoping people would buzz in and say it was true so that he could tell them how much better he was in reality - saying he was runner up in the Equity tennis championships when actually he'd won three years running. He was rather lovely all round. They all got a bit snarkily competitive at several junctures, and when they buzzed said that if it wasn't true it wasn't funny either. It was a lovely evening - I think that the first episode is going to be broadcast in the next few weeks, Monday nights at 6.30pm. (They did a trail mocking the technical ineptitude of the Today Show.)
Thursday morning I again fully intended to return to the zones, but instead left it just too late to make going to the library worthwhile, and so went and bought a lot of books from the stalls outside the NT. THen I went inside and finished my book on cheerleading (answer to how you choreograph a sensitive routice after 9/11 - with an American flag and a soundtrack of Auld Lang Syne, Born in the USA and Jungle Bells, apparently - audiences are reported to have wept). I then went to see Snowbound at the Trafalgar Studios. I chose it largely because it was one of the few Thursday performances available, and only £10. I had read that it was very moving, and the woman with the four-coloured boots on her feet next to me was saying that her friend had been twice and wept both times.
I liked the set. All the audience seats (red) were covered with white sheets, there was a creamy carpet on the floor, seven varied chairs and a table. The back wall was covered with b/w photos of people, many looking like family pictures. They all had blank price tags danging from a corner. When we came in, and occasionally between scenes, there was a b/w video projection onto the wall with people talking about love. This turned out to be Alex's project, later turned into a TV programme.
Alex has some sort of learning difficulty, and Tom, his older brother, has looked after him since their mother's death. They also have a sister, Sally, who at the start of the play graduates from Oxford and joins the BBS. Tom meets a woman called Mary, with a mother called Clara, and there is also a 30/40sish couple who help them family a bit. Basically, their marriage falls apart, Mary and Tom and very happy and going to have children and travel only she dies in a car accident, and the big secret is revealed (having been rather obvious throughout the whole thing) that their mother actualled killed herself. It was all terribly cloying, and I wasn't moved in the least. It probably didn't help that I found Mary intensely annoying from the moment she stepped foot on stage. Sally was drawn rather shallowly as a selfish girl, which was very basic.
Following that I went to meet
slightlyfoxed. We had a very nice supper - I had chicken escaople and a really lovely golden syrup sponge. Then we walked around, looking at delectable but overpriced chocolate bars, various clothers that we might have worn in a clohting exchange, and dersses that not only we could not wear, but that I cannot imagine anyone wearing even for a laugh - Roman tunic frock with coils of plastic cable stitched to the front - £2230. We were in Liberty, where we fantasised about owning virtually everything and gave ourselves heart attacks by looking at the price tags. Sadly their toilets were not remotely special. We talked a bit about a vague but hopefully eventually practicable idea I have for my next project when I finish this up this and then I had to go.On Friday I went to Preston for a work meeting that went quite well, and then after lunch with
nerdcakes went to the library and read two books on fun at work - one of which never mentions it apart from in the title, and the other of which was written by a man who seems so keen on fun at work that I may start having nightmares about accidentally ending up working for him. Have a noticeboard on which people can put up jokes, amusing drawings, inspirational sayings and doubtless pictures of their cats! Oh god no. Have a DOOR that you can CLOSE. In the evening we went to see Jane Bond, a lip service production, which I loved hugely. The stunt man guy was great, and had lovely hair. This weekend I lay around on the sofa watching snooker. This week I have far too much work to do.
* Poor Humph, I hope he is getting better.
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Date: 2008-04-21 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-04-21 01:18 pm (UTC)Eventually I'm actually going to catch an episode of Unbelievable Truth and stop thinking of it was radio!WILTY.
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Date: 2008-04-21 01:30 pm (UTC)Charlie Cox was very pretty indeed. Well done him.
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Date: 2008-04-21 01:35 pm (UTC)I just went to look for my review of TL/TC because I was so sure I'd actually written thoguhtful things but oh no. I'd slightly forgotten it was the same day I saw Ewan McGregor in Othello and my post is entirely names and exclamation marks. I do remember being impressed how well the cast worked together, and how well Charlie Cox stood up alongside people like Richard Coyle and Timothy West who have been doing stage work for ages.
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