Taking Tea with Kingsley Amis

In response to Suburban Mum’s heartfelt plea for my return (oh, let me have my dreams!) I felt I should probably post and catch you all up on what I have been up to.

This evening I had dinner with Michael Portillo. Well, not exactly with him. Not actually even in the same room as him. But definitely in the same building and as part of the same event. I rub shoulders with all the stars, me. Actually, I did quite literally rub shoulders with him. Or I would have done were he not two inches shorter than me. Call it a shoulder to elbow brush, if you will.

The other weekend I went to a marvellous party with a traditional seaside theme, hosted by a famous novelist of Mr Katja’s acquaintance. The sun shone, we ate fish and chips, drank pink champagne, rode donkeys, and shouted at the Punch and Judy show, coming home pinkly sun-scorched and very happy at the end of the day. Ah, the halcyon days of summer. Long may they last.

This weekend I shall be riding 50 miles on my bike in aid of the Nehemiah Project. I am somewhat nervous and fear that my behind will not last the distance. I am loath to publish the link to my justgiving page here as it shows my real name, which I would rather the googlebots did not link with my blog. However, if you would like to sponsor me, there is a link on my facebook profile. Every little counts (and thank you to those that have already so generously donated).

I went off on tour recently. Just a little mini tour, taking in Newcastle and Harrogate, but it went terribly well and a good time was had by all, not least the children being entertained. Continuing the animal theme which has characterised my acting roles over the past couple of years, I played a Mexican bird (most entertaining when we had a Spanish woman in the front row for one of the shows …), a very posh hare, a westcountry cow and a cock-er-nee fly.

The cow was a very loud, panto dame-type character, and I used to run in and out of the audience, talking to the children and generally camping it up. One day we had a boy of about 8 or 9 years old in the audience, who was too old and cool for the show (it’s aimed at 3-4 year olds), but too young to get the jokes aimed at the adults, and therefore seemed pretty bored.

In the cow scene, there is the classic panto device of shouting for a character who has disappeared off stage, shouting louder and louder until they come back. I picked on Bored Boy, who very obligingly yelled his little heart out. I then exited at the end of the scene, and Sally, one of the other actors, did a little adlib about me being a mad cow. Bored boy then told her in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t MAD, I was COOL.

Oh yes, I’ve still got it …

Theatrical round-up

I’ve been seeing a lot of shows over the past week or so. Being lazy, I’m not going to write full reviews, but I will say that Saint Joan at The National is far too long and not very well directed. However, it has some great central performances (particularly Anne-Marie Duff, Paterson Joseph and Angus Wright), and some fabulous music. As a disclaimer, I must say that I do know one of the musicians, but I do genuinely mean it when I say that the music is good and really atmospheric.

Little Shop of Horrors (now, sadly, closed – I went to the final performance) was, on the other hand, fabulous. Sheridan Smith as Audrey started off somewhat subdued – her portrayal of a battered girlfriend was a little too real for a piece of fun musical theatre – but perked up in the second half and showed that she really is so much better than the television show for which she’s most famous. Paul Keating as Seymour was also wonderful, singing and dancing up a storm – I think I have a new crush *sigh*.

On Sunday night I went, not to the theatre, but to Trafalgar Square, for the Chemical Brothers gig. Calvin Harris was supporting and was a bit disappointing. The show had been hyped to have 3D effects, and we were all handed 3D viewing glasses as we entered the square. However, as always happens with cheap cardboard glasses, the effects were somewhat lost. We spent more time debating which way round to wear the glasses than we did listening to Calvin’s set. Oops. The Chems, however, were fantastic, backed up by the most amazing light show. I didn’t stop dancing for the whole set, which, considering my ankle still hasn’t recovered properly, is testament to how good they were. I was in pain the next day, but it was definitely worth it.

Then last night I went along to Spamalot. Oh my goodness – I haven’t laughed so much in ages. Supremely silly and hilariously funny. Even though one knows exactly what’s coming next in the script, it’s kept fresh with the insertion of lots of new song and dance numbers. Hannah Waddingham, as the Lady of the Lake, deserves particular mention. She has fantastic range and the most unbelievable voice, along with being funny, and having a great sense of comic timing. Really, I’d like to kill her, but I’ll settle for worshipping her from afar. If Paul Keating is my new main crush, Hannah’s definitely top of the girl crush list.

The Alchemist

Directed by Nicholas Hytner and with a cast including Simon Russell-Beale, Alex Jennings, Lesley Manville and Ian Richardson, The Alchemist (currently playing at the National) was always going to be an odds-on bet for a good night out.

Subtle, a pimp (Alex Jennings), Dol Common, a prostitute (Lesley Manville) and Face, a gentleman’s valet (Simon Russell-Beale) are ensconced in Face’s master’s London house, which the Master has vacated due to fear of the plague.  He is not expected to return until at least the end of the summer, and so our 3 ne’er-do-wells cook up a scam in which Face (posing as ‘Captain Face’) heads out to find gullible victims to lure back to the house, where they will be met by ‘The Alchemist’ (Subtle), who (they are told) is on the verge of making the Philosopher’s Stone, which will cure all of their ills.  Face also finds the odd trick for Dol to turn, and all 3 have a share of the takings.

This much, I confess, I had to pick up from the programme notes, as the combination of fast paced action and Jacobean language were sometimes hard to follow.  Jonson introduces so many characters that it is hard to keep up, especially as there are different roles within roles – each ‘gull’ that comes in is met by an alchemist tailored to exploit their individual weaknesses.  Quick changes are therefore the order of the day for Subtle, from Californian hippy to besuited Scottish doctor to new age druid.  Face also plays various characters, including a hilarious Dutch scientist, togged out with leather gauntlets, flying goggles and wild hair, and sporting an exaggerated limp.  Of course, the number of different characters that they have created leads them ever further into confusion, as their various dupes start crossing over, and the action quickly falls into ever more enjoyable farce, with confusion and double-crosses abounding.

Madcap, funny and well-acted, this is a production that I will certainly be seeing more than just the once.  Great stuff.

Edinburgh Day Two – Evening

And so we move into the final stage of the Edinburgh saga, with three more shows for your delectation.

First up was A Beginner’s Guide to the Fringe. Some might argue I should have seen this show the day before, to prepare me for my marathon show-watch, but to them I say pish tush – I laugh in the face of good advice!

Beginner’s Guide is a two hander comedy, written by and starring Paul Beeson and Gemma Ryan, who play Alpha and Beta, a pair of strange, slightly alien tour guides. The show is a 50 minute race through all the various types of theatre that you might have inflicted upon you, along with dramatisations. It’s very funny and well done, but veers very close to the bone in places, along with having strong sexist overtones.

The best moment for me was the ‘performance poet’, reciting a poem about being given the clap by a girl he’d just met. At the start of the poem he mentioned something about going out looking for ‘the lonely girls’. As I was sitting on my own in the front row I was fair target at this point and he nodded and leered in my direction. Reasonably amusing, but it then got funnier, as the poem transpired to be about a girl with red hair and green eyes. You could see the terror dawning on his face as he realised just how offensively this could all be construed and with a slightly nervous laugh he double-checked that I wasn’t a reviewer. I left him hanging on that question. Heh.

After Beginner’s Guide I pootled off to meet up with Valentia the Russian, who was taking part in an improv show at Gilded Balloon. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the show, but I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I’m sure they’re very good – what are friends for if not to big up shows arbitrarily?

Next up was The Clan of Divorcées, apparently a hit comedy from Paris. Well, maybe it’s funny in France, but it really wasn’t in Edinburgh. Full of clichéd jokes about how useless men are and featuring a man in drag for some undiscernable reason, it was desperately outdated, far too long and I left before the end. Rotten.

The last show of the evening – and, indeed, my visit – was Bat Boy: the Musical, performed by the Cambridge University Broadway Savoyards. I saw the West End version of this show last year and absolutely loved it, so was really looking forward to seeing what they did with it. Having heard them singing on the Royal Mile earlier in the day I had high hopes and so I raced over to the venue after the dreadful Clan of Divorcées and managed to squeeze in just as they were finishing the first number.

My main criticism of the show would be that it was underpowered vocally. Admittedly I was sitting directly below the orchestra, so I was getting a bit of an unbalanced sound, but much of the time I couldn’t hear what the soloists were singing, which was a real shame. The chorus work was fantastic and they could all evidently sing well, but they just didn’t have the ballsiness required for this type of musical theatre. Having said that, however, the characterisations were all good and the story came across well, so I still enjoyed the show – I just came out feeling a little short-changed.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my all-too-short time in Edinburgh. I’m currently planning a trip for next year – and if I can persuade Valentia the Russian to (a) finish writing her play and (b) let me produce it I might even be doing a show, which you’re all invited to come and see. Marvellous.

Edinburgh Day Two – Afternoon

After the disappointment of Other People, I started to hunt for an internet cafe to try and find out more about the Rabbit mystery. There was an online conference happening in the Habbo Hotel and I was, to say the least, curious. Unfortunately, however, I didn’t find an internet cafe until 5 minutes before the conference was due to kick off and I couldn’t download Shockwave to get Habbo running. I therefore missed out on all the drama, when Dr Misnuneris was kidnapped by an evil avatar called Exskia and *cut by the anti-geek police*

Ahem. So, anyway, I was talking about the shows I saw in Edinburgh. Yes. Next on my list was Voices in the Dark. I knew nothing about this show apart from the fact that the timings and venue would fit in perfectly with the show that I wanted to see at 1515, but these seemed as good reasons as any to see a show, so off I went.

Wow.

The show was a four-hander, performed by Ithaca College Theatre, an American university theatre group; and I was absolutely blown away by both the quality of the acting and of the script, which I gather was written by one of their students.

Jim and Nancy are a pair of high-school students, hiding in a barn for the night before running away to New York to get married. Full of hope for the future, they discuss what will happen to them, drawing parallels between their situation and that of Romeo and Juliet, Nancy having just played Juliet in their school production of the play. Tragically, the parallels come all too true, when Ted and Barbra, an older couple, come into the barn in search of a safety deposit box belonging to the barn’s elderly owners, which they believe holds thousands of dollars.

The writer of the piece, Ellen Cribbs, describes the play as a ‘romantic drama’. There are strong themes of love running through the piece, along with hopes and desires for the future, so from that point of view I suppose it is romantic; but for me it was a tragedy, as those hopes and desires were never realised. Beautifully written and hearbreakingly sad, I would expect to hear much more from both writer and actors in the future.

Emerging from Voices in the Dark more than a little stunned, I had 15 minutes to gather my thoughts before going to see the next show, My Dearest Byron, which I had actually auditioned for many months ago. Written by the friend who wrote Hillbilly Goats Gruff, this was the show that I had really come up to Edinburgh to see. It tells the story of Lord Byron and his half-sister Augusta, who had an incestuous relationship which ended in 1816. It is largely made up from diary entries and takes the form of a narrative text, intermingled with sections of choreographed movement. I found the text a little bitty at times and would have preferred to see something a bit more flowing, but in a way the stilted format – scenes broken up with announcements of chapter numbers and dates – helped to enhance the feeling of the lovers constantly being watched and having to put on a show of manners for Society. Beautifully claustrophobic.

My final show of the afternoon was a musical called An Asylum on Every Corner, written by James Michalos and performed by Modus Operandi Theatre. Had I just read the blurb I think I would have given this an enormously wide berth – a musical. About a mental institution? REALLY?! – but it had been recommended to me by a friend, so I decided to give it a go, and am very glad I did. The 8 performers were, without exception, talented, slick and, above all, professional. One of the downsides to going to watch shows on the Fringe is that you see plenty of shows by amateurs and students. Quite often they’re a lot of fun, but half the time you can’t hear them or they’ve been hideously miscast. This was a completely different kettle of fish.

The show focused on three patients: Samuel, a schizophrenic; William, who had bipolar disorder; and Marjory, who had OCD. Their problems were dealt with sensitively and the audience were really made to think hard about their preconceptions of mental illness. Other characters included an anorexic nurse and the megalomaniac owner of Ashford Dell. I didn’t feel that these characters were dealt with so successfully – in particular the nurse’s solo number, in which she slowly stripped down to her underwear, weighing herself as she went, was very unsympathetic and I just ended up looking at her as a spoilt, vain woman, rather than someone who was suffering from an illness. The male characters were, in general, rather more successful than the female ones – something for the writer to work on, methinks.

Anarchic Mishaps

This post is prompted by a story on Singing Librarian’s blog. I started to write this in his comments but then realised that it was far too long and actually deserved a post of its very own, so here we go…

It’s very true that if you say and do things with confidence on stage, the audience will rarely notice anything that’s gone awry. My best example of this is from one of my graduation shows at drama school. We were doing Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, which is a political farce about police brutality. Unfortunately there was a nasty sickness and diarrhoea bug going around and two of the cast were struck down, along with our lighting operator. We therefore had to cancel one night. By the next night, however, the two cast members were sufficiently well again to go on stage – or so we thought, anyway.

We managed to get through most of the play, but when it came to the final scene everything went wrong. In this scene, the four policemen in the play were supposed to do a chase which involved running off upstage left, running around backstage and reappearing downstage right. I (as the journalist, Maria Feletti) was left on stage talking to the Maniac character. On this particular night, the policemen all raced off stage as expected – but only three out of four of them reappeared. We discovered afterwards that Simon (one of the two actors who had been ill the day before) had collapsed unconscious in the wings; however the two of us who were left on stage had no idea what had happened and the three that had just reappeared were fairly hazy too, as everything had happened very fast.

The final scene is one which runs very fast and very slick, with lines coming one on top of the other, no one person having much more than a couple of lines at a time. It is response-driven and absolutely relies on everyone giving and taking their cues fast for it to work. However, with one person out, this meant that some of the lines wouldn’t happen. There was a moment of pure terror for the five of us on stage as we all looked at each other and tried to communicate telepathically. What the HELL do we do now? Apparently the director (who was running the lighting box in the continued absence of our lighting operator) was about to bring the lights down and close the show – when we collectively took a metaphorical deep breath and launched into the scene.

It was one of the most terrifying and yet most beautiful things I’ve ever been part of as an actor. The moment when we put our faith completely in each other and when we all came together as a company, totally and utterly. Simon’s lines were taken up by other people and it JUST WORKED. There was no fudging, nobody talking over anyone else and the scene went absolutely beautifully. This happened to be the night that my family and friends had all come to see the show and so I casually asked them if they had noticed anything wrong in the final scene – not one of them had. A wonderful testament to the power of teamwork and something that I will rememember for as long as I live.

Edinburgh Day Two – Morning

I had a specific plan for day two in Edinburgh and had written down all the shows I wanted to see, along with start and finish times. This may sound beyond anal, but when you’re trying to fit in 9 shows in one day, as I was, it’s a bit of a military operation! It all went tits up with the very first show,unfortunately, but that’s what you get for trying to be organised when it comes to the Arts.

I was planning to see Shakespeare for Breakfast, mainly because it meant I would get free coffee and croissants – what? I’m a penurious actor! – but C Venue’s computer system decided to crash so they couldn’t issue tickets in the crucial half-hour before the show went up. The start of the show was therefore delayed, which was going to have a knock-on effect on the rest of my day. I therefore reluctantly gave up on that one – at least it’s a Fringe regular, so I can catch it another year, hopefully – and went off to try and get breakfast elsewhere before wandering over to see Hillbilly Goats Gruff, a children’s show written by and starring a friend of mine.

Hillbilly was a great laugh – I love children’s shows, especially if I’m not the one performing in them. There were songs, dances and plenty of opportunities for audience participation. I may have got a little overexcited at points, but we draw a veil over that. The children seemed to enjoy it, anyway…

After Hillbilly I went to see Other People, a two-man show about a pair of twenty-something male flatmates whose happy equilibrium playing computer games and drinking Tizer is upset when one of them meets a girl and decides to get married. There were some amusing moments, but unfortunately the flatmate sans girlfriend (who had the lion’s share of the good lines) was so bloody annoying and mannered that it was difficult to concentrate on anything other than the desire to punch him in the face. He should stick to writing and leave the acting to the actors in future.

Coming up: shotguns, sex and singing schizophrenics. Bet you can’t wait.

Edinburgh Day One

I arrived in Edinburgh at 1807 and was met by the friend that I was to be staying with. ‘We’re going to see a show at 6.30 – do you have a fiver and a passport photo?’ Er – yeah, amazingly enough I do. We therefore raced off to get me a company pass, which was an absolute godsend, as it meant I could get into any of the shows playing at the various C Venues for free, thereby saving me over 100 quid – marvellous.

So, off we tootled to C Central to watch ‘And Even My Goldfish’, a physical theatre show. Physical Theatre can often be – to put it bluntly – pretty wanky. Bad mime and pseudo dance moves with no clear ideas or sense of story. Luckily, this was GOOD pysical theatre and we all came out rather stunned. The scene which really stays in my memory is one in which the cleaning lady, who is obsessed with the main character, inveigles herself into his affections. In physical terms, this meant that she got inside his jacket and knelt beside him with her head on his knee. She then caressed her own face with the arm that she had put through the arm of his jacket and I honestly had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t his hand I was seeing. Very difficult to describe, but exceptionally effective – if you ever get a chance to see Chotto Ookii , who are the company that devised the show, I can highly recommend them.

Next up was Confessions of a Paralysed Porn Star at the C Cabaret bar. This was a one-woman stand-up show with original songs, based on the premise that the performer, Sarah-Louise Young, has the same name as a porn star. Sounds dreadful, but it was hilariously funny and also exceptionally touching at points. I shall treasure the memory of her receiving her ‘Award for Being Me’ – a fully operational Rampant Rabbit mounted (forgive the pun) onto an award stand. Brilliant.

At this point I must also rhapsodise about the fact that there is a smoking ban in Scotland. It was so lovely to go to a cabaret bar and firstly be able to see the stage rather than squinting through a fug of smoke; secondly not to come out absolutely reeking of stale cigarettes. I know there will be those who disagree with the ban here, but it can’t come soon enough for me.

Final show for that night was Girl in Box, which had some good ideas, but I don’t think was successful overall. Interestingly, on reading the website I see that there’s an extra character there who didn’t make it into the final show – Theresa. Who knows what happened to her – maybe she disappeared up her own arse. This was one of those physical theatre shows that I mentioned earlier – the ones that are basically just a bit wanky. The main girl was brilliant: entirely dressed in pink, with enormous sunglasses and a great cabaret style. She carried the entire show and I think if she ever wanted to go out on her own and do stand-up or cabaret she’d do very well. The main problem with this show, for me, was that it was billed as a physical theatre show, but was 90% text. There was only really one section of movement – a carefully choreographed sex scene. This was, admittedly, well done, but one 2 minute scene does not a genre make. My overall impression was that they didn’t really know where they were going with it and had come up with some ideas that they then tried to cobble together to make an entire show, without thinking about the piece as a whole. It’s a shame, as there were some good performers in there, but it just didn’t cut it for me.

Still to come: murder, mayhem and a musical about a mental institution – stay tuned, folks!

On Market Boys and Rabbits

I spent yesterday afternoon down at the National Theatre and had a fantastic time. First of all I went to see Market Boy, which I thoroughly enjoyed. As the title suggests, it tells the story of Boy, from 1985 through to 1991. The play starts with Boy at the age of 13, being dragged by his mum down to Romford Market to get a Saturday job on the shoe stall, and continues to follow him through his first forays into the world of girls and romance, learning some harsh life lessons along the way, until at the end of the play he has grown up enough to decide that he wants to move on, go to college and make something more of his life. The entire thing is set to a soundtrack of appropriate 80s music – the cast all sing and dance to varying degrees, although I would call it a play with music, rather than a full-on musical. There is a wonderful choreographed scene at the beginning of the second half, involving flags, rousing speeches and a majestic character appearing, winged, from the flies – sheer brilliance.

Also woven into the story is a political observation on how our country changed in those 6 years. I went to watch the show with a friend who was only born in December 1984, and was brought up in Saudi Arabia, so it was interesting to talk to her about that time, as she had very little memory of it. I can’t say that I was particularly politically aware at that point in time, either, but I remember certain salient points: the wideboys who came from nothing to great prominence in the city, only to fall back again when the crash came; Maggie Thatcher; the rise of acid house – all these are covered in the show. Great stuff – go see…

When the show finished I went to find out more about the elusive Rabbit . I followed signs and took furtive photographs; I looked into every nook and cranny of the National Theatre. I haven’t yet met Rabbit himself, but I can feel myself getting closer with every day. It’s all most exciting and I quite fancy myself as a spy now.

The Boy Friend

On a sultry summer’s evening in London, what could be better than going to the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park to watch The Boy Friend? Maybe going to Regents’ Park Open Air Theatre to watch The Boy Friend, preceded by jugs of Pimms and catching up with one’s father. Hurrah! Wednesday night was a winner on all counts then.

Dad phoned on Tuesday afternoon to say that he had a meeting on Thursday, so why didn’t he come up on Wednesday night and we could go to the theatre – how about Guys and Dolls? Fine, said I. Wednesday morning dawned as hot as ever, so Dad phoned again to say that he couldn’t bear to sit in a stuffy West-End Theatre (seriously, Andy and Cameron, aircon would be a great idea in this weather) so why didn’t we head over to Regent’s Park? The show is unashamed silly fluff, but sitting outside would be far more pleasant than sweltering inside. Great idea! said I. Of course, as he was paying for the tickets, I wasn’t really going to put up too much resistance, but it sounded like a top plan anyway. The only slight drawback was that every time Dad and I have gone to watch shows at Regent’s Park in the past it’s absolutely bucketed it down with rain and the performances have been cancelled by the time we get to the interval. Ah well – looking on the bright side, a bit of rain would probably have done London good, so we decided to tempt fate.

What a great show! Yes, the content is as light as marshmallow, but in this heat I certainly wasn’t interested in having to think too hard. The choreography was great, the costumes delightfully over the top and there were some fantastic performances as well, notably from Summer Strallen as Maisie Merryweather. Definite shades of Bonnie Langford there, but that suited the role down to the ground. In fact, all of Mme Dubonnet’s ‘Young Ladies’ gave great performances, particularly in their ensemble work. Their timing was spot on and they were silly and giggly without being grating. Wonderful stuff – I highly recommend it.