Where was I?
Oh yes, Potter. I remember hating the book of this one for being a sprawling unedited mass of backstory and info-dumps, full of Harry and Dumbledore standing around the headmaster's office wanking over the Pensieve ("and this is Voldemort's first lay, Harry, look closely and you'll see the carpet doesn't match the curtains") and not a great deal else.
First impressions of the film? They did their best, cutting a few of the more obviously redundant passages, but also bizarrely paring down the book's few action sequences to my mind. The 'half-blood Prince' motif is a flimsy enough pretext for a cool title as it is, but it became almost entirely irrelevant in this adaptation. Basically it's still a mass of backstory, but overlaid with a cunning veneer of Jim Broadbent, not to mention a welcome guest appearance from Helena Bonham Carter's cleavage. At least Michael Gambon eased off on his bizarrely shit Richard Harris impersonation this time round.
Just a quick invitation to those of a writerly persuasion.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
pixie_girl_1983 has set up a new writing and publishing community called ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
anthology_press. She's got extensive experience of designing and publishing children's books and is already up to 70 members after just a few days. It seems to me we need a few more people interested in giving reviews of the stuff people are posting.And now, suddenly, Children of Earth has come along, and suddenly Torchwood has become good TV. No, great TV. The kind of TV that has literally gripped the nation this week, in a way which is no longer supposed to be possible in our digitally-enhanced multi-channel age. It's pretty much like Bodger and Badger having a five episode mini-series in which the duo work frantically against government assassins in order to prevent a nuclear reactor meltdown (eventually flooding the reactor core with mashed potato. Obviously).
I first saw Nicholas Farrell play a prime minister in David Hare's Stuff Happens a few years ago. He was playing Tony Blair, and it was a fairly light interpretation, a weak man being bullied off the stage by Alex Jennings's overbearing Dubya Bush. The prime minister he's giving us now though, what an absolute shit! Although it's hard to see why anyone would vote for the guy, he's surely got to be up there with Francis Urquhart in the pantheon of fictional politicians. But given his recent role in Casualty 1909, he must be getting a bit fed up of sitting behind desks. Dude needs casting as an ice-cream hating robot pirate, stat.
Bizarrely, the most intense competition among the ladies has not been about who plays Esmerelda, but over who will play the cat. I'm predicting here that Jason will play Dick, Alexa will play Esmerelda and Maree (I think that's right) will end up playing the cat. I know that I stuck out reading 'Brummie' playwright Bill the Bard, so hopefully I'll get that. Obviously none of these names mean anything to the vast majority of you, sorry.
But then, bugger it, they're doing a P G Wodehouse play in February, and the rehearsal periods will overlap! I flagged up my Charlie's Aunt experience (and award nomination, God I'm shameless) while talking to the director last night in the pub.
I also have a Snazzy Phone now, which I can just about work. For once, I managed to transfer everyone's numbers from my old phone correctly. It would seem an opportune moment, however, to suggest that if you feel you want my number, or think that I might want yours, perhaps you should message me in some electronic fashion.
ETA: Yes, I just got cast as Bill the Bard - and I imagine I'll be hearing about other people's casting very soon. So I'll be doing my first panto in a cod-Brummie accent, and singing (but only as part of a chorus). Book your tickets now ;)
saestina was also in the audience, and has commented on the uncomfortable seats. I concur, although this two hour dose was as nothing compared to the last time I saw Mirren, in the same theatre, playing a mental in Mourning Becomes Electra...It's the second time I've seen Phedre, and it's never without a faint sense of guilt, as I studied it at university and blagged the seminar without ever bothering to read it. I've read it since, but a rare morsel of shame lurks at the pit of my soul on that score. It is a great play, with all the action off stage, but so very vividly described.
Also in the cast were John Shrapnel as Théramène, who I first saw as Claudius to Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet in the early 90s. In many ways, his main speech was my highlight of the play, describing the death of Hippolitus in painful detail. A bit of a show-stopper of a turn, all in all. Dominic Cooper's Hippolitus was brilliant, but then he's pretty much always brilliant.
The fannish should note that two-time 'episode 11' Doctor Who actress Chipo Chung had a minor role, but sadly was not asked to wear blue insectoid prosthetics.
The Roast Honey and Cumin Chicken dish was a bit of a hit on Friday night, the chicken skin crisping up nicely during the cooking process and the wasabi mayo providing a bit of perkiness on the side. And as it was INCREDIBLY easy, I suspect I'll make it again very soon. Somehow it was the first time we've eaten outside this year, and it's a slight shame I waited until the start of the wasp season, but there you go.
Ha ha ha... no.
But I'm plugging away nonetheless.
As I need something to keep me occupied in the pub, however, I've also started rewriting the YA series that has been in my head for about five years now. I've kept the prologue more or less untouched, but everything else was very pedestrian, so I've chucked it all out and gone back to the original premise.
pixie_girl_1983 tells me I'm not allowed to kill any of the kids though, which is a problem for me.Anyway. I now have a smart(ish)phone, one of those that's so incredibly advanced you need to use a magic stick to get it to do stuff. No, I can't even switch it on yet. But in preparation, I've cleared all my photos from my old phone, so have some picspam.
( A blogulatory cut, wherein may be found an unfeasibly large number of whimsical photographic likenesses )
And
dick_dangerous and pixie_girl_1983 are coming for Roast honey and cumin chicken tonight! Hurrah! Then tomorrow I'm off to the National to see Helen Mirren and Dominic Cooper in Phedre...I've done something intensely painful to my neck, wrenched it or cricked it or something at some point during Saturday night (when, I surmise, I must have been rolling around in bed more than usual due to all the nice weather). I've spent most of the last two days clutching my neck and making alarming noises. I have done this before, but I think I was about fourteen last time...
Still, this evening, a combination of painkillers, beer, warm flannel compresses and general stretching made me decide it was a good idea to go to the panto audition for Dick Whittington with the Barnes Charity Players. I feel quite bad as I didn't recognise two of the fairies - we had a blanket ban on haircuts during the rehearsal period so everyone looks totally different now!
Whether I get a part or not will depend on whether the director finds my singing voice as amusing as I do, I imagine. As it stands, I get the impression they have a part in mind for me. This may change after the musical audition on Thursday... I also have a two week holiday at the start of October which I can't see being particularly popular. I'm ambivalent, obviously Midsummer Night's Dream was utterly great fun, but as the Dame's part is clearly virtually cast already, I can't see where my challenge is going to come from in panto. Singing in tune, I suppose, that would challenge me.
I do love going into Barnes, though, I bump into people I know every time I'm in the area. I've lived in Southfields for three years now and the only people I know are shopkeepers, waiters and Mad John. There is apparently a theatre group in Southfields now, but I get the impression it's pretty cliquey and revolves around the set that go to the Earl Spencer pub, which was once Pub of the Year, but which my brother and I have now decided is full of wankers, including a variety of wannabe youngish guys who wear hats indoors. Now, if wearing hats indoors isn't a sign of a broken society, I don't know what is.
I'm rambling, but that's because I'm finally in a comfortable position and I don't want to close the laptop and go to bed, because then my neck will start hurting again. I'm currently sitting in the back yard area of my flat, listening to passing tennis fans flooding away from Wimbledon. Outdoor surfing kind of rules, Wi-Fi and laptops have done sterling service in this regard.
- Location:My back garden
- Mood:pained
- Music:Low-flying jets from Heathrow
What modern producer would permit the introduction at the beginning of Act Five of a procession lasting as long as Mendelssohn's famous wedding march?
Um, yeah, what crazy producer would indeed permit that?
...
Just wait for the DVD.
I... need to get myself a new television, stat.
And everyone who found Planet of the Dead less than awesome (which includes me on my original iPlayer viewing, I have to admit) also needs to get a new television.
It's a glimpse of what a Doctor Who film could be, a riot of fantastic images, offbeat humour and rather dazzling special effects. There's not a duff performance to be seen, and even the music doesn't irritate me (I regret to announce that I am not generally a Murray Gold fan. If you can't make it as a songwriter under your own steam, that's no reason to pollute popular shows' incidental music with your sub-B-side dreck). In fact, I pretty much adore the score in the pre-credit sequence. The storyline is slender, but is perfectly adequate for the time allotted. It's non-stop fun and excitement with Action by HAVOC and a comedy scientist and I've decided I prefer it to both The Next Doctor and Voyage of the Damned.
More to the point, it highlights the evolution of Doctor Who since 2005. Like Rose, the main figure for audience identification is the new 'companion' and we spend a good chunk of the episode getting to know the Doctor through their eyes. Where Rose seemed to go out of its way to validate our worst fears about a Russell T Davies Doctor Who universe (council estates, leather jackets and CGI wheelie bins), Planet of the Dead effectively reintroduces the show as a bold, brash, confident production full of international/interplanetary filming, flying buses, enormous wrecked spacecraft and people actually dying on screen.
Jon Blum is fond of reminding fans how far we've come since the dark days of the 90s, and the ragged production values of the 20th Century series, and he's always got a point. What Planet of the Dead shows is how far the series has grown even from its relaunch, which now looks so timid you have to wonder whether even the production team were worried they might be making another Randall and Hopkirk: Deceased.
And it even has some rubbish 'men in suits' aliens with crap guns, to assure people getting a bit alarmed by the quality.
sroit . I've now finished that, and finally seen one of the sequels on a shelf (ironically in the same Waterstones that failed so hard to have anything else I wanted to buy), so will be catching up with the rest of the series soon. I imagine that trying to find new things to do with vampire books must be up there with finding new things to do with crime novels, but I have to admit I was fairly relieved in the latter stages of Paris Immortal when it became clear that there was going to be a bit more to the book than gay vampires indulging in property development ;)I'm now re-reading Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten and getting grumpy at the lack of new Fforde for what I consider to be an unreasonable amount of time.
The book I most wanted to get last Friday, however, was Toby Frost's third Isambard Smith novel, Wrath of the Lemming Men. Apparently it has been blighted by 'distribution problems'. I picked up the second book (God Emperor of Didcot) a few months ago, and I've become pretty much an instant fan. The British Empire in space, the books are a little rough around the edges, but fantastically entertaining reading.
Yesterday I walked over Martin Down with my Dad and we saw all manner of interesting butterflies and orchids, as well as a bird of prey that was just a little too distant to be identified. I do like being in the countryside...
Two hundred and six pages.
59,099 words.
Far too many uses of the phrase d'abord in a context I'm not used to seeing.
A whole page on how being arrested makes you want to wee all morning.
L'histoire de ma fuite des prisons de la Republique de Venise qu'on appelle les Plombs is now translated into English in its entirety for the first time ever. And it's a classic. I mean, take a look at this:
In place of waiting a month, I got myself to Venice within twenty-four hours and I presented myself to secretary Businello, brother of he who had been it eighteen years previously.
Yes... I need to spend the rest of my life bashing it into something in any way readable. But the dictionary-staring bit is over, so I'm going to the pub!
I did 9,000 words.
I... can't really feel my fingers any more.
But I am a scant 19 pages away from having a rough translation of the entire book.
And then the editing begins.
And also the breaking up into sane paragraphs. Giacomo Casanova was clearly not a fan of the indented line break...
I will not now be putting my footage from the show's technical rehearsal on to YouTube - because last night the whole play was recorded and I'll be getting a copy on DVD once it's been professionally edited! I shall see about making that footage available over the internetular conveyance for all interested parties.
Thanks to
dothestrand, nuclear_powerednovicejeweller for coming to see the show, and to pixie_girl_1983 for doing my make-up. I've nearly got all the eyeliner off now! Some photos are now up on Facebook, but as many of you aren't on my Facebook, see below...
( Relatively big pictures )
I am now entering the realms of the terminally shattered, as I'm not getting home until midnight (or thereabouts) but am still trying to be up at a decent time in the morning to keep up momentum on Casanova. Histoire de ma Fuite is now about three quarters translated, but I'm starting to find it hard to approach it with a great deal of enthusiasm.
But, yes, the play. It's going really well! Considering that the dress rehearsal was literally the first time we'd run the show from start to finish, it's coming over as very slick and polished. I had my first friends in the audience last night, Sian and Karen from Brummingham University days. They really enjoyed it, particularly my kerrazy Oberon eye-makeup, and said nice things about the overall standard of the group.
Then the director told me that the Head of Drama at the local college was RAVING about me! Which is brilliant because I woke up on Tuesday acutely aware that I was about to act in front of an audience for the first time in five years.
Today Hannah comes down from Birmingham, and tomorrow my parents are seeing the matinee while Geoff and Steph are coming for the evening show, so the next few days are going to be massively busy but hopefully great fun!
I'm really going to miss the cast when the show finishes, particularly all the fairies who are brilliantly talented young ladies (though obsessed with biscuits).
Photos should be coming soonish.
It looks as though I missed the beginning of my own freelance writing career. I've just found out that Helium gave me a $5 payment after one of my articles there was purchased as stock content by an unknown publisher. In February.
The delay in me discovering this is entirely my own fault, as I forgot to update the email address I used to register to Helium, but it does mean I have no idea who purchased it and, because I was still using the byline 'Obvious P. Seudonym' (after that job interview where the guy was reading through a selection of my online profiles), it would have been uncredited.
Bugger.
But, you know, yay at the same time, cos a wee bit of published action is always nice. I did manage to work out which article it was, so clickety click to find out whether I thought Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger portrayed the Joker best.
Technical rehearsal for Midsummer Night's Dream this afternoon. I am expecting a late one.
literatim in Chinatown. We went to Tokyo Diner, which wasn't as fab as previous times when I've been there, sadly. Grilled eel Donburi was consumed.B@1 was the next port of call, where I had an Irish Disco Biscuit. It is shocking that I waited until late May for 2009's first Irish Disco Biscuit - this must not happen next year.
I finally found out about those Twilight books people keep banging on about. That shit is seriously fucked up. I'd kind of gathered they were crap but I didn't realise they were such offensive crap. But I'll have to bite my lip tonight as I have a rehearsal and the fairies are terrifyingly obsessed with it.
Then I have the dilemna of whether or not to go and see Spring Awakening, as recommended to me by just about every girl I know who lives in London. It closes this weekend and I'm a wee bit busy up to then.
But while various people quote the <i>Hitch-Hiker's Guide</i> to try and out-geek each other by remembering the names of the various planets Douglas Adams named in the 'towels' entry, I can trump them all.
Ford Prefect, it is established in the radio series, bought his towel in the Salisbury branch of Marks and Spencers - the same branch that I was dragged around by my parents every single school holiday. When I was younger I used to exact revenge on my parents by telling the staff about their part in literary history.
Sadly I've not been anywhere near Salisbury's M&S on an actual Towel Day - is there some sort of special gathering there? Do people wear dressing gowns and queue up to buy towels? Afterwards, does everyone gather outside in St George's Mall to dance the [paranoid] Robot?
Because if not, there's something very wrong with the world.
rj_anderson posted this, and all I can say really is that I want one. It could help Buscemi solve crimes...
