Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The fortnight (or so) that was #11

Darren Hanlon

On December 16, Darren Hanlon played at the Grace Emily, in what seems now to be an annual Christmas show. I’d already seen him once this year but I’m happy to see him again, since he’s one of my favourite singer/songwriters – and it’s not as if he asks all that much for tickets; these were $20, which I think is the most I’ve paid to see him. But it’s money well-spent.

If you aren’t familiar with his work, he falls into the genre of ‘urban folk’; you can see/hear a couple on YouTube – Falling Aeroplanes, Punk’s Not Dead and A to Z. Somewhat unusually (though less so these days than a few years back), he sings with a distinct Australian accent.

Falling Aeroplanes is what got me interested in his music, so I bought Early Days - the EP that contained that track - and found that I liked the other songs as well. A couple of years later I was able to catch him in Adelaide playing live at the Jade Monkey and was stunned to find that he, too, was from country Queensland – specifically, Gympie1. After the show I ended up talking to him for a while and he was a little surprised to find that someone in Adelaide not only knew where Gympie was but had spent some time there.

I’ve managed to see him most of the times he’s been to Adelaide, excluding the gigs I didn’t manage to hear about or where he was playing as part of a festival (i.e. the 2008 Laneway festival). I’ve seen him play with the other artists on the Candle Records roster (The Lucksmiths, Golden Rough, Jodie Phillis – amongst others) at the Enigma Bar and then at Jive earlier this year.

Over that time I’ve picked up a couple of his albums but not all; I don’t seem to like the songs he releases as singles as much as I liked the earlier songs, and that’s kind of put me off – though I’m almost 100% there’d be album tracks that I’d love. I suspect I’ll eventually collect them all, but for now I’m happy with those that I’ve got – when I saw him at Jive I bought his b-sides/oddities collection Pointing Rayguns at Pagans which has some great songs like Pinball Millionaire, Eli Wallach2 and Perfect Day, the cover of a Fischer Z3 song that I remember liking the original version of.

But the songs of his I do like – a lot. He has exactly what I look for in a singer/songwriter – he’s genuine4 and writes funny and extremely intelligent lyrics. A to Z in particular is full of some of the cleverest phrasings of any song I’ve ever heard; my favourite section is this gem:

But there’s never an argument
I don’t need an apology
It’s all half a dozen eggplants
Or six aubergines

To a word-nerd like me that’s pure gold. On pure lyrical value alone I would struggle to think of too many examples that better that, other than one or two Elliott Smith songs. That it’s paired with some exquisitely composed music – and that overall feeling of genuine emotion - makes it even more enjoyable.

Falling Aeroplanes is my other favourite of his songs, and, while not quite as epic in the lyrics department as A to Z, certainly matches it in terms of genuine feeling – and it’s played (primarily) on the banjo, adding to the charm.

I may have mentioned in one of the posts about weddings that I tend to dislike the music of most weddings and that, if I did ever get married5 I’d be putting together a playlist of songs that are meaningful without being nauseatingly fake – and, so far, that’s a pretty short list. But both A to Z and Falling Aeroplanes are on it – which I think is a heck of an achievement.

Anyway, back to the gig – he played both Falling Aeroplanes and A to Z (the latter I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard him play live – or if I have, it was a while ago; he definitely didn’t play it at Jive earlier this year) as well as a range of songs from the other albums and some great new songs – so good that I’m really looking forward to the next album coming out. And he not only played Pinball Millionaire but told us a story about how, when he was in Seattle, his booking agent entered him in a pinball competition that he ended up making to the semi-finals of – so it turns out (not all that surprisingly) that he’s a good storyteller as well.

Pretty much the only downside to the whole evening was how late it went – it was a Wednesday, and I didn’t get home until after midnight. Still, I think it was probably worth a poor night’s sleep – and I’ll certainly be seeing him again when he’s in town.

1It’s in the south-east part of Queensland, slightly north-west of Noosa. My brother and his family live there, and I’ve stayed with them a few times.
2An actor, best known for his role as ‘The Ugly’ in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – arguably the best western of all time.
3Don’t worry if you don’t know them. They weren’t particularly big.
4By which I mean I believe that he feels what he’s singing about. That’s a very big thing for me, and something that, in my opinion, the vast majority of music lacks.
5No, Mum, that doesn’t mean you should get your hopes up.


The Work Xmas Function

We had our work Xmas function6 at the Hyatt this year, where we’d had it two years ago. I wasn’t intending to go but got talked into it by the cube-neighbours, who seemed to think I should be there.

I don’t enjoy such things as a general rule. While there aren’t that many people at work who I don’t get along with, there also aren’t too many that I have enough in common with to have an extended conversation about non-work things about – and no-one should be talking work at a Xmas function. I like and get on well with my cube-neighbours, but we see each other every day and, as a general rule, talk about anything significant when it occurs; as a result we don’t have a lot of ‘catching up’ to do, per se.

Which kind of means I don’t see the point of going to such things – if you’re me that is. But I let myself get talked into it and put my name down.

Nearer to the day itself I came very close to pulling out – because a number of people other than those in ‘my’ group (i.e. those people who sit in the same row as me, plus one partner who was also coming) had invited themselves to sit at our table, and I wasn’t sure exactly how many seats the tables had. Since not sitting at that table would make going an entirely untenable position, I had two choices – have it confirmed that the numbers we currently had weren’t going to be too many, or pull out.

Turns out the tables sat ten – which was exactly as many as we had. So I didn't pull out.

By the time the day itself rolled around I was somewhat regretting my decision, mostly for the reasons I’ve already mentioned – it wasn’t as if I was going to be able to spend much of the night talking to anyone I didn’t already spend eight or so hours a day with.

And that was pretty much how it panned out. There were a few people from the other office (Kidman Park) who I know well enough to be able to talk to, so I caught up with them – but the rest of it was kind of subdued, at least compared to the sort of conversation that I prefer to have if I’m having conversation. I guess what it comes down to is that, while my range of interests is broad (as far as I can tell), it doesn’t seem to stretch far enough to overlap with people I work with.

Of course, there might be people at my work who are interested in literature or film but if they are it’s a mystery to me because finding out would involve overcoming the other barrier I face at any work-related function – or even within the workplace itself – which is that I lack the ability to engage a significant segment of people from my workplace in conversation about anything.

I’m not entirely sure why this is. I don’t pretend that I’m charismatic or charming – in fact, I’ll argue ‘til I’m blue in the face that I’m the antithesis of either – which I suspect has something to do with it. Admittedly, I don’t really try all that hard anymore – but a lot of that is down to resentment, because I have tried with a few people, on several occasions, and gotten nowhere. There are really only so many dead horses I’m prepared to flog, and I’ve made the decision that I don’t care that much if I don’t speak to other people at work beyond basic banter.

Not that this is limited to work, though. These days I’m finding it harder to talk to people I don’t already know well – and sometimes even those conversations aren’t going as smoothly as they once did. I have no idea why this is; I don’t believe that I’m doing or saying anything different from what I’ve always said and done – in fact, it may just be a perception with no basis in reality. What I also don’t know is if there’s anything I can do about it. But I do know I have to keep it in mind when I’m asked if I’m doing anything social – since I’d far rather stay home than risk being out somewhere feeling uncomfortable.

So, having made my decision not to bother people who don’t have time for me, I ate my food, kept to myself and then sat and suffered through the nightmarish selection of music provided by the DJ – a setlist comprising almost entirely of wretched 70s and 80s dancefloor standards.

Choosing the work-organised bus home was a mistake ‘cause it meant I had to stay there about an hour longer than I should have. But home time rolled around and off we went. As a result I didn’t have too late a night and, since I only drink heavily when I’m in a very good mood, I hadn’t had so many drinks that I was feeling too out of it – though I had had a few beers and a few wines, which did impact me somewhat the next morning; something which will prove significant in the next topic I cover.

Anyway, short of developing a few more friendships around the office between now and this time next year I doubt very much I’ll be attending the 2010 function.

6It sometimes gets referred to as a ‘show’ – but I don’t think that’s accurate; ‘show’ implies some kind of presentation or performance, and that hasn’t happened at any of the functions I’ve been to.

Tempest

The morning after the work Xmas dinner I had an audition for Mixed Salad’s 2010 production of The Tempest – for which they appear to be dropping the The7. I would have preferred for it to be another day, but one doesn’t often get to choose these things. As it was I was down for the 11.30 slot rather than the 9.30, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

My performing plan for 2010 had included doing a Shakespeare – but not with Mixed Salad; I had intended to audition for (and get a part in8) whichever Shakespeare the Adelaide Uni Theatre Guild would be doing in mid-year – since they seem to have established a tradition of doing mid-year Shakespeare’s it was not an unreasonable assumption to make.

But, as they say, when you make an assumption you make an ass out of you and umption9– while they are doing a Shakespeare mid-year, it’s going to be a student production. Since I’m not a student – and have no intention of becoming one again – I don’t have the option. Admittedly, they are doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and, while that is one of my favourites, it is also one I’ve done before, and in which I know I’d only be prepared to take certain roles – specifically Peter Quince, Oberon or Puck. And I suspect those would be roles I wouldn’t get anyway.

I was a bit annoyed about this at first – I’d actually emailed them to find out which show they were doing; I was told they weren’t announcing yet and, as a result, didn’t audition for another show I was contemplating doing – Curtains, with Therry. But if they had told me, I’d have auditioned for Curtains, may well have gotten in, and not even considered Tempest; since I wouldn’t have imagined that I’d have gotten a part in a Mixed Salad show, I’d wouldn’t have auditioned.

But, I hadn’t auditioned for anything else and it was looking like the first half of next year would be sans performance. But I heard about Mixed Salad doing a production of The Tempest (minus, as I mentioned, the The) and though I might as well give it a shot – more because of the fact they were doing it as a group audition (which I tend to enjoy) and because their people have such a good reputation that I expected that a group audition with them would be a learning experience and valuable in its own right.

Mixed Salad, if you’re not familiar with them, have put on some of the best amateur productions in Adelaide over the last few years. My friend Bonnie was in their excellent production of Five Women Wearing the Same Dress a few years back; I saw their contemporised Two Gentleman of Verona in 2007 and enjoyed that; this year they put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, The History Boys. Their casts have included some of Adelaide’s best amateur performers, and from time to time one or two ex- (or currently on hiatus) professionals.

So, high standards. I would have been a lot more confident of getting a role in a Theatre Guild production than I was of getting into this.

Anyway, back to the audition. I woke up feeling somewhat under the weather from the effects of the work Xmas function – bad, but not hideous. I had toast and tea and dragged myself ‘out west’ to the Star Theatre in Hilton. After I got there I filled out the form, had my photo taken (blech) and waited around for the audition to start – I chatted to a girl named Carla, who’d been in the St Judes production of An Inspector Calls that I’d reviewed earlier this year.

Before the audition itself started, Sally (the director) took us into the main theatre (I’d been there earlier this year to see Rent) and explained what the setup for the show would be; they’d be using a thrust stage designed to look like a jetty, with a beach section (featuring actual sand) and an overturned boat – all in keeping with some of the key plot-points from the original, which includes several of the characters being shipwrecked on the island where the story takes place.

Then we went into the smaller theatre in the building (which I’d never seen before) and went through some interesting exercises – the first, hilariously, was to act as if we’d fallen asleep on the beach after a night of heavy drinking; thanks to the night before this wasn’t exactly a stretch of my acting talents. After that we had to develop a way of moving that corresponded with one of the four elemental properties (air, water, earth or fire) which was a bit more challenging because I wasn’t entirely sure of how to go about that – but I gave it a damn good go anyway.

After that we were divided into two groups – masters and servants – and let free to act how we felt our characters would act. I got ‘master’ so I hounded one guy and then, when it was pointed out that one of the ‘servants’ hadn’t been given any orders, set her to work as well. I was reasonably happy with how that went.

Next we were split into pairs and given different scenes to work on – I went with a guy named Keith (maybe), who I’d seen in a few things before; we had a scene featuring Prospero and Caliban that we tried a few different ways: switching roles and so forth. We were given a different scene that we struggled with – but it still gave us the opportunity to try out some comedy.

And that was it. I’d had a fun time and learned a few things – the whole ‘moving like the different elements’ was new to me, but I can imagine it’s a technique I can use in the future.

Later that afternoon I got the call – imagine my surprise when Sally told me she was offering me a role in the show. I’m in the ensemble (holiday-makers, party-goers and drinkers) as well as Alonso, one of the supporting characters – in the original he’s the King of Naples who helped betray and exile Prospero (the main character) to the island he now calls home. Of course, since they’re contemporising it, I can’t imagine Alonso will still be the King of Naples, but I suppose there’ll be some kind of parallel.

Not that I’ll find too much more out before March, when rehearsals start – apart from whatever information is provided with the script I seem to recall them mentioning they’ll be sending out. A few names I knew were mentioned, but I believe they were fellow ensemble; I’ve no idea who’s playing any of the principals.

I’m kind of hoping that I’ll be in the mood to document the whole process – keep a rehearsal journal, if you will – so expect to hear a lot more about Prospero, Ariel, Caliban and Alonso in the coming months.

7It does has more impact without it, I guess.
8This isn’t arrogance, by the way. I’m a male, I’m at the very least a competent actor by amateur standards, and I’d have been happy to take third spear-carrier from the left if that’s all that was offered to me - and they seem to like having as large a cast as they can get. Those things combined would make it highly likely I’d be offered a part.
9I’ve never quite understood this joke.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The week fortnight non-specific time period that was #10

I’m just going to give up apologising. Just assume that each blog post contains an expression of regret for having taken far too long to appear.

The Wedding of Selena and Shane

If Shane and/or Selena are reading this I hope you don’t feel bad that you didn’t get a blog post of your own like Miriam and Paul did – it’s nothing personal, honest. But yours didn’t require a road trip1 and an overnight stay in the country so there’s kind of less to write about.

Some background: like so many people I know, I met Selena doing theatre; specifically, the Burnside production of Much Ado About Nothing2. However, unlike previous-wedding-Miriam, she didn’t get the role I wanted – even with the messing around with gender in that show.

The wedding itself was at the chapel at St Aloysius school in the city – I’m not sure why; it was something I was going to ask about but didn’t. About all I know about the school is that it’s a Catholic girls’ school, a couple of people I know went there, and about half a dozen current students catch the same bus into town as me. I went in with friends Tim and Nora who picked me up from my place.

In what is an excellent illustration of the vagaries of Adelaide weather, this temperature on the day of this wedding was 20 degrees lower than that of the previous one only two weeks ago. The ceremony part was as you’d expect – and far less preachy than the last wedding, though the constant crossing thing took a bit of getting used to. It wasn’t especially long either.

There were a few hours to kill between the ceremony and the reception, which was at the Stamford on North Terrace in the city. I went back to Tim & Nora’s with them and we kicked back for a while and went through the always challenging process of composing something appropriate for the card. Despite my enthusiasm for writing I always struggle with cards, whether they be for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries or Bar Mitzvahs3. But I managed to overcome sentiment-specific writer’s block and come up with something that (I hope) worked.

We caught the bus back into town (no-one wanted to drive) and braved the squally weather to get from the bus stop to the Stamford and found we’d gotten there a bit too early and sat around the bar until 7. Once that rolled around we joined the queue for the tiny lift to the Crystal Room on the fourth floor (which, incidentally, had been the venue for a few work functions when I was with Origin) and joined the party.

Like nearly everyone else there I was surprised to find a jar with my name on it as a placemarker – a jar filled with a whitish powder. But more on that later. We sat and drank and chatted to people; the usual kind of thing where you’ve got groups of strangers linked only by the fact that their social circles overlap by one or two people.

The entrée – a risotto (possibly) with crab and prawns, which I’d normally be dubious about but which turned out to be quite nice – appeared. The main course was going to be a bit more of mystery since it’d been communicated to Selena that I was vehemently anti-pumpkin; I hadn’t, however, noted this in my RSVP because I didn’t think it’d be that big a deal but it would have been because the vile gourd was a major part of both options. So, I was spared the revolting orange muck and got potato with my choice (lamb) instead. Dessert was – I’m struggling to recall it now – a kind of apple crumble cheesecake thing, which. I only barely managed to get through.

Speech time: the usual suspects – best man, father of the bride and the groom. Hilariously, it was the most I’d heard Shane say the entire time I’d known him – even if you added up everything I’d ever heard him say in that two-year period. The mystery of the jar was revealed - it was pancake mix; significant because the first meal the bride & groom had had together was at the Pancake Kitchen.

That’s pretty damn awesome. If I were ever to get married (this isn't likely, for a number of reasons - and certainly not something I'm going to write about now) I’d want to do something that would set it aside from other weddings – though I’d already be halfway there with the choice of music, since I’d be playing a whole bunch of stuff that a lot of people won’t have ever heard, and definitely not playing what gets played at most weddings.

Anyway, the night continued into the dancing to mostly ghastly (to my sensibilities at least) dance-floor standards and I maintained my stance of not bringing myself to submit to the pressure to dance to anything I considered too unpleasant to validate by shaking my skinny white ass to. But some Jackson Five came on; they fall into the ‘acceptable’ category, so I got myself up there to show off my distinct lack of rhythm.

Not long after that I went home; I didn’t feel like making a huge night of it and the last bus going in my direction left at 11.30 or so and I wanted to be on it. All in all a good night. No so good that it’s overcoming my natural inclination to never get married, of course, but it was fun.

1Unless you count driving from Payneham South to the city (a distance of 6.8km) a road trip.
2
I hadn’t realised it before but I believe this is the third wedding I’ve been to of people from the cast of that show.
3
Technically, I’ve never been to a Bar Mitzvah. But I’m sure that if I had to write in a card for it I’d find it difficult – well, beyond ‘mazel tov’.


Cricket

On Saturday the 5th I went to day two of the test match between Australia and the West Indies. I hadn’t been to the cricket for years, but this time I’d noted when the match was going to be on and it was on a weekend where I knew I had no other commitments; all I had to do was find someone to go with – cricket’s one of those things that is necessary to do in the company of others, unlike most of the things I do.

Serendipitously4, my friend Tracey had recently begun a relationship with a guy named Sam, who plays cricket – meaning that (in my mind at least) it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that he would also like watching cricket. So, I asked and was met with a resounding ‘yes’. Originally Tracey was also going to come along but she ended up changing her mind, meaning it was just Sam and me.

It’s not all that far from my place to the Adelaide Oval so I decided to ride my bike there rather than drive (also sensible because parking nearby is a) limited and b) not free) or catch the bus and walk. So, laden with equipment (well, a hat and a backpack with a book and a bottle of sunscreen) I made my way from Payneham South to North Adelaide and found my way inside and to a good spot – in the north-east corner in front of the light tower and four rows back from the fence.

Sam was having breakfast with his cricket club at the Kensington hotel beforehand, so we agreed that he’d just come and find me when he got there. I’d gotten there about twenty minutes or before play began so I was ready and waiting when the first ball was bowled – and a good thing that I was; Siddle took a wicket with it. As it was people coming were a bit confused by the number of wickets down on the scoreboard and were a bit shocked to hear that one had fallen first ball.

Not a huge amount happened in the rest of the session, but that’s quite normal for tests so I just sat back and enjoyed the atmosphere – which is really what it’s about as far as I’m concerned; you don’t go to really ‘watch’ the cricket itself since you’re not able to see things all that well from where you sit. It’s better now they’ve got a permanent video screen set up – that way you can see replays – but as far as comprehensive coverage is concerned you’re better off watching it on television.

After a while, Sam showed up and the other essential aspect of live cricket began – the drinking of beer. Some more wickets fell – finally; it was a bit embarrassing that their number eleven, typically the least talented batsmen in the side, was able to make forty runs not-out before our bowlers dispatched his partner. But they were out and we were in.

I’d actually planned on eating more but the only thing I ended up buying was a fairly average hot-dog from a nearby cart. They now sell strawberries at the cricket, which I find quite odd – it’s most notably a Wimbledon thing, at least to my knowledge. Do they do a roaring trade? I couldn’t really say, but at no point did I notice anyone near me with any. The couple in front of us seemed to have invested in a portable hole or perhaps Mary Poppins’s carpetbag because they produced a non-stop supply of food and drink from it.

No Australian wickets fell for the rest of the day so we were treated to a good display of batting from Watson and Katich – though, as the record will show, not quite good enough for Watson to get his hundred before stumps. At the time I remarked that this wasn’t a good thing since being not-out overnight in the nineties seems – for Australian batsmen at least – to lead to getting out the next morning before making it to the century mark.

Which is, of course, exactly what happened. I blame both Watson and Katich, since they could (and certainly should) have played to try and get him to his ton before stumps for that very reason. They took twos when they could have taken singles, threes instead of twos, and even one four all-run when stopping at three would have left Watson on strike for the next over.

The day finished and Sam and I went our separate ways. I was faced with the somewhat interesting task of riding my bike home while being slightly drunk (I’d had six pints of mid-strength beer over the space of maybe six hours; for someone with my low tolerance for alcohol that’s enough to have a noticeable effect). But I managed to make it home without a) falling off or b) getting arrested5.

A damn good day, and something I’d like to make an annual event – preferably with more people next time. Heck, I’ll even volunteer to organise it.

4This might or might not be a word.
5
Technically, riding a bike while drunk is an offence. You don’t hear about it as often because, as far as I know, they don’t set up breathalyser stations on bike paths.


Green Day

On Sunday the 6th I went to see Green Day at the Entertainment Centre. I’d never seen them before, mostly because I don’t think I’d have counted myself as that big a fan of theirs the last time they were in Adelaide. But that had changed since I’d gotten my hands on a copy of their 2004 album American Idiot, which I grew to love after a few listens. So, as soon as the tour was announced (without any specific details being released) I decided I was going to see them when they got here – as long as they came to Adelaide, that is. But they came here last time they toured, so chances seemed pretty good they’d include us on their itinerary.

I was not disappointed – dates for Adelaide were included. I signed myself up with whichever mailing list/membership/pre-sale preferential group it was they used and made sure I was not going to miss out. It’s a bit of a song-and-dance: getting a unique user code and using that to log in to the website at the specified time for Adelaide – they stagger the dates and times so the feeding frenzy doesn’t crash their system – and buy tickets. But it worked – I got two tickets about two minutes after it opened.

This, of course, was about six months ago. I’m one of those people who hates not being able to get something I’ve bought straight away so the waiting was kind of annoying, but that’s the way of concert tickets these days – you get in early or you don’t go. But the months rolled by and the day arrived6.

I did a bit of research beforehand and found that the support act was Australian band Jet – which was good ‘cause I don’t mind them. I’m not a huge fan but nor would I be unhappy about standing through a half-hour set of theirs before the main act began. I also looked online for some setlists – people post complete setlists from gigs, which is a great way to get an idea of what kind of songs (and how many) a band might play at a typical show. I was blown away to see they’d played thirty-four songs at a recent appearance in Italy.

Of course, they were (or still are, depending on your definition) a punk band, so some of their songs aren’t all that long – but the official tour website had their playing time listed as from 8.30 – 11.30, which led me to believe that they would be playing for a decent amount of time. I didn’t really expect three hours, but even two full hours would be good.

We (concert/theatre/film-going associate Miriam and I) decided to pre-empt the insanity of competing with people for parks and had dinner at The Gov before wandering over to the entertainment centre. This plan worked quite well; we got a park only about five minutes walk away – and for which we didn’t have to pay.

Doors were due to open at 6.30 (I think) and we headed over and made our way through the doors and down onto the stadium floor (we’d opted for general admission rather than seated) without too much hassle and found ourselves a spot inside the ‘D’7 that was not too far from the stage but not where we anticipated the moshing would take place.

Jet came on at 7.30 and played for their allotted half hour – they played well (I think I’ve seen them before, at a Big Day Out, but I’m not sure which) and were very enthusiastic.

While what seemed to be to be the largest crew of roadies8 I’ve ever seen cleared off the Jet equipment and brought in the Green Day gear; we speculated on what kind of lighting/on-stage set they’d have – since it wasn’t particularly obvious from what we could see. But we watched as they raised two spotlight operators up on a boom behind the stage, which kind of indicated it was going to be somewhat interesting. Not really a job I’d volunteer for, though; they went a long way up and spotlights (as I’ve learned from experience) get hot.

For no reason that I didn’t – and possibly never will – understand, someone (I contend it was a female because (s)he had hands even smaller and more delicate than my own, which is saying something) came on dressed in a pink bunny suit, danced around for a while and – with the exhortation of the crowd – knocked back two Crown Lager stubbies before going off again.

Eventually Green Day took the stage – but what I was blown away by first was the set, which had the entire wall behind them looking like a giant city horizon with huge skyscrapers. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. See a photo of it here.

For the next two hours and twenty (or so) minutes, we were treated to one of the most dynamic and enjoyable rock concerts I’ve experienced – and I’ve seen a lot of bands. Not very many stadium shows, though; the majority of acts I see are either too small or who I saw when they were small but whose music I now don’t enjoy enough to fork out the cash for that big a show.

I won’t bother trying to name the songs; you can see the complete setlist here.

They were ‘on’ the whole time; Billie Joe (lead vocals/guitar) and Mike Dirnt (bass/backing vocals) kept moving almost the entire time, running back and forth and jumping around; drummer Tré Cool, of course, was sitting – but his drumming is of the enthusiastic variety so it wasn’t like he was sitting still.

Pretty much all the stadium-rock standards got used: audience members brought on stage (and thrown back in to crowd surf), t-shirts shot into the stands with an air-gun, water sprayers, and a motorised toilet-paper dispensing device. The audience were encouraged to sing along and were split into two halves and ordered to ‘chant-off’ against each other. As the setlist shows, there were a few covers; the audience went nuts went they played the opening riff to AC/DC’s Highway to Hell.

But it’s not really something I can describe, beyond listing appropriate superlatives: brilliant, excellent, awesome, spectacular, cool. They got a guy up and he ended up singing all of Longview – I can only imagine how happy he was after that. The ticket was $100, but I’d gladly pay that again – tomorrow, if the opportunity arose.

There’s no doubt that I enjoyed it. The only question now is to where this particular gig will get slotted into my list of all-time favourites. It’s a pretty hard decision; the list includes the first gig I ever saw (Hoodoo Gurus at the Dalrymple Hotel in Townsville), the first international bands I saw (Brad9 and Ben Harper), Pearl Jam at Thebarton Oval, Radiohead at the Entertainment Centre, George in the Austral beer garden, Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, The Flaming Lips and about a dozen other bands at assorted Big Days Out, They Might be Giants at Heaven, Regurgitator/Prodigy at Thebarton – the list goes on.

But it’s up there. It’s definitely top 5. Number 1? Possibly. I’ll have to think about it.

6No pun intended.
7For the unitiated: they use a barried shaped roughly like a ‘D’ (with a gap in the middle for people to get through) close to the stage; its purpose is to minimise the number of people who can rush forward and crush people against the front.
8Is there a collective noun for roadies? I’m guessing that, traditionally at least, it’d be ‘crew’, since ‘roadies’ would be an abbreviation of ‘road crew’. But I’m sure someone’s come up with a funnier one – like ‘buttcrack’, ‘bandana’, or ‘black jeans’.
9Brad is the side project of Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard; somewhat hilariously, I went to that gig more to see Brad because at the time I hadn’t heard that much Ben Harper. Imagine my surprise.

Monday, November 30, 2009

The week that was #9

Okay, I’ve really lost continuity with the whole ‘week that was’ concept, but unless I can find something big to write about I’m going to stick with them. I do have a couple – the not-really-anticipated-by-very-many Arsenic & Old Lace post is one; there’s another that I’m keeping under my hat for the moment – but I don’t know when they’ll appear.

My main problem is focus. Really, if I don’t write something in pretty much one go I find it very difficult to want to bother finishing it. This, of course, is a huge problem when you consider that, like anyone else who writes, I’d like to actually get some kind of long-form work published or produced. But the only way I’m going to manage that is if I do it in one go – which is not really all that likely, considering how much I like sleep But you never know.


For now I’ve got blogging
1 to keep me entertained.

1
Have I mentioned I really dislike the word ‘blog’ and all its derivatives? I suspect it may have contributed to my not getting into online publishing earlier. Maybe I’ll spearhead some kind of campaign to come up with a new word.


The weird weather


We had a patch of very hot weather a week or so ago, and I can’t say I enjoyed it. One of the reasons I was happy to leave northern Queensland was to escape the heat – though it is, as anyone will tell you, a different kind of heat. And they’re right; the difference is the humidity, which there is a lot of up there and little of down here.


In terms of maxima, though, South Australia gets a lot hotter than Queensland – or, at least, the part of Queensland I’m from. Summer temperatures don’t tend to go over 35° in either Bowen or Townsville, the two places I lived when I up there. But while it’s not as hot per se, it is still warm – and it’s warmer for longer, i.e. there are more months of the year where the temperature is in the high 20s/low 30s.


Combine that with the humidity and you get a place that, although it’s less hot at its hottest, and far milder in winter, is sticky and unpleasant for a greater proportion of the year. Mathematically – for me at least – it’s better to be down here.


Though when we get eight street days of maxima above 35° – as we did in the middle of November – I start to wonder. And even that pales in comparison to the record heatwave we went through in Feb/March of 2008; that was eleven consecutive days above 38°. Of course, it isn’t really the daytime maximum that I have a problem with – it’s the overnight minimum. Generally I can sleep in my unairconditioned bedroom (with the windows open to catch the breeze – if there is one) if it gets below 25°. But on at least several occasions in both those hot spells the temperature didn’t drop that low, instead staying in the low 30s the whole night.


While I have airconditioning in my place, the unit is installed in the dining room
2 and isn’t capable of cooling the bedroom – so, if I want to make use of it on hot nights, I have to sleep in the lounge on my spare mattress. It’s better than sleeping uncooled in my proper bed, but - between being on a thin mattress on the floor, and the effects of the airconditioning (which I’m convinced isn’t good to sleep in) - I almost never get as good a night’s sleep as I’d like.

And I really, really hate not getting a good night’s sleep.


But it’s become cool again over the last week or so, and I’m a lot happier as a result. Not that I don’t expect it’s going to heat up again before too long, but the fewer days that I have to spend checking different weather websites
3 to see if the temperature is going to drop enough that it’s worth opening up the house and sleeping in my room the better.

2
This might be somewhat of an exaggeration; I live in a unit, not a house and by ‘dining room’ I mean a kind of combined kitchen/dining/lounge room area.
3
I’m contemplating buying a thermometer so I can work out if it’s cooler inside the house than outside of it.


Glee


It’s simple: I love
Glee, to the point where it’s probably my equal favourite show on television - it ties with Castle for my affections. The premise is simple: it’s a musical/comedy/drama series about a high school (the fictional William McKinley high in Lima, Ohio) glee club and their attempts to become good enough to reach the state championships.

Though it is a bit more complicated than that; pretty much everyone (teachers and students) in the show has a host of social/emotional/psychological problems which threaten the continued existence of the club, and the school’s cheerleading coach is out to destroy them.


Many of the characters are stereotypical – the standard glee club ‘losers’ (in the sense of being low on the social ladder of a high school in the US), for example, include a camp gay guy, an ambitious Jewish theatre tragic girl and an R&B-loving don’t-take-shit-from-anyone black girl. However, they do mix it up a bit by having a couple of football players and cheerleaders who defy the ‘natural order’ to be involved.


Friends of mine who don’t like the show have commented that there isn’t really anyone to like in the show, and I kind of agree – but that doesn’t seem to stop me from enjoying it. A lot of it is to do with the music, which I’m kind of surprised by because – for the most part – they sing cover versions of songs that I dislike the original of. To me the show gives them something the earlier renditions lacked - with the exception, of course, of The Thong Song
, which I realised I hated even more than I did before when the lyrics, in all their lameness and inanity, were revealed.

I think the key to my liking it is probably the humour – which is quite dark and very dry. And the writing in some of the episodes has been superb, particularly the dialogue given to the ‘evil’ cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, who’s played by the always-brilliant Jane Lynch
4. One episode contained this voice-over:

Glee Club. Every time I try to destroy that clutch of scab-eating mouth-breathers it only comes back stronger, like some sexually ambiguous horror-movie villain. Here I am, about to turn 30, and I’ve sacrificed everything only to be shanghaied by the bi-curious machinations of a cabal of doughy, misshapen teens. Am I missing something, journal? Is it me? Of course it’s not me. It’s Will Schuester. What is it about him, journal? Is it the arrogant smirk? Is it the store-bought home perm?

I rewound and watched this bit about seven times before I stopped laughing. Scab-eating mouth-breathers? For someone like me who loves well-phrased insults, that’s absolute comedy gold. Offensive? Sure. But still gold.


Some more of Sue’s dialogue:


Let me be frank. Your husband is hiding his kielbasa in a Hickory Farms gift basket that doesn’t belong to you.’

Guidance counselor. Real floozy and a man eater. Wears creepy brooches like the kind my nana was buried in.’

I’ve always though that the desire to procreate showed deep personal weakness.’

Unless you want to lose your man to a mentally-ill ginger pygmy with eyes like a bushbaby.’

I could listen to this kind of talk all day.


Whether or not
Glee can maintain the high standard remains to be seen – it does kind of lend itself to a short lifespan, considering that the characters are high school students and will eventually graduate – but I’ll keep watching for now.

Oh, and I recently learned that Joss Whedon will be directing an episode early next year – I don’t think I could ask for a better combination.


4
You might know her from her work on the mockumentaries A Mighty Wind and Best in Show or her guest appearances on Two and a Half Men (as Charlie’s therapist) and Criminal Minds (as Spencer’s institutionalised mother).


The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie


A novel by Alan Bradley
5, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a murder mystery set in country England in the 1950s; the twist, however, is that the sleuthing is done by ‘very-nearly-eleven-year-old’ Flavia De Luce, who is forced to investigate the murder of man whose body is found in the back garden of Buckshaw, her family home, after her father, Colonel De Luce – a reclusive philatelist and widower – confesses to the crime. Flavia – a prodigious child whose chief love is for chemistry, thanks to her discovery of her late mother's chemistry textbook and her late uncle Tarquin’s having built a fully-stocked laboratory in a wing of the house - sets about following the trail of clues, starting with the discovery of a dead snipe with a stamp impaled on its beak left on their doorstep.

In her efforts she’s forced to contend with not only the local constabulary, who are also attempting to solve the crime, but with the local townsfolk, the De Luce’s shell-shocked gardener/driver Dogger, and her two unhelpful older sisters, Daphne and Ophelia.


The book was lent to me by Miriam
6, who gotten it for her birthday this year; I was there that night and had had a glance through it – this is generally how I judge a book; I open to a random page and see what the prose style is like – and thought it looked interesting.

I was right; it was a fun read. The prose is excellent; an example:


Mrs Mullet, who was short and grey and round as a millstone and who, I’m quite sure, thought of herself as a character in a poem by A.A. Milne, was in the kitchen formulating one of her pus-like custard pies.’

Brilliant.


It is, of course, a bit unrealistic: the ten-year-old protagonist has more esoteric chemical knowledge than the average university student and, as is often the case in child-centered fiction, the adults tend to be more than usually lacking in insight – but, when it comes down to it, it’s not a huge barrier to overcome; that’s what suspension of disbelief is for. Flavia is an excellent character, the story is well-thought-out (and impeccably researched, particularly the chemistry and the history of British stamps) and the prose is delightful.


So, if you like a good ‘ripping’ story in the English tradition then you’d probably enjoy this – it’s a bit like Harry Potter but with science rather than magic.


If you’ve already read it and liked it, some good news: there’s a sequel coming out in early 2010. As long as the author doesn’t just do a Dan Brown and copy out the same basic plot with only minor cosmetic modifications then chances are it should be good.


5
No, I’d never heard of him before either.
6
Not the one who got married, the other one.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Wedding of Miriam and Paul

Although, technically, I could have written about this last entry I didn’t; I was already a week behind and had plenty to write about as it was. So I left it for this week. Anyway, the wedding was that of my friend Miriam Lyon, to Paul vander Woude, and it took place in Renmark - a town in the country about 250km away.

Like most of my friends in Adelaide, I met Miriam doing theatre; specifically, in the Burnside Players production of Daisy Pulls It Off1 in which I was the stage manager and she was in the cast. In a way I’m actually surprised that we became friends because it was my first time as SM and I was having a few problems and not necessarily dealing with them very well; I was stressed and shitty and even more prickly than normal. Miriam’s one of the most capable people I’ve met, and I got the feeling she considered it a bit of a débâcle, and me a blundering dimwit.2.

So I was more than a little surprised when she showed up at the house party I hosted not long after Daisy finished – I hadn’t invited her (I don't tend to invite people to things if they think I'm an incompetent nitwit, even if it happens to be true - hmm, this may be why I only ever have small parties); I’m still not sure who did. But I ended up talking to her at some point (it helped that I’d had quite a lot to drink) and I was surprised to find that she didn’t have a problem with me at all. And we’ve been friends ever since. We’ve done two shows together, both Shakespeares: The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing – and I managed to not resent her (too much) for getting the part I wanted in the latter (Don John – the villain).

Anyway, she moved down to the Riverland to be with Paul (he’s from Barmera, another smaller town near Renmark) a while back, and it wasn’t too much of a surprise when they announced their engagement. The invitations arrived announcing the wedding would be on November 14 and be held in Renmark. At the time it seemed so far away; however, October rolled around in the blink of an eye and it was time to start thinking about things.

But I didn’t have to think about too much; one of my friends (Miriam3 who was also invited is from the area, and had charged her mother with the task of sorting the accommodation. And, since it was a trip she was used to making – and she is possessed of a car more suitable for distance than my own – we went in her car. All I had to do was be home when the time came to be collected. Oh, and to choose some cds for the journey.

Things got a little bit more interesting when, the week before the wedding, the weather in South Australia became unseasonably warm. And by warm I mean the Saturday the week before the wedding being the first of eight straight days in Adelaide with maxima above 35°C – keeping in mind that Renmark tends to be at least three or four degrees hotter than the corresponding city temperature.

The hot week scorched on and the forecast temperature for the Saturday fluctuated a few degrees either way but finally settled on 43°C. Not exactly what you want for a three hour drive followed by a ceremony in an old stone church. At least I didn’t have to wear a proper suit – or a wedding dress.

I did come very close to wearing a short-sleeved shirt to the wedding but didn’t, for two reasons: 1) I didn’t own one suitable, and when I went browsing for one decided that I didn’t like any that didn’t cost more than I wanted to spend, and 2) I can’t abide wearing a tucked-in short-sleeved shirt but, similarly, couldn’t go to a wedding4 wearing an untucked shirt. So, I went with long-sleeves; fortunately, I do own a decent enough 100% cotton shirt, so I wore that. As it was I was dressed up a lot more than many of the guests – but less so than others, and far less so than the men in the wedding party5, who had vests on.

Anyway, we left Adelaide somewhere after ten or so, and drove pretty much straight through to Renmark where we stopped to get food (and some cold & flu capsules for me; I was still sick from the week before and I needed to make sure my nose wasn’t running during the wedding) and then found the Renmark hotel where we were staying.

Since there was an hour or so before the wedding, we kicked back for a while in the air-conditioned room and had showers before heading back out into the heat and driving to the church. Despite the fact that it had (as far as I’m aware) reached the forecast 43°C, it didn’t actually feel as bad as I’d expected it too feel – though that was outside, where we had the benefit of a slight river breeze.

We forced ourselves into the church where it was – as expected – very hot and stuffy; while there were a few languid ceiling fans they served for little more than stirring the hot air above us. Somebody had, however, very sensibly filled a couple of big eskys with bottled water, which got handed out before and during the ceremony – it made a huge difference as (to my knowledge, at least) no-one actually passed out.

The ceremony was – well, ceremonial. The priest6 seemed intent on making it far more about Jesus than about the couple, which I found somewhat offensive – and just because I’m not a Christian. Really, if I’d wanted to hear about Jesus I’d have gone on a Sunday. But I wasn’t there for me; ergo, what I think isn’t all that important. So, we sang a few hymns, listened to a couple of bible readings and a some more preaching before it was over.

We lingered outside for a while before heading back to the hotel to get in a few drinks before the reception was due to start; Miriam and two other Adelaideans Bonnie & Rhodri (plus their one-and-a-bit-year-old, Callum) and I propped up the bar for a while before heading off to the venue, which was the function room of a rose garden.

After finding our tables, which were all named after famous dogs; ours was ‘Laika’, which I remembered was the dog sent into orbit as part of the Russian space program and who was immortalised on a stamp7. I suggested that, since we were a table of (mostly) theatre people, it could be that we were meant to be the space cadets – though it could have been worse; one of the other tables was ‘Goofy’.

The heat had had its effect on me; I had a headache that several rapid beers failed to diminish, so I stopped bothering – when I’m like that I just cannot get drunk and there’s really no point trying. A bit annoying, but not that much of a imposition.

So we spent the rest of the night sitting around, talking - to old friends and new people - and drinking and having a good time. Dinner – three different salads (Caesar, potato & bacon and rocket & pear) plus a mixed grill, followed by either a chocolate cupcake with mint icing or a vanilla cupcake with icing I’ve no idea the flavour of because I had the chocolate/mint and didn’t bother to ask what the alternative was. Speeches were made and cake was cut and then it was time to go. It wasn’t a particularly late night since at about 10.30 or so Miriam and I got a lift back to the hotel with Bonnie and Rhodri as they were staying there as well.

The air-conditioner chugged away all night; once I tried to go to sleep I realised exactly how loud it was – it was like having a rock tumbler or coffee bean grinder in the room. Temperature, however, was inversely proportional to volume: it was freezing. But it only had an on/off switch, not any kind of adjustable setting, so there wasn’t a lot I could do; I didn’t want to turn it off entirely because the room would then get too hot. So, despite it having been a 43°C day, I got under the medium-weight hotel blanket and went to sleep.

I was up fairly early the next morning – I consider eight o’clock a sleep in these days; a far cry from years ago where sloth was my watchword and on most days I rarely crawled out of bed before noon – and we were back on the road before too long. Very little to note about the return journey, other than an a short-lived upset stomach cured rapidly by some appropriate substances, and a rather nice blueberry pie from the famous Waikerie Bakery.

And that was that. Another wedding over with – though it’s not long until the next: Selena and Shane’s on November 28.

I don’t tend to do a lot of traveling – heck, my parents have come down twice from Queensland and seen far more of the state than I have in nigh on twelve years of living here – but it was good to be there for Miriam and Paul’s special day, and to see a few friends I hadn’t seen for a while. Not to mention a brief reminder that there are places outside the city limits8. Not places I necessarily want to stay for any length of time, mind you – but overnight isn’t too much torture, even for a stay-at-home indoors-type like myself.


1Yes, I’m aware that that’s a title dripping with the potential for a double entendre. Please don’t – for all our sakes.
2Despite that being an accurate description, she’d ever actually say that; she’s far too nice.
3Not the same one who was getting married, obviously.
4A church wedding, at least. I wore a short-sleeved shirt and shorts to my niece Jasmine’s wedding – but that was on a beach so it was okay. Hilariously (or not) that day was cold and miserable.
5The women are the bridal party – are the men the groomal party? I think that should be a word.
6I’m not sure if that’s the official appellation for the denomination, which I believe was Anglican.
7Why I know this I’m not quite sure, since I’ve never done much research on Russia, dogs, space programs or stamps.
8For those who aren’t aware, I did actually grow up in ‘the country’ – I just never felt at home there and consider myself to be truly citified in every sense of the word. I really like seeing llamas and alpacas though.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

The week fortnight that was #8

Okay, so it’s been a fortnight. Not what I intended, but there are things which’ve gotten in the way1 - the heat, which seems to render the creative/industrious part of my brain completely useless – and a seemingly never-ending succession of colds, which takes what little of my brain is left after the heat has had its way and kicks that in the crotch.

But, apart from being sick, all I’ve been doing is working and seeing shows. So that’s pretty much all I’ve got to talk about.

1I dislike both ‘got’ and ‘gotten’; they sound crude and somewhat wrong to my ear. But I can’t find a reasonable alternative so I have to go with it.

Being Sick

I’m not quite sure what I’ve got – or, possibly, what I had for a couple of days, which was then followed immediately by something else which I’ve got now – but I’m getting annoyed with it, since it’s been over a week now. It’s been particularly poor timing, since it’s coincided with the obnoxious, record-breaking heatwave that South Australia’s been suffering through.

There’s really no poetry to a constantly dripping nose. I reckon I’ve gone through more tissues in the last week than I normally would in three (cold-free) months.

What’s made it slightly more complicated is that I’ve also had quite bad hayfever, and that made it a bit difficult at first to decide what was actually prompting the increased, er, flow – germs or pollen. But when I woke up last Saturday morning feeling like my head had been wrapped in damp cabbage, and my lungs replaced with soggy cotton wool, I realised it was germs.

I had to take two days off work and did pretty much bugger-all but lie around watching tv and quietly applauding the effectiveness of the air-conditioning in my unit. I’d have applauded it loudly if it worked well enough to cool my whole house; as it is it’s cooling capacity is limiting to the part of the house that contains the lounge/dining/kitchen area.

Still, that’s probably better than the reverse – I can sleep in the lounge; I couldn’t fit my tv and speakers in my bedroom. But I’ve only had to do that the once in this spell of heat, since I’ve been okay with sleeping in my bedroom with the windows open to let the (minimal) breeze in.

But I’m still at least a little sick, but I’m a bit concerned that it’s not going away on its own, and that’s unusual for me. If I’m not a lot better by the middle of the week I’m going to the doctor. A friend said he had a sinus infection that wouldn’t go away without antibiotics, and I’m starting to wonder if that’s what I’ve got as well.

We’ll see.

Fame

On Thursday night I went to see the Northern Light production of Fame. I seem to remember seeing the original film when it first came out (though, for the life of me, I can’t understand why since it doesn’t seem like something I would have been all that interested in at the time) but apart from knowing the basics – it’s about high-school kids at a school for the performing arts – I wasn’t sure what to expect. But that pretty much covers it, plotwise.

The performances – the musical numbers at least – were good; they’d cast great singers in the lead roles and great dancers in the chorus. But that wasn’t really enough for me. As much as I’m seeing a lot more musicals than I used to – as well as performing in them – I’m still more inclined towards ‘straight’ plays because of the emphasis these place on aspects like characters and narrative. Fame didn’t have enough of that for me, and what of it there was was less emphasised than I felt was necessary.

Some of that, of course, is the show itself, which isn’t really written to be a deep, compelling think-piece. Yes, it’s a musical, and people come to see song-and-dance numbers, but a musical with good acting as well is a much better show than one without. This is why I loved last year’s G&S Society Les Miserables as much as I did, and probably why – possibly even without knowing it – so many other people did too. It just makes it better.

Obviously, it may come down to practicalities. The reality is there are only a certain number of people who audition for a show, and you don’t always have the luxury of being able to choose what’s referred to in theatre as the ‘triple threat’ – sings, dances and acts2 – for each part you’ve got to fill. You have to go with the best person who auditions and, since it is a musical, singing tends to be worth more. And it’s usually easier to get a singer to act a little than to get an actor to sing a lot.

Time is also an issue. Yes, musicals tend to rehearse for about three months before opening – but, while that seems like a long time, you’ve got a heck of a lot to do: block the action, choreograph the dance numbers and learn the songs; again, these things tend to be given priority in a musical so it may not always be possible to put as much effort into acting as the director would have preferred.

So yeah, I would have liked it more if they’d focused a bit more on the acting – though that’s not to say there weren’t some who got into the character: Rachel Rai (not much of a shock there I know; it’s pretty much expected of her) and Ben Po’ona, for example. Anton Schrama was hilarous aged up and given a German accent and a walking stick; it’s a pity the character wasn’t in it more.

Oh, and I have to mention one other things – he blatant and unsubtle ‘messages’ crammed into it: drugs are bad, having dyslexia doesn’t mean you’re stupid, you shouldn’t judge people on their appearance, it’s okay to be fat, it’s tough having parents with high standards, confident people sometimes use their confidence to hide their insecurities, yada yada yada.

It’s what Americans would refer to as an ‘after-school special’, and what the folks at TV Tropes (or, I should say, ‘us folks’ at TV Tropes, ‘cause I’ve been contributing) refer to as ‘anvilicious’ – i.e. trying to get a message across but doing it such a ham-handed and obvious way that it’s like a scene from a cartoon where a character is hit in the head with an anvil.

2Hugh Jackman is a good example, as is Kristin Chenoweth.


Pippin

The night after seeing Fame I went to see the Hills Musical Society’s production of Pippin up at the Stirling Theatre.

I didn’t really know much about it, but a Facebook friend who’s in it had posted some photos of the cast in costume, so at least I had an idea of what they would look like – very strangely made-up, and dressed mostly in red with some black.

So, I was a little surprised to find out it that it’s the musical story of Pippin3, the son of Charlemagne, who was Emperor of much of Europe at the end of the 8th /beginning of 9th century. Not necessarily what I would have thought was an obvious choice to base a musical on, but that’s me. Keep in mind that it was written in the 70s – and it shows4.

With that in mind there’s not a lot of point trying to describe the story, because I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. But it is a play within a play, which always makes things interesting. The main character – apart from Pippin – is simply called 'Leading Player’ and stays as that character the whole way through while all the other members of the troupe take on the roles of the different people in Pippin’s life – his father, stepmother, stepbrother and grandmother, amongst others.

It does touch on a range of themes, and that – rather than the narrative – is the focus of the production. It comes down to being about the choices you make in life, and that you should always try to remain true to yourself and not be led by what other people want you to do. Not necessarily exciting on paper, but the production itself was brilliant: fast paced, brilliantly choreographed and well sung. Costuming was superb – Leading Player had a great outfit, including leather pants5 and a fantastic long coat.

James Christopher Reed was Pippin, and was excellent – and, once again, very different from the previous role I’d seen him in; the contrast between Pippin and Sergei from Eurobeat was about as much as Sergei was from Angel in Rent. Jamie Jewell – who’s a professional (when he’s not doing amateur, I guess) – was also brilliant, and looked like a kind of fusion of Alan Cumming and Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode as Leading Player.

Great, fun show done very, very well – and I’m now contemplating the purchase of a large, plush toy duck. If that confuses you, well, you should have gone to see it...

Read the ATG review here.

3Okay, that part wasn’t much of a surprise.
4Yes, I do mean it seems like drugs were involved. Lots and lots of drugs.
5I would buy and wear leather pants if I thought I could carry it off.


Vanity Fair

Read my ATG review here if you like.

If not, I’ll go over it a bit here for you: it’s very, very good; despite it being an adaptation of a huge (somewhere between 500 and 800 pages depending on the edition) 19th century novel mostly about the complexities of social structure amongst the English nobility, it’s modern, fast-paced and laugh-out-loud funny6.

6Well, if you’re as enamoured of witty prose as I am. If not, it’s your loss.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

The week that was #7

Sorry, am running a bit behind on the writing – I haven’t been busy; on the contrary, I’ve had plenty of time on my hands – because I’ve just been exhausted the whole weekend and didn’t have the requisite creative energy that I need.

But better late than never. This will be a short one, though, because I’ve mostly been thinking about Arsenic & Old Lace. But there’s so much to write about that it’s going to end up being a standalone post rather than just a segment. So there’s not all that much else to say – apart from my temporary hearing problems.

Blocked Ears

On Thursday one of my ears became blocked. If you’ve ever had this happen you’ll understand; if you haven’t it’s pretty much as it sounds – like you’ve got something stuck in your ear. It’s annoying because you a) can’t hear properly, b) have certain sounds – i.e. those picked up by the eardrum through internal vibrations through your head - amplified (shaving, for example, sounds really weird), and c) feel the pressure of it.

It was a bigger problem for me at the time because I had a show to do – though I didn’t realise it was going to cause me problems at the time. It wasn’t until I actually got on stage and started talking that I realised that it had a huge impact on my ability to monitor my voice. Some roles it wouldn’t matter as much, but for the character I was playing in this show it was a big issue – it wasn’t only the volume that was important, but the accent and the tone. Only hearing it out of one ear wasn’t enough for me to be able to confidently judge whether I was sounding like I needed to sound.

Anyway, I bought some ear drops to try and clear the blockage; it works pretty much as you’d imagine, you drip it in there and lie there on your side while it does its thing – which is, to put it mildly, a rather fascinating experience. You can literally feel it inching its way along. As I lay there I couldn’t help but think of the scene from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan1 where that guy gets the worms put into his ear.

Creepy/interesting imagery aside, it didn’t actually work – not completely, anyway. I was still blocked, albeit slightly less so. I had to go on stage again one ear down.

Friday night after the show I gave it another try, and lay there for what was probably an hour or so, prone, as the gunk crawled around my ear canal. I then proceeded to sleep very poorly indeed, and woke up with my right ear still as blocked as it had started out the night before.

And my left ear, in what I can only assume was a gesture of solidarity, had chosen to support its partner and down tools2 - I was blocked on both sides.

Obviously, if I was going to have any chance of putting in a good performance for the final night of the show I’d have to resort to drastic measures – dragging myself off to a medical centre to have my ears syringed out. Literally, that’s what happens – doctor-type fills a huge syringe (medical instruments always look bigger when parts of them are being crammed into parts of you; I’ve never had a catheter and I’d like to keep it that way) with water and squirts it into your ear to force the wax out.

Turns out it helps a great deal to have been using wax-softening drops prior to having this done – in fact, sometimes they won’t do it straight away; instead they’ll send you off to soften them up for a few days first. Lucky me.

I didn’t have to go far; there’s a walk-in centre on The Parade, Norwood – about five minutes drive from my house. I took not just one book but two, (I was halfway through the first one) because I fully expected the centre to be overflowing with distressed parents herding their greenstick-fractured and cricket-ball-concussed children through to be patched up. Imagine my surprise to find the place empty, and to be ushered straight into the doctor’s room as soon as I’d filled out my form and signed my credit card receipt – though I have to admit the administrative process took slightly longer than usual because I had to make the receptionist repeat everything she said, and louder, so I could hear.

About ten minutes and about five litres of water later (far too cold, in my opinion; I’m sure the last time I had it done the doctor used warm, rather than straight from the cold tap) I walked out, sans about a pound or so of gross earwax – and with new and improved hearing. It’s amazing how much more you can hear after a good syringing.

Still, I don’t recommend it just for the experience. I also asked the doctor if there was any particular reason why it built up so much and he said they don’t actually know; it just builds up for some people. I did some research3 and found that – hilariously – one of the things that affects the movement of wax out of the ear is talking. Yeah, because that’s something I don’t do enough of. Good grief. I’m amazed I have any wax at all if that’s the case...

1Wrath, by the way, rhymes with ‘moth’ not ‘math’. Just so you know.
2If an ear can be said to use tools. It can here because it’s my blog; attempt it elsewhere at your own risk.
3By which I mean Wikipedia. Hey, this isn’t an assignment!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

The week that was #6

Blasts from the past

I’ve found a couple of my old diaries – written in longhand on paper1. I’ve been browsing through 1997 to see if there’s anything worth recounting, but it’s looking more and more like I just wrote down the literal events of the day (including mentioning the obscene number of punctures I was getting from riding my bike all the time, and the names of any vaguely attractive women I met – most of whom I now cannot remember at all) rather than using it as a repository for my philosophy or social commentary

A lot of it is poorly written; to say that my writing has improved since then would be an understatement. I seem to have an unreasonably fondness for the word ‘cool’ – which is kind of sad, considering I was twenty-three and not fourteen...

But, having read through a few entries I was a bit shocked to realise how unhappy I sound. Here’s the entry for Monday, January 6:

'I am starting to realise that I am liking less the people I associate with. I think that when the lease expires on Burdekin St I will go and live by myself and attempt to meet new people, and leave much of my past behind me.'

That’s pretty harsh2. My friends at the time – at least some of whom are, technically, still my friends; they just happen to live in other states – were just doing exactly what I was doing at the time, and what most people were doing in that situation: trying to find themselves after finishing university.

My own search wasn’t coming with anything – well, not anything I was glad to have discovered. I’d spent five years (total) at uni and, while I’d finished my degree3, it didn’t provide me with a specific course of action – or an obvious career path. I had no interest in counselling4 – which would have meant more uni anyway – so it was a case of trying to find something which could make use of my degree rather than something specific to it.

I’d realised that something wasn’t quite right – but I’d come to the wrong conclusion about what the problem was. However, it wasn’t too long after this that I put my feet on the path to leaving Townsville – and the path that led me to Adelaide and a much more contented existence.

But it wasn’t all bad, and some of it was at least pop-culture commentary – as illustrated on Saturday January 25:

'During the ad’s5 I flicked to Rage to look at (hideous) old Countdown episodes. Ewww! How the hell did anyone get conceived in the late 70’s/early 80’s? Everyone was so ugly! I won’t even start on the music – that’s just a nightmare.'

Good times.

1My hand hurts just thinking about it. How did I live before I owned a PC?
2And not just because of the poor sentence structure. Gah.
3Bachelor of Psychology. It took me five years because I failed a subject in second semester of third year and they didn’t let you overload to do fourth year. I had to go part time and spread it out over two years instead.
4That shouldn’t come as a shock for those who know me even slightly.
5It appears that at that point in my life I didn’t know what an apostrophe was for.


Arsenic & Old Lace

As many of you will know, I’m currently involved in a production of a play called Arsenic & Old Lace. We’ve just finished the first week of shows and I now have four nights off before having to get back up on stage and do it all again.

Without giving too much away – because there’s a certain element of mystery involved in the plot – it’s a black comedy/farce about the Brewsters, a family of eccentrics living in Brooklyn, New York in 1941. There are two aunts – Abby and Martha – who are elderly spinsters; and their nephew Teddy, who believes he is another Teddy – Teddy Roosevelt6. There’s also their other nephew, Mortimer, a theatre critic who lives in New York and drops by occasionally; Elaine Harper, the girl next door who is also Mortimer’s fiancee, and her father, Reverend Harper; then there’s a handful of less-than-gifted members of the Brooklyn police department who are also regular visitors.

After Mortimer discovers his aunts’ terrible secret he’s forced to try and work out a way to keep anyone from finding out what they’ve done – but before he can, his long-lost brother Jonathan returns after a twenty-year absence, bringing with him not only a new face (eerily similar to that of actor Boris Karloff) but the plastic surgeon who gave it to him.

The result is an hilarious black comedy with some wacky characters and laugh-out-loud funny scenes.

Anyway, I play the creepy brother, Jonathan – and I’m having an absolute ball doing it; it’s so unlike anything else I’ve ever done on stage before. The significant parts I’ve played include a Shakespearean cross-dressing nitwit (Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream); a shy nitwit (Cornelius Hackl in The Matchmaker); a well-to-do love-rat with a secret (Frank Churchill in Emma); an angry film producer (Karl Brezner in Popcorn); a vindictive and opportunistic Puritan landowner (Thomas Putnam in The Crucible); a clueless, hotheaded romantic (Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing); a nerdy, bespectacled wizard (Ponder Stibbons in Lords & Ladies) and a very snooty butler (Charles in Me & My Girl).

Most of these are comic roles; I tend to stay away from serious roles since I don’t feel I’m very good as a serious actor. There are several reasons for this - one being that I have what can politely be termed a good face for comedy7; another being that, while I have no problem with the intellectual grasp of the nuance and emotion required for a serious role, I don’t seem to cope well with translating that to my body - and that's a huge aspect of acting; the dialogue is only one part of it.

I’m really much more at home with comedy. That’s not to say I won’t ever take a serious role, but I’d hate to have the success of a show depending on my ability as a dramatic actor.

Jonathan in A&OL isn’t exactly a dramatic role since – despite its darkness – it is still a comedy. But Jonathan is very much a ‘straight’ role in the sense that most of the comedy is done by those around him. He is a (very stark) contrast to the wackiness of the other characters, particularly his plastic surgeon sidekick and the two dotty aunts.

Playing straight is actually a huge challenge for me because one of the things that makes me a good comic actor is my instinct for seeking out laughs. In my comedy roles I’ve always worked with the director to find as many things as possible – above and beyond what’s in the script – that’ll get more laughs. In order to the play the straight role I’m forced to fight against the almost instinctive tendency to attempt to maximise the humour in my performance.

But it’s working. I’m playing Jonathan in such a way that people are genuinely being creeped out by him, and that’s a great feeling – as weird as that might sound. But, think of it this way: for me, making people laugh is easy. This was a challenge, and one I’ve risen to meet.

6Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt, October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919; 26th President of the United States and man for whom the Teddy Bear is named. He was also the uncle of Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd President.
7By which I mean I’m funny-looking.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

The week that was #5

Facebook Voodoo

On Friday last week the two of the people who sit near me at work (diagonally, I guess; it’s hard to show without a map) were away – leaving me bereft of conversation. After half a day of having my many witticisms go unheard and lacking the necessary straight lines I desperately need to prompt my snarky one-liners, I was rather frustrated. So, at lunch time I logged onto Facebook and changed my status update to the following:

Jamie Wright has logged on specifically to curse (Shakespeare style) the two co-workers who sit adjacent to him in the cube farm; they've conspired to have today off, leaving him bereft of conversation. So, to R & J: a plague on both your houses!

‘A plague on both your houses!’ - I love that line1. But it’s not all that often that two people bug me at the same time to give me the opportunity to use it.

Anyway, imagine my surprise on Monday when one (R) was at home sick and the other (J) complained about all the stuff that had gone wrong – computer problems, utility problems and so forth. When R got back it turned out that she had had a crap weekend also – being sick, being stuck with sick flatmates, and a whole bunch of other mostly-minor-but-when-all-put-together-kind-of-annoying things.

So, I spent most of Monday apologising profusely to one, and then most of Tuesday doing the same to the other. I had the blame for every tiny thing that went wrong in their lives – some of which even occurred before I wrote the status update - laid at my feet.

The lesson? Don’t curse people2 via Faceook! It’s too powerful!

1If you’re wondering it’s Mercutio, from Romeo & Juliet – Act 3, Scene 1.
2Important note: I don’t actually believe cursing actually ‘works’ in any sense of the word. But it’s still funny.


Up

Warning – may contain minor spoilers.

I hadn’t been to the movies in a few weeks but managed to fit in seeing Up (in 3D) this week. And I’m glad that I did; it was brilliant, one of the best films – animated or otherwise – I’ve seen this year3.

The plot is (roughly) this: a grumpy old man attaches balloons to his house and floats away; a slightly goofy kid in a uniform stows away and goes with him; they wind up in a strange-looking place with a talking dog and a huge iridescent bird. There is, obviously, much more to it than that, but that’s the bare bones – and, more significantly, all I knew about it beforehand.

Yes, it’s an animated film, aimed at a younger audience. But to think that that means there’s nothing in it for adults would be a foolish mistake. It’s got some of the best-written and most emotionally moving scenes of nearly any film I’ve ever seen. One of the scenes I’m talking about features absolutely no dialogue whatsoever; it’s just a montage of short pieces put together with music – and yet I rate it as one of the most touching and genuine pieces of cinema I’ve experienced.

Let’s put it this way: I’m far from sentimental; the terms ‘unemotional’, ‘cynical’ and ‘cold, miserable bastard’ would be far more likely to be used to describe me. For something in a movie to be both meaningful and able to get past my high saccharine intolerance is an impressive feat4.

It’s not, of course, a movie about melancholy – it’s about the very opposite: embracing life and living every moment you’ve got. And it’s very, very funny. The voice acting is superb and the dialogue, particularly that of the talking dogs, is brilliant. The ability of animators to imbue their on-screen creations with a depth of expression is about as good as it can get – a scene where one of the characters is scraped along the glass window of a zeppelin while another watches with an incredulous expression had me nearly on the floor.

And, as should be the case, the serious and the funny are mixed together in such a way as to give you that emotional rollercoaster ride that’s expected of such a film.

My only regret now is that I waited so long to see it – as a result I can’t get the satisfaction of knowing that I sent a lot of people along to see what I suspect is a movie they would really enjoy.

If you can find somewhere that’s still showing it, go see it. In 3D if possible.

3Bear in mind, though, that this is the same year I saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – arguably one of the worst pieces of cinematic crap I’ve ever had the misfortune to spend time, money and a great deal of loathing on.
4Off the top of my head there are two others which have/had a similar effect on me: The Princess Bride and Big Fish. There may be some others, but those are the ones that come to mind - although the emotional trigger in those two films are along similar lines, and it's not what affected me in Up.


Reviewing

On Saturday last week I went to review Unseen Theatre Company’s The Last Continent at the Bakehouse theatre; the write-up can be found on the ATG site here. As you’ll see when (if) you read it, I wasn’t that impressed; it wasn't very good theatre (even by amateur standards) and I had to say so.

Which, despite what people might like to think about theatre critics in general (and me in particular), is not a pleasant thing to have to do.

I know what it’s like. I’ve been involved – on some level - in more than twenty shows over the last seven years, and there’s nothing more demoralising than to find out, after having spent months rehearsing (and, if you’re involved on a committee level, several additional months prior to that choosing, planning, organising and casting), that everything you’ve worked for has fallen short of expectations.

Reviewers giving bad reviews are often castigated by dissatisfied casts, production crew and/or directors, most often for ‘missing the point’. Which, to be honest, can happen. I don’t know if that’s been said (and been accurate) about me in the case of any of those shows I’ve given poor reviews to; I’d like to think that is hasn’t and never will, but I imagine that it will have to happen at least once, eventually5.

On the whole, of course, I prefer to see shows that I don’t have to kick around. Fingers crossed it's a while before I have to sink the boot into another show.

5Though, short of someone being incensed enough to send me hate mail, I probably won’t ever actually know if someone feels I’ve missed the point.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

The week fortnight that was #4

Okay, since I didn’t get a post up last weekend but still want to discuss things that happened in that week, I’m going to make this a rare ‘The fortnight that was’ to cover both. I think I’m going to stop apologising for writing less than I’d like to because I’m busy – since I seem to write it every week. Maybe when (if!) I’m not busy I’ll preface a long and involved post with ‘I’ve had plenty of time so this is really long’.

Crazy times

I was very busy in the first week of the fortnight – I know I say that a lot, but that week was even more frenetic than my usual level of busy-ness.

Monday night I was up in the hills trying on costumes for Arsenic and Old Lace; Tuesday and Thursday was rehearsal for Arsenic and Old Lace; Wednesday Friday and Saturday nights – and Saturday afternoon - was crewing for Jesus Christ Superstar. After the show finished on Saturday night we then bumped out1 of the theatre and took everything to the Marie Clark shed at Golden Grove, and then went to the cast party – at which I stayed until 4.
Which, thanks to the change to Daylight Savings time, meant 5. And me with rehearsal at 1pm Sunday – and, more importantly (as it turned out) the inability to sleep past 11.

Despite that, though, I did find a few things to write about.

1That’s a technical theatre term for when we move everything out of the theatre. Moving everything into the theatre is a called bump in – funnily enough.


Cast Parties

Well, it seems logical considering I’ve just been to one.

It’s traditional for the cast and crew to have a party of some sort on the final night of the show. Depending on the company – and the cast – there are sometimes parties on other nights, including after any show on a Saturday. Particularly if there isn’t a show on Sunday. Since I haven’t done any shows that run over three weekends I’m not 100% sure on what happens there but I’m going to assume each Saturday has its own party.

Now, these can sometimes be quiet, sedate affairs with a few glasses of wine and maybe a wedge of brie and some sensible crackers. Or, on the other hand, they can be wild, noisy drunken affairs where chaos and debauchery ensue.

I far prefer the latter to the former – and will probably continue to do so until I’m old enough to suffer too much from the ill-effects of too much alcohol and too little sleep.

Final night cast parties are often complicated by the fact that the show has to be bumped out (if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know what this means) first – i.e. there’s usually a bit of work to be done before the party can start. Sometimes this doesn’t take very long (depending on the circumstances) but most of the time it involves a fair bit of deconstruction, heavy lifting and shed-packing – since most theatre hires require you to be out that night; the next production is generally bumping in the next day and they can’t do that if your stuff is still in the way.

Some theatre companies have the crew take care of this while the cast go off and party, but I don’t really agree with that – unless it’s the kind of set where unskilled people are just going to get in the way and make everything take longer. But that doesn’t happen very often with the companies I work with these days – everyone pitches in to some degree, and there are at least a few cast members there at the very end, shoehorning flats and trucks3 and other random crap into a shed in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, technicalities of bump-out aside, cast parties can be – and, in my opinion, should always be - lots of fun. From my recollection, most of those that I’ve had have been good; only a small number haven’t. And there’ve been some amazing ones – literally still going well into the next morning (though you have to take into account that they starts either after a show or after a show plus anything from 1-3 hours of bump-out – so maybe 11pm at the earliest and maybe 2am at the latest) with people dancing, singing karaoke, or just sitting around, drinking and chatting.

The latest I’ve left a cast party was about midday the next day – the couple of us who were still left got kicked out because the host’s family had started to show up for their weekly lunch. But that’s not as impressive as it might sound; I’ve heard stories of them lasting into the following evening.

I’d like to go into this in more detail but I’ll have to point out (once again) that to try and explain a subject like the very complex sociodynamics of bonding amongst theatre casts (hmm, anyone looking for a PhD topic?) isn’t possible in a blog post like this one; I’ll put it on my (long) list for another time. But it comes down to this: doing a show with people can be intense and fun; this brings people together and sometimes makes them very close. Combine this with a party environment and it can’t help but be a recipe for a crazy good time.

2 Another theatre term; it means a part of the set that has wheels so it can be moved on and off without much effort. Though ‘without much effort’ is a relative term, particularly if you’re doing a show at the Shedley Theatre in Elizabeth.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, if you haven’t heard of it, is a book by Susanna Clark. I probably could have posted about this in either of the previous two entries because I was reading it over that time period – it’s a damn big book – but I wanted to do it when I had more time to spend.

Anyway, about the book – it’s brilliant. It begins in England in the early 1800s – but it’s not our England per se, since in this England it’s acknowledged that magic once existed – not just conjuring tricks but epic, powerful magic – and that the northern half of England was ruled for three hundred years by a powerful magician king named John Uskglass (aka The Raven King and about a few dozen other names).

But it’s been several hundred years since anyone in England has done any ‘real’ magic, and those who call themselves magicians are either street hustlers or gentlemen who study ‘theoretical magic’, which means they gather together and talk about the real magicians of yesteryear.

Then Mr Norrell, who can do – and has been doing, for some time – ‘real’ magic, appears. After he performs several acts of magic the people realise that he is telling the truth and, albeit at a gentle pace, the role of magic becomes important to the nation once again.

Some years after Mr Norrell appears, another man, Jonathan Strange discovers that he, too, can ‘do’ magic, and eventually becomes Norrell’s apprentice – a task made difficult by Norrell’s secrecy and reticence to grant Strange access to his immense and unique library of books of magic (as opposed to books about magic – the difference is significant); Strange is forced to ‘invent’ his own methods of casting spells, which turn out to be quite successful.

Throw in a few dozen other characters – including real-life historical figures such as King George III (the one with the madness), the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron - and a subplot featuring a powerful, malicious fairy known as ‘the gentleman with the thistle-down hair’ and the result is an epic story about passion, rivalry, duty and love. Oh, and magic. Lots of magic.

Now, while this might be enough for some people, it wouldn’t – necessarily – be what would ‘float my boat’, so to speak. I don’t read much fantasy anymore, so to view this on plot alone would probably cause my eyes to glaze over.

What makes this special is that it’s written in an utterly enchanting prose style and imbued with some of the driest, tongue-in-cheek humour I’ve ever encountered. Imagine if Jane Austen and Charles Dickens somehow had a love-child who grew up to write a little like both of them – but who also had access to a time machine in order to travel to the early 21st century and study contemporary English humour (in the form of, say, Blackadder and/or Yes, Minister) before zipping back to put pen to paper.

Clark uses the archaic spelling for such words as ‘chuse’ and ‘connexion’ and ‘shewed’ – which I cannot help but adore. And – best of all – the dear lady loves footnotes.4 There are literally hundreds of them throughout the book.

I won’t go into any more detail; I’ll just recommend to anyone who a) likes their literary fiction a little genrefied5 or who b) likes their genre fiction a bit more literarified6. However, it is not an adrenaline-charged rollercoaster ride of excitement. It’s 1006 pages long and there are large sections where not a great deal happens (relatively speaking). At times it’s descriptive simply for the sake of being descriptive. But for me that’s a positive rather than a negative, simply because I enjoy the prose style so much.

4So - as you’ve probably guessed by now - do I.
5This is a word I made up.
6So is this.


The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Matt Byrne Media is doing this show at the moment; the first two weeks were at the Goodwood Institute/Mayfair Theatre and the rest is on at the Shedley in Elizabeth. I got to see it on Wednesday night, and it’s great fun. Basically, it’s as the title suggests – a spelling bee, American style. There are six contestants with two adjudicators and an MC – and a few other characters doubled by the nine performers.

But they also get four audience members up to be competitors in the ‘bee’ – I got picked – who go up on stage and sit in the seats with the cast. This gets worked into the story and the ‘guest’ spellers stay on for as long as it takes for them to get eliminated. I managed my first two words but got stumped on the third; while I knew how to spell the word it turned out to be, I wasn’t sure (based on the definition – you always ask for the definition) if that was the word I needed to spell – basically, I took a gamble and lost. It’s not all about spelling as such – you actually have to know what the words mean and in this case I didn’t. Still, I wasn’t too put out – I had to sit still while and be quiet while on stage and I’d far rather be in the audience, laughing.

I wish I’d got antidisestablishmentarianism (one of the other guest contestants did) – ‘cause I know I can spell that out loud. Sure, it’s long but it’s phonetic. You’ve just got to keep track of where you’re up to.

Anyway, my spelling aside, it’s certainly worth a look if you’re up Elizabeth way – or even if you’re not and feel like making the trip.