Thursday, December 5, 2013

Recent goings-on

I've started a number of posts lately but haven't managed to finish any; that usually means I should do a compilation instead – so that's what I've done.

A Little Night Music

I didn't get allocated to review this show, but I felt it was one worth writing about because of how much I enjoyed it, and how it fits into a bigger picture of my taste in musical theatre.

The core plot is about Fredrik Egerman, a lawyer, and Desiree Armfeltd, an actress – they have a past, which, when Fredrik and his young trophy wife (in the parlance of our times1) attend a performance of a play Desiree is performing in, becomes the present. Complicating this is – of course – Fredrik's wife, Anne, but also Count Carl-Magnus, Desiree's lover and his wife Charlotte. And then there's Fredrik's seemingly humourless, seminary student son Henrick; Anne's amorous maid Petra; Desiree's mother Madame Armdfeldt (a retired courtesan) and daughter Frederika2 and a handful of servants. Oh, and there's a wandering five-person chorus which opens the show and pops up from time to time, but they don't factor into the plot.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

State Theatre Company Season 2014

A few weeks back – I've been distracted and/or lazy; take your pick – the hard copy of the State Theatre Company 2014 season showed up in my mailbox today; so, as I've done a couple of times in the past (in 2011 and 2013 at least), I've put down my thoughts on what Geordie Brookman and his team are bringing us next year.

Oh, and this is only the regular season shows; for everything including the State Ed and touring shows, see the official site here.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Pacific Rim

I'm not sure which was the first piece of promo material I saw for Pacific Rim – I have a feeling it was a huge poster at the Piccadilly cinema which showed the head of the Jaeger1 'Gypsy Danger' – but it certainly got me interested enough to look further into it. When I found out what it was about – human-operated giant robot-like mecha fighting giant monsters – I was keen to know more; when I read it was to be directed by Guillermo del Toro, director of Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy, I decided to put it on my 'to-see' list.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Homemade Fusion



"HOMEMADE FUSION is a series of musical snapshots from the imaginations of Michael Kooman (music) and Christopher Dimond (lyrics). Each snapshot attempts to make sense of an increasingly senseless world by examining the paradox of modern times. At once dangerously cynical and desperately romantic, it is a tale of love, loss, and candy bars."

I can't really come up with a better description of the show than they one they provide - so I'm not going to try.

On paper this show certainly had a lot going for it; the musical director is Aaron Nash, who in the last few years has made a name for himself with his Tom Waits tribute show New Coat of Paint (a great show I saw in 2012), the highly acclaimed Tears on My Pillow shows and – demonstrating his breadth – composing music for the multi-award-winning University of Adelaide Theatre Guild production of The Pillowman.

Then you add the performers – Brady Lloyd, Claire McEvoy, Rachel Rai and David Salter, four hugely talented young people with well-earned reputations in the Adelaide musical theatre community; I've seen all of them before and have been impressed every time.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Recent events

It's been a while since I've posted, mostly because there hasn't been all that much of significance going on – and also because I haven't had a great deal of time on my hands. But I've got a extra-long weekend (Thursday was Anzac Day and I took a day of annual leave Friday to give me four straight days off) so I can at least put pen to paper1 and mention a few things.

Friday, March 29, 2013

A very long festival season

So, I've survived another Fringesanity. And, given that the Fringe proper is now a week longer – taking the total time to just over four weeks (since it begins on a Friday and ends on a Sunday) – as well as the fact that that the weekend before the now-extended Fringe began I went to Melbourne, it's been quite a challenge.

Melbourne

Melbourne was great; we – Miriam and I – went primarily to see the stage production of War Horse (which, while not as great as I'd hoped, was stil worth seeing because of the awesome horse puppetry) and also saw Melbourne Theatre Company's production of Constellations, which was excellent. Then there was the cabaret: the Butterfly Club1 gala at the Town Hall (which Miriam got tickets to by helping crowdsource their move to a new location) and after party at the club itself one night and a Tom Dickins (one half of The Jane Austen Argument) solo show another.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Adelaide Fringe 2013 Preview

I'm a little behind on this – it opens officially tomorrow night – but, as I've done in the past few years, I've gone through the Fringe guide and picked out what I think is worth seeing this festival season.

Le Gateau Chocolat – I Heart Chocolat
February 15-17
Garden of Unearthly Delights - Paradiso Spiegeltent

Always, always, always first on my list. In my opinion one of the best cabaret performers of the planet, a stunningly talented singer and a truly engaging character. I first saw him as part of a ensemble show called Company of Strangers, and was just blown away. Since then I've seen him perform solo and as part of another ensemble, La Soirée, in 2012.

I bought my ticket the day they went on sale.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Further adventures in plumbing

Not all that long ago I had to replace one of the taps in my kitchen; this time the problem was in the bathroom – and it was just a little bit more dramatic.

It was as dramatic as it was because it was the hot tap rather than the cold and ­– and because this time it happened when the plug was in the sink. I'd put some water in there and turned off the taps when I noticed the hot tap dripping; I reached across to turn it off and was more than a little surprised when it came on full blast.

No doubt I stared at it dumbly for a couple of beats before my brain made the connection between the furious outpouring of water into the sink and the fact the plug was still in. But then it hit me; the sink was filling up and there weren't too many options available to me to stop it before it reached the top and overflowed onto the floor of the bathroom.

So I stuck my hand in to try and pull the plug out. Missed it. Tried a second time. Missed it a second time. I'm guessing it would have looked a little like the scene from The Simpsons where the Squeaky-Voiced Teen drops the taco in the deep fryer and tries to fish it out ("Ow! Ow!").

Now with a sore hand and the water level racing toward the top of the sink, I realised it wasn't going to work – so I dashed off to the kitchen to get a knife with a long enough blade to reach the plug. I got back with the water only a few millimetres from flowing over and managed to stab the plug (it's a rubber one, fortunately) on the first go, before any spillage happened. Of course there was some splashed around, but that I could cope with.

Obviously that wasn't the end of it; I still had a gushing hot tap to deal with, and I wanted to deal with it quickly - so, still in dashing mode, I went out through the back door to where the lever that controls the water supply to my unit and turned it off.

At this point I wanted to go to bed and deal with it in the morning, but my hot water system was making an unusual amount of noise, and I had no idea why. But then it hit me: the hot tap was still 'on', effectively, meaning that water was coming out of the hot water system but none was going in.

So, not good. While I expect that the device has a cutoff switch - it's a fairly modern electric unit1, which I only had installed a few years ago - I wasn't 100% sure, and would rather deal with it straightaway than risk dying in my sleep from a freak explosion. Or being woken up, which I'd also hate.

To the toolbox! Or, in my case, the shoebox in the laundry; I don't really own enough tools to justify a real toolbox - there are rules about these things, you know. So, I grabbed my shifting spanner and set to it. Of course I wouldn't have been able to do much if I didn't have a spare washer, but I'd luckily bought a packet of six when I was fixing the kitchen tap so I had plenty to choose from.

That part was about as straightforward as it gets. But after the last time - where I replaced the washer only to find that in doing so I'd stripped the thread from the taps and needed to replace the entire fitting as well - I wasn't going to signal the all-clear2 until I'd switched the water back on and not had the hot, miniature equivalent of Niagara Falls happening in my bathroom.

Back out in my slightly creepy backyard3, I flipped the switch and listened carefully. Nothing. The sweet, sweet sound of water not pouring into my bathroom sink.

Success!

1Yes, it's electric despite the fact I work in the gas industry, and the guilt sometimes keeps me up at night.
2No, I don't know who I'd be signalling the all-clear to; don't be difficult.
3I'm a terrible gardener, so there are a lot of dead plants out there – and at night they're a bit scary.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Prometheus

After the first preview for Prometheus came out, I got very excited. The original Alien film is a true classic, and I'm a huge fan of Aliens – although I always like to point out that they're effectively two different genres of film and shouldn't be compared against each other. Sure, the sequels weren't that great – I ignore the Alien vs Predator films entirely; I saw the second of the two1 and hated it – but I wasn't so put off by them that I wouldn't be prepared to revisit the universe if someone came up with a good story.

And the story for Prometheus looked good – very good. Set before Alien2, it was about humans discovering and travelling to a planet via directions from cave-paintings, seemingly implying that aliens had visited the planet in the distant past. On this planet they would discover alien life and – since it's a sci-fi/action film – have some sort of disagreement with it.