The Scottish Production

Well, it – the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild production of Macbeth that I first wrote about in my post The Scottish Audition – finished up on Saturday after eleven performances. And it's going to go down as one of the best productions I've ever been involved with.

The combination of such a rare opportunity to do Macbeth¹, combined with getting to work with such a great cast, a talented crew, a thoughtful and inspiring director and in a space as enjoyable to work in as the Little Theatre just doesn't come along that often.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2)

This week I saw one of the most anticipated movies of all time: part two of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And since I wrote a review of the first one – and almost always need an excuse for a blog post – I thought I'd do the same for part two.

The story – oh, and you'd better believe there are spoilers

So, the first film ended with Harry and friends escaping from the clutches of Bellatrix Lestrange and her unpleasant cohorts at Malfoy Manor – but losing¹ Dobby the house elf in the process. Meanwhile, Voldemort raids Dumbeldore's tomb and takes what he finally realised was the Elder Wand – the most powerful wand in the world.

Death Cab for Cutie

A few weeks back I picked up Seattle band Death Cab for Cutie's latest album, Codes and Keys, and that's inspired me to write about the group that, over the past few years, has – with their melodic, atmospheric sound and singer Ben Gibbard's distinctive voice – become one of my favourite bands.

Warning: embarrassing guilty pleasure alert

The first time I really became aware of them was via the television series The O.C., which I wound up watching for no particularly good reason other than people talked about it a lot and I – as I tend to do with such things – wanted to find out why, and got sucked into it.

Cabaret Season 2011

Forgive me, audience; it's been several weeks since my last confession blog post¹.

But I've been busy. Between rehearsals for the production of Macbeth that I'm in (which started in the first weekend of June), seeing shows in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Cabaret Fringe festival, and writing reviews – which sometimes takes more time than the show being reviewed – I just haven't had much time to sit down and put fingers to keys – at least not for anything that wasn't a review.

Ben Folds

On Sunday May 22 I went to see the Ben Folds gig at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre¹. It's the second time I'll have seen him since he went solo; the last time was quite a while back, when he played with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the Festival Centre. Prior to that I saw him twice when he was still with Ben Folds Five.

I was huge Ben Folds Five fan; their first (self-titled) album is one of my favourites, and I rate it as one of the best – maybe even the best – debut album of all time. While I'm not quite as fond of the later albums with the group or his solo stuff – which isn't to say that I think it's bad, per se; it's that the debut album is so damn good, with an amazing energy and some truly kickass songs like Underground, Philosophy, Best Imitation of Myself, Video, Julianne and Uncle Walter, it's hard for anything else to compare – there are good songs on each. So I'd always be up to see him live.