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Around The Blogs: Number 1 3

This entry was posted in Bloggery and tagged Blogging on by

One of my favourite recent-ish discoveries is the Clyde Fitch Report and one of the things I love about it is it’s From The Blogroll section that takes a brief look around, well, the Blogroll. So in blatant theft I’m going to start doing the same thing here once a fortnight. It’s a bit different to what I write for Whatsonstage as I’m going to stick to UK based blogs and undoubtedly be a little bit more flippant than I am over there.

So, if you’re sitting comfortably, here goes…

At A Younger Theatre Jake became part of the play and reviewed Tim Crouch’s The Author.

At Carousel of Fantasies Matt Trueman took Roger Foss to task for his dismissal of interactive audience-led theatre in The Stage. Given my documented obsession with One & Other I’m with Trueman on this. And I can say that and still be in raptures over Stoppard and Shakespeare etc etc. Because that’s what’s great about theatre. Difference.

At Confessions of a Playwright there was what can only be described as an accordion moment.

At HannahNicklin.com Hannah blogged about A City Staged and the kind of embracing of the possibilities of social media for theatre which makes me a little sick with excitement. It even made me want to have been in Derby so I could have taken part. (My only connection with Derby is an interesting evening in a club in the early noughties when my feet stuck to the floor and where I probably should have worn a polo neck. So, believe me, this is saying something).

At Helen Smith it was all about a giant knitted poem. And murder. Agatha Christie would be proud.

At Killing Time Dave Windass found paradox and Apostrophe Use Gone Mad in the same sign.

At Life in the Cheap Seats Webcowgirl quite probably could have done without having seen Jane Horrocks  in Annie Get Your Gun.

At Miching Malicho there was an adventure in the streets of York with Belt Up production of The Trial.

At Paul in London the interval of Mother Courage led to the revelation of what Rah-Rah Gay is.

At Pirate Dog it was all about a monkey upstaging Kevin Spacey on stage at the Old Vic. Which almost makes me want to see Inherit the Wind.

At Postcards from the Gods Andrew Haydon most definitely didn’t agree with Michael Billington on David Hare’s The Power of Yes.

At Russell’s Theatre Reviews the Young Vic’s production of Annie Get Your Gun continued to astoud – so much so that it was re-christened Annie Get Your Act Together.

At Shenton’s View Mark Shenton discussed the questions that the launch of Love Never Dies failed to answer. But not – WHY? For the love of God, why?

At the Guardian Theatre Blog Lyn Gardner sent out a plea for more Rupert Goolds in British theatre. Goold had me at his production of Six Characters in Search of an Author which delighted me more than almost anything I saw in the first few months of living in London. Also if we are to go by his photo on Gardner’s blog then he also has rather impressive hair. So winning all round.

At View From The Stalls there was Shakespeare aplenty in Lend Me Your Ears.

At West End Whingers it was third time unlucky for Annie Get Your Gun and, well, you should just go and read as it’s the Whingers doing what they do best.

Reasons For Writing

This entry was posted in In Response and tagged Asperger's Syndrome Autism Gary McKinnon Reasons For Listing on by

There are lots and lots of reasons that I wanted to write Reasons For Listing – both artistic and intensely personal – but I think some of the reasons are encapsulated in the story of Gary McKinnon. If you don’t know McKinnon hacked into the US’s military computer system and, as a UK citizen, is fighting extradition to the US (and has been doing so for the last five years, some sort of fast track extradition there then).

Oh, and he has Asperger’s Syndrome.

Now I’m more than aware that saying someone has Asperger’s Syndrome still leaves the proverbial ball park fairly open. But the alarm bells should be ringing. Particularly when it has been voiced in America that McKinnon will “almost certainly be exposed to neglectful care” in the American prison system.

There’s a whole ball of issues here – not least the UK’s extradition policy and how the legal system deals with those with Autism (and indeed other related conditions).

But there’s also the fact that I can’t help but feel totally appalled by how a vulnerable person is being dealt with.  Which is not to say that I condone McKinnon’s actions but that he is vulnerable. Full stop. After he was today refused permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court McKinnon’s lawyer called the treatment “inhumane”. And that’s certainly not hyperbole.

I can’t begin to imagine the impact that this is having on McKinnon and his family – or will continue to have. I was saddned but not surprised to hear McKinnon’s mother report that he is “suicidal”. And a glance at the statistics of suicide of those with high-functioning autism (of which Asperger’s Syndrome is a form) should suggest that is a real, and frightening, possibility.

In writing Reasons For Listing I’m not writing about the specifics of anyone other than the fictional Joseph but I am writing about some of what McKinnon’s story suggests.

As for McKinnon – make your voice heard.

il miglior fabbro

This entry was posted in Inspirations on by

Really I got in a little too early with my T S Eliot quote on my last post (the title is stolen from Eliot’s The Four Quartets) – for today is National Poetry Day and apparently Tom is the nation’s favourite poet. Tom’s got a lot to answer for in my own life – reading The Waste Land when I was 16 was the reason I made the decision to do an English Degree – but I was a little surprised, I confess, by his win (please, please don’t tell me it was for the cat poems…).  He’s bloody brilliant – but you can’t exactly hug him to your heart.

But then any list is going to be subjective and lacking many more worthy winners than it can possibly hold – me, I was a little sad to see Ted Hughes and W H Auden missing. Not to get me started on Wordsworth and Byron. Or indeed Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage. And since I’m here, where was Seamus Heaney (who I would have thought would have been a shoe-in for the top ten)?.

And then – well, how does one ever see past the spectre of William Shakespeare?

If all time is eternally present/ Then all time is unredeemable 1

This entry was posted in Inspirations and tagged Ideas Physics Time on by

It’s pretty standard for me to have ideas float around in my head for a few years until something happens and then – bam, out they come. At the moment – possibly because I’m actively working on one project that popped out in a reasonably formed state a few months ago and another that has gestitated in my brain for less than a year – I’m indulging in some free form research for a nugget of an idea that quite possibly won’t surface in any concrete form for some time yet. But it’s still getting me excited nonetheless – especially when I read this:

“Although we think of the Universe we see through our telescopes as existing now, this is a mistaken view. We can never know what the Universe is like at this instant. The farther across space we look, the farther back in time we see. If we look far enough across space we can actually see close to the Big Bang itself, 13.7 billion years back in time. Space and time are inextricably bound together”.

Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, Marcus Chown.

Which is all  a little bit terrifying. But also a little bit beautiful.

Slight Return

This entry was posted in Bloggery Thoughts and Flirtations and tagged Life & Everything Else on by

Just over a week ago I packed my bags, bundled myself into a National Express coach and (once the seemingly never-ending journey had finished) spent what turned out to be a slightly longer than anticipated break in Leeds. I’d vowed to have a work-less, theatre-less week and though I was nearly distracted by a production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle at  an old haunt of mine I actually managed it. Then I ended up re-visiting years gone by first on a friend’s then on my parents’ bathroom floor and, well, nice end to a holiday and all that.

But now I’m back in London and it does mark, I suspect, the moment where I pick up in earnest everything I need to be doing. A year ago this week I started my MA and now, as I returned the last of my library books, it’s another sort of challenge.

First up? The 513 new theatre related blog entries that have collected in my RSS reader in my absense. I may be some time…

Pre/View

This entry was posted in In Response and tagged Blogging Reviewing on by

A few days ago Mark Shenton blogged about the response of a ‘Creative’ (ouch, yes that term doesn’t roll off of my tongue either) to critics reviewing Previews.  In some ways it is just a tale of bad communication between various departments, as well as that desire I know so well just to keep on tweaking and changing and well, only one more thing, just one more… Which is fairly standard. But it did get me thinking about Previews and the paying public – specifically the paying public who then go home and write a blog which I (and others) may read.

After all – lots of theatre blogger write reviews having seen what is technically a ‘preview’ performance. It’s inevitable – previews are when tickets are at their cheapest so it’s somewhat obvious that people who go to the theatre lots (and are thus the ones who know about the different ticket pricing) will go during previews. And unlike the critic being given the free seat and the paid column and thus an embargo on reviews, they can go home and write their review whenever they like. It’s their perogative and long may it continue.

Maybe some would say – does it matter what bloggers say? Well for some people no, just as much as for some people it doesn’t matter what Michael Billington says, and of course their quotes don’t look quite as good at the front of the theatre (let it be noted – I will whoop with joy the first time I see the West End Whingers quoted). But I – and I am sure many other people like me – get a feel for the shows through these people. If a show was generally being rubbished amongst the plethora of bloggers I read then I, quite probably, would give it a miss (unless it was reaching To Close to the Sun proportions of cult fame and then, hey, I want to know what I’m missing). Equally if a show that hadn’t initially sent me running for the Box Office queue generates some blogger buzz then the chances are I’ll make the effort to see these people. I went to see Attempts on Her Life on the strength of this review. And that production would make my list of ‘Productions which changed the way I see theatre’. In a way that you feel you know a bit about the person when reading good theatre critics in print, it’s the same with the best of the theatre review bloggers. Only they’re more likely to let you know where you should sit or who the cutest member of the cast is. And I like all that. That’s part of  the experience of going to the theatre.

But does it matter that they’re reviewing a preview? In the days when I was a Duty Manager in a producing theatre in the North we had a big preview sign we would stick in front of the doors to the auditorium. It was big and bulky and utterly unmissable. And on the nights it was out I would get asked ‘What does ‘Preview’ mean?’ at least nine or ten times.  I’d come out with the standard – changes are still being made to production etc etc but it remained that the person asking wasn’t aware they were booking for a Preview. So for them this was the production full stop. And why shouldn’t it be? Discounted though they may be preview tickets are not free (or even close to being free) and paying audience means – I want the technical bits to happen on time, I want the actors to know their lines and cues, I want this show, quite simply, to work. Okay, we can say we’ve put signs up about previews, and that it’s in the glossy brochure but it doesn’t really matter. Paying customer here, not test audience. Maybe, if you’re a producing theatre like the one I was in, this might be the first time this audience member has ever been to your theatre. This might be the one chance you get to make an impression on them.

I know time changes shows, things bed down, new ways open up. It was one of my great delights of last year that I saw the RSC’s production of Hamlet on its final Preview, again towards the end of its run in Stratford and then again during its final week in London. I didn’t blog my thoughts on my first viewing – but it would have been safe to say that I agreed with a friend who wrote at the time: “there is nothing to offend (well maybe the cuts), but there isn’t as yet anything which makes you hold your breath”. By the final time I saw the production I still had some reservations but the cast had become such an ensemble, absolutely attuned to their roles that it made me gloriously happy to have seen part of the journey.

One of the lovely (and some times terrible) things about the time I spent ushering was seeing a production develop and change and grow. During that time I did see shows change during previews but I never saw a bad production transform into a great one (or indeed even turn into a solid one). Of course some things get slicker and tighter but really it’s the performances within productions and the audiences who watch them which change over time. And what is a show if not everything which it is in its final performance? So, ideally we’d send the critics in then (the RSC almost achieved this this week) – but what use would that be for anything bar the scrapbooks belonging to actors and directors? Plus who can legislate for those odd evenings where everything just comes together; the evenings that pull me back to theatre  just in the slight hope I may have one again. And – yes, another and – a good production is a good production is a good production. Even during a midweek matinee.

So Press Night, really, is just an arbitary date in as much as performances are never quite the same and, at least for those involved I would suspect, rarely – if ever – the finished product.