We did it!

And so, we performed our play last night. My stress level was already running high by the time I got to the school, as I’d still been on the Liverpool ring road at 4pm, and we had to be there for 6.15pm.

I arrived to discover that our performance space had been changed due to a double booking of a ballet class (‘why am I not surprised?’) and we were in the process of ‘building’ our set in the assembly hall. So, rather than a nice little studio theatre, with all the lighting rigged for us, we were in a school hall. So much for the scenes that demanded blackout, then! We spent most of the intervening time moving chairs and tables around. It was probably one of the more bizarre performance spaces I’ve played in.

I was pleased to see that we had a full cast, and no one had lost their nerve at the last moment, and at least all the furniture moving meant that there was little time to feel nervous.

Are we gathered at the back of the hall for our entrance, it filled up (must have been the attraction of the belly dancers, who were on after us), so we probably had an audience of around 70.

It actually went remarkably well. No one forgot their lines, everyone remembered their moves, and if there were a few unintentional pauses (and a point where one of the sound cues failed so two scenes swapped places) then I don’t think the audience noticed. It only lasted about 20 minutes in total, so, as I told people, really not worth travelling for. As soon as we came off stage we hit the bar – which set a really good example, as the piece was about drinking!

Afterwards, in the tradition of all actors, we headed for the pub to talk about it, and ended up in gales of laughter about all the things that had gone wrong. Yes, however minor the production, acting still gives me that high, and I know why I do it.

Spring forward!

The clocks went forward yesterday. Statement of the obvious I know, but, as if in celebration, the last two days have actually felt like Spring. There's suddenly some warmth in the sun, and there's a softness in the light that just means Spring to me. It's difficult to put into words, but it's so different to the cold harsh light of a winter's day. Anyway, I went out for a drive into the country yesterday, and it looked just beautiful. My favourite time of year!

Rehearsals, Chasing Cars and alternate universes

It was all a bit mad on Thursday – it was our last rehearsal for the play (I’d say ‘dress’ but some hadn’t bothered with their costumes), and we were trying to bring those who hadn’t come to the ‘tech’ on Tuesday up to speed. We didn’t managed a run without people fluffing lines and stopping. Many of them have never performed in front of an audience before and we’re on next week! I know there’ll we’ll give a performance, but I don’t think it will be one I’ll be proud of.

As soon as we finished, I headed across town to the Vicky Vaults, and Griffin’s second gig in two weeks. It’s not a very big pub, I’ve been to gigs there before, and know how cramped it can get, so I wasn’t really surprised to find that there was no chance of getting into the room where he was singing. So, for the first half, Cat and I stayed in the other bar, where we could hear just fine.

For the second set, we moved to seats in a corner, whilst Corinne and Gayle stood on bar stools so they could see over the heads of the unmoving crowd. It was incredibly smoky. I really can’t wait for 1 July and for this to become a thing of the past.

He sounded great, and it was nice just to listen. His voice will always bring me back I guess. Some songs sounded glorious, and yet, for the first half at least, much of the time my head was somewhere else. Probably still at rehearsal.

Last time, I was frantically trying to phone Corinne when he started ‘Chasing Cars’. This time, well, we waited. He was getting to the end, we’d sung along to ‘Mark Viduka’ again. He had to do it, he really had to. And then, as the final song, those opening chords. As his voice soared, I felt thrilled for her. And it was fantastic.

As for the alternate universe, that would be the one where Snow Patrol are playing Griffin songs in a pub.

I'm easily impressed

'I was woken up by David Tennant this morning!'
'what?'
'well, not DT in person, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be at work! He was on breakfast telly'. (The alarm in my hotel is set on the tv, so I was woken at 6.55am by BBC Breakfast, and said DT, plus new assistant, and dalek.)
I am a bit excited about the new series, but of course I'm not doing anything so crass as having a countdown!

Pause

'My uncle was in Dr Who'
'What?!!!' (yes, it did come out as a high pitched squeal)
'Yes, he was in it 3 times'
'Which Doctor?'
'Tom Baker'
'ooh, my favourite, well, apart from the present one, of course'.

Dangerous Liaisons

I love Les Liaisons Dangereuses, it’s probably one of my favourite modern plays. I’ve now seen it performed on stage 5 times, and of course, I’ve seen the film, which I don’t think is a patch on the play. I’ve seen it in the RSC’s Other Place*, in the days when it was still a tin hut, I’ve seen the RSC on tour perform it on a proscenium arch stage, I’ve also seen it done like that at the Theatre Royal, I’ve seen it in a studio theatre performed by students at Uni, and at the weekend I saw it on a traverse stage at Friargate Theatre. After seeing all these productions, I’m convinced that it’s a play for a small intimate space, where the audience becomes complicit with the actions of the characters.

I love it because it has good female characters, with the ultimate manipulator Merteuil as the best. You wouldn’t want to play cards with her, as you know that she’d hold all the aces. Valmont, the practised seducer, is, at the end of the play, as manipulated by her as any of the other characters, and yet her victory over him is shallow, particularly with the shadow of the guillotine hanging over that whole regime.

It has some fabulous dialogue, and wonderfully written exchanges between Merteuil and Valmont. The production stands or falls by the casting of the two leads, and Settlement Players were lucky in their cast, with two excellent actors who could really hold the stage.

It’s a very personal response, though, as I raved about the play as we left the theatre, my friend said how she felt that it was all quite futile at the end, and didn’t really go anywhere, and I tried to explain that that was where I felt its brilliance was. The lead characters are not ‘nice’ people, but they are clever, and skilful and witty. They may have ‘cruel intentions’** but they are attractive. I suppose I like it, and them, for the same reasons that I like Richard III.

It was a pretty good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

*Great theatre is when you forget to breathe, and this was probably one of the greatest pieces of theatre that I’ve ever seen.

** see what I did there?

Such stuff as dreams are made on

The best bit in a pretty dreary Comic Relief night on TV – David Tennant as an English teacher trying to teach Shakespeare’s sonnets to Catherine Tate’s stroppy schoolgirl.

Not very realistic though – I mean, if you had him teaching you, well, you’d pay attention, wouldn’t you?

It's for charity

After three weeks of false starts, we finally went walking on Friday. Not a long walk, admittedly, but a walk nonetheless. I realised pretty quickly that once again I hadn’t dressed for it. By the time we reached the end of the road, I was bitterly cold, and had to borrow a scarf. As the wind blew into our faces, and my fingers went blue whilst my nose turned red, I kept telling myself that this was doing me good

We walked by the river, seeing bits of Georgian York that I’d never seen before. Beautiful villas which overlooked the river, dainty little cottages with pretty gardens. It was like walking through an unknown piece of York’s history.

As we walked along to the Millennium Bridge, it was like walking out into the country, and strange to realise that the busy roads weren’t that far away. My orientation of the city also went haywire. As I stood on the bridge I could see the tower of Terry’s factory, but it seemed to be in the wrong place, and later the towers of the Minster appeared to our left, when it felt like they should be on the right.

As we walked back into town and crossed Skeldergate Bridge, we found a little coffee shop actually built into the bridge. It felt like time for a coffee stop, so we went in, to find that they were selling home made apple strudel in aid of Comic Relief. Well, how could we resist eating cake as a method of giving to charity?

Senior moments

Yesterday

I'm at work, and I'm searching for my memory stick. I know that I put it oh-so-carefully in my bag the night before, but now it's nowhere to be found. I have to try and remember the information that I'd typed up. Much later, I go into my bag again, and into my purse - there is said memory stick! Of course, I'd put it 'somewhere safe'.

Today

I needed to go to the library to change my books for my OU course*. I've shoved them all in a bag, pick up my handbag, and got into the car. It's only as I pull into the car park that I realise that the bag of books is still on the living room floor. So, I reverse out of the parking space, and go home again!

I guess it's all downhill from here.

*My head is currently expolding at all the criticism on Dickens

Just because...

I love York, and it was looking particularly photogenic on Thursday morning. Though, even on this pic, the river's a little high!

All about the music

It's drama class once again, and we're talking about whether our devised piece needs music*.

K, our tutor, says 'there's a piece that's stuck in my head at the moment, and I'm really wondering if we can work it in'.

Somehow, I already know where this is going.

K 'it's by Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars'

I laugh, and say I knew that would be it. It seems to be the ubiquitous song at the moment. Even though our piece is about a car crash, I really don't think it would fit!

*At the moment, it surely needs something - we have two more rehearsals, and we haven't a fixed format as yet!

'All your dreams are made of strawberry lemonade'

We’ve had tapas (very nice), we’ve visited the (newly re-furbished) fountain, and now we’re in the Roman Bath. It’s the first time for over a year, and the reason is the first Griffin gig of 2007.

So far, the sound desk has blown up, and we’ve had a first set mainly of covers, but with some new ones amongst them. Billy Bragg’s New England, Cannonball, a Crowded House one, Talk Tonight.

He sings one of his own songs, Take Me Home, and says that he wrote it after leaving the Bath one night. I giggle, I can’t help it, as it’s put a whole different perspective on the song for me now. I know those emotions.

He sounds great, better, I think, than at Christmas when his voice didn’t seem to be warmed up. There are no painful ‘comedy interludes’ just simple songs, beautifully sung to an appreciative, but not very demonstrative, audience. He tries, bless him, to get a response, but it falls mainly on stony ground.

We’re into the second set, and he starts with ‘We'll do it all…’ It’s the opening of Chasing Cars, and it’s OMG, OMG…, I’m fumbling with the phone, trying to call Corinne who’s working. It’s rare these days to do the ‘gig’ phone call, I think I’ve lost the knack. I miss the first few bars, but phew, then I’m through.

In the third set he leads a singalong to his ‘new’ version of Hallelujah. It’s somehow fitting that it’s a comedy version in praise of Boro footballer Mark Viduka that has suddenly brought him media attention again after all this time (albeit in the sports pages). He encores with Patience, and a reprise of New England, which leads to a bit of bouncing in some quarters.

We roll out into the York night sometime after 11.30. Unlike some, my journey home is all of 15 minutes. It’s been a good one.

Pomp and circumstance

‘Did I mention I’m having tea with the Archbish?’
‘You might have, once or twice’

Well, it didn’t actually work out quite like that, but I still had a good day. The occasion was the investiture* of John Tucker Mugabi Sentamu**, Archbishop of York, as first Chancellor of York St John University.

The official part of the day was held in the Minster. A lovely day for it, too, unlike the day I graduated, when it was blowing a gale, and I had to chase after my hat.

Whilst I’m not religious in the slightest, I love York Minster. Whenever I pass it, I look at it with awe, and inside, when you look around, and think about when it was built, it’s easy to believe that the ability to create something so majestic must come from some higher power. It’s also a testimony to the belief of those who created it all those centuries ago.

St John’s started life as a Christian teacher training college and so it seemed appropriate to have a religious service as the focal point of the day, and the Archbish as the Chancellor of the Uni. I did find it all surprisingly moving. I think it’s that pomp and circumstance thing.

I found myself surrounded by teachers, some of whom trained long before I was born. The chap next to me told me he’d gone to the college in 1944 at 17, when there was a push to train male teachers after so many had been killed, but that once he graduated, he’d had to go straight into the forces. He was also one of those people who sing loudly and confidently even though he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket!

As the procession progressed down the aisle, I was stuck by how small the Archbish seemed. I was also struck by the fact that there didn’t seem to be a single tutor from my course there!

The ‘arts’ students gave a performance*** which I thought pretty good, simple, yet effective, and using all the aisles so that as many as possible could see. Mind you, if it had been directed by one of my tutors, we’d probably have tried burning something, and they wouldn’t have appreciated that in the Minster, not after the last fire.

Afterwards there was a lunch, and then afternoon tea at college in a huge marquee in the Quad (scene of various ‘fire shows’!). The Archbish didn’t come for tea, in fact he didn’t actually circulate at all, which was a bit of a disappointment, but I soon drowned that in a couple of glasses of champagne.

I did like something he said in his address though, so I’ll leave you with it

Live today, as though you die tomorrow
Learn today, as though you live for eternity
…and never stand between a lamp post and a dog!

*The official title is ‘installation’, but I think that makes him sound like an electric cooker
**However you look at it, that name’s a hell of a mouthful
***The pic at the top is the representation of the first student!

1956 and all that

Look Back in Anger is frequently claimed as the play that changed the face of British Theatre. The first ‘kitchen sink’ drama, and the first working class hero in ‘angry young man’ Jimmy Porter. It was 50 years old last year, and has just been revived at Harrogate Theatre by Pilot Theatre Company.

Its an odd play to be seeing in Harrogate (or Harrowgate, as the man sweeping the car park at 11.30 at night insisted), the epitome of the genteel English town, and everything that Jimmy rants against.

So, what does it look like now? According to the director, it’s the 'Shameless'* of its day, and it broke away from the Noel Coward plays set in drawing rooms. Yet, in many ways, I think it’s more dated then these.

Jimmy Porter doesn’t seem real as a character. He’s university educated, and therefore privileged, even though his university isn’t even ‘red brick’ but ‘white tile’. He works on a sweet stall, and has rejected all his opportunities, yet he’s married to a posh wife, Alison, who he met at a house party.

It’s hard to find sympathy for his rants against society, and most of all against his wife and all that she represents, as he blithely expects her to iron for him, and make tea while he lounges over the Sunday papers. It’s also hard to find sympathy for Alison, who meekly takes it all rather than belting him with the iron or the teapot.

To gain sympathy from the audience, Jimmy needs to have something about him that makes you see why Alison married him, and why she stays with him. This was sadly lacking in Karl Haynes's portrayal, and he came over as a pretty nasty bully. Sarah Manton played Alison as very timid and meek, and a victim. The end of the play, as she literally crawled back to Jimmy it was painful to watch, as neither character seemed to have learned anything.

Cliff, the ineffectual friend, is Welsh in the script, as evidenced by all the ‘lovely’s’, but was played with a London accent, presumably because the actor couldn’t managed a convincing Welsh one – if so, why not cut some of these, as it just sounded incongruous.

Overall, it's another of those 'I'm glad I saw it' productions. But as a play, maybe it's time to put it back in the box for the next 50 years.

*which I wouldn't know, as I've never watched it.

Of course, this just brings more pressure

I got my first OU assignment back yesterday. Surprising really, as the deadline for submission isn’t until today. Don’t imagine that this is how things will go on. For once I was ahead of the game. It won’t continue, and my reading is already falling behind.

I’m impressed with the speed of marking, as it used to take a minimum of 6 months to get work marked at St John’s, which was hopeless for knowing how you were doing.

After initially stressing about the assignment, I buckled down to actually writing it, and quite enjoyed it. It’s amusing to read the tutor’s comments though, as they are still so similar to the ones I used to get at school. Yes, I do write long and convoluted sentences. I always have, and it’s not likely to change now.

I got 75%, which I’m pleased with, and it was enought to send me back to the books this morning with renewed enthusiasm. But now I have to live up to this in future assignments, and this will be more difficult as they deal with topics less familiar to me. Or, rather, I don’t have to, as nothing is at stake but my own pride, and yet I know that I will be striving for this. Again, this is part of me. Often I’d rather not start something than fall short of my own expectations. It’s quite a limiting trait, and yet it’s difficult to break. Of course, if my marks take a downward turn, then I won't be sharing them here!