Confessions of a Theatre Snob

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Did someone say 'children's book'?

The Harry Potter conversations continue (I’m still embargoed from talking about the ending as some people still haven’t read it – get a move on people!)

‘I finished Harry Potter at the weekend’
Me: ’Did you cry?’
‘Nearly’
Me: ‘Only nearly? I cried so much I had to put the book down’

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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Two to go

I've not said much about my OU course recently. It's been difficult to keep up with the study schedule with everything else that's been going on. Well, you can hardly study when driving a car, can you?

I'm currently in the middle of my Literature and Gender module. It's not my favourite. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Romantic Literature one, particularly discovering female Romantic poets, but this module, not so much!

So I approached the first assignment on this block with some trepidation. I even had to ask for an extension, as I just didn't have the time to finish it by the due date. My usual tutorial was cancelled, and I went to one with with different tutor in Leeds, who took quite a different approach. To be honest, I was stressing out.

I had to write about The Color* Purple, and one other prose piece from the block, and chose The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Two texts I was unfamiliar with before the course. I've never even seen the film of The Color Purple (though I did think about watching it as part of my studies). I spent a lot of time trying to get my head round the whole idea of what writing 'with gender on the agenda' (the module's buzz phrase) was all about. Eventually I felt I was getting somewhere. I can sort of see where they're coming from, but it's not an approach I would ever consciously take.

I finally pulled something together a couple of weeks ago. One thing I love about literature is that you can always take the counter argument to the one that the question poses, as long as you can justify your approach. I didn't think it was great, but it was finished.

I got it back the other day. I got 82. I'm pretty pleased with that given how difficult it was to write.

The next one is on Top Girls, so we've finally moved on to drama. Hurrah. But still with 'gender on the agenda'. I sort of feel I know what they're after now, so I have to write this one at some point over the next week. And then, finally, we move on to Shakespeare, Aphra Behn and the Canon.

Five down, two to go.

*which I always want to spell 'colour'. Damn American spelling!

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Potter Crazy

Spoiler Free (though eye rolling may be induced)

At the start, let me say, I didn't queue. I wasn't in town at midnight watching magicians in Borders. But I knew I'd be buying Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on its release day. And there was a certain anticipation and excitement about the fact that we were finally going to know the end of the story.

I went into town yesterday morning, and it was everywhere. The price wars were all over. £6.99 in Woolies, but you had to spend £10, same in WH Smiths, but you had to spend £15. £8.99 in Waterstones. Borders seemed to have missed a trick and be advertising it at £6 off (a publishers price of £17.99). In Smiths, I moved on hurridly as a man of at least 50 was reading the last pages. Why? If you're a fan, it would ruin it, if not, why would you want to know unless you're going to spoil it for someone? I was actually worried that someone would inadvertently leak a bit of information.

I bought it in Tescos. It was £5 if you spent over £50, which I never do, unless it's Christmas, so for me, £10. It would have been cheaper in town, but I wasn't about to go back.

I got home, did some housework, had lunch, like I was putting off the moment, prolonging the anticipation, but settled down to read about 2pm. Shortly after starting I got a text from Dean, which seemed to be giving me a couple of spoilers. Nooooo. I hardly dare read any more texts. And there I sat, for hours. I broke off about two thirds of the way through to watch a film, partly, I think, to prolong the experience.

I finally finished it about 12.30am. I have a bit of a headache this morning. I loved it.

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Friday, July 13, 2007

What a difference a week makes

Last week I was in a beautiful country house hotel. It’s a life I could get used to. This week I’m in the Express by Holiday Inn in a less than salubrious area of Stevenage. If there is a salubrious area, I have yet to find it. I tell myself that it’s the times like this that pay for the ‘Kilworths’ in my life.

The first difference I notice is the coat hangers. Kilworth had proper coat hangers, not those without hooks so you can’t pinch them. And the tea and coffee cups were Royal Worcester. It’s the little things that matter you see. And I didn’t have to leave my car in Matalan’s car park!

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Bowing to the inevitable

A week ago, I just about knew what Facebook was. I've resisted MySpace all these months (mainly because it takes so blooming long for most people's pages to load on my computer that I get bored and give up), but when Cat invited me to join, I succumbed.

I then discovered that Corinne had also become addicted. Dean said he wouldn't but he has. So now I'm sitting there on a night attaching stuff when I should really go to bed because I have to be up at 6.30am. There's no hope really. But have patience, for you know I'm slow at this sort of thing.

Mind you, as I can't get many of my contemporaries to even switch their mobile phones on, I doubt very much I'll be persuading them to join in with this.

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Sunday, July 08, 2007

The Handbag Walks, Part 6

You might have noticed that the walking has tailed off recently. Blame the weather, and work, rather than any lack of commitment. So we decided on a walk yesterday. As it was a Saturday we were joined by V’s husband, K, who was designated ‘honorary handbag walker’ for the day. Well he had his HUGE camera bag, so that was a good substitute.

This was to be a town walk, from Acomb to Dringhouses and back. Hob Moor was mentioned, but it never occurred to me that we would be going ‘off road’, so, ignoring all the wet weather we’ve been having, I set off wearing my sandals.

All goes well until we enter the Moor. The only tarmac-ed path doesn’t go in the direction that we want to go, so, once again, it’s time to strike unerringly across the grass. I have been here before! K very kindly reminds me that, whilst he’s carried me in the past, he isn’t about to do so now. We haven’t gone far before it gets soggy underfoot, and mud squelches into one sandal. I squeal. I continue to pick my way across the grass, muttering.

We reach a tunnel under the railway. It’s full of water, and we’re picking our way, when K gets his camera out. After that it’s clear going as we head up to the racecourse, and we emerge near the site of the Tyburn where Dick Turpin was hanged. We walk down the road to the first garden, and tea and bikkies.

When it’s time to move on, there’s a suggestion that we walk across the racecourse rather than along the road. This is fine on the top of the hill, but as we reach the bottom I start to squeal again. It’s waterlogged. It looks impossible to pick our way and remain even vaguely dry, until it’s suggested that it’s drier over the fence, actually on the racecourse. We’re climbing over, when the camera comes out again. By this point, I’ve given up, and my shoes and feet are very wet and muddy. V has fared worse than me as she’s wearing white shoes with holes in, and now has muddy patterns on her socks. J, as always, has the most sensible shoes of the three of us. There are lots of comments about three fillies approaching the 10 furlong marker.

We reach the garden, and apologise for the muddy trail. There are more tea and cakes, and second hand books. Ooh, shopping, that’s another of our essentials ticked then.

Eventually we head back. There’s a suggestion that we go back across the Moor, but we’ve dried out, so we stick to the road this time. We watch a bit of cricket as we pass the ground, and having worked up an appetite, we also call for a Chinese takaway on the way back. And very nice it is too. We ask K what he thinks of handbag walking, and he admits that he quite likes it.

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Saturday, July 07, 2007

Sheep on my pillow

It is a truth, universally* acknowledged, that, place me in something resembling a stately home, and I will start to behave as though I’m in a BBC costume drama, and leave all sense of reality behind. So I was in my element at Kilworth House Hotel. As we sat in the Davies** Room drinking afternoon tea, I launched into my best faux posh voice, and sounded, according to Cat, like someone out of Oscar Wilde.

It is a fab place. Recently restored and redeveloped, and it has a theatre in its grounds. In my world, if I had money, I’d build a theatre in my garden too. Just imagine…

We’d booked a package which included dinner, bed, breakfast and theatre ticket, and it was wonderfully civilised as they took interval drinks orders during dinner. It was slightly less impressive when our drinks failed to materialise in the interval, but we forgave them as they’re new.

We returned to our room between dinner and the show, to find they had turned the beds down, and I had a sheep on my pillow***.

The weather was as good as we’ve had this summer, i.e. rubbish. So much so that there was a little golf buggy to ferry guests down to the theatre. We’d dressed for the occasion, rather than the weather, which meant I was frequently extracting the heels of my shoes from the cracks between the paving slabs, and the gaps in the boardwalk to the theatre, and that my not so tiny hands were frozen by the end of the show. But this was all about the experience, and I wasn’t about to let little things like wind and rain stop me dressing up.

They’d also built a log cabin in the grounds, which served as post show bar. Bizarrely it looked like it belonged in Heidi, and was like an après ski lodge – we felt we should have been drinking gluwein rather than Pimms (but as it was free, we were hardly going to turn it down!)

As we wandered back up the hill to the house (no buggy this time, as we’d pretty much seen everyone else out of the bar), it had stopped raining, and although the ground was soggy, the lights were on, and the wind rustled through the trees, and there was just a little bit of that theatre magic in the air. It’s not a bad life.

*By this, I mean in the universe inhabited by anyone who knows me
**All the function rooms, and suites are named after writers, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Goldsmith, Dickens, Sheridan (yes, there was a Byron Room, too!) So, just who is Davies?
***A small fluffy one. of course.

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ND telepathy

'I remember...what was his name...saying'
'Rodger'
'So, we don't need to have this conversation then'
'No'

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Monday, July 02, 2007

Alone Again


Spoiler alert for Last of the Time Lords

I was told last week by Director Boy* that my blog sometimes can’t be read because I talk about Doctor Who, but I did point out that I always start with a spoiler notice. So, there it is, be warned.

And so, the series has come to an end, and I’m trying to reflect on what I thought about the three part finale.

The good – a wonderfully manic performance from John Simm as a deranged Master, Martha Jones saving the world with a word – and didn’t that just hark back to The Shakespeare Code! DT breaking his heart over the one person whose death would leave him truly alone once again. Lucy Saxon – there seemed to be such a lot going on in that relationship that couldn’t be developed in a ‘family’ show. The fact that some very clever plot points had been littered throughout the series and finally made sense. I love it when a show trusts the intelligence of its audience.

It seemed fitting at the end that there should be a parting of the ways for the Doctor and Martha. She has a road to travel which is different to his, (and in my head, is going to hook up again with the dishy Dr Milligan).

The not so good – DT as a CGI character in a cage - though I could see why the idea of keeping the Doctor as a 'pet' appealed to the Master - and wasn't that just what the Doctor was going to do to him at the end? The contrived explanation at the end that Jack is the Face of Boe. I mean, really! I felt Jack was rather wasted in the final two episodes, after his great return in Utopia, but I'm looking forward to his return to Torchwood. After all, this time, he chosen to return to them, and has addressed his issues with the Doctor.
Overall, it hasn't been my favourite series of the three, but it's had some great high points. But it remains the best drama on tv, and, we still have DT's Doctor to look forward to.
How long is it till Christmas?

* He does have another name, but thanks to Corinne, this is how I think of him for blogging purposes.

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