That in-between time from Boxing Day to New Year's Day: Twixtmas. At least as our pleasant, peaceful, comfortable and quiet hotel would have it, where we have spent a most enjoyable, relaxing, rather pampered Christmas.
Now to travel back to London and already we are preparing our New Year's List of to-do resolutions. Many involving house re-decoration; clearing unwanted wardrobe and household items; planting those fifty Ladies of the Night tulips which somehow never got planted; mending that broken hanging basket dislodged in the recent storm; repairing the garden wall and rethinking the overall front look; as well as completing the first draft of the next thesis chapter, finishing the practice-as-research verse drama and, ultimately, finishing the second practice-as-research prose drama; arranging read-throughs of both and then preparing for the scheduled performance of the first in July 2014; finalising my ten minute presentation for January 8th's international symposium, Sacred and Secular, and - generally - trying to eat less and lose weight. And not necessarily in that order.
Twixtmas: a period of transition and germination.
Friday 27 December 2013
Sunday 22 December 2013
Tuscan Delights
Last night a lovely celebratory meal at what seems to have become a family reunion in London just before Christmas with my brother who lives in Bangkok. It's his Christmas present to us. We always have a meal, this time with my eldest son and his family. Last year, we were at Tom's Kitchen. Not impressive at all although the staff were great with the kids. Did not much enjoy my mint-suffocated fish pie or my gloopy, blow-torched lemon meringue. Why can't restaurants of this calibre make a decent lemon meringue pie?
This year we were at La Famiglia in Chelsea and the meal was much better. Staff were again great with the two grand-children although the youngest fell asleep all the way through. Food was of the Tuscan variety: delicious fish dishes, tasty sauces and mouth watering vegetables. Lovely light Gavi wine and tempting desserts from the trolley. When did we last see a dessert trolley?
The restaurant itself is family-run and like stepping into a Tuscan eating-place in the centre of London.We couldn't eat such food everyday, mind you. The richness of the ingredients allied with a liberal use of garlic and extra-virgin olive oil would be too much for palates more than content with home-made shepherd's pie, steak and kidney pudding, roast lamb and mint sauce, not to mention Irish stew and any variety of casserole, especially in these winter months. We did buy the cook-book, however, and look forward to using it.
La Famiglia stirred memories of those sultry Italian afternoons in Rome or Venice, with the occasional excursion into Tuscania, and late summer evenings spent drinking ice-cold prosecco in St Mark's Square, listening to that lively melodious band on the platform outside Florian's.
This year we were at La Famiglia in Chelsea and the meal was much better. Staff were again great with the two grand-children although the youngest fell asleep all the way through. Food was of the Tuscan variety: delicious fish dishes, tasty sauces and mouth watering vegetables. Lovely light Gavi wine and tempting desserts from the trolley. When did we last see a dessert trolley?
The restaurant itself is family-run and like stepping into a Tuscan eating-place in the centre of London.We couldn't eat such food everyday, mind you. The richness of the ingredients allied with a liberal use of garlic and extra-virgin olive oil would be too much for palates more than content with home-made shepherd's pie, steak and kidney pudding, roast lamb and mint sauce, not to mention Irish stew and any variety of casserole, especially in these winter months. We did buy the cook-book, however, and look forward to using it.
La Famiglia stirred memories of those sultry Italian afternoons in Rome or Venice, with the occasional excursion into Tuscania, and late summer evenings spent drinking ice-cold prosecco in St Mark's Square, listening to that lively melodious band on the platform outside Florian's.
Friday 20 December 2013
A Christmas Carol
Watching Guy Retallack's affecting one act version of Charles Dickens's story at the Bridge House (Fringe) Theatre in Penge, I was given to thinking how such nineteenth-century stories become timeless over the years and appeal to such a broad section of people. They are popular the world over. Scrooge is not simply a British Victorian archetype, he (or she) figures in most cultures, can be understood as emblematic of many societies.
I was reminded of the world appeal of such stories when I visited Haworth parsonage in Yorkshire a couple of years ago. Home to the Bronte sisters, the house backs on to a graveyard which could have been a Hammer Horror film set. Especially on a misty, cold, wet, dark November afternoon. The lady who served me in the tourist shop was Japanese and had developed a love of Wuthering Heights when she first read it in Tokyo as a child. Her life's mission was to travel to Yorkshire and live as close to the story's source as possible. From that story she gained an indescribable sense of personal valorisation. Here she is now, twenty years later, smiling sweetly and selling me a guide to Haworth.
The Penge production of A Christmas Carol - professional, well-acted, expertly directed - is one of millions produced over the years the world over. There is something ultimately very moving and thought-provoking about its ability to stir profound emotion and make us reflect of the mean-ness of mankind and its redemptive opportunities. But the Scrooge we remember is not the redeemed transformed person: it is the selfish, inward-looking miser who alienates himself gradually from life itself until life, in its more powerful forms, literally comes back to haunt him. It is the memory of this Scrooge which fuels our imaginations and ensures the survival of this ever-new, ever-engaging fable.
I was reminded of the world appeal of such stories when I visited Haworth parsonage in Yorkshire a couple of years ago. Home to the Bronte sisters, the house backs on to a graveyard which could have been a Hammer Horror film set. Especially on a misty, cold, wet, dark November afternoon. The lady who served me in the tourist shop was Japanese and had developed a love of Wuthering Heights when she first read it in Tokyo as a child. Her life's mission was to travel to Yorkshire and live as close to the story's source as possible. From that story she gained an indescribable sense of personal valorisation. Here she is now, twenty years later, smiling sweetly and selling me a guide to Haworth.
The Penge production of A Christmas Carol - professional, well-acted, expertly directed - is one of millions produced over the years the world over. There is something ultimately very moving and thought-provoking about its ability to stir profound emotion and make us reflect of the mean-ness of mankind and its redemptive opportunities. But the Scrooge we remember is not the redeemed transformed person: it is the selfish, inward-looking miser who alienates himself gradually from life itself until life, in its more powerful forms, literally comes back to haunt him. It is the memory of this Scrooge which fuels our imaginations and ensures the survival of this ever-new, ever-engaging fable.
Wednesday 18 December 2013
The Waiting Game
In this lead up to Christmas, liturgically the season of Advent, waiting becomes even more affecting and thought-provoking. I am waiting for news of this, of that. Communication becomes complicated, especially when three or four parties are involved. Decisions are slowly reached until a consensus of all views is negotiated. As each revelation becomes a fixed arrangement, the process of waiting becomes dense and implicatory.
I am looking forward to presenting at the Sacred and Secular Symposium in January but am waiting to hear if I have been successful regarding the Missing Performance Symposium at a later date elsewhere. And then there may be the further waiting to see how each presentation is received...
My review of the extraordinary and very funny Peter Pan Goes Wrong has been published on the One Stop Arts site and quoted by the Pleasance Theatre but One Stop Arts itself is, as an online site, becoming defunct from January 2nd, 2014. So no more waiting there for review submissions to be uploaded...
It is like waiting for inspiration. As a creative writer, I value Jung's concept of the unconscious mind's ability, in self-regulatory mode, to work out the creative answers to most of life's problems. Don't be in a hurry, wait and see... It will all come out right in the end. Even if it doesn't - or does, but not as you expected - at least the element of surprise might be revelatory enough.
I am looking forward to presenting at the Sacred and Secular Symposium in January but am waiting to hear if I have been successful regarding the Missing Performance Symposium at a later date elsewhere. And then there may be the further waiting to see how each presentation is received...
My review of the extraordinary and very funny Peter Pan Goes Wrong has been published on the One Stop Arts site and quoted by the Pleasance Theatre but One Stop Arts itself is, as an online site, becoming defunct from January 2nd, 2014. So no more waiting there for review submissions to be uploaded...
It is like waiting for inspiration. As a creative writer, I value Jung's concept of the unconscious mind's ability, in self-regulatory mode, to work out the creative answers to most of life's problems. Don't be in a hurry, wait and see... It will all come out right in the end. Even if it doesn't - or does, but not as you expected - at least the element of surprise might be revelatory enough.
Wednesday 4 December 2013
Pennies from Heaven
Delighted to report that I have the first (small) tranche of funding for my practice-as-research play, scheduled to be performed at Goldsmiths in July. And a director, too. And a choreographer, possibly.
The money was awarded from Goldsmith's Graduate School Fund and very grateful I am. Now to look for further small donations to add to the fund...
The cost of a gun hired from Bapty costs about £50.00 upwards. And I don't want actors, technicians and the director to work for nothing. Although it's a university project, I know they'll be doing it for love as much as anything else. As indeed am I. So every little helps to stage what I hope will be a really exciting production. It's based on a notorious British murder case, but will reveal more about that later.
Meanwhile we'll be looking for a male child actor (playing age: ten years) to play a pivotal role. And a female twenty-something actor to play the protagonist. Oh, and the play's in verse.
The money was awarded from Goldsmith's Graduate School Fund and very grateful I am. Now to look for further small donations to add to the fund...
The cost of a gun hired from Bapty costs about £50.00 upwards. And I don't want actors, technicians and the director to work for nothing. Although it's a university project, I know they'll be doing it for love as much as anything else. As indeed am I. So every little helps to stage what I hope will be a really exciting production. It's based on a notorious British murder case, but will reveal more about that later.
Meanwhile we'll be looking for a male child actor (playing age: ten years) to play a pivotal role. And a female twenty-something actor to play the protagonist. Oh, and the play's in verse.
That Certain Feeling
Yesterday, while in a queue waiting to be served at a trendy Pets Parlour in Gloucester Road, the lady in front of me, with her young daughter, said. 'Let the young man be served first while we make up our mind.' The fact that I am almost seventy seemed to go unrecognised.
That certain feeling of not knowing if the woman was being mildly sarcastic or perfectly sincere took hold of me for a second or two. Smiling, I said thank you and moved forward to be served. I find this ambivalence about age typical of London: either I'm being addressed as 'young man' or I'm being offered seats on the tube by twenty year olds because 'You look as if you need it, sir'. Kindness and thoughtfulness rule the day in London, I find frequently. In Devon, I get asked to show my passport by suspicious bus drivers before they let me use my Freedom pass.
That certain feeling of not knowing if the woman was being mildly sarcastic or perfectly sincere took hold of me for a second or two. Smiling, I said thank you and moved forward to be served. I find this ambivalence about age typical of London: either I'm being addressed as 'young man' or I'm being offered seats on the tube by twenty year olds because 'You look as if you need it, sir'. Kindness and thoughtfulness rule the day in London, I find frequently. In Devon, I get asked to show my passport by suspicious bus drivers before they let me use my Freedom pass.
Tuesday 3 December 2013
Favourite Off West End Theatres
Not wishing to retread an article I wrote for One Stop Arts explaining my favourite Off West End Theatres, I'd like to pose the question: Is the excellent Jermyn Street Theatre Off West End, West End or something in between? I could not make up my mind about this as I have seen and heard it described as both. All the productions I have seen there have been very good. So I did not include it in my survey.
I would vote for The Print Room anyway as the most enterprising and consistently good Off West End venue, even if I was not bowled over by their recent offering Amygdala, performed in their cramped balcony space. But Arthur Miller's The Last Yankee and Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, given in their main auditorium, were superb productions of two classics of twentieth century drama. Both plays revealed a topicality and societal relevance which perhaps the writers could not have foreseen.
That The Print Room, like other Off West End venues such as the White Bear, Old Red Lion, Brockley Jack and Riverside Studios, is prepared to take risks with new work is commendable.
Finding the Right Words...
Reviewing theatre as I do for One Stop Arts and What's Peen Seen, I have become more aware of how difficult it is to assess a performance, particularly of new work, which is technically brilliant, very well acted and directed but is essentially an unconvincing, predictable piece of writing.
I had this problem with Coward which premiered at Kennington's White Bear Theatre recently and, lately, with Amygdala at the Print Room's Balcony. Both plays were beautifully performed and directed, with great technical support. But, for me, their plots were predictable, with a lack of dramatic surprise. At the risk of seeming mean I decide to go with my honest response to how the play strikes me at first viewing.
Of course, even with this honesty of response, one can often be proved very wrong. And if that it is the case, so be it and good luck to the writers!
I had this problem with Coward which premiered at Kennington's White Bear Theatre recently and, lately, with Amygdala at the Print Room's Balcony. Both plays were beautifully performed and directed, with great technical support. But, for me, their plots were predictable, with a lack of dramatic surprise. At the risk of seeming mean I decide to go with my honest response to how the play strikes me at first viewing.
Of course, even with this honesty of response, one can often be proved very wrong. And if that it is the case, so be it and good luck to the writers!
Friday 3 May 2013
Deadlines
Well, the last of the six workshops went off very well in the George Wood Theatre. A really talented cast (all ten of them!) and director. It was wonderful to see the play come alive on a real stage, with lighting doing its magical alchemy.
We videoed three sequences to be transferred to DVD as evidence of the process. Aim now: to finish the first draft of both acts by early September and workshop the whole play next academic year culminating with a performance of some kind.
As a new verse drama it fared well onstage and demonstrated some of the theories I am using in my thesis.
We videoed three sequences to be transferred to DVD as evidence of the process. Aim now: to finish the first draft of both acts by early September and workshop the whole play next academic year culminating with a performance of some kind.
As a new verse drama it fared well onstage and demonstrated some of the theories I am using in my thesis.
Tuesday 2 April 2013
Lost books
Do you ever, like me, mislay books which you have been reading avidly, even perhaps need for ongoing research? Every so often they seem to magic themselves away... James Hillman's Re-Visioning Psychology is the latest book to mysteriously disappear. It seems to be nowhere in the house. Did I leave it on a train? On a bus? In a cafe? What would Jung have made of this? Probably that I'm not meant to be reading it as keenly as I thought?
The good news is that I've finished redrafting the Eliot chapter so don't need it anyway at the moment, but perhaps when I come on to write the Sarah Kane....?
But, hey, April's here and the sun is illuminating the blue sky like a blank computer screen. Anything is possible. Even, perhaps, the book turning up literally out of the blue.
The good news is that I've finished redrafting the Eliot chapter so don't need it anyway at the moment, but perhaps when I come on to write the Sarah Kane....?
But, hey, April's here and the sun is illuminating the blue sky like a blank computer screen. Anything is possible. Even, perhaps, the book turning up literally out of the blue.
Sunday 17 March 2013
Creativity and Insights
Writing up the workshop logs of my play. Always far more happened than can possibly be recorded but, on the whole, there are positive feelings and hopefulness about it. Add in excitement and fascination and that just about motivates me further to finish the work by the beginning of summer.
Reassuring to see so much interest from the actors, as if they are willing me on to finish on time.
Discovered James Hillman, not before time as his archetypal psychology complements much of what I had written already regarding spirituality in the text of plays. With one major difference... But this is for me to work out and present later.
Wasn't the BBC's The Lady Vanishes a complete waste of time! I had expected much with the remake but it all seemed much ado about nothing. Flashy direction with hand-held cameras could not disguise the mediocrity of the script and the lack of ideas. Hitchcock knew a thing or two when he had several mini stories on the go at once, not to mention memorable set pieces - the writing on the window pane which fades suddenly - and the blessed comic relief of a very staid Charters and Caldicott to throw the whole hysterical one-note story into relief.
Reassuring to see so much interest from the actors, as if they are willing me on to finish on time.
Discovered James Hillman, not before time as his archetypal psychology complements much of what I had written already regarding spirituality in the text of plays. With one major difference... But this is for me to work out and present later.
Wasn't the BBC's The Lady Vanishes a complete waste of time! I had expected much with the remake but it all seemed much ado about nothing. Flashy direction with hand-held cameras could not disguise the mediocrity of the script and the lack of ideas. Hitchcock knew a thing or two when he had several mini stories on the go at once, not to mention memorable set pieces - the writing on the window pane which fades suddenly - and the blessed comic relief of a very staid Charters and Caldicott to throw the whole hysterical one-note story into relief.
Monday 11 March 2013
Faith and Podcasts
Looking forward to hearing the podcast of my presentation on T.S. Eliot. What will I sound like??
Really thought the production of Graham Greene's The Living Room at Jermyn Street Theatre was excellent. A rediscovered gem. Encapsulates so much of what was wrong with the Catholic church in 1950s Britain. No wonder the Second Vatican Council needed to open a window....
Looking forward to the brilliant Goldsmiths Plays event tomorrow which I've organised. We're 'house full' already and may have to turn people away, which will be a shame.
Really thought the production of Graham Greene's The Living Room at Jermyn Street Theatre was excellent. A rediscovered gem. Encapsulates so much of what was wrong with the Catholic church in 1950s Britain. No wonder the Second Vatican Council needed to open a window....
Looking forward to the brilliant Goldsmiths Plays event tomorrow which I've organised. We're 'house full' already and may have to turn people away, which will be a shame.
Saturday 9 March 2013
Presentations and New Plays
Presentation at Bodystorming went well and the whole enterprise seems exciting and forward-looking. A discussion to be continued!
Goldsmiths Plays all set for Tuesday.
Thursday: Encompass Productions in the persons of Jon Woodhouse and Rachel Owens visit as a PAL event to Studio 3 to talk to undergraduates about setting up a theatre company. Should be fun.
Goldsmiths Plays all set for Tuesday.
Thursday: Encompass Productions in the persons of Jon Woodhouse and Rachel Owens visit as a PAL event to Studio 3 to talk to undergraduates about setting up a theatre company. Should be fun.
Tuesday 5 March 2013
On Reviews and Reviews...
First academic book review published in Rhul's excellent Platform magazine. I feel in good company! (The launch at Bedford Square was a great time to catch up with old friends.) Funny thing is, once published the review seems to have a life of its own... Now preparing my second book review.
Wish I could have enjoyed Dorothy in Oz more at Waterloo East Theatre; and also A Strange Wild Song at The New Diorama. Had been looking forward to both; so somewhat disappointed. Read my reviews in Onestoparts.
The first four workshops of my play-in-progress went well. Two more to go!
Goldsmiths Plays are near finalisation. All should be well on the night of March 12th!
Preparing my ten minute presentation on bodily imagery in T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral for the Bodystorming event (part of the Centre of the Body series) on Saturday at Goldsmiths. Have already uploaded the abstract for my presentation on Eliot at the Graduate Festival in May.
Wish I could have enjoyed Dorothy in Oz more at Waterloo East Theatre; and also A Strange Wild Song at The New Diorama. Had been looking forward to both; so somewhat disappointed. Read my reviews in Onestoparts.
The first four workshops of my play-in-progress went well. Two more to go!
Goldsmiths Plays are near finalisation. All should be well on the night of March 12th!
Preparing my ten minute presentation on bodily imagery in T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral for the Bodystorming event (part of the Centre of the Body series) on Saturday at Goldsmiths. Have already uploaded the abstract for my presentation on Eliot at the Graduate Festival in May.
Saturday 23 February 2013
Welcome to my Blog!
Welcome to Christopher's View! Ongoing musings about theatre, creativity, academia and life in general...
Enjoyed The Mikado at the Tabard Theatre yesterday: youthful absurdity and tunefulness carried by a star performance by Ed Norwood. Also liked Emma Adams's inventive performance in her one woman show Freakoid but less entranced by the show itself.
Still reckon that The Bodyguard is one of the most enjoyable evenings out in the West End and that Quartermaine's Terms, with Rowan Atkinson's wonderful performance, is an object lesson in superlative ensemble acting and precision directing.
Overruled by George Bernard Shaw, presented by the Wilmington Players at the Old Red Lion in January, had some of the best acting I've seen in London. A highly enjoyable first production by this company with two star performances by newcomer Lucy Hough, just graduated from drama school. Flawless direction by Polina Kalinina. You don't have to go to the West End to see high quality theatre.
Enjoyed The Mikado at the Tabard Theatre yesterday: youthful absurdity and tunefulness carried by a star performance by Ed Norwood. Also liked Emma Adams's inventive performance in her one woman show Freakoid but less entranced by the show itself.
Still reckon that The Bodyguard is one of the most enjoyable evenings out in the West End and that Quartermaine's Terms, with Rowan Atkinson's wonderful performance, is an object lesson in superlative ensemble acting and precision directing.
Overruled by George Bernard Shaw, presented by the Wilmington Players at the Old Red Lion in January, had some of the best acting I've seen in London. A highly enjoyable first production by this company with two star performances by newcomer Lucy Hough, just graduated from drama school. Flawless direction by Polina Kalinina. You don't have to go to the West End to see high quality theatre.
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