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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 23, 2022 12:38:39 GMT
NT maybe possibly doing a football play from a very popular playwright who it’s surprising hasn’t had a play on at the NT in a very long time. I hope this is Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads? One of the best plays I've seen this year, I thought it was a shame it did not transfer from Chichester... No, a brand new play in development. Though I would love to see Sing Yer Heart Out at the NT as well.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 23, 2022 12:05:52 GMT
But its interesting that they don't go through staff like the Sussexs have in the last few years so it's hard to believe William is some raving aggressive psycho The Cambridges actually went through more staff than the Sussexes did within the same time period, it just didn’t get any press coverage. Many of the Sussex “staff exits” the tabloids made a hoo ha about weren’t even accurate: one major staffer announced her retirement before Meghan joined and agreed to postpone leaving to help Meghan settle in, but the press still implied Meghan drove her out. Two Sussex staffers who “quit” their existing jobs did so because H&M offered them new more senior roles. And the night nanny was only ever going to be a short term thing. The departure of Melissa Touabti (best friend of the infamous Jason Knauf) is shrouded in mystery and intrigue (allegations that she faked her CV - it’s hard to see why a nanny was hired to organise a royal wedding - allegations she was fired for gross misconduct, the fact she was then hired to be a live-in nanny for a billionaire Tory donor whose sister is a Daily Mail journalist, plus her involvement in Knauf’s own scandal). When they were first married Will and Kate had such high staff turnover the tabloids wrote loads of articles about how awful Kate was as a boss, how she was driving staff away, how Carole ruled the household with an iron fist, how Kate and Carole ignored royal protocol. Are people forgetting that? I actually don’t think staff turnover means anything; royals always have crazy high staff turnover because they’re famous for paying very little (the assumption being you work there for the kudos of being around royalty and because it looks good on your CV) and it’s the culture for more minor staff to put in a year or two then use it to leverage their way into a high paid position elsewhere. And there’s always staff change when the head of the household marries or moves. However Kate’s former right hand woman ran to the Daily Mail a few years ago to complain that she’d been fired while on her honeymoon “, with lots of comments about how many “sacrifices” she’d had to make for Kate. Recently Kate’s press secretary left and there are a lot of rumours they had to give her a big settlement for unfair dismissal (she was let go while pregnant). Funny how the press devote little coverage to that but acres of newsprint to “retired woman goes through with retirement.”
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 23, 2022 11:38:03 GMT
NT maybe possibly doing a football play from a very popular playwright who it’s surprising hasn’t had a play on at the NT in a very long time.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 21, 2022 0:41:04 GMT
Oh I have no doubt they’ll continue doing community work, and I have no issue with community work, just not this gimmick of shoving amateur actors into professional productions. The Bush Theatre is a wonderful example of community theatre done well and with proper care. The Young Vic has woven community engagement into some of their professional shows but most of their community work is devised plays with specific groups (they did one with sex workers on the history of the world’s oldest profession,, and one with people from both the Irish Traveller and Romany Traveller communities). That’s so much more enjoyable and effective to both audiences and participants than getting some random am-dram members to deliver a bit of Shakespeare.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 20, 2022 13:11:03 GMT
My hope is that all the action over Hampstead Theatre is effective and they’re not forced to become purely a receiving house.
Also that the new RSC ADs start to programme interesting and high quality plays and not all this gimmicky community stuff.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 19, 2022 14:33:30 GMT
Kind of really want to see it now but not at £50 for the cheapest seats.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 19, 2022 12:57:14 GMT
Yes, I agree with this. It’s stupid the amount of research you have to do to be able to even understand how the show functions because who would even think they’d need to do that? I couldn’t find Mycenae my first trip at all even though I was looking for it.
Fwiw the show loops three times with the finale at the end of the third loop, though Hades and Persephone (who you saw - and I was most likely a pomegranate) only do the second and third loop. I wouldn’t know any of this if not for Punchdrunk Facebook groups.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 17, 2022 11:50:38 GMT
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 16, 2022 15:04:27 GMT
Both the Royals and the Markles “sold out” their family over and over again for years before Harry and Meghan ever said a single word. He's lucky to live in a household where no one continues to be under investigation for the bullying of numerous staff:
Also, I just to be clear that no one in my family has ever shouted at me and I have never shouted at anyone I am related to. That sort of thing does not happen in good families.
eta: Update: 3.2/10 on IMDB - H&M inching ahead of The Kardashians as the third worst reality TV show evah (!)
That was made up by Jason Knauf, and all the people he alleged were bullying victims asked him to retract it. Not one person is on the record as saying “Meghan bullied me” when they certainly would earn a fortune from the tabloids and the eternal good will of the Royals for doing so (Knauf got a plum CEO role with no experience as reward for helping sabotage Meghan). The alleged bullying is weaselly-worded stuff like “undermining” or “sent emails outside working hours”. On the flip-side, where’s the investigation into the many many accounts that Andrew is physically and verbally abusive to staff? The time Prince Charles’ former valet went on record as saying Charles was physically abusive and had one choked him? And please remember this is an old tactic we’ve seen before. In the 80s there were tabloid articles claiming Diana bullied and was a nightmare to staff. When Will and Kate were early married the tabloids wrote articles claiming Kate and her mother were nightmares to work for, that they refused to abide by protocol, and claiming the reason the Cambridge household had such huge staff turnover (which they did have higher staff turnover than the Sussexes, and still to) was because Kate was a nightmare. Only a couple of years ago one of Kate’s main staffers did an “a friend says” interview with the Daily Mail claiming Kate was an awful boss who fired the staffer while she was on her honeymoon. No one who’s worked for Meghan has done that. In terms of family, Meghan appears to be close or at least on good terms with her mother’s family, and her paternal nieces. The only people she’s publicly on bad terms with are her father (faked a heart attack and stroke, all his children disowned him, repeatedly sold out his daughter and spent years harassing and threatening his own daughter for money) and her half-sister she barely knew (pathological liar, runs a hundred Meghan hate accounts, found guilty of child abuse in court, faked a car crash, disowned by all her children, her own daughter said she’s an abusive racist).
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Hex - NT
Dec 15, 2022 19:42:03 GMT
via mobile
Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 15, 2022 19:42:03 GMT
The special HEX Cocktail that the Kerb bar created for the show is great! 5 stars!
(Not going to see the show.)
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 14, 2022 23:37:59 GMT
She’s well within her rights but it’s blatantly nothing to do with privacy, since they’re happy to trot the kids out at every opportunity. It’s about money and playing silly power games with the press with the poor children as pawns.
Both William and Harry seem so damaged by what the press did to their mother, but the royals survive due to the unspoken agreement. Where will it end?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 14, 2022 15:28:02 GMT
Yes, what Kathryn said. Nothing wrong with wanting to take pics of your kids of course, it’s sweet. But it’s been framed by Kensington Palace’s PR department as “Kate the talented hobbyist photographer” when it’s about money.
I’m ideologically against the tabloid press so on one hand good for her for denying the press and paps money earned from exploiting children. But it’s a bad tactic because it’s caused a lot of resentment from the very people who control how the royals are perceived. Between this and the many incidences of KP controlling, censoring and threatening the press, they’ve lost good will from the people they rely on.
One pap ranted on Twitter about how he’d never forgive Meghan for leaving the UK because he was planning to put his kids through private school and retire on the money he’d make off photographing Archie, and she left completely. Will and Kate are obviously happy for their kids to be in the public eye just as long as the money’s going into their pocket - don’t they have enough money?
I think the stuff Harry’s saying will be vindicated when Charlotte and George are old enough to take their position as Designated Scapegoat. I would bet money we’ll see “Royals concerned over bad behaviour of wild child party girl Charlotte” headlines by the time she’s 16, exactly the same as they did to Harry, to Andrew, to Margaret. Will Charlotte and George accept that it’s their role in life to prop up their brother, or will they follow their uncle and decide they’re allowed to choose their own life path?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 14, 2022 14:55:17 GMT
Top 5:
1. Tammy Faye. 2. All of Us (NT) 3. All’s Well That Ends Well (RSC) 4. Our Generation (NT) 5. Prima Facie
Worst: Straight Line Crazy (Bridge) Middle (NT) The Breach (Hampstead) Jack Absolute Flies Again (NT) Mad House
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 14, 2022 14:50:33 GMT
I haven’t watched because I thought it was probably going to be a bit boring and mainly about how much they love each other. Which is sweet, but not very interesting.
But if they’re ready to actually spill dirt then I might have to tune in! There’s so much scandal on both Charles and William that’s been hushed up and kept out of the press. The real problem with the royals is that the Queen and the tremendous respect she held kept the entire system in place, especially in terms of press control, is no longer. Charles knows how to play the press but William is not liked by the press, and has been open about having an aggressive approach to his media coverage. The thing with Kate’s photography is another example of money-making that could rebound against them (as it did with Meghan, though Meghan was a different situation).
Looking at how the press are already creating personas for the Cambridge children and writing negative coverage of the younger two in order to prop up the heir, what on earth position will they be in in 20 years, when all the other working royals are dead or elderly, and it’s all resting on William and children who’ve grown up in a much more hostile media/social media landscape than any royal before? When the children are old enough to feel the full force of the press, and resent it?
I do wonder if Harry and Meghan will fade into obscurity (or settle into the “California socialites who do charity work” lifestyle or if they’ll continue to be a thorn in the royal side. I don’t see them ever returning.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 10, 2022 21:42:58 GMT
Trans women are over 4x more likely to experience violence than cis women. Go to the bathroom. Sit in the stall. Do your business. Wash your hands. Get on with your day. The bigotry is repugnant. Banning trans women from ladies rooms (which is exactly what the rush towards gender neutral does) isn’t exactly reducing violence and bigotry towards trans women. Rates of sexual and physical assault are massively higher in gender neutral bathrooms than in single gender ones.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 10, 2022 16:39:22 GMT
I know absolutely nothing about Into the Woods, and I definitely don’t think anyone is lying. MrBarnaby is a very reliable and trustworthy poster.
But I’ve seen some cowpoo on this forum in the past about shows I’ve actually worked on. Theatre is a very gossipy industry and sometimes situations arise when everyone in the industry is passing a piece of gossip or a received wisdom around that isn’t entirely accurate. I know I’ve shared gossip here before that turned out to be wrong. Unless someone works on a show and are in the production meetings, it’s gossip - with different degrees of reliability, but still broadly gossip.
Still, without gossip this forum would be pretty boring!
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 10, 2022 15:52:34 GMT
Sondheim’s Old Friends is on 31st December at 5.35pm (per Carl Woodward on Twitter).
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 10, 2022 11:17:04 GMT
Shall we have a thread to share any theatre-y stuff on TV over the festive season? Or just what festive TV we’re excited for in general?
The lack of a Doctor Who special will be a huge hole in my Christmas Day.
Looking forward to seeing Mark Gatiss’ “A Christmas Carol Ghost Story” on BBC4 (filmed stage version). Sky Arts are usually good for a few theatre things but haven’t announced any yet.
And James Graham on the Christmas University Challenge.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 10, 2022 10:06:06 GMT
Cast recording looking likely. Recording end of Jan. thrilled! Correct. 😀
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 10, 2022 10:05:22 GMT
'new writing' seems to cover quite a spread, perhaps esp. for funding purposes. I noticed this work at Hampstead was given the nod (at least to workshopping) on the basis of a one-page synopsis from someone who'd had a work performed before. Contrast that with, say, The Bush who are currently calling for full script submissions from new writers. One of them is a serious, dedicated commitment of time and resources. I’m not exactly disagreeing, but most theatres do that - have open script windows to find and engage with new talent, but commission based on who they already have relationships with. Hampstead do a full script submission every year too, and the Bush have also commissioned plays on the basis of a short pitch. That’s fairly standard. Having said that Hampstead is pretty much in free fall right now. Everyone’s quitting, commissioned work is on pause, no one knows what’s happening. Hi There’s a big industry open letter coming out soon in support of new writing at Hampstead.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 10, 2022 9:58:32 GMT
I went into a unisex toilet the other day (the only one available, and marked solely as unisex) and there was a urinal directly by the door at right angles to the door. If the urinal had been in use, and a child entered, they’d basically get a dick in the face. I don’t think little girls should have naked penises right in front of their faces without warning. Or adult women for that matter.
Besides it seems like the rush to unisex is just a way to keep transwomen out of women’s toilets. Not very “woke” is it?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 9, 2022 13:19:47 GMT
The “inconsistencies” that people bang on about endlessly are stuff like Harry and Meghan referring to their non-legal private vow exchange as “getting married” (lots of people do the legal bit separate) - who cares what they emotionally consider their wedding when it doesn’t affect anyone else? Or Meghan being accused of lying that she didn’t know much about Harry just because she took a photo outside Buckingham Palace as a teenager.
The don’t live here and our taxes don’t pay for them so I just don’t understand why anyone other than fans would pay them the slightest bit of attention, when the actual royals take so much money, have so much political and media influence, and are a thousand times bigger liars and engage in such shocking degrees of corruption.
I care about Andrew raping trafficked teenagers.
I care about William threatening a journalist with false arrest to cover up his secret political meetings.
I care about William and Kate creating a PR charity to fund parties and jollies for themselves and hosting award ceremonies where the winners aren’t allowed to attend, but celebs get flown in from all over the world just to give Will and Kate a very expensive, charity-funded PR op.
I care about Charles accepting briefcases and Tesco carrier bags full of cash from despots and arms dealers linked to human rights abuse.
I care about William and Kate giving their CEO position to the best friend of a tabloid journalist who no only has zero qualifications or experience but has a long history of underhand behaviour, leaking to the press, and all manner or corruption and gross misconduct.
I care about blood royals illegally exploiting the Royal name for commercial endeavours without anyone blinking.
I care about the blatant lies, hypocrisy and corruption. The astounding level of racism. The extreme control of the press. The complete lack of accountability.
I don’t care that some random American celebrity considers a vow exchange to be her wedding when it wasn’t the legally binding ceremony.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 8, 2022 19:34:13 GMT
Twitter is absolutely deluged with women tweeting, “I’ve voted for Gary Barlow 87 times!! Keep voting girls, we have to get our Gary a win!”
I make no editorial comment on this.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 8, 2022 19:21:42 GMT
To be fair, one could just as easily and just as accurately say “Does SamuelWhiskers have a defend Meghan klaxon that goes off whenever anyone disses her.” Obviously there are very different opinions on the Royals here but that’s fine, it’s all just opinion.
To change the subject, I’m disappointed the “collaborative” stage play Mike Bartlett was working on about Harry and Meghan didn’t come to anything. KC3 was so spookily prescient, what could he make from the current situation?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 8, 2022 16:31:02 GMT
I had to restrain myself from nicking something tiny from Burnt City - the nature of the set would make it so easy!
I may or may not have made plans to give a home to Tammy Faye’s sequin jacket should the show update their costumes in the future.
If Crabtree is having Joey then I would like a goose, please.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 8, 2022 16:25:49 GMT
I reckon Tammy Faye, Good and Prime Facie will sweep it.
Interesting that David Tennant and Jodie Comer are up against each other.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 8, 2022 16:24:46 GMT
I don’t exactly disagree because they do feel very celeb- and PR-driven, but there are Neo Nazi terrorists in prison here in England right now for talking about killing Harry for being a race traitor. (Their conviction got almost no press coverage, which is pretty shocking considering how many random everyday things Meghan did became headline news.) They are a major, major terrorism target, stoked by the insane press war against them. I mean Archie had credible death threats when he was a newborn, Meghan got sent suspected anthrax.
Did you see the statement the Met Police former counter-terrorism chief recently made about them?
They clearly need security, it’s not some status symbol. The kind of security they need is expensive. I’d do a tacky Netflix show too if if was the only way to ensure my baby wasn’t murdered by Neo Nazis.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 8, 2022 12:04:05 GMT
The BRF lie and censor/threaten the press a million times more than Harry and Meghan. The lies they tell and the utter corruption and gaslighting on a national scale with the support of a biased and controlled press is not even in the same league as two individuals doing their own podcast and streaming show.
The way the BRF abused and exploited Harry and Meghan is off the charts evil. The Jason Knauf scandal alone should be front page stuff, especially in light of the C4 press censorship and false arrest issue. Even the recent scandals with William’s godmother - it’s not just her racism, but the fact the BRF instantly fired an 80 something member of their own family after 60 years of service just to counter bad press. Those people are utterly ruthless.
Even the disaster of Will and Kate’s current US tour and all the scandal and naked self serving nature of Earth prize doesn’t get 1/100 the salivating press coverage that “Meghan Markle wears nail varnish/eats avocados/breathes” got.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 8, 2022 10:57:06 GMT
Being a disgrace to the BRF (the most vile grifters on the planet) is rather a case of water finding its own level.
The whole family is utter trash.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 7, 2022 22:05:14 GMT
Can only be a matter of time, surely? Like we wouldn’t all be there in a heartbeat. Going back to what was said unthread: the actual ghost of Cheggers (a la Blithe Spirit) would be an amazing casting coup. Probably a bit of a headache contracts-wise.
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