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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 29, 2017 11:07:56 GMT
One story from many years of watching plays and autograph collecting was once at the Old Vic, I'd seen a play by Tom Stoppard and wanted the program signed by the cast. Whilst waiting I noticed someone approaching who looked rather like Sir Tom himself, to make sure I didn't make a fool of myself I glanced down at the program to Sir Tom's photo and up towards the approaching gentleman. Sir Tom had clocked what I was doing and said lightheartedly "Yes it is I, would you like me to sign it" I said "certainly great play, a real honour to meet you". He said £That's very kind" and went into the stage door. Once at TRH Rachel Sterling was either in a play and Phyllida Law (Emma Thompson's mum) was meeting her as a guest or it was the other way around, Someone had a Tipping the Velvet DVD for Rachel to sign which she did and then told us all about a website she had found with stills of the series on it in case anyone wanted "Some good stills as they have got some really filthy ones on there" She was quite series almost encouraging people to print these photos for her to sign. Phyllida who was in her mid 70's at the time then said I bet Emma is featured on there too almost boasting. I went through a phase when I would frequently encounter Stoppard on theatre visits. I began to think he was following me. From the look he gave me as we passed by each other at the Barbican on one of these occasions, he might have been thinking the same thing. Not that we ever exchanged any words on any of these occasions. Words were being very much exchanged the time I saw him in a very heated argument with a Big Issue seller late one night on Charing Cross Road.
Oh man, Rachael Stirling. I always liked her then fell in love after seeing her on Saturday Kitchen being adorably borderline-unhinged (I tend to be very attracted to that).
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 10, 2017 17:38:59 GMT
Re above. I am about to be a couple of metres away from AG. Off I go.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 10, 2017 17:11:01 GMT
I thought there was a thing now where you didn't have to do anything. Just show up, take your things, leave and your card is charged. Or you just think about buying something. Actually no that could be trouble.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 10, 2017 17:06:51 GMT
As above, the loud cougher at the Tempest Sat mat at the Barbican last weekend who did nothing to mask her rattling phlegmy racket, and waited to unleash a deafening lung-buster that reverberated around the stalls... during Prospero's closing speech.
Last night at The Play That, the entire family who edged in and out of stalls row G without a single sorry or thank you. Two kids included, so zero good-example points to those parents/guardians.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 10, 2017 15:37:58 GMT
Is his constantly shoutily exclamation-markily tweeting like an irate adolescent, accusing people of things he's done himself or is doing, also a form of diplomacy or sales technique?
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 10, 2017 14:44:36 GMT
Yesterday, told contract ending prematurely, with very nice compensation. Today, leisurely tour of Barbican sci-fi exhibition, now a decadent lunch with decent booze, later Angels part 2, tomorrow off to a remote Scottish island for 2 weeks. Life is good.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 9, 2017 7:57:24 GMT
One of my absolute favourite songs ever. A wonderful demonstration of how notes and chords can convey so much - the yearning in just the music of that song is so moving.
A great talent and very sad indeed to learn he has died. Not only was his final album fairly recent, it's not too long ago he did his final live shows.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 19:52:17 GMT
we'd all like to know exactly which part of a flush-mechanism you don't understand? I was enacting Arabic proverbs:
"Fish, and guests, stink after three days".
"A host is his guest's prisoner." I think you know full well it's the silver handle you probably still have in your suitcase. Have I accidentally wandered into the Mornington Crescent thread? Archway.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 16:26:12 GMT
Spring and summer are overrated. Autumn and winter are much better. Short days, getting dark at 4pm.... yes indeed, excellent stuff.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 16:24:40 GMT
And as for monkeys... they're not cute or funny. And nobody asked you to turn up on Christmas Eve Backdrifter and then stay over all the way through New Year. If we are dragging all that up again 8 MONTHS (not hours / days / weeks, but MONTHS) later then we'd all like to know exactly which part of a flush-mechanism you don't understand? And that's just for starters... Not making that mistake again. I was enacting Arabic proverbs:
"Fish, and guests, stink after three days".
"A host is his guest's prisoner."
(By the way, explain what is this "flush-mechanism" of which you speak and maybe I'll answer).
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 12:32:32 GMT
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 12:15:43 GMT
The Play That Goes Wrong, Wednesday. Angels part 2, Thursday. Then nothing for the rest of the month as I'll be on a remote Scottish island (I've already checked the nearest community arts centre, nothing of any interest for me while I'm in the area).
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 12:02:24 GMT
Pandas are total rubbish. Even as a child I had no interest in the updates on whether various pandas were going to mate. And they just sit around eating one single thing with virtually no nutrition. And as for monkeys... they're not cute or funny. Oh no you didn't. If there's one thing more rubbish than pandas, it's GIFs.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 11:54:14 GMT
I realise it can be upsetting to realise how awards shows (and not just theatre awards shows) work, but they've nearly always been this way. No they haven't. The SWET Awards and then the Olivier Awards operated for decades with a judging panel of critics supplemented by a Public judging panel, and all the members were requird to see all the eligible productions. Then, very recently, they made these panels advisory (i.e. they can now be completely ignored) and switched to a voting system of industry insiders, with no requirement to have seen anything. So, it's only very recently that the Oliviers have become a total fix. My own experience of being on the Oliviers public panel about 10 years ago was that this was how the system worked then. We weren't very clear on our role and it gradually became apparent the public panel was indeed at most advisory and even then somewhat tenuously. Strong recommendations we made vanished when the industry people got hold of them. So if by 'very recently' you mean more recent than that, then it seems they took the decision to just acknowledge this was how it works.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 11:39:23 GMT
Ballots are an awful way to decide who gets tickets. So when the announcement of a ballot is prefaced with "To make allocation as fair as possible..." I assume it doesn't butter any parsnips with you.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 8:08:12 GMT
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 7, 2017 7:58:25 GMT
Tattle-tale Maybe, but do you know what, as long as theatremonkey remains as informative as it is, who cares whether it's cute or funny. At least it means it's the most useful monkey.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 6, 2017 23:50:43 GMT
I don't care how good they are or which famous musicians started out as such, I detest buskers. And speaking of music, Led Zeppelin are massively overrated, and I don't get all the fuss about Nick Drake. There wouldn't be any if he hadn't died.
Pandas are total rubbish. Even as a child I had no interest in the updates on whether various pandas were going to mate. And they just sit around eating one single thing with virtually no nutrition. And as for monkeys... they're not cute or funny.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 4, 2017 8:18:38 GMT
The Old Vic Lear had people laughing when Gloucester had his eyes put out. Not sure if it was really inappropriate, because it seemed to be what the production was going for.... People tend to laugh at the line 'I have no eyes' as well, which is annoying. When we did Macbeth at school most of the class used to snigger at "Thou egg" and "He has killed me, mother". The latter caused a major titter when we went to a production with other schools at the Thorndike in Leatherhead. But I've not noticed it at all in my adult theatregoing.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 3, 2017 22:28:07 GMT
Inappropriate laughter can sometimes include Overlaughing, but they're not necessarily always the same thing.
The "Shakespearean" / "I get this bit" laugh is a subset of The Knowing Laugh. This is often a sort of smug-sounding "hmmm hmmm hmmm" with a very particular inflection.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 3, 2017 22:17:16 GMT
Constellations is a massively overrated soppy load of tedious rubbish.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 2, 2017 13:59:10 GMT
Dah! Forgot that one, great show. There are probably loads of others I'm not remembering yet.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 2, 2017 13:06:23 GMT
I second the above-mentioned Donny Stixx and Buyer & Cellar.
My Name Is Rachel Corrie
3,000 Trees: The Death of Mr William MacRae
Mouse: The Persistence of an Unlikely Thought
Primo Time
...though I'm not sure how many of these are available as texts.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 2, 2017 12:53:53 GMT
Do we need another Hamlet so soon after the well received one with Andrew Scott? Perhaps that will affect their future plans in the short term too? I've never been bothered by different productions of a play happening in quick succession. If they occur in the same city, it gets noticed, but London's big enough to absorb a couple of close-together Hamlets.
In a sense, no play is ever 'needed'.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 2, 2017 12:45:32 GMT
I'm sorry but that would just make me barf. It happens all the time on the tube especially if the wind rushing through the compartment blows a gal's long hair about. Tie it up love. Also those ladies who lean their head against the pole you might be holding onto and brushing past your hand with their long hair. In that instance I have been known to move my hand on the pole and "accidentally" grab a chunkful of the hair. They soon move. Then I rub my hand on their arm to wipe off the hair from my hand. It's just as bad as manspreading in my opinion. Watch out though people. Ryan's got a pair of scissors and he ain't afraid to use 'em. I assume the scissors are for snipping rather than stabbing purposes?
I'd love to be there to witness the grabbing and the rubbing. (That sentence can be adapted for other scenarios, by the way).
The scissors thing reminds me of a story I heard back in the 80s in the early days of people being annoyed by the hiss-hiss-hiss and ching-ching-ching of other people's walkmans. In a train carriage, a woman's Walkman was irritating the hell out of everyone. Finally one passenger signalled to her to ask if she could turn it down. No response. He asked twice again, still no response. He then got out a pair of scissors and snipped the earphones lead, and was applauded by the other passengers.
Anyway, sorry for the diversion.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 2, 2017 12:37:21 GMT
At the two show day of Angels on Saturday, first of all, the audience was impeccably behaved (apart from someone audibly talking in the balcony during the second play?? Was anyone else there who heard it? He said something then about 10 seconds later actually spoke properly, almost seemed as though he was trying to join in the play?! Main grip I had was, don't people seem to recognise others personal space any more. Someone in the row behind me had to shuffle past people to get to her seat, in doing so she was leaning so far forward whilst shuffling, her long curly hair was actually sort of mopping us on the row in front, the point it was actually going over our heads into our faces.....it was like being stroked with a spaniels ears!
The long-hair 'mopping' is a variation on the usual dragging of coats and bags across the heads of people in the row in front. When I'm aware someone is shuffling their way along the row behind I now automatically lean forward to avoid the annoyance of it.
And as for the ones squeezing their way along your row, who don't do any thank-yous.... In their position, if it's a sufficiently long transit to warrant it I not only do multiple thank-yous but I feel the need to vary them. "Thanks. Thank you. Sorry about this. Cheers." and if any further are needed I can then cycle back to the start.
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Post by Backdrifter on Aug 1, 2017 14:21:09 GMT
The overreactions here in either direction are a bit much.
Nice idea and yes part of it is the publicity rather than the actual dosh raised. I like checking out student productions and in particular have enjoyed a number of Guildhall productions more than some professional shows. I haven't seen much RADA stuff though.
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Post by Backdrifter on Jul 31, 2017 10:30:21 GMT
A quick look at the remaining 3 weeks or so of Angels suggests 6 x part 1s and 12 x part 2s left to go. I wondered if the NT's pattern takes account of the workload for 210+ minutes on average per performance and avoids the 'standard' 8 per week. If the remaining pattern is representative of the whole run it'd average at about 6 performances per week which I estimate to be about 24 hours of pure performance time.
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Post by Backdrifter on Jul 31, 2017 10:20:49 GMT
Isn't it also increasingly common for regional theatres (and some WE) to outsource whole blocks of tickets to other vendors rather than stick to just their own BO? Yes, where seats are available via agencies I think these will be from blocks that have been allocated to those agencies.
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Post by Backdrifter on Jul 31, 2017 9:08:49 GMT
I enjoyed this very much, one of the stronger plays I've seen so far this year. It was good up to the much-referred-to incident that closes act 1, then it got better in act 2 when the aftermath is picked over. Someone here earlier said the ending was weak but I disagree, I loved the ending. The multi-role approach worked really well and the performances were very good. The dialogue is very sparky, there are a lot of laughs and some tension, and I found the ending quite moving.
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