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Post by crabtree on Apr 7, 2023 15:55:06 GMT
Ragtime, in a word.
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Post by crabtree on Apr 4, 2023 16:19:42 GMT
I missed the first edition of this but just waded through number two and was pleasantly surprised. A lot of detailed information, and substantial, intelligent reviews, both critical and full of praise. I'll be following this well produced magazine.
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Post by crabtree on Mar 13, 2023 16:17:08 GMT
What technology was there in the Ethel Merman era. I can't imagine she had a mic, or that the orchestra was other than pure sound.
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Post by crabtree on Mar 4, 2023 16:50:29 GMT
am I wrong to have grumbled loudly at a screening of Elvis last night when the houselights snapped on the second the first end credit appeared, taking us out of those moving few minutes somewhat abruptly. Being in the business, I will always stay and watch every last credit out of respect, and who knows there may be a sting at the end, but also there's a lot of craft in the end titles and music that reflects what has gone before. theatres would never bring up the house lights during a live curtain call. very disrespectful in my book.
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Post by crabtree on Feb 27, 2023 21:40:18 GMT
I hope she gets to free it from its' literal living room set
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Post by crabtree on Feb 26, 2023 10:57:11 GMT
The Band wagon ( and what does that exactly mean in the context of the film?) was on TV yesterday and certainly features a show within a show, but having ditched a moderately coherent plot about Faustus, after its' failure they go and write, well I'm not sure what really. A revue I guess - various songs and then an incoherent murder mystery. But then can someone tell me the plot of 42nd street's Pretty Lady?
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Post by crabtree on Feb 24, 2023 20:35:12 GMT
Just caught up with the deliciously performed Nolly, and the wonderfully named Augustus Prew keeping with Helena. yep lovely detail and observation - great stuff. it felt a bigger budget than those 80minute BBC4 or 3 biopics such as Helena as Enid Blyton that felt interesting but done on a shoestring.
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Post by crabtree on Feb 20, 2023 18:27:22 GMT
Awards dos like this are always grim, unless you win. Years ago there was a trend for BAFTA to do a modern dance interpretation of the five nominated best films. I'm still scarred by such a dance for the Last of the Mohicans. But the frocks, absurd
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Post by crabtree on Feb 19, 2023 10:22:35 GMT
ah, I think I got the LLL play wrong - it's not the nine virtues, but the nine worthies.
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Post by crabtree on Feb 18, 2023 9:15:08 GMT
I was wracking my brain for the technical term for a play within a play and I think it's 'mise en abyme', and I can add to our list with Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Critic, The seagull we've mentioned I think, The Spanish Tragedy and women Beware Women. The Real thing is a film within a play isn't it - may have got that wrong.
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Post by crabtree on Feb 16, 2023 22:40:38 GMT
The Red Shoes.
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Post by crabtree on Feb 16, 2023 22:38:20 GMT
forgive me for duplicating a few suggestions from others - I like topics like these.
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Post by crabtree on Feb 16, 2023 22:36:09 GMT
anyone mention Pyramus and Thisbe, or the masque of the seven virtues (is that right?) in LLL. I'd love to revisit Look Look. I remember it being clever, but not enough. and then Ayckbourn's A chorus of disapproval, being based around The Beggar's Opera which is sort of a play with in a play, as is the Taming of the Shrew itself if we are being technical. Yep hurrah for kander and ebb and Cabaret. I've just been in History of art - like Nothing On in Noises off the play is short. Nothing On is only a one act, isn't it? and chorus Line?
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Post by crabtree on Feb 13, 2023 20:40:03 GMT
and an Old Vic Heartbreak house with Schofield and Diana Rigg and many others. And Diana Rigg and Anthony Hopkins as the macbeths......
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Post by crabtree on Feb 4, 2023 15:33:44 GMT
during my usual wide awake moment at 4.00 in the morning I was thinking of the prestigious casts I've seen and probably top of the list was the opening play at the Royal Exchange in 1976, The Rivals - Patricia Routledge, Tom Courtney, James Maxwell, Christopher Gable, Susan Tracy, Lindsay Duncan, Trevor Peacock, Judi Bowker and many more. I was stage crew and marvelled at them all exploring this wonderful new theatre. Oh, if only the Royal Exchange had continued in such glory. A few real stinkers have dulled my enthusiasm for that place, sadly. Many glorious nights there.
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Post by crabtree on Jan 29, 2023 19:01:18 GMT
Well I loved the crazy, bonkers hard working show last night - and for all the bells and whistles the most impressive effect was the disappearing sausages. How can a regional theatre put on such a spectacle. Great, moralistic, classy stuff.
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Post by crabtree on Jan 21, 2023 21:11:36 GMT
Listening to the CD, Eddie certainly has a relentless bag of tricks up his sleeve.
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Post by crabtree on Jan 15, 2023 11:04:19 GMT
well, I enjoyed this enormously yesterday and found it witty and inventive. Amused by some tourists muttering that they were upset that Lady Diana had been played by a transexual......so much wrong with that observation. ms Findlay wonderfully droll.
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Post by crabtree on Jan 9, 2023 8:48:59 GMT
Was the show really not doing well enough to have kept it going longer. There's much love for this show. I'd love to have been there yesterday, having been at the early performances at the bristol Hippodrome nearly twenty years ago. The best flying I've seen was at the Manchester Palace - truly wonderful.
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Post by crabtree on Dec 31, 2022 11:41:33 GMT
Ghosts in my humble opinion is a truly beautiful and wonderfully plotted series, with warm, detailed characters, and wonderfully observed. They are all great company. Yep, it works for me - I still miss Mary though, and her exit was shocking and brave.
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Post by crabtree on Dec 7, 2022 15:06:34 GMT
Good topic....I was always fond of the Equus wire horse heads, but joey from War Horse would do nicely. If we are talking gilm then it would be the sphere from First Men in the moon, and if we are talking costume it would be either Tippi hedrren's green suit from the Birds, or Gene Kelly's rain suit.
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Post by crabtree on Dec 2, 2022 23:03:15 GMT
'you can't escape your past, mate' - poor Dickens. Grim stuff.
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Post by crabtree on Dec 1, 2022 9:31:49 GMT
On the West End stage, perhaps, in the West End.
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Post by crabtree on Nov 7, 2022 22:14:40 GMT
a truly great, spectacle as befitted Drury Lane, with many excellent illusions including a wonderful Pepper's Ghost moment that left me confused and joyous.
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Post by crabtree on Oct 31, 2022 22:17:50 GMT
Maybe not a Hallowe'en film perhaps, but a horror certainly. The wonderful Vincent Price and Diana Rigg in Theatre of Blood. What a superb, well made film.
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Post by crabtree on Oct 23, 2022 11:22:02 GMT
having lived in Manchester for five decades, that incident sadly doesn't surprise me, and why of late I've lost the Manchester theatre going habit.
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Post by crabtree on Oct 22, 2022 12:52:36 GMT
in response to the post above about audience couples kissing during performances, maybe that is why is eternally single, but if anyone started snogging me during a performance, that would be the end of that. I'm not paying today's prices and missing a second. So many friends are perpetually late that I've got to the point of saying ' I'll be there at 7.25 - it would be lovely if you could join me'. But I've given up organising other people.
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Post by crabtree on Oct 18, 2022 21:19:52 GMT
a couple walking out of a production I was in of Habit of art last month - 'huh, they don't know their lines' the couple grumbled - Habit of Art is a play within a rehearsal of a play with a character deliberately needing prompting.
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Post by crabtree on Oct 10, 2022 21:28:53 GMT
Being immune to the charms of James Cordon, One Man , Two Guvnors did little for me, but this certainly did - kick started by the idea of Oliver Chris rolling about in the bluebells (as referred to in the short film before the screenings), and being a great lover of The Rivals, this absolutely worked for me, with every Malapropism hitting home. I usually go by myself to such things and keep the laughter internal but this saw me laughing way out loud. such speed, such bawdy wit, such joy. And yes Ms Quentin - oh wow. One of the decisions a director must make with Mrs M is 'does she know?' it's funny both ways.
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Post by crabtree on Oct 10, 2022 12:49:33 GMT
has anyone been in the audience for the saturday/'sunday' recording? How long a break do they have between recording, and what time do they finish. it's a long day for everyone. I still laugh at tess and Claudia starting the results show by looking over their shoulder at a routine clearly recorded ages ago.
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