"Oh words, what crimes are committed in your name!"

Five Go Mad In Scotland! We had a nice long weekend in Glasgow, staying with some friends and popping over to Edinburgh on Saturday for a spot of culture at the Fringe. Sunday was spent inspecting the scenery around the Loch Lomond area, and very nice it was too. We drank, we stayed up late and chatted.

I broke the no-more-than-one-offal-a-day rule on Saturday by having black pudding in the French restaurant where we took an early dinner (boudin noir, my friends, a Limousin speciality) and takeaway haggis for supper, then topped it on Sunday when we stopped for dinner at a pub that offered haggis and black pudding on a pizza. Disgraceful behaviour. The high offal diet, incidentally, is one I recommend only to those who keep a good strong air freshener in their bathroom.

We only saw three shows, although these provided a good mix of theatre, comedy and music. The Fringe organisers encourage members of the public to review shows on their website, but there's a 500 word limit and most people seem to stick within about 100 words at a time, so what I've posted over there is a bit more succinct than what follows.


1. Afternoon - Jack, or The Submission (play by Eugene Ionesco)
I'd spotted this on the Fringe website and was keen to see it, so tickets were booked for the entire party. If I'd noticed then that The Lesson was also being staged during the Fringe I might have pushed for that one instead, but then again... maybe not. It's a pretty dark play, whereas Jack is, or tends to be, a more light-hearted affair.

So I was a bit bemused to see in the big Fringe booklet that Jack was being touted as "an absurdist tragedy", while The Lesson had become "light farce". Fules!

I know my friends all thought this was an hour of unmitigated woefulness, but I like a bit of absurdist theatre. Ionesco is one of the very few things that stayed with me after I put public school behind me and went off to University to become a human being. Absurdism, perversely enough, helped me to make more sense of the world. This doesn't mean I won't slag off this show, it just means I'll do it in more detail.

The script used was the bog-standard translation made quite soon after the French premiere by an American who just waded in there with a dictionary, obeying the letter of the script but caring naught for the spirit of it, and losing a fair amount of wordplay in the process. None of this is the fault of the cast or crew, you understand, just an aside. In fact the cast did an admirable job of interpreting their parts and delivering their lines. However, Ionesco didn't include very many stage directions in his script, which leaves the way open for directors to take liberties. Some of the liberties taken here were successful, others less so.

Combining the parents, grandparents and bride's parents into single, androgynous, split-personality characters was an outright success, a beautiful touch. Presumably motivated by not having a large enough cast, but brilliant nonetheless. The actor playing Jack's parents gave a particularly commendable performance. Playing the Fantasy Director game for a minute, I'd've wanted to find some way to carry this running motif through and "merge" Jack and Roberta at the end, but no such luck (in fact, the scripted end was left out and the play seemed to fizzle out a bit). The use of scenery was also excellent - presumably again invention was borne out of necessity; whatever, the edges of the stage were unmarked except for a disembodied door, which was thoroughly milked for its visual comedy potential. This sort of thing always works well in avant garde theatre.

Somewhere in the middle ground we have the play's self-aware moments, of which there are a few. These were picked up on, but not made enough of. Everybody gets the "Wait till the end of the scene" bit anyway, blatant as it is. There's a better one when Jack is telling Roberta about people not listening to him, "Not the ones who were here just now, but those others, although they don't count" - this is pretty much an open invitation to stare at the audience, and it went unmilked. On the other hand, the bare set design afforded some opportunity for the cast and director to insert self-aware moments of their own making, which were appreciated.

On the negative side, there was far too much physical larking about, particularly from Jack's sister, who spent the whole time contorting her way across the stage and making dog noises. Bugger knows why. It's as if the director wasn't confident enough that the words alone could carry the play, or wasn't prepared to let them try, and workshopped as much gratuitous weirdness as possible into the cast's performances to compensate. Some people think that this is what absurdism is all about, this grotesque caricature of avant garde theatre where people bark and gibber for no reason or deliver an entire speech in some sort of yoga position. Certainly it's what people who don't like avant garde theatre think it's about, and we were all reminded of that certain episode of Spaced: "It's not finished... it's finished..." (the whimper-ending only reinforced this).

So half marks for Jack. It wasn't a hit with my friends, but I shamefacedly admitted that it was probably about 60% what I'd expected to see. I don't know, maybe I just like pretentious rubbish. Is that so wrong - is it?!?


2. Evening - Aeneas Faversham Returns (sketch show by The Penny Dreadfuls)
As we sat in a French restaurant in central Edinburgh and pondered what to do with the hours between then and the night show, I dug out the Fringe booklet and checked for venues on our route, and this just leapt out at me. Four cravatted gentlemen perform sketches set in the Victorian era - sounded like a quickfire version of Ripping Yarns. Nor were we disappointed, for this was an hour of extremely fine comedy that slipped all too quickly away.

Highlights, to list only the very highest, included: a wizards' duel between The Great Amazingo and Kevin ("I've got your nose!" "You fiend! Give it back!"); naive young Susan (moustached and bearded) introducing her father to her incredibly creepy suitor ("You have such divine silverware..."); a sketch in which a fairy godmother presents a world in which the Scots never existed, which featured some brilliant flying effects; and the now infamous Specimen 626 sketch, which wasn't honestly much more than a concerted attempt to make two performers corpse on stage, but which had the desired effect on the audience as well.

So despite the troupe's name, not dreadful at all. Apparently there will be a radio show, which we're keenly looking forward to.


3. Night - The Honeymoon Suite (musical performance by Mikelangelo and Undine Francesca)
This was the other show for which we'd booked tickets, Ben and Sarah having seen Mikelangelo in action before and the rest of us having heard the albums. (There's a link over there on the right if anyone's interested.) But this wasn't another tour with the Black Sea Gentlemen - instead, Mikelangelo was performing a new set with his wife, Undine Francesca, and if the accents and some of the influences were the same, the material was somewhat different. The hour-long gig was a journey through the hotel honeymoon suites of a half-imagined Cold War era Eastern Europe, so mixed in with the familiar dark cabaret sound was a fair amount of Beach-Boys-esque rock 'n' roll. The results were extremely pleasing.

Undine Francesca, previously heard guesting on a couple of Black Sea Gentlemen songs, sang like a Transylvanian version of Marlene Dietrich, intoning her vocals rather than singing them. She played the keyboard as well, although "punched" would be a better word - watching her play was like watching Kraftwerk in an anger management session. It wasn't immediately obvious (to me, possibly to the others as well) whether she was deliberately doing this as part of the performance or genuinely couldn't play very well, but reading her credentials and hearing her play the piano in the book and CD project The Floating Islands I now suspect the former. More about that project later on.

Mikelangelo, "the Nightingale of the Adriatic", turned in a smooth combination of whistling and baritone crooning familiar to us from the albums. He looked and played like some kind of dark Elvis, bopping and boogieing to the livelier numbers, charming the audience between tunes. It was plain he and Undine Francesca are besotted with each other, and their chemistry on stage was as much a joy as their performance. The venue, the Bongo Club, was a sweaty pit of a club, but this only added to the slightly seedy, slightly sinister cabaret atmosphere. At times I felt Mikelangelo and UF wouldn't look out of place performing their macabre rock 'n' roll in a German expressionist film. A fine end to the day, and we were as happy to buy their books and CDs afterwards as I'm sure they were to sell them.


To follow: musical news, specifically of The Floating Islands and of the prolific Steve Palmer's recent activities.

Let's exchange the experience

The weekend was spent back in London again, this time in the company of The Lovely Jo. There we made our own wedding rings - yes, made them from scratch with our own hands. Well, made them from 18-carat gold with tiny blowtorches, mills, pliers, files and assorted buffing materials. Photos will eventually exist and may be added to the Book of Faces.

This, we feel, was more interesting and more personal than simply picking them out of a shop window, plus it meant we got to shape Jo's ring to the contours of the engagement ring. Although to be honest, our instructor did all the hard work there. So hearty thanks to Tom, who looks uncannily like Richard E Grant and will be played by him when the revolution is televised, or summat.

Hearty thanks also to Jo's uncle Simon, who was our extremely generous host for the weekend, and who celebrated Jo's birthday with us by taking us out for a show and a meal. The show in question proved to be Avenue Q, the filthy musical stage parody of Sesame Street. All good, um... dirty, um... non-family fun. The Bad Idea Bears, it has to be said, are the most adorable avatars of evil ever. "More drinks - more fun! Yaaaaay!"

Next weekend, in a shocking departure from the recent trend: no London!

"A girl in every fireplace!"

How d'you get a cold in May? Bah. That's bank holidays for you. And therefore, belated bloggings. Before coming down with the dreaded lurgi, I managed to see the following:

1. Cyrano de Bergerac at the Bristol Old Vic. I'm an ex-Ragueneau myself (Student Theatre, c. 2002) and had joked to my workmates on Friday afternoon that I'd be judging the show by Exeter University's high standards. Ah, wouldn't you know it?
The script was a new translation by Ranjit Bolt. This, I didn't object to; all credit to Ranjit Bolt. Some of his colloquialisms sounded a bit odd in context, but many others worked extremely well, and (whisper it!) I think overall I like his text slightly more than the Anthony Burgess translation. (Mmm, tastes like heresy.)
Some of the staging... there were one or two odd decisions, although we could generally see what some of the more abstract stuff was about. However, I'd been watching the 17th century story of Cyrano de B and was deeply surprised when Roxane and Ragueneau turned up at the front line in Act 4 on a motorbike and sidecar. The Lovely Jo, meanwhile, had twigged from the costumes in the first half that the director had set this production around the time of World War One and was deeply surprised when the Comte de Guiche, leader of a French regiment still fighting Spaniards, turned up in Act 4 in his 17th century shiny breastplate and lace collar. (Which time period? There's only one way to settle this - fight!)
The acting was a bit variable. Cyrano gabbled his lines during the first half, but settled down a bit and came across well in the second half. Roxane was good but (in Jo's words) "a bit horsey", as opposed to the thoroughly natural Roxane who'd starred in the old student production. The rest of the main cast was solid, but prone to impenetrable accents, all of them different. But all of these were watchable, and by and large good. Even some cheeky musical work in Ragueneau's shop in Act 2 that I can only envy. The only real stand-out problem was the Comte de Guiche, the lord of chronoclasm. We could both tell in the first half that he was putting on some kind of voice. It sounded like it might have been continental - surely not someone actually trying a French accent? Yet at times it sounded more Spanish. It wasn't until he really turned up the dial in the now legendary Act 4 that I finally twigged what was going on - he was trying to channel Keith Allen's Sheriff of Nottingham. Trying, and failing. It came out more like the Italian officer from 'Allo 'Allo with the body language of Rik in The Young Ones.
Still, a pleasant evening in the tiny, tiny Old Vic with its doll's-house seats. Even at the back of the stalls we had a good view of all the action on the stage, some fifteen metres away.

2. Human Nature. At last, an episode of new Who that we can stand up and salute! Series 3 has finally hit its stride. A very tennish 9, or a ninish 10, but as ever I may reconsider this in the light of the second part. So far the signs are good - I wouldn't say it's on a par with The Girl in the Fireplace yet, although next week could change that, but it's certainly up there with Father's Day and The Empty Child. It is, however, the most complete episode after Fireplace - the muted woody colours, the gentle music, the cinematography, the sets, costumes and performances all working together in that rare and special way.
So far it compares well to the novel, too. I'm one of the large mass of Who fans that feels Human Nature (book) was the best of the Virgin novels, but there is much in the book that wouldn't work so well on TV (not to mention the change of leads), and by and large I feel the alterations have improved the story. It's much tighter now. The Doctor has a clearer and more pressing reason for becoming human (in the book, it seemed to be a mix of trying to understand his companion and wanting to find out more about himself - almost a whim, really). Serious Tennant makes a much more credible pre-war public school teacher than goofy McCoy (even the text version). The romance with Joan Redfern is a bit more whirlwind than in the book, where we're asked to accept that they've been socialising for two months between chapters, but her unsubtle hints and that excellent cricket ball scene make John Smith's sudden burst of self-confidence work so well on screen.
The fob watch is such a perfect cipher for the Doctor's true identity (that completeness again...) that it's hard to believe in retrospect that the book didn't do it the same way. However, that leads to one of my two (only two!) slight concerns with the episode. (And the good news is that they really are slight - for once this series, they're "What?" rather than "What the hell?!") Since when did the Doctor have a biology-shuffling helmet dangling from the TARDIS ceiling, and if it's been there all this time, why hasn't he used it on any of the many potentially useful occasions in the past? (Although with a name like "chameleon arch" (cf "chameleon circuit") we can perhaps retrofit it into the show as some kind of emergency Time Lord regenerative aid. But I'm flailing a bit there. This is one point where the book beats the episode, by simply having the Doctor disappear for an hour at a market and turn up sweating and holding the McGuffin with his real self in it.) My other slight concern is the scarecrows. They're not in the book and they're not properly set up in the episode. They're "the soldiers" - but what does that really tell us? Are they real scarecrows that've been taken over in some way, and if so, how? Or are they something the Family brought with them, in which case, why are they stationed in the fields and disguised as scarecrows rather than stored in the spaceship? But it's a minor point when the Family can comfortably carry the monster duties on their own.
On which note, a word of praise for Harry "Baines" Lloyd and his remarkably flexible face. I couldn't believe it when it was pointed out to me that he'd been the bland, unremarkable Will Scarlett in the recent Robin Hood series. I'm now inclined to believe that he'd been acting bland and unremarkable, since his performance here is quite the opposite.
So overall it's shaping up to be a good two-parter.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End. Mmm, pirate surrealism. For all that this was yet more pulpy action on the high seas, it was worth a third outing to see Johnny Depp take his role past odd and into downright weird. Poor old Cthulhoid cap'n Davy Jones didn't quite get the send-off I was hoping he'd get after all that build-up, but at least hissable capitalist Lord Beckett did, standing and gibbering quietly as his ship was turned into matchwood. Still, I'd watch it again just for the surreal bits.

We've Bean to Cardiff

Back once again to Wholand - sorry, Cardiff. It's so handy having this SF TV mecca right on our doorstep; perhaps this is what it would've been like to live near Wookey Hole Caves in the 1970s? This time we were in the New Theatre - which just two short years ago saw Christopher Eccleston and Charles Dickens facing off against a Victorian zombie - to see John Barrowman in Jack and the Beanstalk. He's certainly flavour of the month.
Now, I'm no connoisseur of pantomime. For the Lovely Jo it used to be an annual event, apparently. I on the other hand have seen two pantomimes, and this was the second. As far as I can tell it's a form of theatre where the audience wants to see the actors get it wrong; there's also a lot of audience participation, but it's all led by the actors, and they don't seem to like the audience providing ad lib responses. It's not Rocky Horror.
Two notable things about our afternoon, neither of them to do with the show itself:

1. In the foyer, kiddies were being sold various items of panto merchandise, including a short red plastic sword with flashing lights in it. However, there were also two flashing lights in the red plastic hilt, on either side of the handguard. In short, it looked like a big flashing... cock-up on the part of the designers.

2. What was being piped into the auditorium over the PA system before the show started? It seemed to be some sort of dance music. (Not the good sort of dance music, by which I mean interesting electronic music that gets filed under "Dance" in the shops; no, this was the bad sort of dance music, which consists of very loud thumping in one continuous tempo and the occasional sound like a machine gun going off.) But what words were being sung over it? It took our friend Sarah to identify it - songs from the Disney movies, re-recorded nightclub style. Disney rave. File under "Ministry of Unsound".

We sing in praise of PJ Hammond

Always good for a surreal image, is Mr H. And I think we're all agreed round this neck of the woods that that was the finest episode of Torchwood yet. It had depth, it had subtlety - that's the first time I've been able to believe in Jack Harkness ("Clap if you believe in Captain Jack, children! Clap!") as a person rather than just as a high-octane action hero. I think this episode could have stretched out to a mini-series in its own right, there was so much material crying out to be unpacked and developed. In a series purportedly of stand-alone episodes, this one truly stands alone. (Although I have, of course, been pretty fired up about it for months now.) I mean, last week's was fun, but not exactly meaty.

There's just one thing I'm a bit confused about, and that's where Jack the Eternal Soldier in 1907 Lahore fits in with Jack the time-travelling con-man. Perhaps he overshot on his way back from that space station.

Saturday was quite a day. We got to London in spite of, rather than thanks to, the car we rented from Hertz. Hertz in their wisdom took our online booking for a four-door car with room to seat five and presented us with a two-door car with room to seat five dwarves, and an engine flooding problem. Still, we'd allowed enough time and, dropping all other plans for London shopping, got lunch and took our seats for Spamalot, one of the most astonishing things I've seen in a while. On the one hand it takes my happy memories of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and, as I'd expected, buggers them thoroughly. On the other, there's more than enough new material, and some very interesting use of the stage environment, to make Spamalot a wonderful work of culture in its own right. It's the Monty Python film remade as half big, gaudy Las Vegas show (the musical numbers, the chorus girls, etc) and half pantomime (the fourth-wall stuff towards the end, to say nothing of the Beast of Caer-Bannog). We spent the whole time racked with laughter. It's more than the sum of its gags; it deserves to be a phenomenon.

CSI: Sherwood Forest

1. Saturday evening - The Rocky Horror Show at the Bristol Hippodrome. A jolly evening. The audience was a good 'un - lively, but not abusive, even after dry ice engulfed the first half-dozen rows - and it looked as though the director, or the preceding week's performances, or both had braced the cast for the audience responses. Some nice set-work too. Mind you, I wouldn't have said it was a three-standing-ovations performance - surprisingly tame in places where it ought not to be tame, and a wee bit flat in others. Still 'n' all, jolly, and I commend all the lead cast, particularly the men, for the ease and flair with which they danced in high heels.
(Edit: This was, however, the early evening ("matinee") performance - I've since been told the later show was much filthier. Still, I can now say I've seen a "12A" Rocky Horror, something I wouldn't have imagined existed.)

2. Saturday night/Sunday morning - With one of The Lovely Jo's friends (a fellow RHS-goer) staying overnight, we watched Neverwhere again in its entirety. Sad to think that I was denied the sight of this when it originally aired on TV.

3. Sunday evening - Robin Hood, the BBC3 repeat viewing. Or should I call it "CSI: Sherwood Forest", with its gritty juddering edits and jerky zooms? I imagine left-liberals everywhere, myself included, will point to hints of a liberal interpretation of the outlaw - veteran of an expensive war fought at the behest of a foreign political power (the Pope, in this case) returns home tired of bloodshed and campaigns against harsh wartime legislation imposed by the wicked Sheriff. So just to be ornery, I'll mention that Robin also demonstrates a rather Blairite consumerist philosophy when he's addressing a roomful of nobles: the best way to support our forces abroad is by lifting taxes so that the peasants of Nottingham can spend money at their Wednesday market, i.e. by propping up the consumer economy at home. C.f. Tony Blair telling us all that the best way to beat the terrorists is by going shopping.
Well, if that doesn't get me comments, nothing will.
A pretty good show, though. As the "difficult first episode" it shows great promise, the last ten minutes in particular. Good characters, good dialogue. Shame the Sheriff couldn't have levied a tithe on cosmetics, he'd've made a fortune from the well-lacquered dolly-peasants littering the countryside. I look forward to more stirring adventure capers next week.