Shows directed by Katie Mitchell can go either way - her Women of Troy was fantastic, her ...some trace of her teeth-clenchingly bad. The newspaper reviews have said her version of Ferdinand Bruckner's Pains of Youth is a triumph, but I'd heard audience opinions that it was more of a yawn, and unfortunately I agreed with the latter. In Vienna between the Wars, a group of medical students are generally fed up, and get themselves sexually entangled with each other in various pairings. There's lots of angst but while there's nothing wrong with the performances as such, the production is lifeless, not helped by the low lighting throughout. Things get a bit better when Geoffrey Streatfeild as a sometimes violent charmer is on stage, but as he's the only charismatic character any time he's gone is a time when I got dangerously close to nodding off. And it really doesn't help that Mitchell has lumbered the production with a gimmick for scene changes which starts mildly interesting, becomes tedious, and ends up being an actual hindrance to the performance's already muted energy levels.

Pains of Youth by Ferdinand Bruckner in a version by Martin Crimp is booking until the 21st of January at the National Theatre's Cottesloe.

Tags: theatre

Thanks everyone who remembered what day it is today - now all I need you to do is immediately forget about it again. Honestly, I only turned 30 five minutes ago so it's a bit disquieting to suddenly be halfway between 30 and 40. To distract everyone's attention, hey look at this instead! Everyone's seen the Muppets' "Bohemian Rhapsody" by now, but I think I may like this even more: Beaker's "Ode to Joy." I love Beaker.

Tags: the muppets, youtube

I loved Clive Barker's early books, especially when I was in my teens, but went off his later ones when they started turning into bloated soap operas. His 2007 novella Mister B. Gone is pretty short so doesn't succumb to that particular problem, but it's still not a return to form. Mr B, a demon, isn't just a narrator, he's actually been imprisoned in the very words of the book. Right from the start he tries to beg, threaten or manipulate the reader into burning the book thus ending his imprisonment, a device which at first is pretty funny, but when it keeps resurfacing for several pages at a time starts to feel like padding in an already slight story. The story itself starts well enough, with Mr B recalling his childhood in a suburb of the Ninth Circle of Hell, and then how he was captured and brought to Earth. But it gets bogged down in the story of his love affair with another demon (like pretty much every Clive Barker character, Mr B is bisexual) and builds up to the revelation of a big secret. Since this turns out to be a pretty common idea in lots of supernatural fiction, the whole thing definitely ends as a damp squib.

Tags: books

Camelot must have got over the knight shortage they had last year during the Lancelot episode, because lately they seem to be dropping like flies but there's still a steady supply. ( Spoilers for 'The Witch's Quickening' )

Tags: merlin, tv

Yes, after my 8th trip to Avenue Q was the absolutely last one ever, the show only went and reopened so this is the third (and, surely, final) annual trip for me and Evil Alex to the late Friday matinee. We've been going on or near my birthday ever since Daniel Boys joined the cast, our first trip together being in his first week in the role. Which means this week is the start of his third year as Princeton and Rod - no wonder he sometimes sounds fed up with the job on his Twitter.

Well I've not been since the show moved to the Gielgud, but most of the cast is as it was. Although the programme still lists Mark Goldthorp, the note inserted in it says that Nicky/Trekkie/Bear are "now played by" Tom Parsons, which suggests to me that he's not actually understudying it any more, and Goldthorp has actually left, presumably suddenly. We also had an understudy Brian - again probably due to a quick reshuffle I don't know his name, as he was announced over the tannoy but isn't actually listed in the programme. He's also the first-ever skinny Brian I've seen - not that any newcomers to the show would have found it odd, as I think there's only one quick reference to Brian being fat in the actual dialogue. Both actors were fine, although I didn't like them as much as their predecessors. But there's also a new (third) actress playing Kate/Lucy, and I'm afraid I really didn't like Cassidy Janson in the role. While all the other actors seem replaceable (yes, remember even D-Boys is a replacement cast member, and Jon Robyns before him was also fab) Julie Atherton really seems matchless as the female leads. Janson's Kate Monster speaks way too quickly - loads of gags were completely lost. Her Lucy The Slut is better at first, but in the second act also succumbs to the rapidfire delivery. One place where Janson does beat the second Kate is "There's a Fine, Fine Line" - Rebecca Lock could belt it but never get much emotion out of it, but Janson does a lot better in that regard. But overall I'd say she was the weakest of the three lead actresses I've seen.

The rest of the cast are as at the last time at the Noël Coward; in tonight's performance Joanna Ampil (who seems to be the only Christmas Eve to have lasted a significant amount of time) got a particularly good reception from a largely young crowd.

And of course there's D-Boys, who still looks like he's having great fun even if his tweets sometimes tell a different story, so nice bit of professionalism there. He's still ridiculously hot, obviously, and either he's done some creative combing or his hair isn't receding quite as rapidly as it was last year, when it appeared to be in some kind of race against itself. The last couple of times I was rather taken by his arms; they don't seem to be any more muscular than they were before, but I think he might have been working on his pecs as he was looking particularly good in the faded black T-shirt. There was also almost-permanent nipple erection on show, so there's lovely. Now something a bit contentious: Evil Alex claimed that at one point D-Boys' sleeve rolled up particularly high, and he spotted a tattoo. Now, having been looking at his arms for much of the time I saw no such thing, although sometimes there was a shadow cast that could be mistaken for a tat, so I'm guessing Alex was seeing things. Besides which, this is Daniel Boys we're talking about. He's been on Songs of Praise FFS. Twice. I'm just saying, he may be many things (and in my imagination he also does many, many things) but *rawk* \m/ is unlikely to be one of them.

Anyway, back to the show, and surely when it closes at the Gielgud in March (which yes, I'll be going to, making it an even 10) it'll be gone for good, in this original production at least. I'm sure in 10-15 years' time it'll be ripe for a reimagining (undoubtedly at the Menier) but although it's still funny it's starting to feel a tiny bit dated. Not just the "George Bush is only for now" line which both this and the Broadway production struggled to replace once Obama got in (the current version here is "Swine Flu is only for now," getting a fraction of the response the original did - there's really not an equivalent replacement for that line to be honest.) I also noticed that although the song "Mix Tape" is still called that, Princeton now holds a CD, and "Side A/Side B" in the dialogue is now "Disk 1/Disk 2." It still works but it's really a noughties show with noughties concerns: Probably for the best if it bows out gracefully before outstaying its welcome in the next decade.

Tags: avenue q, daniel boys, theatre

Oh all right, I'll do a review of the play as well, but mainly I want to get to the very exciting thing that happened during the play: The sort of thing that some people on my flist, especially those of a lowcultural persuasion, will be very jealous of; and some people, especially the Americans and other aliens, will stare at the screen blankly.

Mixed Up North is another piece of verbatim theatre (in which writers record interviews with real people, then edit them into a script) although writer Robin Soans and director Max Stafford-Clark don't go as far as Alecky Blythe, who gave her actors headphones onstage to listen to the original people speaking during the performance. The theme is racism and the setting is a youth club in Burnley, a town still dealing with the effects of the race riots there in 2001. The first half sees them attempt to do a dress rehearsal of the play they're putting on the next night, with the audience as invited observers. The dress rehearsal becomes a disaster, and in the second half we return the next night where instead of a performance they've had to put on a Q&A featuring a mixed-race couple who'd inspired their workshops.

It's lovely to see something at Wilton's Music Hall again, not least to know that the place is still standing and able to house shows. It's a bit of an odd match to have a modern play in a crumbling Victorian building, but designer Jonathan Fensom manages to make it work. There's good moments in the play and the cast are all very good (plus a couple of hotties in Tyrone Lopez and Kashif Khan - in keeping with a running theme chez this blog, the programme notes confirm they're both LAMDA boys) but all too often this play about community theatre seems to actually be a dodgy piece of community theatre. There's a lot of interesting things here about Burnley, including the idea that there's so little industry there that since 2001 creating problems and trying to solve them has become the closest thing to an industry and town identity they've got. But there's a lot of moments where the action stops so the characters can turn to the audience and give them a potted history of the town and how they relate to it, including some cringe-inducing linking dialogue. In the second half this feeling is even stronger as it's essentially just a recreation of a Q&A.

A lot of interesting ideas but they don't really feel fleshed out dramatically, despite many good moments along the way. On another note I found it funny that the poster photo shows a white boy chatting up an Asian girl, when the play has a running theme that the youth group's members are almost entirely white girls and Asian boys, and that mixed couples always seem to be that way round.

However there's something very exciting about this evening, and shows how sometimes by sheer luck you pick just the right seat: Celia Imrie plays Trish, the youth group leader. She's the first person to address the audience in their role as outside observers there to give their thoughts on the dress rehearsal, and says there's some cake on the way that they'll pass round. Then she says, tonight directly to me, "you could manage a slice of cake I'm sure." (I was tempted to be offended but the playtext programme means I could check that line was really there, and it wasn't a comment on my weight; she presumably has the seat I was in, at the middle of the second row, as her marker every night.) Then the really exciting thing: Later in the show a tin of cake does arrive, Trish says "I promised you a slice didn't I?" and gives me cake. Celia. Imrie. Gave. Me. Cake. MISS BABS + CAKE! I know! I said you'd be jealous. The whole two fronts rows got a slice, but after me Imrie passes the tin to another actress and asks her to pass it around, so although I wasn't the only one to get cake, I was the only one given it directly by Celia Imrie. Tonight, anyway. I KNOW!

Mixed Up North by Robin Soans is booking until the 5th of December at Wilton's Music Hall.

Tags: cake, celia imrie, theatre, wiltons
Current Mood: cake

This week on Twitter I have been mostly chuckling at a fake Cheryl Cole (@CherylKerl) who tweets phonetically-spelt "gossip" from behind the scenes at X Factor. And obviously tweeting my own X Factor thoughts, although those have mostly been self-censored because of that story that nobody's supposed to know about, let alone mention. Yeah, that one.

Old man: If the changing room's half-empty but you still squeeze yourself in between me and another naked young guy, I'm making assumptions.
1:12 PM Nov 25th from web

And by assumptions I mean from now on you will be referred to as Mr Herbert from Family Guy.
1:13 PM Nov 25th from web

#spooks turning into American Beauty = a bit odd
9:04 PM Nov 25th from web

( Read more )

Tags: spooks, the x factor, twitter

Not up to last week's standard but not a bad Merlin this week all the same. ( Spoilers for 'Sweet Dreams' )

Tags: merlin, tv

Time for another of the freebie classics The Times was giving away a couple of months ago. One week's theme was "London" which was inexplicably colour-coded pink. Patrick Hamilton wrote the play Rope, which I'm going to see in January and which Hitchcock filmed. He must have had an interest in crime because his novel Hangover Square opens with a definition of schizophrenia, and then goes on to tell the story of large, graceless George Harvey Bone. He's a rather tangential member of an Earl's Court "set" that gravitates around the beautiful and bitchy Netta. George is utterly besotted with Netta, a fact that she openly takes advantage of for her own financial gain while frequently humiliating him; but every so often something "clicks" in his brain and all he can think about is murdering her.

Set in 1939 and leading up to the breakout of World War II, it's a satire of a certain type of socialite of the era, fecklessly spending money (usually other people's) and as the title suggests spending much of their time drunk. Not a lot happens but I still enjoyed it and got through it pretty quickly, with the black comedy offering a few chuckles now and again. It can be an uncomfortable read, I always find something upsetting in stories of people obsessing over someone who'll take advantage of them for it, and often found myself hoping George would get round to killing Netta and her sidekick Peter before he switched back to his more vulnerable personality. In the end it takes on an air of tragedy and overall gives you a strong impression of what it might have been like in that time and place, with the protagonists harshly viewed as seeing the oncoming war as little more than an inconvenience. And although Hamilton's understanding of Bone's mental condition feels a bit naïve, the book reads like a predecessor of the psychological thrillers which are more of a recent literary genre.

Tags: books

A couple more TV articles for the front page this week (there doesn't seem to be any lowculture-friendly theatre opening at the moment, although there should be a couple of new shows in January worth flagging up.)

On Tuesday I did one of those previews of a show I really wasn't that sure about, BBC1's Paradox. It looked rubbish but I kinda hoped it might be the Bonekickers kind of rubbish. Sadly it wasn't, it was just pants. Never mind the Paradocks.

And tonight don't forget the final series of Gavin & Stacey starts, also on BBC1: Not occurin' for much longer.

And that's it for now...

Tags: i can does ritin gud, lowculture, tv