Month: October 2004

The Producers

The fact that it is one of the better shows on the West End right now possibly says more about the other shows.

I went to see a preview of the London version of The Producers today and was, like last night, a little taken by surprise. This time, however, it’s with disappointment and not pleasure. I’ve been talking to PY and trying to explain my disappointment but he doesn’t get it: he loved the show. I did not know the plot nor had I seen the film so I wasn’t let down by the story but I had read that Nathan Lane had taken Broadway by storm.

You can’t fault Nathan Lane: he’s superb and his comic timing is excellent. Lee Evans seems born for his role as the sidekick Leo Bloom and some of the songs are great. Others, however, seem weak and parts of the story are just not engaging. James Dreyfus camps it up John Inman style while Ulla, the Swedish blond bombshell, is so lost in the stereotype that any humour is lost.

Don’t get me wong, it is a good show. I can’t imagine Richard Dreyfuss in it and I imagine it will be hard to replace Nathan Lane in January. If you’re going to see it I would suggest trying to get tickets now because without Lane’s superb performance I am not sure where this show will go. The fact that it is one of the better shows on the West End right now possibly says more about the other shows.

Sadly, The Producers disappointed.

UPDATE: Well, the reviews are out and I may be a lone voice expressing disappointment. I wrote an updated review for the Yahoo Group: Gay Boy Musicals Fans UK (which you can read here if you’re not a member of the group).

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum

You feel yourself pulled along by the way the cast at The National seem to be enjoying themselves.

a funny thing happened on the way to the forum
a funny thing happened on the way to the forum

I went to see A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum tonight and it took me a little by surprise. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but I was thoroughly entertained. From the opening, A Comedy Tonight, you feel yourself pulled along by the way the cast at The National seem to be enjoying themselves. It’s a high camp farce set in Roman times featuring double entendres and mistaken identity by the bucket load (you almost expect a vicar to appear from a cupboard) but it’s joyful and not at all cringe-worthy as many farces are. Sondheim’s music isn’t the best you will ever hear (in fact, much of it isn’t memorable) but during the performance it’s entertaining. Such a shame it is coming to the end of it’s run. I discovered a US version of the soundtrack featuring Nathan Lane which ties in nicely with tomorrow – more then.

links for 2004-10-27

Billy Connolly

Of course, I can’t actually remember any of the jokes but I will remember this feeling of joy for a very long time.

I have to quickly post that I saw Billy Connolly tonight at The Hammersmith Odeon and, despite some recent newspaper comments, I have to say I have never laughed so much or so hard. Of course, I can’t actually remember any of the jokes but I will remember this feeling of joy for a very long time. If you get the chance you really should go and see him.

Of course if you want an alternative view read what The Times said this morning, although I imagine nobody else in tonight’s audience would agree:

He has become a frightful bully, willing to address only the converted and noticeably absent when it’s his turn to be on the receiving end. Connolly has become the patron saint of the truly humourless, one who is little more than three years shy of retirement age. Don’t you wish that, like the fanatics of Baghdad, he’d just hurry up and get on with it?

Well, he still made me laugh.

Down With Love

Down With Love is my Saturday night in movie.

Down with Love Cinema poster
Down with Love

Supposedly, the Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger romantic comedy Down With Love is an attempt to recreate the new York City of 1963 (some say to recreate Doris Day/Rock Hudson’s ‘Pillow Talk‘). As I haven’t actually seen Pillow Talk it’s hard to compare the two but most reviewers suggest the Doris Day comedy is considerably more sophisticated.

Still, for a Saturday night on the sofa this wasn’t so bad. It had amusing moments. Zellweger is Barbara Novak, in town promoting her smash-hit book that carries the same title as the film and they’ve tried to make her look the part of a 1960s New York girl – I am not sure if they were that successful. McGregor is Catcher Block, the cad-about-town investigative magazine journalist who has a string of lovely ladies after him. Inevitably he is to interview her for a magazine article and the chase is on. Both performances are confident but certainly not great. David Hyde Pierce, as Block’s publisher, seems to repeat his role as Frasier’s Niles but that’s no bad thing as he puts in a solid, amusing supporting performance.

There’s a great pay-off (which I shan’t spoil) but suffice to say Zellweger’s long monologue is impressive and, apparently, took six takes to get right. It’s one of those films where you need to watch the credits as there’s a musical scene (apparently shot at the request of the actors) over the end titles which is well done.

Down With Love is amusing for the most part but it’s kind of predicable in many places but it was a good Saturday night sofa film. See it and smile.

Lucky Man: A Memoir

An absorbing and very well-written book that proves that people in the public eye and just like the rest of us.

Michael J Fox
Michael J Fox

Lucky Man is not a typical Hollywood star autobiography. While it is peppered with references to the television shows and movies Michael J Fox has made it is – most definately – not a name-dropping ‘look at me’ celebrity obsessed biography. Yes, it’s an insight – although not too revealing – into the inner sanctum of Hollywood stars but it’s very much grounded in the real world. It deals with the highs and lows of a film career and the pleasures and pressures that brings. When reading the book you really do feel as if Michael J Fox has been able to take a step back and look upon his own career from outside. He’s able to analyse the fame, the money and identify both the good and the problematic that his career has brought him. However, from the beginning of the book, his upbringing and his rise to (and through) fame are placed in context by the Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis. That diagnosis has allowed Fox to asses what’s important to him and write a book that shows him as a genuine, warm and open individual. There’s no sentimentality about the book and he does detail how the disease effects him but, at no point, do you feel like an intruder into his private life. Despite the difficult nature of the Parkinson’s Disease descriptions, Lucky Man is an absorbing and very well-written book that proves that people in the public eye and just like the rest of us.

Wet London 20

Back now from my holiday and it seems that London has been wet while I have been away!

Wet London 20
Wet London 20

Ah, so I am back and exhausted from my little holiday. You will see some pictures on the Flickr sidebar or at my Flickr pages. Of course while I have been enjoying some sunshine I see London hasn’t been that dry. [Wet London 20]

Taboo: The Boy George Musical
Taboo: The Boy George Musical

Time now to tackle some of the 200 or so comment spam messages that have arrived in my in box.

In the meantime, is it really two years since I went to see Taboo?

21 Dog Years: Doing Time At Amazon.Com

Daisey’s book is flagged as a comic tale but it takes a while for the comedy to warm-up. In fact, it’s only towards the end that I felt there were some laugh-out-loud moments but don’t let that put you off. ’21 Dogs Years’ in well written and compelling.

It’s quite easy to get sucked into Mike Daisey’s ‘21 Dog Years: Doing Time At Amazon.Com‘ as he moves from dilettante to corporate business development guy. On the journey we learn he is one of the (mythological?) freaks that Amazon initially wanted to help launch and then staff its growing customer service division. We learn about the training, the call-time targets, the lack of windows, the Chicken Orzo Salad and Jeff obsessions.

Unlike Robert Spector’s ‘Amazon.Com: Get Big Fast‘ this is a tale from the inside but how much is exaggerated for comic effect is unclear. For sure, life in an under-staffed call centre – where if you don’t work all hours you’re seen as letting the team down – is not the glamorous side of any business and the world of fast growing online books sellers can be no exception. The dreams that all would be multi-millionaires on the back of huge stock rises are also not unusual to any tale of this era. Perhaps the thought of sending the free books to customers on the database isn’t typical of the dot-com boom but the frenzied ‘1-click Christmas’ period will be familiar to many in a start-up venture.

Daisey’s book is flagged as a comic tale but it takes a while for the comedy to warm-up. In fact, it’s only towards the end that I felt there were some laugh-out-loud moments but don’t let that put you off. ’21 Dogs Years’ in well written and compelling. You really do want to know what Mike’s going to do at the end. Don’t look for an insight into business strategies of that time but you will get a view of the craziness of life in the trenches of rapidly growing business.

Looking Around

Perhaps I should make this your holiday reading list. You may be tested later.

While I am taking a short break somewhere a little warmer, keep an eye on the flickr sidebar in case I manage to work out foreign ‘phone networks and picture messaging! In the meantime:

  • e-consultancy’s internet decade seems like a bit of a back-slapping exercise. Certainly, many of the people listed changed something but I would have preferred to see recognition for people who had the vision (and still do) rather than a list of MDs. Still, at least they admit, “the final list is really only some of those who have done so much”.
  • You may not have seen it at your newsagent but The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America has concluded that “differences in the acoustic characteristics of vowels were found as a function of sexual orientation” [source]. Why do people continue to look for differences between gay and straight people. Isn’t it obvious? Gay men fancy other men. What does it matter if there’s a difference in vowel production (who knew there was such a thing anyway?). [via plasticbag]
  • The ‘world’s best radio station‘ that you’ve never heard (according to a report in The Independent): more and more people I know are tuning in here in Central London. I suppose I ought to try it at some point.
  • And while you might not be too bothered about ex-PM John Major’s answer to the question, “Do you think ‘I’m gay and Tory’ is a contradiction?” {Answer: No. Many people who are gay vote Conservative, and over our long history, many who are gay have risen to prominence within the party) [source] you may be interested in some of the other things he has to say about Tony Blair, those ‘bastard’ cabinet colleagues and rail privatisation.
  • According to News.Com: John Doerr is reported as saying that despite speculation Google would not enter the Web browser market. I wonder.
  • Bad news for those friends of mine who work in the business of marketing to mobile ‘phones but, apparently, text messages are twice as likely to irritate recipients as cold calls, according to research carried out by Cable & Wireless and reported at Revolution.
  • Did you know that a “fixation is a very short pause of the eye. A normal viewing of an ad, say, would include multiple fixations and “saccades,” which are the paths between fixations”. No, nor did I, but it’s reported at Poynteronline (everything you need to be a better journalist) in their coverage of the Eyetrack III study which seems, in the main, to state a lot of obvious things – although does back much of it up with some fascinating observations and heatmaps.
  • Also at Poynteronline (still everything you need to be a better journalist) but this time via MarketingVox (no amusing strapline to be found), “a German newspaper started printing blog excerpts as a regular feature”. Apparently the Frankfurt-based paper paper launched a page containing excerpts from weblogs without permission and so the wrath of blogosphere ensued forcing the paper into an apology. Was this good or bad? A feint whiff of hypocrasy to me.

And, no doubt the world will have moved on by the time I am back. A few interesting things are my Bloglines Blogroll.

Less Clutter On The Air

At last somebody in the commercial radio business has noted that one of biggest reasons to turn off isn’t poor music policy, crap jokes or bad station identity – it’s annoying and repetive radio commercials.

At last somebody in the commercial radio business has noted that one of biggest reasons to turn off isn’t poor music policy, crap jokes or bad station identity – it’s annoying and repetive radio commercials. Somebody in the UK should take on board the Clear Channel approach of trying to make better radio ads and brodcast fewer of them: “Radio is the most difficult medium because there are fewer senses to work with. For the most part, radio ads are a yawn” [source]. With online catching radio in terms of advertising spend (Britain’s Online advertising market will surpass the £500-million mark this year – Independent Online) radio’s revenues may be in for a rocky time. Inn the UK the Online industry may well surpass radio during the next 12 months so it’s important that the industry wakes up and does something to ensure that the recent history of growth and development can be sustained.

BBC4 Should Broaden Its Appeal

You dream of something good and I dream of BBC Television idents. I also remember children’s TV and want to impact the US elections. It’s an odd train of thought today.

According to The Independent [Source: BBC’s digital channels are ‘poor value’] ‘BBC4 makes too many programmes which “virtually no one watches”‘. I would say that’s a shame but I have hardly ever watched it. The only reason it is relevant is that last night I dreamt about all the BBC channel identities – those boxes with ‘BBC One’ etc. written in them – I have no idea why but in my dream they were all yellow and none of them had that annoying BBC Three character.

In a tenuous link, the BBC will, of course, be reporting the run-up and the outcome of the American elections next month. It may seem that we are somewhat powerless to do anything about it but The Guardian is giving everybody a chance to say something. The idea is that Guardian readers are matched to an American voter thus allowing them the chance to communicate on a personal basis and tell a real-life voter what the rest of the world thinks. I think it’s quite an interesting idea. What the voters of Clark County, Ohio may think when they get letters from us Brits is another things altogether. More at The Guardian.

Looking at my Flickr photo collection, I see that the first picture is of the water cooler in the office. This takes me back to the warm, balmy days of summer when it was so hot we thought we would melt in the office. Today, I am sitting here thinking I may have to buy a t-shirt in my lunch break to wear under my shirt as I am cold and it’s pouring with rain. Last week I wrote about autumn. I am beginning to think we skipped straight to winter.

Speaking of photos (and linked to the BBC – so it makes sense to write it here) – memories of children’s television and this date seem to be linked. This day in 2002 I was talking about the show Rainbow and today Tom has posted a picture of Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub. Somewttimes, it would be nice to be eight years old again!

Finally for now, today’s phone lust: Orange SPV C500. Come on Palm – get your act together – I want a more compact ‘phone that the Treo by the time I am allowed to upgrade again.

Leaf On The Path

Colours on the pathway.

Leaf on the pathI mentioned on Wednesday how much I love autumn and this great photo kind of sums up why. It’s from Flickr and it captures both the colours that I love and the sense of change that brings excitement. Oddly, the as the leaves die and fall I get a much greater sense of comfort that I do with the blossoming in spring. I shall leave you with this as the end of my week is proving so busy. [Leaf on the path]

And I must point it out again for yesterday’s On This Day made me laugh!