Arcoarena

So “How To Succeed In Business Without Realy Trying” is over. It’s been over for a while but I’ve only really just started catching up on everything that got left during show week.

It was a really good show. I’m a little surprised it doesn’t get produced more often as it’s a fun show, a little dated maybe but that doesn’t stop it being funny. It was my first time lighting a musical, especially in a venue as big as the New Theatre Royal, but it all went really well. I was stressed and worried on the Sunday night as I’d reached the point where everything was rigged and it was too late to change so if I couldn’t sort out any problems during plotting I was stuffed. Fortunately with a bit of work on the Monday it all looked quite good by the end of the Dress Rehearsal. I was actually quite proud of it in the end.

Anyhow. Now that the show is over I haven’t got any plans to design anything else for the rest of the year. I know I’m not lighting the HumDrum summer musical next year, although I did offer to help out backstage elsewhere (it was at the after-show party so whether anyone will remember….). I’m planning to use the spare time to fit a kitchen.

I went to see Avenue Q (the muppet musical) a while back. £20 for a balcony seat (with three people in the group) hits the wallet a little hard but the blow was softened when we arrived and the balcony was closed and our seats were upgraded to the centre of the royal circle (i.e. some of the best and most expensive seats in the house) from where the view was fantastic
The show was really enjoyable. Very funny in places if a little childish (for example one number is called ‘the internet if for porn’).

The main reason its taken me around a month to write this is that I don’t really know what to say. I really, really enjoyed this and I’d jump at the chance to see it again. It’s not like the TV shows, you can see the actors/puppeteers, but I think that adds to it rather than distracts. The show is very slick and there are some really clever bits somewhere amongst the silliness

I’m a bit confused as to why I can’t write more about this. You’ll just have to go and see it for yourselves.

I went along to help with a fit-up at the New Theatre Royal this saturday (The Full Monty, produced by HumDrum). It reminded me of a dramsoc fit-up as it involved hanging lots of lights of scaff and trying to cable it neatly. I’m going to be board-op on Friday night as the LD has to go to the States on business
Anyhow, ‘The Full Monty’ is the musical version of the film. This means several things, firstly it’s now set in America, it has songs (obviously), and it has far too many locations for a sensible play. It has to be said it was a ‘brave’ choice of musical.

The ending is true to the film though, and they do indeed do ‘the full monty’. To make this suitable viewing for all the plan is to use a combination of pyro and a blackout to protect the actors modesty. One reservation I have is that the theatre is a slightly odd layout. The stage area burnt down and the stage got rebuilt infront of the proscenium-arch into what would have been the front half stalls. This means that the actors can almost shake hands with the people at each end of the dress circle. The people at the sides of the dress and upper circles are viewing side-on so I don’t know how much they will get to see.

My main concern is that both the pyro and the blackout are controled from the lighting desk. So I might be quite nervous towards the end of Friday night’s performance.

I went to see HumDrum perform Little Shop of Horrors in the New Theatre Royal yesterday evening.

It was a very good performance. The interesting things are the comparisons with MTSoc’s version they did last year. It was a much simpler set this time, which actually worked quite well, the cast was also smaller so they managed to do the crowd-type scenes without completely filling the stage to bursting point like MTSoc did. It was also interesting to see the effect of an older cast. The plant they had wasn’t anywhere near as good and the one MTSoc hired. To conclude what appears to have turned into a list rather than any kind of prose…

Humdrum always try to do small plays or slightly better known plays in interesting ways. This time they opted to turn the Ronnettes into Bag-ladies. This actually worked very well as it gave them a bit more individuality and added humour. I can’t think of a reason not to use bag-ladies and it worked very well indeed.

Well a Radio 3 producer has resigned due to the BBC’s decision to broadcast Jerry Springer the Opera. He cites blasphamy as his reeson. He also says

“One of the arguments used before the broadcast was that the stage show had not been attacked for blasphemy.

“My answer, after watching the show, is that anyone likely to pursue a case for blasphemy would not have remained in the theatre long enough to witness it.”

And of course that naturally doesn’t apply to TV does it. I myself find it very difficult to change the channel using the gigantic, monsterous, cumbersome piece of plastic that is a remote control. Obviously that’s the only reason I watched such ‘deviant’ behaviour.

I admit there might be a few arguments for the ‘well it shouldn’t have been shown on TV’ despite it’s run in the West End, but not being able to stop watching it shouldn’t be one of them

He apparently worked on a program called ‘Between the Ears’ – make up your own punchline.

I watched ‘Jerry Springer the Opera’ on Saturday night, partly because of the publicity (cleverly disguised as news) and partly because I was interested.

I quite liked it. I’m not sure I’d give it rave reviews but it was very enjoyable and funny. I think the think that I disliked the most was the fact that it was an opera rather than a musical so sometimes words were difficult to understand. Having said this I actually also like the fact that it’s an opera and it would have been far worse as a musical. There’s Double Think for you (almost).

In other news most of Cumbria is under water. Andrea really chose the wrong week to visit her family. No electricity, no water (supply, far to much of the other type of water). Added to which she had to change 5 times and take both trains and buses to get home and still ended up 45 minutes drive from her house. It’s almost funny. I shall have to mock later.