The first area of new things is in terms of reading (having accidentally abandoned my month-by-month review of what I’d been reading, regular readers may be reassured to know I haven’t given up on books!). I seem to be alternating my general diet of fiction with a little more fact, including books on librarianship, philosophy and language. I have always read such books, but I’m picking them up a little more frequently these days. My fiction diet has widened as well – during January, I have already read work by W. Somerset Maugham, Armistead Maupin and China Miéville for the first time. I really enjoyed all three, and have already begun raiding the library shelves for more by the last two.

The other area for newness is the area of education (which, I admit, does rather overlap with reading!). I am trying out some new things in the information literacy sessions I teach and I am expanding my own horizons in terms of professional development. I have signed up for a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) from the University of Edinburgh entitled E-learning and Digital Cultures. This is a 5-week on-line course which starts next week, exploring on-line learning in a variety of interesting ways. As a number of the courses I support are taught at a distance and as almost all of ‘my’ students spend some time away from the university environment on placement, I am particularly interested in e-learning and what role (if any) it can play in the information literacy teaching and training I provide. I’m also interested in the concept of MOOCs as a whole, and doing one seems the most sensible way of understanding them. Enrolling on the course has already got me to sign up to Google+ for the first time.

I have also made plans to pursue a scheme at my workplace which would give me recognition for my contribution to learning and teaching and also, if successful, lead to Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. This will require a lot of work, gathering evidence about what I do and how it contributes to higher education learning and teaching. It’s not going to be easy, but even if I am not successful, it will be worth pursuing, as it will force me to reflect on my professional work more than ever, and the required reading will teach me an awful lot as well.

In addition to all of this, I am trying to understand the world of Open Access publication of research, which has led me to read all sorts of interesting things.

So, new things. Time-consuming new things, at that! I’m still keeping up the old things, though, which means my time management skills will have to develop at a rate of knots…

For the most part, meetings are actually rather positive.  I know (and the students and academic staff know) that there are limits to the wonders I can achieve, but most groups seem quite happy with the work that I do.  Some courses are a little less reluctant to work with the library than others, but I have only ever had one student outright say that I personally was doing a bad job, and that was (I think) at least partly a reaction to me refusing to break the law for him.  I’m annoying like that, you see.

Having spent much of the week in impending doom mode, I had a revelation on Friday afternoon that the groups of people I find it hardest to work with tend not to work well with anyone outside of their group anyway.  Which is fair enough – people who we perceive as “other” in some fundamental way, not in terms of race or sexuality so much as in terms of being in some sense “like me”, can be hard to understand, due to having minds that work in very different ways.  Different, not better or worse.  And it works both ways – I need to see their worldview in order to help them see a bit of mine.

I also thought it was about time to go through my ‘nice feedback’ folder again.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to regurgitate it all here, but the first and last items in there are wonderfully different.  The most recent is from the end of October, from an international organisation.  Some librarians from Nigeria had been visiting them, and as our library was nearby, they came for a tour.  As they were interested in web 2.0 and its possibilities in libraries, I was tracked down and asked to speak to them.  My manager forwarded the subsequent letter sent by their organisation to me as it included this :

I would particularly like to thank [the Singing Librarian] for the talk he gave at such short notice.  This was delivered very well…

Aw, thank you!

The earliest item in there is from around 4 months after I started in the post, just after my first new intake of students and therefore my first intensive round of planned lectures, workshops and the like.  Our library holds a user group, and I received an email after this informing me that a member of staff wanted to minute that the

students were singing your praises about the support that they had received from you at their workshops and when they have called into the library to see you.

Which is nice.  It is relatively rare for the role of the library and its staff to be acknowledged officially, apart from when things go wrong.  I am lucky to work, across the 3 universities my role covers, with some exceptional people who do brilliant work.

So why have I written this blog post after yet another long silence?  Well, regular readers will know that my confidence levels are subject to many fluctuations and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.  I wanted to recommend a ‘nice feedback’ or ‘lovely emails’ folder for everyone – you can’t be perfect all the time (and I am well aware of the aspects of my job which I’m still not great at), but it’s good to be able to remind yourself of the positives if you tend to accentuate the negative.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a bunch of other nice messages to read through…

I always rather enjoy the Olympics. I’m not much of a sports fan, but the coverage of a collection of very different sports, with the opportunity to watch just brief snippets of each is wonderful.  And the idea of the world coming together for a fortnight of friendly(ish) competition is even better.  There’s the joy of seeing countries you’ve barely heard of earn a medal or two, and the way in which the entire country can suddenly become experts on fencing, synchronised diving or the pole vault if it looks like a British athlete stands any chance in the sport du jour.  Having it in my own nation adds a bit of patriotic pride and excitement to the mix, even though I didn’t even enter the ballot for tickets, let alone attend.

The whole thing got off to a simply stunning start, with an opening ceremony which showed off the things which this strange little country is so proud of and showed an amazing theatricality.  I was in awe at the Pandemonium segment where chimneys rose from the stadium floor and the Olympic rings were forged in the sky, I grinned with delight when the Queen met James Bond, I felt inordinately proud of the NHS, our musical culture and the eclectic, multi-ethnic randomness of British society.  I felt quite emotional watching it, and indeed shed a tear towards the end.  The moment when it became clear that the cauldron would be lit not by a world-famous athlete, but by seven young people that most of us had never heard of made me glow with excitement – the symbolism of passing the torch on to the next generation and the thought of what those youngsters must have been feeling really struck me.  But I wasn’t prepared for the sheer beauty of those copper petals rising and coming together to form that beautiful cauldron.  Simple, yet utterly beautiful.  Add the fact that each petal was brought in by a different country, and I was gone.  That moment exemplified what the Olympics should be for me.

Then the actual competition got underway.   I saw bits of diving, gymnastics, handball, athletics, tennis, swimming, fencing, rowing, cycling, sailing, water polo and probably other sports which I’ve forgotten about.  As each event continued, I was in awe of what these people could do.  Even the last placed competitors were doing things which you wouldn’t think would be humanly possible – so fast, so high, so strong, not to mention so long, so graceful, so controlled, so coordinated and so on.  Whether I enjoyed the sport or not, I found myself open-mouthed time after time.  I also found myself shouting at the commentators and interviewers quite frequently.  They often seemed distinctly disappointed if the British hopes got anything less than gold (for shame, they’re only the third best athlete in the world!), even if it was a surprise that said competitors even made it to the finals.  And in one swimming relay, the commentator shouted “oh no!” – a team had won gold and broken the world record, but they still hadn’t gone quite as fast as he’d hoped.  I’m sorry, but they’ve just swum faster than any other team in history, and you’re disappointed?  Madness!

The things I’ve seen blew my mind.  In the diving, I was impressed simply by the control in their handstands, let alone what twists and turns they went though on the way into the pool (where they somehow have to avoid splash).  The table tennis moved too fast for me to follow.  The long jump covered ludicrous distances, and the pole vault is mind-boggling.  Men and women carrying on through serious pain, and everyone (apart from maybe a few badminton duos) giving their all even if they were so far behind the rest of the field.  Concentration, determination and humility.  And yes, some very large egos as well.  The Paralympics will be just as awe-inspiring, I have no doubt.

The closing ceremony didn’t quite live up to the opening ceremony, partly because it didn’t seem to hang together as well.  It did have some excellent moments to it, though, particularly the opening segment with the newspapers and street parties, and the inspired pairing of Jessie J with Queen.  It did continue to prove the point that this country has produced some amazing music and musicians, though.  Lord Coe’s speech was obviously quite emotional for him, and it would be hard to argue with his assertion that “we did it right”.  While marvelling at the abilities of athletes from around the world, arguing the merits of various sports and enjoying the warm, fuzzy feeling which comes from the world coming together, the 2012 Olympics reminded me that this country (while far from perfect) is capable of being truly amazing.

This is a series, or sequence, of four urban fantasy novels set in London. They focus on formerly-dead sorcerer Matthew Swift, who has returned both more and less than human and seems to keep getting caught up in battles where the fate of London may be at stake.  These are not nice books.  Very few of the characters are particularly pleasant, and nasty things happen to lots of people.  But the plots and ideas are intriguing, the allegiances of the various parties are never 100% predictable and although you rarely warm to any of the characters, you soon find yourself wanting to read more about them.  I enjoyed the first two books a great deal, and the later two not quite so much, but I definitely thought they were worth reading and I’d certainly return to the world of Matthew Swift again, if only to read more about Kelly, a wonderful character introduced late in the series.  I’m also intrigued to investigate the books written under the author’s real name, Catherine Webb.

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

A darkly comic novel about a writer/professor who is pretty much washed up in all aspects of his life.  It somehow manages to weave together a bizarre collection of characters and objects – a tuba, a boa constrictor, a dead dog and more – into a nightmarish weekend in which things go from awful to so much worse at a rapid pace.  It has been filmed, but I don’t think I could bear to watch it – I’d need a cushion to hide behind to stop excessive cringing as the main character makes stupid mistake after stupid mistake.

A Man of Parts by David Lodge

June’s book group book and a bit of a disappointment.  A novel about the fascinating H.G. Wells sounds like an excellent idea, and I had previously enjoyed Lodge’s novels about the fictional (but worryingly realistic) University of Rummidge.  However, after a promising start, I soon went off this novel.  There is far too much emphasis on Wells’ sex life for my liking and far too often the glimpses onto his political life and writing habits were cut short in order to focus on his bedroom.  I’m sure this is fascinating for many people, but not for me.  It did remind me that I’ve only ever read Wells’ ‘scientific romances’, though, so I’ll be tracking down some of his other works.

Active Learning Techniques for Librarians: Practical Examples by Andrew Walsh and Padma Inala

I have been wanted to develop the teaching sessions which I run in various ways, and one of these is that I want to vary the ways I involve the students in their learning.  I already try to get them doing the things I’m trying to teach them as much as possible, but was looking for some ways to vary this.  The book is, as the title implies, full of practical ideas for activities and lessons which involve much more than the students listening to or watching the librarian.  Some involve web 2.0 tools, some involve the use of mobile technology and others are extremely low tech.  I found the book really useful, bot just for the specific ideas it contains, but also to spur me on to think about other ways I can make information literacy learning more active.

The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett

July’s book group book, and this one was an absolute joy.  Written in 1908, it is the story of two sisters who live very different lives, following them from childhood through to death.  It is not a rip-roaring page-turner, but it is utterly absorbing, drawing you in to the two women’s lives and painting them as absolutely real people.  They are simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary, as are the events around them.  The world changes, but in many ways they do not, and their stubborn pride is both exasperating and admirable.  I wanted to savour every page and I am so glad it was suggested for the group.  This is a remarkable book, and Arnold Bennett has now been added to the list of authors I need to read more of.  A list which seems to get longer every month!

The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

This was a re-read, as I am about to start rehearsals for a new musical based on the story, playing Utterson, and wanted to remind myself of the original.  It still holds up well, even if there is no longer any suspense at all about the ending.  The morality of the tale is far from black and white.  Indeed, it is rather unsettling to consider the concept of good versus evil in the context of this ‘case’.  Is Jekyll really as ‘good’ as he would believe?  I suspect this short book will continue to inspire film, theatre and television writers for many decades to come.

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A bit of a mixture there, as ever, including two very different book group books. Without any shadow of a doubt, The Old Wives’ Tale is my pick of the month(s).  It’s not an exciting read, it’s not a quick read, but it is the most rewarding novel I’ve read in quite some time.

I performed in Guys and Dolls last month, playing Nicely Nicely Johnson (otherwise known as “you know, the one who sings ‘Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat’”).  Things went really rather well, if the audience’s reaction is anything to go by, but there was one particular night which allowed me to demonstrate my mountain-making talents in addition to performing.

Things began well with the ‘Fugue for Tinhorns’, but in the dialogue after that, something very unusual happened.  I dropped a line.  I was so busy reacting to what the character Nathan had just said, that I momentarily forgot that I was supposed to say something.  Luckily, he covered for me by  adding a reaction comment of his own, which allowed me time to recover and come back in with the line.  Hardly earth-shattering, but as I have a reputation for knowing not only my lines, but everyone else’s as well, certainly noticeable to cast and crew, and cause for much self-annoyance.  Already cross with myself for this momentary lapse of concentration, I then managed to annoy myself further in the number ‘Guys and Dolls’, which has a dance break half way through.  At one point in this break, I managed to get a beat or so out of time, so that it looked as though myself and my duet partner were in canon with each other rather than in synch.  I doubt the audience would have noticed (when there are only two of you dancing, moments like that can be got away with to an extent), and I soon got back in to it, but I was still mightily annoyed with myself afterwards.

The Singing Librarian as Nicely Nicely Johnson, surrounded by the gamblers.

These little things, and a couple of others (also things which the audience would not have noticed and most people would just shrug off), began to mount up during the evening until we got to ‘Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat’.  This is surely the best song in the show, and was great fun to perform, but on that night it wasn’t quite so enjoyable.  At the start of the third verse, I had to leap up on to some benches.  As I did so, my subconscious decided this would be a good time to inform my conscious mind of something – that my costume for the finale of the show was in my dressing room.  Not a problem, you might think.  However, it wasn’t supposed to be there.  It was supposed to be in a quick change room by the stage to ensure that I had time to change costume, put on my tap shoes and strap on a bass drum.  The thought of having to dash down to the dressing room, which would involve going through about 5 doors and down the stairs, was not a fun one.  For a moment, it distracted me and I stumbled over the first line of the verse.  By the fourth word (laughed, if you need to know such things) I had recovered, and carried on as before.  However, I was exceptionally annoyed with myself, and it did worry some other people as well.  One of the ladies in the chorus said she thought I might not sing the verse at all, the musical director was rather concerned, and one of my fellow gamblers reported that I suddenly went deathly pale at that moment, which must have been quite alarming for him.

With the song and the scene over, I was fuming at myself, annoyed about all the small mistakes I’d made, annoyed that I had forgotten to take my costume up to the quick change room, and particularly annoyed that I had let this distract me on stage, even for a moment.  As soon as we were able to move, I dashed off towards the dressing room.  I managed to collide with two other gamblers on the way, then fall over on my way down the stairs.  I managed to get back in time for the drum, but by that point was extremely frustrated with myself and just wanted the evening to be over and done with.  As I checked, in a very flustered way, that all the buttons on my costume were done up, I accidentally worried another of the guys in the cast, who thought I was on the brink of a heart attack, and knew that a bass drum strapped to me would not make dealing with this very easy.

After the show, I was simply mortified.  Small mistakes which with hindsight I can see hardly anyone would have noticed, had assumed monstrous size in my mind, and I felt that I had let everyone down due to not living up to my reputation.  The mistakes probably amounted to five seconds of stage time in total, if that, but to me that was more than enough to make the performance a disaster.  I have since been assured that it really wasn’t, and I did soon realise that a little perspective was rather necessary.  Mountains and molehills.

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Related posts :

• Reasons to be fearful
• Standards and abilities
• Wrong note drag

Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn

Set on Fleet Street during the middle of the 20th century, this book is both highly amusing and rather sad.  It shows the newspaper industry at the end of it golden years, seen through the eyes of a few characters who work in an insignificant department, responsible for dreaming up crosswords and similarly cutting-edge parts of their publication (though they, of course, believe themselves to be dynamic journalists).  The characters are all deeply flawed, and Frayn draws them in such a way that you laugh at them, then are moved to feel sympathetic for them, even John Dyson, the pompous fool who is trying to make his name on television.  The disastrous press trip to the Persian Gulf which takes up much of the final few chapters of the book is a masterpiece of farcical writing.  An intriguing glimpse into a different time and world, this novel is decidedly worth reading.

Identity Theft by John Andrews

With the subtitle ‘Finding the missing person in you’, this is a Christian book about personal identity – both the general identity of a Christian as a child of God and individual identity.  This latter aspect is welcome, as a lot of Christian writing seems to imply that we are all turned out of the same mould and should be a homogeneous mass of identikit people.  This book sets out the reasons, both Biblical and otherwise, why this shouldn’t be the case, and encourages the readers to acknowledge both aspects of their identity.  I found the book challenging and encouraging, and have gone back to the beginning to read it again in the hope that I’ll actually remember what’s written here and live it out.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

This month’s book group book (though yet again I missed book group night).  I have seen the stage musical based on the book before and caught a mixed adaptation on television recently, but had never got round to reading it.  I didn’t find it one of Dickens’ best books, to be honest, though perhaps my feelings would have been different if he had finished the story before he died.  The chief problem is that the characters do not, for the most part, feel quite so vitally alive as his characters normally do.  Some of them, particularly Mrs Crisparkle and Durdles, are beautifully described, but there is a spark missing.  The big question of the book is this – what is the mystery?  Dickens made it clear in some letters that the obvious suspect is indeed the culprit, and all the clues are laid out quite clearly (for the reader if not for any of the characters yet).  So for me the mystery is how the guilty party will be brought to justice or who the disguised detective Dick Datchery really is (my money is on Bazzard, though that is again the obvious choice).  The mystery could be unravelled if everyone sat down and talked to each other, as each person holds a vital clue, but the likelihood of getting  such different people as Rosa Budd and Princess Puffer in the same room would be rather unlikely.  Reading Dickens is never a bad thing, but there are definitely better ones out there.  Oddly, leaving the novel midway doesn’t seem hugely frustrating.

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So not the most impressive list of reads this month.  In terms of impact, Identity Theft has been my most valued read, but Towards the End of the Morning wins in terms of enjoyment.

One side of my family has a history of mental illness, and I am no exception to this.  I have written about it before, but not for quite some time, and I think perhaps this is something I should be more open about, so this Week seems like a sensible time to mention it again.  Over the years I have found that others who know that I have these issues have felt able to come and talk to me about their own struggles with mental health, whether temporary or ongoing.  I am not always able to give them any sensible advice, but sharing our experiences seems to help both parties.

The theme of the week for 2012 is that doing good is good for you – random (or not so random) acts of kindness can be just as good for the doer as the receiver.  It is most definitely true that what you do has a big effect on how you feel, whether you have a recognised mental health condition or not.  The intent is not so much to raise awareness of mental illness, but to help everyone learn more about how to improve their own mental health and wellbeing.  Previous years have had a focus on anger, fear and loneliness, all of which affect everyone to a greater or lesser extent.  It will be interesting to see how widely publicised the week is and how much it encourages people to engage with its ideas.

Although the Facebook status updates mentioned at the start of this post are not all accurate in terms of dates, they do offer a glimpse of reality.  For those who have a mental health condition, every week is automatically Mental Health Awareness Week.  In my case, sometimes I’m mostly OK, sometimes I’m really not, but it would be very rare for a whole week going by without something happening to remind me that the chemicals in my brain are out of balance.  Whether it is unwanted thoughts, a loss of appetite and energy, unprovoked tears or even minor visual or (more likely) auditory hallucinations, something or some things will remind me, even on a good week, of the negative things my brain can get up to, making every week an awareness week in a quite different sense.

The Next Queen of Heaven by Gregory Maguire.

Picked up on a whim from the library, this is a novel by the author of the Wicked series which, in a change of pace, is not related to any previous work of literature or fairy tale.  This is a modern novel with a plot concerning the residents of a small town and their own struggles, some large and some small.  It takes in a variety of themes, including religious attitudes to the young and to homosexuality, family identity, AIDS and the search for meaning and purpose.  Things get rather crazy from time to time, particularly once the group of nuns are introduced.  It’s not a patch on Wicked (but then, neither are any of Wicked‘s sequels), but I did find myself laughing from time to time and there were scenes near the end which I found genuinely moving.

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.

A chance find in a charity shop, I had been looking for this elsewhere for some time, and was really looking forward to reading it.  However, I think I may have found it 20 years too late.  Often cited as a classic of fantasy literature, My teenage self would have loved it, and there is something to admire in the variations on common fantasy tropes and the insistence of bucking stereotypes, but I found this thoroughly underwhelming and won’t be seeking out the sequels.

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.

I am now finally up to date with the Wheel of Time saga, and can now join the many others waiting for the final volume to come out last year.  This was a great read, but definitely only for those who have read the rest of the series, as the number of characters is simply bewildering now.  For me, the predominant theme of this volume was hope, something we could all do with in our lives.  There is a moment when someone ‘does a Gandalf’, but it has been foreshadowed quite heavily for several books beforehand, so it’s not exactly a surprise when the character is brought back onto the playing field.  Many dangling subplots are resolved, and everything starts to come together.  At the close of the book, we even find most of the key characters in the same place at the same time, which probably last happened 9 or so books ago!

The Library Book by many and various people

This book, which contains a wide variety of reflections on libraries in the UK – fictional, philosophical, political, historical and whimsical – brings together original writing and extracts from longer works by authors, celebrities and thinkers.  It is inspiring, challenging, depressing and thought-provoking at different points, and clearly sets out many of the reasons why the public library service in the country really needs to be defended.  Most of the fiction I could happily have lived without, but the rest of it is well worth a re-read or two.  Please do check this out if you are at all interested in libraries.

Firestorm, the Nuclear Man by Gerry Conway and others

Having enjoyed reading the earliest stories about Booster Gold, I grabbed this as soon as I spotted it in the library, thinking that it had to be worth reading the first adventures of another second-string superhero I’ve rather enjoyed in the past.  From a slightly earlier era than Booster’s debut, I found these stories less entertaining.  There is still an interesting cast of characters, though I soon found the recurring villains irritating, but it’s not a collection I plan to re-read.  Best described as a fairly fun attempt to re-capture the spirit of Spider-Man’s first tales.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

First things first.  This book is long.  Very long.  And Dumas could have done with an editor.  Yes, I know such a concept did not fit with the literary and social landscape of the time, but the amount of padding and excess verbiage is rather irritating.  Other than that, this really is a good book.  The central character is intriguing, though I found myself growing less and less sympathetic towards him as the plot progressed and his drive for vengeance became more ruthless.  For vengeance is at the heart of this story, even though forgiveness and redemption do eventually get a look-in.  The account of Dantes’ escape from unjust imprisonment is gripping, and his need for revenge is understandable, but Dumas goes on to paint a picture of what happens when this becomes an obsession and Dantes, reborn as the titular Count, begins to play at being God.  Some of the secondary characters are fascinating, particularly those who get caught in the cross-fire of the insanely complex revenge plot, but one of the subplots which gains prominence as the book progresses – the romance of young Morrel and Valentine – took up far too much time, particularly towards the end when it took away the focus from the main story.  Like the film of The Return of the King, it does rather feel like the book ends three or four times.  But is it worth reading?  If you have the time to get through it, then yes, it is.  But I really don’t think there’d be anything wrong with reading an abridged version…

52 by Greg Cox

The novelisation of a weekly comic book series which I really en joyed when it was running, 52 fails to capture what made the series great.  It focusses on a year without the three key superheroes of the DC Universe – Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman – and shows the lives of some lesser lights – Renee Montoya, Black Adam and Booster Gold (yes, him again).  At times, the distinct voices of these characters are captured brilliantly, but the reading experience left me cold.  Not because so many characters were left out (including Elongated Man, one of my absolute favourites), but because the format was against it from the start.  Part of the joy of 52 was its uniqueness and the experience of reading it week by week.  Condensed into novel format, it soon becomes obvious when there are times when none of the plots are really progressing.  Not the author’s fault, I suppose.  The highlights for me were the glimpses at Oolong Island, where all the mad scientist characters were gathered to create ultimate weapons – chaos and hilarity naturally ensued.

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Quite a variety of reads this time, even though spread over two months.  It’s becoming obvious that anything comic booky is losing its appeal with me – I really ought to close the door on it, but I doubt I will.  It felt good to reach the end of The Count of Monte Cristo at last, and a relief not to have to carry the heavy book around any more.

Book of the month(s)?  The Library Book.  Obviously, this is something close to my heart, but it is also a well-presented collection of genuinely interesting pieces of writing.

Titanic the Musical.  Sounds crass, doesn’t it?  Those three words conjure images of flying icebergs, substandard cover versions of Celine Dion and the horrifying possibility of a tap dance to the strains of Wallace Hartley’s band.

Thankfully, none of these things form part of this show, and strangely it is not just a show I enjoyed watching, it’s one of the shows I’m proudest of having appeared in.  First performed on Broadway in 1997, Titanic has music by Maury Yeston and a script by Peter Stone.  It features dozens of named characters – all bar one of them actually sailed  on the great ship’s fateful voyage.  The ‘star’ is the entire company, and nobody’s heart goes on.  At least, not in so many words.

I had the great fortune to perform in Titanic during November 2008, playing the character of Harold Bride, one of the telegraph operators on the ship.  I was one of a privileged few members of the cast who only played one character (some, even with well over 50 people on stage, were obliged to take on 3 or more roles), and he was a character I came to love.  We were encouraged to research the people we were playing, which made the rehearsal process more educational than for your standard show!  We all knew where the authors had deviated from a totally accurate portrayal of events in service of dramatic effectiveness, and as we truly appreciated the reality of the people we were portraying, more than a few tears were shed in rehearsal.

The scale of the show is huge, following characters from all three classes on the ship as well as a number of crewmen from captain to stoker, chief steward to bellboy.  Each has their hopes and dreams, each has their own way of speaking.  Despite the parade of characters, the audience is somehow never lost and the wide focus makes it clear that this show is not about one or two passengers, but about the ship and all who sailed on her.  Although much of the dialogue is laden with irony due to the audience knowing what’s coming, it never descends into spoof and instead of being crass it serves as a memorial to the great ship and all who sailed on her.  Their hopes and dreams, their strengths and weaknesses, their failures, their heroism and above all their humanity.

The voyage of RMS Titanic is a legend.  This year, there will be many productions of the musical around the world.  Don’t be put off.  Go.  The music is majestic, the ensemble singing is amazing and the show pays homage to those who were lost without being over-sentimental.  There simply is no better dramatisation of these events.

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My posts from the time of the show :

• Becoming Harold Bride
• Rehearsals are odd
• Titanic memories
• Excess fire alarms

The Gathering Storm

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.

One of my discoveries of 2011 was Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, an epic fantasy saga spanning a dozen books so far and including a bewildering number of characters.  This is volume 12, the first of 3 volumes completed by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan’s death.  The change of writer is noticeable, but not jarring, and the pace of the narrative really picks up (there was a point a couple of volumes before this where things seemed to be moving ludicrously slowly).  Almost everyone of significance gets to do something worthwhile and probably the best series of events so far takes place in the battle for control of the White Tower (where female users of the One Power [i.e. magic] are based), which was tense, exciting and ultimately satisfying.  It has been obvious for some time now that cooperation between disparate people groups, and more importantly between male and female users of the One Power, will be the key to victory against the forces of darkness.  This theme becomes crystal clear here.  We also learn the true allegiance of many characters, and one woman proves to have been the bravest person in the whole series – to say more would ruin some key scene for future readers.  The final pages of the book were unexpected but welcome, giving this reader a palpable sense of relief.

The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

This month’s book group book (though I didn’t actually make it to the group), The Help is a story about the everyday nature of race relations between women during the 1960s in Mississippi.  The characters are very engaging, and although at times I couldn’t help but think that the author may have been viewing some things through rose-tinted spectacles, the sense of danger which surrounded even such a simple act as sitting down at a table with the wrong person was quite clear.  A really worthwhile read, but I don’t think I want to see the movie version – these are characters who have very specific voices in my mind, which may not match the vision of the actors and director.

Time Masters : Vanishing Point

Time Masters : Vanishing Point by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund

This one called to me in the library, as the DC Comics miniseries collected here featured Booster Gold, whose early adventures I had read during January. The cover also promised Superman, Green Lantern, Rip Hunter (a time travel guru) with maybe a bit of Batman and prehistoric creatures thrown in. Ultimately, despite pleasing art and some welcome glimpses of the previously mysterious Rip Hunter’s past, this is a mess. Too many characters are thrown in with seemingly no rhyme or reason, including several which are obscure even tho those steeped in DC Comics lore. The series seems to have been intended to join the dots between various other events in the DC Universe and never quite coalesces into something which makes any sense on its own. Disappointing.

Arsene Lupin

Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Thiefby Maurice Leblanc

Arsene Lupin is a charming French hybrid of Moriarty and Robin Hood, a criminal genius with a strong moral streak who seems like a forerunner of characters like Batman in the way in which he seems to have mastered every possible human skill. This is a collection of some of the many short stories he starred in, with a particular focus on his earliest adventures. The stories are just plain fun, even the ones which mock Sherlock Holmes (who pops up as a guest star) – highly amusing and enjoyable to read. The central character – arrogant and elegant, a hopeless romantic with a flair for the theatrical – is a wonderful creation and the plotting (particularly of the early stories) is tight. Absurd in some ways, these stories made me very happy indeed.

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Not quite so varied a selection as last month, February’s reading was still enjoyable. Only the Time Masters collection left me cold, and that didn’t take very long to read. Next month, I will continue with The Wheel of Time and with The Count of Monte Cristo. No doubt, I will also get distracted by other things along the way.

February’s book of the month? Definitely Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Thief. This is a character I definitely want to return to, as his adventures definitely brightened my February days.

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Related posts :

• Books of the Month – January 2012