Covering the rainbow


Many years ago, songs from stage and screen musicals were eagerly devoured by recording artists looking for quality material, were heard on the airwaves all day long and were whistled by people in the street.  These days, this isn’t as true as it once was, though showtunes pop up in all sorts of unlikely places, perhaps most frequently as the background music for television adverts.  Cover versions of these songs tend to be restricted to ‘theatre people’ on theatre or cabaret albums, or to folk like Jamie Cullum and Michael Bublé, since a lot of the jazz, swing and easy listening standard repertoire has its origins on the musical stage.

Over the Rainbow CDLast year, an unusual album of showtune covers was released, in order to raise money for children’s hospices in the UK.  This was organised by Anneka Rice, as part of a special edition of Challenge Anneka, a name which will only mean anything to Brits of around my age or older.  In the space of a few days, Anneka badgered, hectored and emotionally blackmailed (probably – I didn’t see the special, so this is pure speculation) a diverse bunch of producers, artists and so on into recording this album, which went on general sale with £2 from every purchase going to the worthy cause of the Association of Children’s Hospices (though why only £2?).  The album is called ‘Over the Rainbow’, subtitled ‘Showtunes in aid of the Association of Children’s Hospices’.  It’s a most intriguing thing.

The album opens with the title number, one which everyone (surely?) knows, as interpreted by Duncan James on vocals, Myleene Klass on piano and, to add that special something, a children’s choir.  I am a firm believer that this old song from The Wizard of Oz works best when sung simply, allowing the melody and the lyrics to do their work.  Sadly, this isn’t one of those occasions – the vocalist goes in for the swoops and twiddles that tend to annoy me, though I do like his voice, and the children’s choir just pushes the whole thing over into too-sweet-to-be-true territory, where the song becomes mildly disturbing.  Not, however, as disturbing as McFly interpreting ‘You’re the One that I Want’, one of the not-remotely-1959 interpolations to the film version of Grease.  Not McFly and somebody else, just McFly, splitting the duet between the various members.  It’s highly bizarre, not least because you can hear the Busted/McFly sort of sound very clearly.  It’s as though you’re listening to an iPod shuffle which has gone insane.  Instead of playing your songs in a random order, it has taken them and reassigned them to random artists.  I normally quite like McFly in their own way, and I normally like it when someone interprets a song in a fresh way, but it really doesn’t work for me.

After this, thankfully, things become significantly less disturbing.  The matching of artists and songs still seems random on paper, but they mostly work.  Bonnie Tyler gives a nicely vulnerable rendition of ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’, Cerys Matthews does a wonderful job on ‘Secret Love’, obviously completely unlike the Doris Day original, Gavin Creel trips effortlessly through ‘Young at Heart’ and Jermaine Jackson duets with Jocelyn Brown to cover ‘The Time of My Life’ from Dirty Dancing.  I’m not taken with Michael Bolton on ‘Theme from New York, New York‘.  I know he’s doing it as if it’s from one of the recent stage biomusical thingummies of the Rat Pack, but his interpretation doesn’t thrill me and I really, really don’t like the alterations that Frank Sinatra made to Fred Ebb’s original lyric (listen to the original by Liza Minnelli, then tell me how the phrase “A number one” improves the song).  Anyway…

After the rather frightening ensemble effort on the first track, I steeled myself before two of the other numbers on the album.  The first was Oliver!‘s ‘Consider Yourself’, covered by Richard Fleeshman (I had to look him up – apparently, he was on Coronation Street) and the London cast of Avenue Q.  In character.  Readers who are familiar with both Avenue Q and ‘Consider Yourself’ will realise that this is likely to be an intriguing track, and it certainly isn’t quite how you normally expect the song to be, but it’s a lot of fun, largely because those involved seem to be enjoying themselves.  The final track features Chickenshed and its co-founder Jo Collins singing a song called ‘Talk Though Me’ from The King’s Web.  Chickenshed is a London theatre group for children of all backgrounds and abilities and is a quite amazing organisation.  The song is a perfect song for them and it’s a beautiful final track for the album. 

I may be disturbed by some of the album’s choices, and it may initially seem as though children’s choirs send me screaming, but this track I like.  It is more the case that I refuse to subscribe to the philosophy that because something is done by children, or done by Christians (such a strange idiosyncrasy of middle-class churchgoers), or done for charity, we should hold it to lower standards or worse still make it automatically ‘great!’  If people perform badly at a charity concert, the fact that they’re raising money for a good cause doesn’t make their singing or acting any better and there’s no reason to listen to Andrea Bocelli and say “oh, he’s very good for a blind man”, which I have actually heard people say.  He’s either good or bad, surely?  Bad children’s choirs make me want to scream.  Unnecessary children’s choirs are possibly worse (as the choir for ‘Over the Rainbow’ isn’t actually bad, in fact it’s rather good, just in the wrong place, I feel).  But a good, appropriate children’s choir is good.

Rant over, what do I think of the album overall?  Well, I’ll listen to it again, though McFly’s track will be skipped from now on.  If I lost it and chose to re-purchase through iTunes or similar, I’d be picky about the tracks and eight, possibly nine, out of the thirteen songs would make it into my library.  Perhaps it’s an album of showtunes for people who don’t really like showtunes?  I don’t know.  It’s interesting, a proportion of the cost goes to a good cause, and a proportion of the tracks are good (rather than just ‘good for a charity release’).  Thank you, Anneka, and thank you, generous people who gave their time to record this album.  Even McFly, who I’m sure won’t mind that I skip them.

2008
01/23
CATEGORY
Music
Ramblings
TAGS



2 comments

A lad in a panto


Partly spurred on by Aphra Behn’s post on pantomime, and partly due to a cry of “I’m bored!” from one of my fellow house-dwellers/purchasers, I recently attended the Marlowe Theatre’s annual festive extravaganza, this year being the old favourite Aladdin.  Now, I knew going in that this wasn’t necessarily going to scratch all my panto itches.  The Marlowe doesn’t do the principal boy thing, as they tend to bring in a soap heartthrob to attract additional female audience members.  I tend to prefer amateur pantomimes anyway, as the leads are likely to have more stage experience than ‘Her off Big Brother’ or ‘Him off EastEnders’.  And my very favourite pantomime story is Mother Goose, though Aladdin is certainly acceptable.

The cast included Stephen Mulhern as Aladdin (him off children’s telly) and Shaun Williamson as Abanazar (him off EastEnders ages ago and Extras), but that was it for TV-star billing, and the two of them were not of the ‘so bad I wish I was dead’ variety of celebrity panto star.  Mulhern had an extremely busy time, as there was a distinct lack of Wishee Washee, meaning that he had to be both romantic lead and ‘audience friend’ (Buttons from Cinderella being the other famous example).  This must have been a tiring task, as it meant he had to win the girl and save the day, but also get the audience primed for the inevitable shouting, do the audience singalong and participate in the inevitable slapstick routines.  Poor chap.  I was full of admiration, and just a touch of jealousy!  He was jolly good, too, with a rather nice singing voice, bags and bags of charisma, more energy than anyone should have on the third performance of the day and a command of the stage.  Bravo!

Very, very funny indeed were comics Hilary O’Neil as Slave of the Ring and Lloyd Hollett as PC Pongo.  They may be terribly famous for all I know, but they weren’t known to me beforehand.  Both were brilliant in their roles and managed to get a cheer out of me at the curtain call.  On the other end of the scale was, sadly, the pantomime dame.  Dave Lee is always billed as a ‘local legend’, and does a lot of excellent work for children’s charities.  Sadly, though, I completely failed to find him in any way funny.  He did do the traditional thing of not even pretending to be female, but he still wasn’t funny to me.  It’s always disappointing when the dame doesn’t sparkle, but Widow Twanky was a big damp squib as far a I was concerned.

The panto did a good job in its arbitrary choice of songs.  Often, a song is chosen where the title fits the plot, but the actual mood or lyrics of the song are completely wrong.  This wasn’t the case here, as a section of ‘Defying Gravity’ (from the musical Wicked, brilliantly sung by Hilary O’Neil) actually fit Aladdin’s magic carpet ride from China to Egypt and enough liberties were taken with ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ to make it vaguely appropriate for its slot.  Snatches of Take That and The Buzzcocks provided a bit of randomness, but the most arbitrary choice was the opening number, ‘We’re All In This Together’ from High School Musical (the Disney version…) which bore no relation in any way to anything at all.  The chorus (as Chinese citizens) sold it, though, so that was OK.  Attending pantomime without a programme is always exciting with the songs, as you can play a game of trying to spot the song from the opening chords and then speculate on how well or otherwise it’ll fit with proceedings.

I had a lot of fun.  I was impressed by several of the performers and let myself go so that I could happily boo the villain, shout ‘Hiya’ to Aladdin and join in with ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ (“Five custard piiiiiiiiies!”) with no inhibitions.  Which is always the best way.  If you attend a panto and don’t join in, then you tend not to have a good time.  It’s participatory entertainment, community fun, and an all-round enjoyable experience.

2008
01/18
CATEGORY
Theatre
TAGS


5 comments

The Singing Librarian looks back on 2007


This time last year, I looked back over the previous 12 months from a personal perspective of achievements, experiences and lessons learned.  This year, to avoid creating an annual tradition, my year-end post will look instead at some bests and one or two worsts.

Theatre

There’s really no contest for me.  Parade was not only the best production I’ve seen this year, but the best production I’ve seen for a very long time.  I was fortunate to see a number of excellent productions this year, but this one was head and shoulder above the rest.  It was emotionally moving, intellectually engaging and theatrically inspired.  I haven’t seen Hairspray, the winner of this year’s Evening Standard award, but from my position of ignorance, I cannot see how it can in any way be considered better, unless ‘better’ means ‘more profitable’.  I waxed lyrical on Parade when I saw it, so won’t repeat myself.  It really was extraordinary, though.

Television

It may be odd, but the best thing I’ve seen on television this year is ‘Blink’.  Why odd?  Well, it’s a single episode of Doctor Who, a science fiction drama for a family audience.  It is, however, a series that attracts very talented writers and actors and this episode was wonderful.  Deeply scary (what could be more disturbing than statues that move whenever you stop looking at them?) and probably produced on a lower budget than your average episode with an emphasis on characters being drawn in to the Doctor’s strange world of “wibbly wobbly timey wimey…stuff” though meeting him only briefly.  The new incarnation of Who has had some stunning episodes and for me, this was the best thing I caught on the small screen all year.

On the opposite end of the scale is a show that shares the same time-slot when Doctor Who is not being broadcast.  Robin Hood.  It has become traditional for the denizens of my house to gather round and watch this together and although I rather enjoyed the first series, I have found other things to do as this year’s batch of episodes has gone on.  It has taken preposterousness to new heights (or rather depths), which is really saying something since my favourite piece of television this year features a time traveller and living statues.  I didn’t mind the occasional anachronism, the odd bit of perturbing erotic subtext and what have you, but several of the episodes I’ve seen recently have made me despair.  Perhaps not the worst thing I’ve seen, but by far the most disappointing.

Cinema

The Simpsons Movie is probably the most entertaining film I’ve seen this year, with the choral arrangement of ‘Spider-Pig’ over the end credits being a particular delight, but it certainly wasn’t the best.  Enchanted was almost as entertaining, nodding and winking to Disney movies of the past and containing a few wonderful musical moments, but that wasn’t the best of the year either.  Stardust was the most anticipated, and I enjoyed it, but that wasn’t the best.  Atonement was very moving, but that doesn’t clinch it for me.  No, my cinematic highlight of the year is a film I hadn’t even heard of before I arrived at the cinema, and which I only saw because we arrived too late to an attempt to see Stardust.  A drama called Lions for Lambs, which is essentially composed of three conversations, each in a static location (though one of those locations is a mountainside in Afghanistan with Taliban fighters approaching, so static is perhaps not the right word).  Six people.  Talking. 

But it was incredible.  Tom Cruise was superb (not something you’ll hear me say very often), Meryl Streep and Robert Redford proved that they deserve their longevity in the business, and the three younger actors more than had what it took.  It was a film about choices.  Right choices, wrong choices, right reasons, wrong reasons.  Highly politically charged, it managed not to preach any particular angle without sitting on the fence either.  And it left things open.  At least one key choice remained unclear as the credits rolled.  It made me think very hard, and that’s always a good thing.

Music

Leaving aside theatre music (the London cast recording of Parade!  Noise Ensemble recorded!  Me and Julietreleased on a public domain label!), the music charts provided some interest for me this year.  John Barrowman’s pop recording debut was underwhelming to these ears, but he was far from the biggest disappointment of the year.  That was Paul Potts, an opera-singing average bloke who won a TV contest called Britain’s Got Talent in June which led to a recording contract and an appearance on the Royal Variety Performance, which is where I finally saw and heard him.  My goodness.  Worst opera singer I’ve ever seen or heard.  He hit the notes and had a fairly pleasant voice, but there was no soul behind the performance, no special spark at all.  I totally fail to see what all the fuss was about.  Meh.

More positively, Michael Bublé released another album, Call Me Irresponsible, which contained many pleasures, though perhaps not as many as previous albums.  Mika was an impressive newcomer, the Plain White T’s had me hooked on ‘Hey There, Delilah’ but my favourite singles this year are perhaps two by Take That.  I know, I know, and I may even have ridiculed some people for liking the group in my time.  But ‘Shine’ and ‘Rule the World’ (the latter written for the film Stardust) were infectiously enjoyable singles.  So much so that I downloaded them from i-Tunes.

Books

This has not been a fantastic year for reading chez Singing Librarian, and much that I have read was not published in 2007.  In fact, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows may well be the only 2007 book I’ve read this year.  The books that I have most enjoyed reading this year have been The Moonstoneby Wilkie Collins (I find I enjoy Collins more than I enjoy Dickens, though I still feel that Dickens is in some way ‘better’), Night Watchby Sergei Lukyanenko and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.  All were read over the summer months and all were excellent.  The only execrable book I’ve read this year is The Alchemist.  Blah.

I was given the latest Terry Pratchett and the original illustrated novel of Stardust for Christmas, though, and am greatly looking forward to reading them.

Comics

I don’t appear to have blogged about comics this year, but I have been reading them.  52 concluded well after a dip in excitement and interest levels, going out with a bang in May.  It introduced new characters, brought others to greater prominence and  was followed up by a rather less well-produced weekly series called Countdown.  It has spawned a number of followups and Countdownis a spinoff-producing monster which I have been ignoring more and more as the year plods on.  Most entertaining 52-followup is definitely Booster Gold.  Time travel, egotism, heroism, betrayal and comedy is a heady mixture.  Ongoing series in the DC Universe (home of Batman, Superman et al) which have been most enjoyable are probably the most obscure.  Blue Beetle has introduced a great new hero, and Checkmate, which features political skull-duggery where the lines between superheroes and the United Nations blur, is quite simply an excellent read.

But my favourite is less mainstream and sadly, much less regular.  Rex Libris features the black and white adventures of a librarian who will travel the universe and the time-stream to recover an overdue book, saving lives and defeating monsters along the way.  It’s silly but intriguing and I am thrilled each time it appears.

End

So what do we make of this?  My favourites of the year include a musical about a miscarriage of justice, an episode of television about killer statues, a film about the war on terror, the return of a boy band and the adventures of a gun-toting librarian.  I think we can gather that I have eclectic tastes and that 2007 has managed to cater to them.  2007, I salute you!

2007
12/31
CATEGORY
Books & Comics
Cinema
Music
Ramblings
Television
Theatre
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3 comments

Simple joys


At vaguely this time last year, I wrote about the great mystery of Christmas, of God abiding on Earth.  As I don’t think I can sum up how I feel about Christmas any better, I won’t, but will mention something that struck me on Christmas morning.  This year, as the children at church demonstrated some of the presents they had opened before venturing out in the rain, I was struck by the differences between gifts and the levels of happiness shown by the younglings.  A couple had whizzy technological gifts – a laptop and a PSP – and seemed quite content with those.  Others had clothing, a table tennis table or a dolly that does most of the things that real babies do.  But the child who seemed happiest with what he had received was proudly demonstrating a small plastic elephant, part of a Lego (or Lego-style) zoo set.  He didn’t need it to dance, make noises, move, or even connect with other bits of the zoo.  It was an elephant and that was enough for him.

He had been given other presents, of course, but a few plastic animals made him happy, and that warmed my heart.  In a year when parents have been selling their kidneys (metaphorically, one hopes) to secure a PSP or a Wii for their demanding offspring, it was comforting to see so much pleasure being taken in something so simple.  My favourite children are always those with a healthy, active imagination, those who can play with a few milk bottle tops stuck on a cardboard box and turn it into the console of the TARDIS, or a laptop or whatever they need for their game that day.  They’re more tiring than those who just want to get out their latest console, but so much more rewarding, so much more real, and so much more likely to be the future in any meaningful way.

It also made me ponder on how much I manage to enjoy the simple things in life.  Bread and cheese.  A warm bed.  The sunrise.  These are the things that really make life worth living, surely.  A turkey roast with all the trimmings beside a twinkling Christmas tree which can sway in time to carols played through your laptop is great, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I wonder whether the simple things in life aren’t more worth having in some inexplicable way.

In a song from Pippin, Stephen Schwartz’s lyrics suggest that a man who cannot appreciate the ‘Simple Joys’ of life, such as sweet summer evenings and sharing a supper, is somehow chained, might as well be dead.  “Wouldn’t you rather be a left-handed flea… than a man who never learns how to be free, not till the day he dies.”  Simple joys at Christmas include my mother’s face when she opens any present (you could give her a box of tissues and she’d still be delighted); receiving communion at the midnight service; discovering what somebody at work thinks you might like in the secret santa; and sprouts.  I love sprouts.  I’m a big fan of most green vegetables in fact, so that’s perhaps not surprising.

Christmas is a simple thing and a profound thing, as is life in general.  I should perhaps resolve to spend more time appreciating the simple things, not just at Christmas, but all year round.  What are your simple pleasures?

2007
12/26
CATEGORY
Ramblings
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4 comments

“I’ve seen that cast” recordings


I have a lot of cast recordings.  Several hundred of the things, in fact, more than any sane person probably ought to own, including multiple recordings of some shows, particularly Cabaret, where I think I own every English-language recording of the show.  Generous people would say I’m a collector, others might just back away and flee from the crazy man obsessed with musical theatre on CD.  I often get hold of them through eBay, charity shops and record sales where they can be obtained at much less than recommended retail price, because they tend to sell at higher prices than pop or easy listening, appealing to a more niche audience.  I find them all fascinating, even though I don’t, to be honest, enjoy absolutely all of them.  And some hold a special place in my affections.

These are the very rare instances when I’ve seen the production that was recorded.  Not the show (I have seen A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum several times for instance, but not in productions that were recorded), but the particular iteration of the show.  Perhaps even the same cast.  That’s always exciting.  It’s a very rare thing, you see, as I don’t often get up to London to see shows, and these are the only casts generally preserved on disc in the UK.  From time to time, I may see a performer who has recorded the role, such as Richard Dempsey as Ugly in Honk!, but only three CDs in my collection are “I’ve seen that cast” recordings.

The first is The Witches of Eastwick, which ran in London around the turn of the century, having a much shorter run than I felt it deserved.  In this case, I got hold of the CD before the trip to Drury Lane, but we managed to get up to London while the original cast were still in their roles.  I was excited to see performers such as Maria Friedman and Joanna Riding, veterans of many productions and recordings, and the CD got me excited in advance about such numbers as ‘Dirty Laundry’, a wonderful piece for the ensemble, and ‘Something’, an exceedingly cute love duet. It was somehow more exciting knowing that I’d be not only hearing the same orchestrations (and believe me, orchestrations can vary a huge amount between productions) but seeing the same performers. 

The other two are the other way around, as the CD was produced after I saw the shows in question.  Both shows were deeply moving, though in rather different ways.  The London productions of Billy Elliot and Parade.  In years gone by, cast recordings would be available very shortly after opening night (if not before, sometimes recorded during tryouts and previews), but this is rarely the case now.  With Parade, which was presented for a limited run at the Donmar Warehouse, the recording became available a couple of weeks after the show ended.  The Billy Elliot one just took quite some time to put together.

With both of these recordings, having seen the show with same cast (almost – I saw a different Billy) gives the CD extra resonance, being able to associate the songs (and in the case of Parade, the dialogue, as it is a truly complete recording) with the emotions, thoughts and experience of seeing the cast perform them on stage.  It’s not quite the same as a video preservation of the show, particularly since I lack the capacity to summon up images of what I saw on the stage, but perhaps that’s a good thing.  Filmed stage productions always lack something, because the camera chooses where the eye will focus, while in the theatre there is generally a choice of things to look at.  The whole stage picture, the principals, the chorus, details of the set, sometimes even the stage crew.  But you still remember what happened.  The police cordon in Billy Elliot.  The way Bertie  Carvel fidgeted nervously in Parade.  The sheet-snapping in The Witches of Eastwick.  It makes the experience of listening to these particular recordings subtly different to that of listening to any other cast recording, even of different recordings of the same songs.  It makes them special, in a way completely unconnected to the quality of the music or performances.  It gives them a connection to me.

2007
12/16
CATEGORY
Musicals
Ramblings
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2 comments

Carols For a Cure


It has come to that time of year when legions of people search through their CD collections for their Christmas music, full of bells, pipe organs and heavenly choirs.  Or, quite possible, cloying sentiment about being home for a good old-fashioned Christmas just like we’ve always known.  Almost every household in the land (including many non-believing households who just like the time of year) has at least one of them somewhere, and will dust it off for a few weeks before putting it back to sleep for eleven months.  My mother has quite a number of tapes and CDs now with a whole variety of Christmas tunes on them, and will play nothing else for a week or so either side of the day itself, though she will make an exception for music that was received as a gift.  A favourite yuletide game is to guess who many times the hideous Amy Grant collection of seasonal sentiments will hit the tape deck.  I can generally cope with it once through, more than that is likely to cause an allergic reaction and a sudden urge to listen to rap just for some form of balance.

It has become a yearly tradition with me now to purchase the annual edition of Broadway’s Greatest Gifts: Carols for a Cure, an album featuring the performers from numerous Broadway shows contributing a wide variety of seasonal tracks in order to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.  This is a theatrical charity concerned with awareness and fundraising in the continued fight against AIDS, among other causes.  Most of their fundraising is carried out in New York, as their name rather suggests, but this is one of the ways that far-flung people can support them, by ordering their Christmas CDs through their web site.

The first listen to any of these sets is always intriguing, as the different shows come up with an incredible mixture of songs and the odd spoken piece between them.  From traditional arrangements of familiar carols to more modern versions, alongside comedy pieces, new Christmas songs and the occasional track celebrating one of the other holidays celebrated at this time of year.  The results range from side-splitting to yawn-inducing and from beautiful to mildly painful.  But there are always enough of the very good tracks to make the set worth buying even without that extra glow of knowing that money is going to a good cause.

Over the last couple of days, while switching mode from ‘study’ to ‘sleep’, I have given this year’s batch its first spin, and have once again been struck by the mixture and by the generosity of the numerous people who contribute towards it.  Highlights include rather marvellous renditions of such carols as ‘Joy to the World’, ‘Angels We Have Heard On High’ and ‘What Child Is This?’, the last of these being sung by the cast of Spring Awakening, a rock musical, perhaps proving they can sing in different idioms.  Light-hearted entries that tickled this librarian include the cast of Wicked deciding how best to sing ‘Jingle Bells’, where the country version really has to be heard to be believed, and the good people of Curtains telling the rather lovely story of the ‘Monotone Angel’.  There’s a bit of Mozart in the pot as well, and the whole set concludes with a duet of the most wonderful ‘O Holy Night’.  Not the greatest version I’ve ever heard, but still welcome.

So here I sit, listening to everyone from the Altar Boyz to Xanadu spread a bit of Christmas cheer in a glorious pot pourri that should contain something for everyone.  Not every track pleases, and one or two are really aimed at Broadway insiders, but this has become part of the countdown for Christmas for the Singing Librarian.  However, can someone please explain ‘Dominick the Donkey’ to me – what is that all about?

2007
12/07
CATEGORY
Music
Ramblings
TAGS


7 comments

Grateful


In a delightful bit of serendipity, I gave a talk to the kids at church on the topic of saying ‘thank you’ for the things we have on Sunday, with no intended connection to this being the week of Thanksgiving in the USA.  To illustrate my point, I had spoken some of the words of ‘Grateful’ by John Bucchino, a beautiful song which says some profound things in a very simple way.  The song lists some of the things we should be thankful for including ‘a warm place to sleep’, ‘a mind that can think’ and ‘a family of friends’ along with ‘a hand holding my hand’.  I was making the point that these, among others, are things that we should be thankful for every day, and we (definitely an inclusive we) are not very good at doing this.

I tend to be thankful about big things.  A new house, a new role in a show, a solution to a problem, that sort of thing.  I often forget to say thank you for simply being alive, for continuing to have a home, a job, friends and a family, my health and most of my faculties.   So in talking to the children about this, I was also challenging myself.

 In the spirit of Thanksgiving, here are a small selection of things that I am thankful for:

  • my ability to perform and entertain, which means I can do some wonderfully fun shows
  • my still new house and the housemates who share it with me
  • the stable state of my mental health at the moment
  • imagination, and all that it enables me to enjoy
  • the beautiful city that I live in

All things that I should thank God for more often than I do, along with those things that I truly need.   Breath, love, hope, food, warmth, water.  I am lucky to have all of these things, which so many people lack.  I leave you with some of the words of John Bucchino:

It’s not that I don’t want a lot
Or hope for more, or dream of more
But giving thanks for what I’ve got
Makes me so much happier than keeping score

. . .

Grateful, grateful
Truly grateful I am
Grateful, grateful
Truly blessed
And duly grateful

2007
11/23
CATEGORY
Ramblings
TAGS


2 comments

At the theatre, all in black


This week, the Singing Librarian is turning up to the local theatre each day dressed in black from top to toe.  There could be so many explanations for this.  Perhaps a week-long wake is being held for a local theatrical luminary.  Perhaps he will be donning white make-up and spending a week as a mime.  Or perhaps he is working just outside the limelight, as part of a show’s stage crew.  It is, of course, the last of these which is true.  One of the local Societies is performing Annie Get Your Gun this week and had asked me to sing in the wings, on an off-stage mic, to boost the volume of chorus singing, a task that I was happy to undertake.  Along the way somewhere, this remit expanded to helping with the ‘get-in’ (when the set, props, costumes etc. are brought in to the theatre) and assisting backstage during the week.  It’s a very different sort of week when you’re shrouded in black, hiding in the wings.  Where a performer gets an instant buzz of adrenaline when the stage lights hit them, a member of the crew knows that if they’re in the limelight, something has gone horribly wrong.  The small army of non-performing members of the company should rarely be either seen or heard, hence the black dress code.

Theatre work which doesn’t involve performing is not new to me and is certainly not ‘beneath’ me as a performer, which is something I have encountered before.  I have dabbled with directing, set construction, scenery shifting and I’ve even, and I pity the poor audience at these performance, operated the sound desk for a one-act play.  Many of these activities, particularly anything which involves being present during the performances, are just as scary and just as difficult as acting or singing.  In some cases, you have the power to mess up an entire show at the press of a button or two, and other times there is the dreadful worry that you could squash, concuss or otherwise injure any number of people as you carry out your duties. I certainly believe that all performers should do some backstage work for at least one show to give them a greater appreciation for the work of the black-clad army.  Whether it is shifting the set, handling the microphone packs, operating a spotlight or managing the props, the techies have to get things just right, for they cannot improvise their way around any mistakes and are likely to suffer grumpy actors and directors if anything does go wrong.

This week, I’ll be dashing from the offstage microphone to various other positions.  I hold curtains still or move them out of the way.  I help dismantle and remantle a house, a circus ring, a boat, a ballroom and a fort.  I push a huge train on and off the stage, and tie it together to prevent the cast sliding into the wings.  I check various props.  I pull a ticket office out of the way.  I dodge a multitude of items coming in from the fly tower above the stage.  I try not to tread on anyone.  I desperately hope the three children in the cast keep out of the way.  I have to remember, in the gloom, which bits go where in the glorious jigsaw puzzle of the set.  I do everything as quietly as possible while communicating with the other seven or so people doing the set and the two ladies in charge of the props.  In short I have to keep my head while using all of the muscles developed by the great amount of lifting that library work entails.

Backstage work can be fun, but it is definitely not as much fun a being out there on the stage, and just as stressful.  But it’s worth it.  Whether acknowledged or not, the production would not happen without the people working on set, costume, light, sound, props and stage management.  Next time you flick through a theatre programme and wonder what the operators, managers and assistants under the production credits do, think some happy thoughts about them.  They run around like a hive of silent bees making the actors look even better than they actually are.

2007
11/13
CATEGORY
Theatre
TAGS

9 comments

A not entirely fictional tale


Once upon a time, four friends decided to buy a house together.  Not just any old house, but one which had stood for over 200 years and had spent the last several decades not actually being a house.  They began work on it, knocking down stud walls, marvelling at the treasures the previous owners had left behind, watching electricians fall out with each other and painting the shed.  They lived together happily, trying to work out what this meant in terms of normal life and of spiritual life, for the position of the house was chosen for spiritual reasons.

One weekend, two of the friends went away to visit family and other friends, and the two who were left behind pottered around getting on with the business of life in general.  It being the weekend between Hallowe’en and Guy Fawkes Night, fireworks were exploding periodically, sending bursts of random sparks across the sky.  Sitting in his room near the top of this house (which is so high, it nearly brushes the clouds), one of the four friends, a librarian, heard a noise.  “That was an unusual firework”, he said to himself.  Then he heard a noise from his other housemate downstairs and thought “hang on, that sounded like glass breaking” and ran to his window to peer out in the street and see what was happening.  Unable to see anything useful, he ran down the stairs, an exercise which takes quite some time, and out in to the street.  Here, he discovered shards of glass, his housemate on the telephone, people milling around and a large pane of glass smashed in the front window.

Rather upset that someone had decided to damage the home he was rather fond of, the librarian waited for the police to arrive, and attempted ineffectually to deal with Drunken Man No. 2, who claimed to know the culprit and said that said culprit, who we shall call Mr Smashy, would come back and pay for the damage so long as the police did not come.  Since Mr Smashy had already run off down the street and could have had no idea the police would be called, this seemed unlikely.  It transpired that several people had called the police, as a window had also been smashed in the local pub at the end of the street and one lady happened to witness the act of smashing.

The police took details and a sample of the glass which appeared to have some blood on it, and helped the two friends clear up the glass from the street outside.  As a general picture of events was pieced together by the various parties, a man came back down the street and proceeded to walk past the small gathering, which by now included three police officers, the two friends, two neighbours and the pub’s landlady.  The latter woman had seen Mr Smashy in the act at her pub and suddenly cried “It’s him!”  And indeed it was.  Mr Smashy was too far under the influence of drink (and, the friends would later learn, other substances) to realise that this was a most unwise choice of route.  The police stopped him, whereupon it was discovered that Mr Smashy was bleeding heavily due to sustaining cuts from one or other window.  An ambulance was called while police, friends and Drunk Man No. 2 tried to get Mr Smashy to keep his hand above his heart.

Eventually, police, paramedics, Drunk Man No. 2, neighbours, Mr Smashy and the pub landlady had gone their separate ways, leaving the two housemates to clear up the glass that was inside the house and board up the window.  Luckily, due to the ongoing work on the house, plenty of suitable materials were available and the two were able to close the hole in no time at all.  Sleep came late for both friends, who were suitably perturbed by the whole experience.

The following morning, the librarian had to leave in a hurry to teach Sunday school, an activity he finds remarkably hard.  As he left, he discovered that Mr Smashy’s blood had been on an escape mission, and could be found for a long way down the street as well as on the friends’ front door and surrounding woodwork.  On his return from church, he took photographs in case they were needed, although the police had said they had everything necessary from the scene, and set to cleaning the bloodstains from the front of the house.  This led to introductions to several neighbours and a telling off from one woman who quite rightly said he should have worn gloves to do the task.

The friends resolved to call the council on Monday to get the street cleansed, since this was a task beyond their capabilities, and are now awaiting a return visit from the police force in the near future.  And they all will hopefully live happily ever after.

2007
11/04
CATEGORY
Ramblings
TAGS




5 comments

Flatpack university


The University of Doom is running out of space.  Not just for its library books, which continue to laugh at all vain attempts to get the collection to fit on shelves, but for its students, for living space and teaching space.  The library situation is being addressed, in the form of a swanky new Learning Resource Centre which will be built, eventually, on the present site of an ugly concrete monstrosity of an office building from the mid 20th century.  This being an old town with more History than you could shake any number of sticks at, this will involve an archaeological dig at the site before reconstruction begins, and the destruction of the building is already behind schedule, so it is most definitely the ‘mythical new learning centre’.

The students are a rather more tricky proposition.  A large herd of them has been stabled in accommodation belonging to one or other of the London universities, which randomly has a satellite site in a small town which is only three stops away on the train.  Free transport is provided (in horseboxes for all I know) and I’m sure that every effort is being made to ensure that these youngsters don’t feel too cut off from the rest of the student body.  A series of e-mails also came the way of all staff of the University, imploring us to offer any accommodation we could in return for a farthing or two.  Sadly, given that my house is (due to a mad conversion project, transforming it from a dental practice to a shared home) mostly a large pile of boxes with a few beds hidden here and there, I didn’t feel I could help in this matter.

Teaching accommodation is also at a premium.  Local residents have been remarking for years that we seem to be buying up half the property in the city, and it is true that our logo appears on a wonderfully random selection of buildings and we may well rival the cathedral for ‘most property owned’.  But no matter how much the University buys, it never seems to be enough.  Particularly when a new room bookings software package is purchased and then throws a wobbly, hiding bookings under the sofa and behind the fridge every so often.  And so, this week, the University of Doom has begun the wonderful process of dealing with the problem.  Temporarily.

A fleet of flat-bed lorries has been making its way through the twisty turny streets with the shells of mobile classrooms on their backs.  Fantastically air-conditioned, as they have no side walls, these have been winched by crane over the flint walls that surround the campus and moved into position.  However, it was observed on Friday that there seemed to be far more mobile classrooms arriving than could possibly fit in the two places which have been set aside for them – the back of the student support services building and the tennis courts.  No, no more tennis for anyone – I’m sure the Sports Sciences department doesn’t mind.  Even assuming that side walls are going to arrive for these classrooms, what are they going to do with them?  Pile them up on top of each other and allow access via rope ladder?  Float one on the pond?  Set up an outpost in the neighbouring prison’s exercise yard?  The mind boggles.  The Head of Library Services suggested that it looked like they were setting up a very large-scale game of Jenga.

The University, needless to say, seems to have been surprised by this space crisis, as one assumes it would have been more useful to address the issue in August.  The cause seems to be a mystery as well.  Not to library staff, though.  We spotted a slight clue in the most recent staff newsletter.  “Record student numbers recruited.”  I think that may have something to do with it…

2007
11/03
CATEGORY
Education
Library
Ramblings
TAGS


3 comments