Superbly funny Oddsocks production of Wind in The Willows

There are times as a reviewer that you see a production that is so alive with invention, humour and surprise that you are very conscious about spoilers. So I hope that I am not giving too much away when I say – expect the unexpected and expect to laugh your socks off at Oddsocks wonderfully inventive touring production of Kenneth Grahame's beloved story of riverbank folk Wind in the Willows. This fantastically funny version is adapted for the stage for Oddsocks by Andy Barrow and produced by Elli Mackenzie. Lucy Ward has been commissioned to provide the original music played live by the five performers.

 

 

Elli MacKenzie, Joseph Maudsley, Andrew McGillan, Dom Gee-Burch, and Rosamund Hine make up the small but beautifully versatile ensemble. They work so well together there often seems to be many more actors inhabiting the stage than there actually are. The delight they seem to share in performing the Oddsocks comedic style with each other and the audience is infectious. Wind in the Willows played by this daft and talented ensemble makes 'being silly' into an art form. Even their van parked outside the theatre bears the logo 'driven by laughter'.

 

All of the actors play different roles as the well loved characters, Elli MacKenzie as the easy going but shy Mole (loved the squeaks of terror in the Wild Wood), Joseph Maudsley delights as a very charming Ratty as well as playing four other parts including the funniest gaoler ever! Andrew McGillan is perfect as Toad, bright green wig, bandy legged and enthusiastically bound for trouble wherever he hops. McGillan's scenes where he steals the car are comedy classics. Dom Gee-Burch brings a gravitas to the play as the sensible Badger and even gently berates an audience member for getting up to go to the loo! Gee-Burch is also wonderfully believable as a horse pulling the caravan. Finally Rosamund Hind has a series of seven quick change roles and even pops up as the little seen Otter character. This is a production where all the players work extremely hard in keeping up the momentum and daftness but seem so laid back about it you relax with them.

Back projections help move each act to a new vista and I am not going to tell you how they row across the stage in a boat called Baby, drive a car down a country lane and crash it and bring a full size steam train into the tiny Guildhall Theatre on Derby's Market Square. If you want to grin all the way home and revel in Oddsocks inventive madness. Get along to the Guildhall this week (until 31^st January) but don't go via the Wild Wood! Aaaargh!

Wind in The Willows is touring until February 21st. Next stop The Gaiety Theatre Ayr (Feb 14th) 01292 288235 and then Alnwick Playhouse Northumberland 17th February - 21st February. 01665 510785. Catch it while you can!!!!

Production photos by Hope Ward – Brown.

Oddsocks Facebook Page

#windywillows

Derby Theatre. Interview with John Godber and cast

Interview with John Godber, Shobna Gulati and Joe McGann.

 

Copyright Phil Lowe

I caught up with playwright John Godber and actors Joe McGann and Shobna Gulati during one of the early rehearsals for a new touring production of Godber's bitter-sweet romantic comedy April In Paris that originally premièred on April 23^rd 1992 at the Spring Street Theatre in Hull by the Hull Truck Theatre Company as part of the Hull 1992 Festival. The original featured John Godber himself as Al and the then Jane Clifford as his stage wife Bet. The play has had many a professional showing since and when it was performed in the West End with Gary Olsen and Maria Friedman in the two roles it was nominated for a Laurence Olivier award as Best Comedy of The Year. 2010 saw a revival of John Godber and Jane Godber (neé Clifford) in the play and now Godber is directing a touring production with Joe McGann and Shobna Gulati as unemployed builder Al and his competition mad and long suffering wife Bet.

John Godber told me that in the original production he wrote the script without reference to any children as in real life he had no children back then but the latest script refers to grown up children that have fled the nest and this element gives the story an extra human depth that he felt it lacked before.

Godber is a well known theatrical name both for amateur and professional societies and I was keen, on behalf of Sardines, to find out his view on amateur societies performing his plays. He said “Well you're delighted that anybody wants to do your plays. I know that my plays get done a lot in amateur circles which is great. There is obviously a connection otherwise people wouldn't venture to do them. I guess sometimes they choose the most difficult plays to do and sometimes they'll choose Bouncers for example. This is a very very difficult play to do. I've seen it performed by amateurs both good, bad and indifferent to be quite honest.”

He continued “I know that there is a thriving amateur scene and years ago I was involved in a project with the Little Theatre Guild. BT got involved too and they commissioned a play called Happy Families and then that play was performed at forty-eight theatres on the same night. It was in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest opening of any play anywhere. It variously went from theatres in the north who kind of understood the work to theatres in Tel Aviv who sent us a video and they didn't quite understand what 'failing your 11 plus' meant! And you know, poetry is that which is lost in translation. You know, we need amateur theatre to survive. We need all theatre to survive realistically because it breeds participants and audiences and interest and so long may it thrive.”

I broached the subject of the many productions of April In Paris that had been done over the years and wondered if the work was suited to an amateur company putting on a production of what is quite a challenging piece for two actors. What I meant was, given the sparse nature of the text and extremely subtle hues of interpretation by which the show might fail or succeed dependent on the actor's skills, was this truly possible in the amateur field. John replied “This isn't the easiest of plays for amateurs to do. It's heritage is in France. The language is connected with economic exchanges and is extremely spare and I wrote it very very quickly. It was part and parcel of what we were doing at Hull at the time. Frankly we needed a play that was cost effective. I did it for nothing and Jane did it because she lived locally so there was no overnights or travel expenses so it only cost us one salary. I was going through a thing then, at that time, experimenting with how little I could say on the page. This is Brecht's influence I think. There is very little to get hold of on the page. This version however, there is a little bit more, not a lot more because going back and looking at the play I thought that I had under-written the play a little bit too much. I also thought that our attitudes to Europe have hardened over the last twenty-two years both pro and anti. I think that if a play's gonna work then it has to stand up within the social milieu that is relevant at the time otherwise it becomes a museum piece. I didn't want this to be a one of those.”

image by Robert Day

Always curious to know whether a writer has seen any amateur productions of his plays I ventured to ask John if he had personally seen any amateur productions of April In Paris and whether they were as good as any in the professional sector. His answer was short and sweet. “No to both questions! No I've never seen one and I couldn't imagine frankly, with the greatest humility I can muster, that they'd be any better than this production!” This gem was received with a wave of gentle laughter from all the professional team involved.

I explained that I had done a fair amount of research into the creation and life of April In Paris by John Godber and one thing that had stood out for me was there were references to the singer Madonna in my stage script of the 1992 production and I wondered if she had been cut from the new version. John was amused by this and said that she was still alive and about fifty-six so the connection in the script was actually still very relevant because it refers to her being the same age as Al. References that had been changed from the 1992 script were because of the underlying theme of Britain's connection with Europe and that Europe as a socio -political entity was still prevalent in our collective minds at the moment. Godber said that the best way he could describe it was that what happens in the play is we realise we are an island nation but of course 'no man is an island'. Within that dialectic there's the problem for us as a country within Europe. He continued with “I understand that even today the Scots will say that they are happy to be separate but they want to keep the pound.”

I thanked John for his comments and feelings and moved over to talk to actors Joe McGann and Shobna Gulati sitting close by in the heated rehearsal room on this chilly day in the former School of Art on Green Lane in Derby.

I was curious about their experiences of the rehearsal processes given that they were now two weeks into the rehearsals. Joe told me that it was a happy cast and crew and much discussion had gone into portraying the characters truthfully and in discovering their back stories in earlier rehearsals. He added that he loved the rehearsal process and as an actor it is a privilege to be able to come to work and not just on the things they do like working on a great text but, the chances to sit and chat about it and taking things apart and reconnect them. Joe continued “To try and shoehorn a play into your head and at the same time find your journey through it - it's so much further away than digging ditches for a living. It is a true privilege to do this kind of thing and at the moment, with it being a two hander I wouldn't say that I've got it all in yet but it IS going in and it is a good part of the process. I think it improves you over time and I think it improves you as a person in the rehearsal process if you listen and if you are diligent about the work. I think then that you understand a lot more about the play, about life and about yourself by going through and yes, I'm enjoying it very much.”

copyright Phil Lowe

I asked Joe (whilst being conscious that I hadn't spoken yet to Shobna within the interview) whether he felt that any of his character's personality reflected any of his own traits. He was very forthcoming in his response and emphatically replied “Yeah, I would say that any frustration that I felt as a younger man, not so much now because of the job I do, I remember, not so much in Liverpool because I felt involved in culture there and the city as a whole with the Beatles and such but my memories are that of a seventeen year old. I moved down from Liverpool to London and, especially amongst other men of my age, it seemed a cultural desert and they just weren't interested in the same things that I was and I remember thinking then 'you need to get out more, you need and do something!' I used to work in Soho and as pretentious as it sounds, it's the truth, I used to go and rest my head by going and gazing at pictures, not only in the National Portrait Gallery but I used to look at the water lilies and I used to find that that used to set me at the centre of the graph. I'd go in there and I'd go in the National Portrait Gallery and bearing in mind that Punk was going on all around I 'd settle myself by getting myself theatre tickets as well as spending time in the art galleries. This is how my character Al recognises his soul too, through art and beauty. There is that element for a thirsts for knowledge and thirst to improve.”

Shobna said that Al doesn't know in the beginnings of the play's story that he has that thirst but he finds it as the story progresses. Joe relied that Al has his eyes opened and his soul opened in Paris and that is what he sees as saving him and potentially saving his marriage.

Being slightly devil's advocate I then asked Shobna how close she would say that within the body of the theatrical story that Al and Bet's marriage is 'on the rocks and heading for disaster' within this childless married couple.

She was keen to point out that here had been a change in the dramatic text and now Al and Bet have children albeit grown up children who have left home. Shobna said that she would argue that the relationship is not 'on the rocks' and it is how it is every day. She explained further that it is a very loving relationship and it is just that they have just got used to each other and used to each other's ways and connections through argument. She emphasised that if it is done right you will see that as an audience, and contrary to any misunderstanding socially, their dialogue verbal and implied is not in a 'grounds for divorce situation' but conveys that the couple understand each other implicitly. They communicate and they may growl at each other, but that's the nature of them being married for over thirty years.

I interjected that it is a 'loving growl; and Joe added that the 'gloves are off'. Or as Shobna amusingly joked “We are happy to fart in each other's company!” This caused much ribald amusement and merry laughter and was declared the potential headline of this article! The terms 'a pump' and/or ' a pardon' were laughed over in this most relaxed of interviews. I continued to chat for another fifteen minutes with the writer and cast and thoroughly enjoyed the honour of watching the first hilarious act in rehearsal.

A longer version of this interview about the production will be available in the August edition of Sardines magazine.

The play starts its countrywide tour in Derby at Derby Theatre Friday 27th June to Saturday 12th July 2014. For bookings ring 01332 593939 or go to www.derbytheatre.co.uk.

Warwick Davis cover story with Sardines magazine

I'm extraordinarily pleased to announce that Sardines magazine are being gracious enough to publish not one but three of my theatre based articles in their forthcoming Spring/Summer edition out in May this year. There will be an article about my life as a theatre reviewer and why I do it, an article about The Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham and their theatre twinning adventures in Germany and finally; my major article is the cover story about the fantastic actor, Warwick Davis. I had the great pleasure of interviewing him half way through his national tour of the farce, See How They Run. Read how they had to take the wheels off a tea trolley to stop it falling into the front row and how fascinated the audiences are to see the Reduced Height Theatre Company's amazing to scale set of See How They Run plus lots of other amazing Warwick anecdotes and terrific pictures!

Sardines are publishing this interview with some brilliant photos from Warwick's wonderfully varied career so far in the Spring/Summer edition available from early May. Here is a sneak preview of the cover.

Sardines magazine is available through subscription and many other methods of purchase and all the details are at www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk.

Warwick's fantastic production of See How They Run is on tour at the following venues: Catch it while you can!

31st March - 5th April Wycombe Swan - High Wycombe

7th April - 12th April - Derby Theatre - Derby

14th - 19th April - Theatre Royal - Plymouth

22nd - 26th April - Darlington Civic Theatre - Darlington

29th April - 3rd May - Opera House - Manchester

6th May - 10th May - New Theatre - Cardiff.

Serious acting? Don't make me laugh...

Corpse. Noun and verb. Verb theatrical. Slang. 1 intr. Spoil a piece of acting by forgetting one's lines, laughing etc. 2 tr. Confuse (an actor) in the performance of his or her part. b. spoil (a piece of acting) by some blunder. Definition from the CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY.

I can be a bit of a giggler and it seems the more serious the acting piece is the greater the compulsion to laugh in inappropriate places becomes. My issue is not necessarily the nature of the piece but the person I am acting opposite. It boils down to the way a word is said, a particular look in the face of the other actor during a scene or sometimes just the position of the body. I can honestly say I have never ruined a play or a scene by laughing or giggling, but there have been some close calls.

The habit can develop during rehearsals when you discover the 'funny' thing by accident or design and you collapse with laughter and then try to regain the equilibrium. Looking at the other actor between the eyes, not in the eyes, but between the eyes and above the bridge of the nose can help. But once you start down the route of self reprimanding “Stop it! Now just stop it!” the chuckle muscles have another reason to flex themselves again and again. I have seen actors smack themselves around the face to cure this disease. That makes me laugh even more. Occasionally we have had to move to a completely different scene to regain normality.

Turning your body and face away from the audience can help you focus on the seriousness of the matter, but they will often see the shoulders going up and down.

There are theatrical stories of some cruel actors (often bored on long runs) who play tricks on their fellow actors by various means to see if they can make them laugh i.e. placing objects in places they shouldn't be or writing funny notes for the actors and putting them in a 'serious' stage letter and waiting for the actor to crack up. In the industry there are several very established actors such as Judy Dench and Patrick Stewart who are inveterate gigglers.

I have a had few memorable times on stage and in rehearsals when I have had to contain my laughter and really work very hard at getting through a particular scene without corpsing. The ones that stand out are working with a lovely actor called Piotr for the first time in a musical play called Poppy. I was playing Tao Kuan – Emperor of China and Piotr was Lin Tse Tsii – Commissioner to China. There was a particular scene where Piotr (wonderfully expressive face) was spouting some serious verse and he just looked so comical. I could hardly stop myself from laughing each night and was mightily relieved to escape from the scene and into the safety of the wings without breaking into gales of laughter. In fact the Poppy play was so full of silly situations and silly names that I'm surprised that more of us didn't giggle more on stage.

I have often had similar situations acting with my friend, Alison Hope and in the play, Abigail's Party we played tetchy husband and wife. In one part of the play her character was supposed to come on stage out of breath and giggling. To achieve this realistically she asked me to tickle her each night as we waited in the wings and then she would explode on to the set as Beverley in tucks.

In the 1980s I went to Derby Playhouse to see a professional production of a Joe Orton play where there was a live actor playing the part of a corpse. Must of the time he was hidden from view behind a piece of furniture or a screen. On the night I went I saw this 'corpse' subtly scratch their left leg. I nearly died laughing.

 

"Look here Mrs Elvsted, at this document." "I'm not looking! You've written a rude word."

Playing Gethin Price in Comedians by Trevor Griffith.

Some considered thoughts about being involved in a production of Trevor Griffith's play, 'Comedians' at the Lace Market Theatre, Nottingham, in April 1995.

Notes from the Lace Market Theatre programme.

“We work through laughter, not for it. (…) A joke releases the tension, says the un-sayable, any joke pretty well. But a true joke, a comedian's joke, has to do more than release tension, it has to liberate the will and the desire, it has to change the situation... there's very little won't take a joke. But when a joke bases itself upon a distortion – a 'stereotype', perhaps – and gives the lie to the truth, as to win a laugh and stay in favour, we've moved a way from the comic art and into the world of entertainment and slick success.” (Trevor Griffiths, Comedians, Act 1)

I think that the quotation above is a key to the heart of the play in terms of determining a dangerous/ harsh truth through laughter (often based on an element of distort and cruelty) and the 'staying in favour' aspect refers, in my opinion, to the pulling back of the 'punch' line to a gentler and perhaps more publicly acceptable definition of funny = light entertainment. The cruel humour of Gethin Price serves to demonstrate the bruised skeleton of the future of no holds barred comedy. A true theatre of cruelty.

This particular production's audition for an all make cast was open to women and the role of Sammy Samuels was offered to Anne Bone. The casting added an additionally interesting male/female often, potentially violent, conflict between the characters Gethin Price and Ms Sammy Samuels. The caretaker was also cast as a female role and humorously played by Barbara Fisher.

 

 

The first production of the play ' Comedians' by Trevor Griffiths was performed at the Nottingham Playhouse, February 20^th 1975 and then at the Old Vic: September 24^th 1975. Jonathan Pryce played Gethin Price and Jimmy Jewel, Eddie Waters.

 

 

 

Nottingham Playhouse and Richard Eyre as they appear in the original programme

 

 

 

The Lace Market Theatre production.

 

Story in brief.

Eddie Waters is an older, formerly professional, comedian generously imparting his skills to a class of mixed ability, would be working class comedians. He is written as a man who stopped being funny at a point in his life and rarely says anything funny through the whole drama. He teaches them to look for the truth: the implication is that society can be changed by persuasion. His main principles are that the comedians confront/reject comedy that reinforces stereotypes, that attacks gay people, the Irish, the blacks, women or a particularly 1970s comedy scapegoat, the Pakistanis. Interestingly, this play pre-dated the rise of alternative comedy in the 1980s and practically leaks sexism and racism from every sweaty pore, deliberately.

 

Water's students are due to perform their acts to a live audience in a Bingo Club and to a Mr Bert Challenor, and old foe of Waters who can offer the most talented members of the group a contract to play the working men's clubs.

 

Vince Handley as George McBrain

 

There are two staged venues: the classroom where the evening class is held; a bingo hall where they perform and then back in the classroom when the performance is over. Bert Challenor gives them a preparatory chat before they leave the safety of the class and insists on the need to be entertaining and that the audience is their paymaster. He perceives the entertainer, Max Bygraves, to be the ultimate standard of comic perfection. Gethin Price is disgusted at this news and has changed his comedy act at the last minute much to Eddie Waters dismay and surprise. Gethin is seen by Waters as the shining star of the group and is considered by the rest of the group as a teacher's pet and a strange character.

Divided between Waters and Challenor's opposing views, most of the class have moments of doubt about the forthcoming event, and start to reconsider their comedic futures and the desperate hope of escaping their dead end jobs.

 

 

Gethin Price performs a very different act to what has been expected in rejection to Eddie Water's ideals. During his performance, Price, paying tribute to Grock, the famous clown, wears a white face and launches an attack on a pair of dummies, a man and woman in evening dress. He pins a flower on the woman's dress and blood appears. Eddie Waters is hurt to find that Price's act is fuelled by hate, lacking in compassion and, as far as Waters is concerned, the truth. Comedic truth/ liberating truth. At the end of a dispiriting evening after the others have left, Waters and Price bitterly argue about the purpose of comedy. The raging Price explains that he favours revolution against gradual reform.

 

 

                                                         Stuart Power as Eddie Waters.

Eddie Waters fights to regain his moral ground and explains to Price that he once went to a German Prison of War camp after the war and he was attracted and also repelled by what his intellectual and unexpectedly erotic feelings gave lie to there.

The play ends on a quasi optimistic note but with shadows of doubt from all the participants. Two are chosen by Bert Challenor to get contracts to work the clubs and the rest are rejected. Throughout the play a bitter dark vein of comedy prevails. End.

I was attracted to the role of Gethin Price after seeing a TV version of the play with Jonathan Pryce as Gethin. I patiently waited years to be offered an opportunity to play this part and it was my first role at the Lace Market Theatre in 1995. My favourite part of the rehearsals was when I had some time to look at the role having learnt a lot of his dialogue and to find a way for the character to inhabit the stage. I virtually looked like a skinhead so an aggressive walk was created, exaggerated and toned down for realism. I like that kind of approach. My accent was a whiny Manchester accent with hints of danger, knowing bitterness and sarcasm.

Although the comedy 'act' for Gethin was written out in the script there was a lot of opportunities for the 'action' to be improvised, i.e: the Kung Fu, the aggression toward the models and the audience themselves and the upper middle class. Any actor who plays this role must love the variety that Gethin's 'act' provides.

Review in Arts Extra (Nottingham Evening Post) by Joan Appleton.

LOOKING AT THE EDGE OF COMEDY.

Comedy is a serious business. The would be comics in Trevor Griffith's powerful play 'Comedians', which the Lace Market Theatre presents this week, go through a rigorous training under 'old pro' Eddie Waters, played movingly by Stuart Power.

The Murray Brothers (Steve Herring and Andrew Haynes) come hilariously to grief, the two Irish boys (Vince Handley and Keith Milne) turn in predictably funny performances.

The Jewish comic, originally a man but played here by Anne Bone, had a nice line in mock aggressive humour.

But the real aggression comes from Gethin Price, a violent man driven by hatred and resentment played brilliantly by Philip Lowe as a weasely white faced clown.

If humour, as Griffiths says, has to be based on the truth, then perhaps his is the best kind. Only you don't laugh.

Cynthia March directs the ensemble, which includes a morose caretaker (Barbara Fisher), a lost Indian (Adrian Perkins) and a smooth Cockney agent (John Hunt) with fine attention to detail.

Martin Hooper's set, a grimy classroom which becomes, after the interval, a sparkling Bingo Club, leaves little to the imagination.

Twenty years after the play first opened, the boundaries of what we may laugh at has widened. Comics go further. We follow uneasily. The message seems to be that you can joke about everything provided it is done from love.

Comedians is a thought provoking play given a marvellous production by a first rate cast. It can be seen at the Lace Market Theatre until Saturday.

April 1995.


 

Abigail's Party - a fabulous set

In October 2009 the Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham put on a production of Abigail's Party by Mike Leigh. In this production I played Laurence, the workaholic husband of  Beverley Moss and  the early rehearsals moved from the theatre's studio space and outside  venues into the main auditorium once the stage was free from the previous production. Once in the main theatre space, the director Robert Stevens and the rest of the cast and technical crew started to see the hard work that Hugh and Carol Philip and their team were putting into the construction of the 1970s style set.

Gradually, over the weeks prior to the production our 'home' as we started to call it, evolved step by step and pieces of period furniture arrived to dress the set. The 'wallpaper' was painted on meticulously by hand, based on an original 1970s pattern and given orange tinted embellishments, by Carol and the stage hands including Janine Forster who went on to complete a course at RADA for Scenic Construction.

The unit at the back of the front room was lent by John and Doreen Hunt and the design of the set (Carol Philip) meant that the actors could go off stage and pretend to be in the Moss's kitchen and were audible to the audience as the text required; including the Sue character being sick.

The main focus of the set (and loved by the audience for its ghastliness) was the orange suite. This was acquired from eBay for a tenner! However, because of fire regulations we had to fire proof the whole thing. It did also smell very slightly of cat pee. This fire proofing was particularly important in this play as a lot of smoking was happening on stage during the play. I believe that the suite was acquired after our run by another amateur London based company also doing Abigail's Party.

Janine Forster also worked on props and sourced a number of 1970s items to furnish and decorate the set including the trimfone, original Coke bottles, a stereo, long playing records with the correct covers, a lava lamp, a period lamp and cigarette lighter etc. A fair few of the 1970s articles were sourced from a Long Eaton based company called Ms Cellaneous.

 

 

 

 

The set was an absolute delight to work on and it is traditional for everyone involved in the play to help dismantle the set after the last night. It was probably the saddest dismantling at the Lace Market Theatre I've known as we actors felt like it was a proper home.

From the original programme by director Robert Stevens:

' This has been a wonderfully funny play to put on. Rehearsals were hilarious. The cast created a perfect combination of determined hard work with huge amounts of fun, wit and intelligence - it has really been a pleasure to work with them and, genuinely, I will miss it all.

As for my crew, well they have worked tirelessly to get the quality that you will se on stage tonight. The long days and nights have paid off and to them I extend my great appreciation and thanks. Enjoy!

Oh, and just one last word on authenticity; the sofa and armchairs are genuine 1970s. We had cause to undo the hessian backing and found the date the furniture was made - it read 4th October 1975.'

Rob Stevens

 

 

 

 

A newspaper review of the play can be found on my other blog here.

Production photos by Mark James. Artefact and set photos by Phil Lowe.

Finally an English subtitle film of Le Petit Nicholas

I missed this charming Gallic film when it came out last year at my local independent cinema and have eagerly awaited its release on DVD with English subtitles. Finally I got to watch it the other day and was so enraptured / captured by its style and wit that I have watched it three times in total.

 

 

It stars Maxime Godart, (Nicolas) Kad Merad, (the father) and Valérie Lemercier (the mother) and a host of other fabulous acting talent young and older. I particularly liked François Damiens ( the unconventional Scandinavian lover in Delicacy) in his small role as a bickering neighbour.

The film was originally released in 2009 in France and was a huge hit. Why we have to wait for these gems to eventually visit the UK I'll never know. This is a nostalgic, beautifully acted film from the original source of books by the Asterix creator, René Goscinny and set in the 1950s. I loved the set pieces and décor and I wanted to move into the street where Nicholas lives because it is sooo French.

The film is directed by Laurent Tirard (Molière and recently Astérix et Obélix - on his Majesty’s service -2012) and sees the nine year old innocent Nicholas believing that his parents are going to have a baby and his friends have caused him to believe that the older siblings get abandoned in the woods once the new child appears on the scene. When Nicholas becomes convinced his mum is truly pregnant he and his young friends hatch a plan to try and make sure the baby never appears.

The other major child actors (mostly boys and one girl) are superb and must have come from the French version of Central casting. I am not familiar with the drawn stories but these lads are great characters and very funny. They are:

Clotaire – bottom of the class but often comes up trumps

Alceste – fat and eats all the time

Eudes – very strong and likes to whack his friends on the nose

Geoffroy – very rich and his father buys him all that he wants

 

 

Agnan – teacher's pet, tiny and wears glasses – nobody likes him – but is strangely likable

Joachim – already has a little brother who he claims to hate but really loves him

Maixent – has long legs and runs very fast

Rufus – his father is a policeman and he has a police whistle that he likes to blow

Marie – Edwige – confident young girl who likes Nicholas but he is nervous of her because he's not used to girls

The parents of Nicholas (Merad and LeMercier) are brilliantly funny in this in often quite subtle ways. I've always loved the lugubrious Kad Merad since I saw him in the stunningly funny French film – Welcome to the Sticks (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis). Danny Boon is also a favourite of mine and appears with Kad in the Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis film. I have read the reviews to this film (French with English subtitles) and they all say how brilliantly funny it is.


                                                                     
 

 

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blogpost I thought that the design and set pieces for the streets and interiors were magnificent and really gave a feel of a slightly opulent 1950s Urban France. If this whets your appetite then the DVD can be ordered through this link.


                                                                  


I thoroughly recommend it as a fun few hours for the family. The credits are a work of art in themselves! The French really do excel in funny films.

Sarah Milican has a big new fan - me!

I'd heard of Sarah Millican the award winning comedian and perhaps caught glimpses of her in the press but had never seen her live or even on DVD or telly until a friend recommended that I take a peak at her latest DVD Sarah Millican Live– Thoroughly Modern Millican. Ohhh! I have never laughed so much flower!!! The Telegraph describe her as “Supremely talented” and The Observer says she is “A Distinctive Blend of Northern Charm and Utter Filth”

 

 

I love stand up and this fantastic lady totally did it for me. There is obviously a lot of hard graft over the years and astute writing skill gone into her keenly funny and off key observations and she appears now to be at that seemingly effortless stage and gloriously rude. There is certainly a lot of effort that goes into this level of effortless. I enjoyed her knowing giggle and the way she commanded the stage and had the audience lapping up every ribald word and gesture.

For those who are interested in how she caught the stand up bug there is a great one page interview in the Radio Times 16th-22^nd February edition. On the DVD there are some great extras including:

• Sarah's Rider

• About me

• About my comedy

• Stairlift us up to where we belong (BBC Radio 4 monologue recorded live at the Edinburgh Festival)

• Sarah Millican's Support Group (First episode of Sarah's BBC Radio 4 programme).

• There is also a sheet inside the DVD case listing all her tour dates in 2013.

In the 'About my comedy' DVD extra she says that one of the key elements of getting on in the comedy world is to be nice to people along the way and always carry a notebook for the 'gold' as a comedy writer. She also says that she records all the shows she does and analyses them to improve her act. She said it is the only was to do it as you never remember all of the things that go well when you are 'in the moment'. The DVD and Sarah Millicant Chatterbox is available through this link below to Amazon. I believe that I have become a very big fan!! Or as Sarah might say “ A fucking big fan pet!”

 

      

Alfie 40 years on. The making of.

This short film reflects humorously on the later life of the iconic film character played by Michael Caine. We find Alfie forty years after the end of the film and he is just as sexist as ever and a chain smoker.

I enjoyed the film again recently on DVD and made note of Caine's expressions and use of language. His constant usage of the term 'birds' for women (his alleged conquests) and the expressions 'mumsy but in good condition' for an older woman with whom he had a sexual liaison or two. Also I decided to call the little dog he befriends 'It' after the fact that he refers to all his girlfriends as 'it' - this has got to be one of the most demeaning put downs against womankind ever. There is also his constant belief that women still find him irresistible despite his obvious lack of tact, manners and down at heel looks. Note egg deliberately spread on t shirt.

I don't smoke but watched the way that Alfie lit up during various parts of the film (hand guarding against a draft.)

The piece was filmed at my home on the stairs with the front door open to let in a goodly amount of light for filming and the ciggy smell out! It was done in one take after a practise run.

Michael Caine's screentest for Hitchcock.

This is one of my short films on Youtube featuring my impersonations of Michael Caine in various fictional situations. This particular one came about because I had purchased the silly shower cap with the intent of doing another video of me as Colm Wilkinson singing 'Bring him Home' in the bath. I thought this would be funny and practised the song (it ain't easy) yet when I came to film the piece in he actual bath - minus water - I found I simply wasn't up to the job I had given myself.

 

 

So I reluctantly abandoned that project and set thinking what I do to add another fun video to my Michael Caine's Brief Encounters collection. I came up with a fictional premise that Michael Caine and Terence Stamp 'potentially' could have auditioned for Hitchcock in the 1950s when Psycho was made. The joke is that they didn't screen test for the male role but for the girl in the shower (played by Janet Leigh). I played with a few script ideas and practised my filming with the camera in my laptop. I had to remove all the mirrors in the bathroom as I could see that more of me was being exposed than I would have liked!!!

 





The film started with me holding the laptop up high and slowly coming to a holt at a head and showers shot. On playback the sound was a bit wobbly in places but I was pleased with the result.

Michael Caine's brief encounters

This is the first of a series of funny videos that I am filming for Youtube. Although I do a passable M Caine impersonation the idea is to create some funny moments through improvisation. This video took five goes until I was satisfied with it... and not a lot of people know that.

Developing my writing

I am currently researching for more information on the world of butchery for my proposed book "Tales From The Block" as well as developing my comedy writing by creating pieces for Youtube and other comedy formats.

I seem to have a surreal sense of humour influenced by Monty Python, The Goodies, classic TV series such as Steptoe and Son and others broadcast in the 1970s. These were my teenage years and the years where I started to realise that I could make people laugh. Then came the Canadian comic Kelly Monteith with his observational comedy sketches whose show I used to love.

I was never a fan of the traditional stand up comic like Bernard Manning and similar comedians. My sense of humour was rather in the style of Not the Nine O'clock News and further comedic adventures with Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder. I saw Jasper Carrott in his early days at Derby Playhouse and followed him throughout his career.

Then along came the clever American humour of Third Rock From The Sun and the hit TV show Frasier. I was also influenced by the styles of Woody Allen and his films and somewhat by the corny style of the Mel Brookes films such as Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles.

These days I am a fan of the Black Books series, Father Ted, Eddie Izzard and Bill Bailey.

A short video of the first part of A Chip In The Sugar.

A short video of the first few pages of A Chip In The Sugar by Alan Bennett.

Rehearsing A Chip In The Sugar

Rehearsing ‘A Chip In The Sugar’ written by Alan Bennett.

At the moment I am two weeks into my ad hoc rehearsal schedule in learning Alan Bennett’s ‘A Chip In The Sugar’ monologue. My pet name for this foolhardy project is ‘Chip’ and it is going to Germany in May alongside another short play called, ‘The Typists’. In my enthusiasm to perform, I blithely ignored the realistic fact that this humorous and pathos filled theatrical piece from Bennett’s original Talking Heads TV series  is actually sixteen pages long and forty minutes in performance on me tod!!!  Proverbial light comes on when Phil realises a monologue is one person talking! Alone! On stage! Without a script!

In this case, the monologue has the main character of Graham, an older gay man with mental health problems, living with his elderly mother who has met up with an old flame, a Mr Frank Turnbull , and is courting him despite her own problems with a failing memory. I have chosen to use differing voices for the various characters in the storytelling unlike Bennett who originally played Graham himself and all of the other characters with his own iconic voice. Both work equally well in performance and the writing is undeniably Alan Bennett in style; laconic, Yorkshire through and through and witty, very witty indeed, and also full of understanding for human frailties.

It is a joy to try and learn and even though there are lots of ‘she said – he said - Mr Turnbull/Mother saids’ liberally scattered throughout the piece they are a part of the rhythm of the theatrical writing and though these interjections seem odd  to an actor, at first, they actually work very well. They help create a rhythm, a pace and a balance.

Like any comedy, a lot of the performing does rely on being aware of where the laughs/chuckles are likely to occur and whilst rehearsing I have left a short space after the punch lines to practice, albeit sans audience, the art of remembering the pick-up lines or the proceeding passage and story development. To help me with the rehearsal process I have recorded the piece with my Dictaphone and put it on a CD to play again and again at home and get me used to the story and the pace of its’ telling. I have also kept a copy on the Dictaphone itself to listen to during the day via a set of headphones.

Consequently, I think that I am now the official ‘nutter on the bus’ who mutters to himself on the 6am Indigo bus to work each morning.  I am even getting brave and almost talking the script out loud as I walk the streets of Nottingham. I can almost imagine folk looking out for the ear piece and mobile connection. "Surely' he's talking to a friend on his blue tooth jobby. except he hasn't got a blue tooth jobby. Mavis, call the cops!"

Alan would be proud

I am often tired after a day’s work and don’t always feel inclined to spend the evening rehearsing and getting frustrated with myself because the lines aren’t coming out right, so I rehearse as and when the energy or enthusiasm is with me. I am enjoying the rehearsal process and the humour of the piece so I do try and find time to devote to learning it. The fact that I really need to be ready by the end of April (my deadline) spurs me on. Come June I will look back with astonishment that I managed to learn it all and perform successfully in Karlsruhe!

The script itself has a lot of repetition throughout and it is easy to find oneself verbally leaping on to another section in the story so concentration is paramount and doing one’s best to be true to every word and inflection helps build confidence in the piece. Without sounding immodest I often give myself a mental ‘slap on the back’ when I think that I am getting stronger in the recalling and performing without the script in front of me. Any actor would agree that these moments of freedom from eye-balling  or gripping on to the script are scary but also very satisfying part of the rehearsal process.

I mark up the script itself to remind myself of my own verbal errors (the odd word wrong or slight paraphrasing) and to illuminate links from one ‘idea’ within the storytelling to another. A good example of this last notion would be that Graham mentions his mother sitting on the cold pavement and in the next breath says, ”Come on Mother, we don’t want piles!” The link being that a cold bum might give her piles. The additional fact that pile and pavement both begin with P helps to cement the script memory too. Additionally, I often try to visualise the scene like a mini movie in my head and find this helps and I am prone to making little drawings in the margin to remind me of the thread and order of the prose.

At this stage of writing this up (mid March) I am confident in the first six pages. Only ten more to go!!!