I did none of the things I intended to do last night because I'd received a DVD in the post and it was absolutely essential I watch it right then.
It goes like this: When I was very young my parents were very good to us, they took us to the D'oyly Carte to see various Gilbert and Sullivan light operas (the one that always stuck in my mind was Iolanthe). In the mid-80s the Teacher and I experienced the new production of G&S's Pirates of Penzance at the newly re-opened Opera House in Manchester.
It starred Paul Nicholas and Bonnie Langford - it was completely outrageous and brilliant. We went to see it four times including the last night of the extended tour when all hell broke loose on stage. A few years later we caught a film adaptation of the US staging which featured Kevin Klein as the Pirate King.
So last week I bought it.
Except I didn't. What I got was a recording of the stage version performed in Central Park but still with Kevin Klein as the Pirate King. It's a bit ropey being a transcription from fairly poor quality video. But it's exactly the same staging as we saw at the Opera House and the American accents aren't too obtrusive. (Oh and it's got Patricia Routledge in it as Ruth - bet you didn't know she could sing.)
So we watched it - me, the Daughter and the Boy. Both loved it, the Daughter appreciated the slightly more ironic humour of the lyrics, the Boy enjoyed the knock-about humour of the staging (but being musical he really appreciated the songs).
(The Teacher was at her school's end-of-term dinner.)
From a story viewpoint - as a writer don't you find you cannot help analysing? - it's brilliant, the core dilemma is introduced immediately after the first song. From there complications ensue.
What's on the turntable? I'm humming "With Cat-like Tread" to myself
Showing posts with label manchester. Show all posts
Showing posts with label manchester. Show all posts
Friday, July 24, 2009
Monday, April 21, 2008
After the weekend
Ah, the ignorance of it!
BBC radio 4 on a weekday evening has a review programme that can be very interesting though I dislike the main presenter, Mark Lawson. One of the reasons I dislike him is his contempt for Science Fiction in any form, so whenever there is a review or feature which has an SF element you can guarantee there'll be some snide comments floating about. And ignorance.
On a little filler feature this evening the most recent episode of Dr Who was mentioned, with its title "Planet of the Ood". A very good episode as it happens, but I digress. Mr Lawson demonstrated his ignorance by saying that it had introduced a new monster; which it didn't, since the Ood appeared in an earlier episode. But there was no reason to even mention it since the feature was about episode titles, and not the subject matter, he was trying to be clever and put it down with "monster" and demonstrated his ignorance instead.
So. Here I am back in Reading having been home for the weekend.
I had such plans for my Scriptfrenzy writing. It's a straight through train from Reading to Manchester during the week and I wanted to take a seat and work on my script for three hours. Unfortunately something got in my way: well, I got in my way. Well, my stomach to be precise. The train seats were too close together and my laptop isn't a little one. I was annoyed at myself, and then doubly annoyed because I hadn't brought a notepad with me. Tsk.
I have a family and it seems a bit wrong to hide in a room writing when they haven't seen me all week, so I didn't write while I was there. But the journey back was better, somewhat. I missed one connection (a train had failed at the platform we were supposed to arrive on) so I ended up on the wrong trains. But one part of the journey I managed to get a seat where the gap was bigger and had a good hour and a half of writing, and knocked out another 8-9 pages which was pretty good going.
As I have mentioned my script is inspired by the 10CC album "The Original Soundtrack" mainly the track "One Night in Paris", but other tracks where I can fit them in. One of which is called "Blackmail" and the protagonist has met the blackmailer. In fact this part of the plot is going to work very similarly to the way it does in the song (click for lyrics).
I've still got a way to go on the script, I'm on 38 pages, so 62 to go. That might seem like a lot but quantity isn't really an issue, it's just another deadline. I have 4 nights this week, 3 next week and 2 train journeys, that's 9 writing sessions so a minimum of 7 per day. But if I aim for 10 per session I'll wrap it up by the end of the weekend, and even if the train journeys turn into nothing I should still be able to complete it by the deadline.
Well that's enough the sums I suppose, I better actually do some writing.
What's on the turntable? "The Caves of Altamira" by Steely Dan from "The Royal Scam"
BBC radio 4 on a weekday evening has a review programme that can be very interesting though I dislike the main presenter, Mark Lawson. One of the reasons I dislike him is his contempt for Science Fiction in any form, so whenever there is a review or feature which has an SF element you can guarantee there'll be some snide comments floating about. And ignorance.
On a little filler feature this evening the most recent episode of Dr Who was mentioned, with its title "Planet of the Ood". A very good episode as it happens, but I digress. Mr Lawson demonstrated his ignorance by saying that it had introduced a new monster; which it didn't, since the Ood appeared in an earlier episode. But there was no reason to even mention it since the feature was about episode titles, and not the subject matter, he was trying to be clever and put it down with "monster" and demonstrated his ignorance instead.
So. Here I am back in Reading having been home for the weekend.
I had such plans for my Scriptfrenzy writing. It's a straight through train from Reading to Manchester during the week and I wanted to take a seat and work on my script for three hours. Unfortunately something got in my way: well, I got in my way. Well, my stomach to be precise. The train seats were too close together and my laptop isn't a little one. I was annoyed at myself, and then doubly annoyed because I hadn't brought a notepad with me. Tsk.
I have a family and it seems a bit wrong to hide in a room writing when they haven't seen me all week, so I didn't write while I was there. But the journey back was better, somewhat. I missed one connection (a train had failed at the platform we were supposed to arrive on) so I ended up on the wrong trains. But one part of the journey I managed to get a seat where the gap was bigger and had a good hour and a half of writing, and knocked out another 8-9 pages which was pretty good going.
As I have mentioned my script is inspired by the 10CC album "The Original Soundtrack" mainly the track "One Night in Paris", but other tracks where I can fit them in. One of which is called "Blackmail" and the protagonist has met the blackmailer. In fact this part of the plot is going to work very similarly to the way it does in the song (click for lyrics).
I've still got a way to go on the script, I'm on 38 pages, so 62 to go. That might seem like a lot but quantity isn't really an issue, it's just another deadline. I have 4 nights this week, 3 next week and 2 train journeys, that's 9 writing sessions so a minimum of 7 per day. But if I aim for 10 per session I'll wrap it up by the end of the weekend, and even if the train journeys turn into nothing I should still be able to complete it by the deadline.
Well that's enough the sums I suppose, I better actually do some writing.
What's on the turntable? "The Caves of Altamira" by Steely Dan from "The Royal Scam"
Thursday, April 17, 2008
White hot keyboard
So I tried really really hard to get some writing in tonight, and I succeeded. Being way behind on my Scriptfrenzy script I really needed to make some progress.
10 pages in two hours. Now that's cooking with gas. Not that it's all brilliant stuff. After all this is just 1st draft, and according to Scriptfrenzy principles you should not edit, you just keep writing.
Well I did edit a bit. I realised that the Brothel Madame had a different name from when I first mentioned her. And the audience needed to know that the main character's credit card was maxed-out -- and he didn't -- so I did a quick jump back to the beginning.
My hero, Brian, has now been to the brothel and tried to rescue Veronique, but she really didn't want to be rescued and he got kicked out.
I also created a lovely character, the bouncer (son of the Madame) Christophe Le Grande, who is full of philosophy, but carries out his appointed task (throwing out Brian) with skill and pain.
Anyway, I'm very pleased with myself and I just need to keep up an average of 5.5 pages per day but if I do a couple more good evenings it'll get easier. This is what I was saying in my last blog about the benefits of deadlines and a professional attitude.
So, it's Thursday and tomorrow I shall be travelling home in the afternoon I have a seat reserved on the through train from Reading to Manchester so I could easily get another chunk of script completed.
We shall see.
What's on the turntable? "Carey" by Joni Mitchell, from the "Hits" compilation
10 pages in two hours. Now that's cooking with gas. Not that it's all brilliant stuff. After all this is just 1st draft, and according to Scriptfrenzy principles you should not edit, you just keep writing.
Well I did edit a bit. I realised that the Brothel Madame had a different name from when I first mentioned her. And the audience needed to know that the main character's credit card was maxed-out -- and he didn't -- so I did a quick jump back to the beginning.
My hero, Brian, has now been to the brothel and tried to rescue Veronique, but she really didn't want to be rescued and he got kicked out.
I also created a lovely character, the bouncer (son of the Madame) Christophe Le Grande, who is full of philosophy, but carries out his appointed task (throwing out Brian) with skill and pain.
Anyway, I'm very pleased with myself and I just need to keep up an average of 5.5 pages per day but if I do a couple more good evenings it'll get easier. This is what I was saying in my last blog about the benefits of deadlines and a professional attitude.
So, it's Thursday and tomorrow I shall be travelling home in the afternoon I have a seat reserved on the through train from Reading to Manchester so I could easily get another chunk of script completed.
We shall see.
What's on the turntable? "Carey" by Joni Mitchell, from the "Hits" compilation
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)