New teeth...that's weird

( Green Wing Swiss Weekend! )

That probably isn't very comprehensive but it's what I remember! Overall it was a brilliant trip and I have to thank Rita and her family for organising it all and being so helpful. I also used my French a fair amount so it was good in that respect too! :D

ETA: Accompanying facebook photo album HERE.

To celebrate the start of Series 4, and because David Tennant is sex on a stick! Obviously very Tennant-centric, and also not particularly coherent as I've mostly gone for the pretty and not attempted to try and recap the whole ep. There is a lame attempt to provide amusing captions though! Feel free to snag the caps for icons/own personal drooling/whatever. :)

( Spoilery and not dial-up friendly! )

Follow the link to Part 2!

It has come to my attention that a number of people have added me as a friend without commenting first...so if you want to get added back now's your chance! Please comment on this entry telling me who you are and why you'd like to be added. :)

If you just want to continue getting the odd public fan-report type entry then please ignore this.

What a brilliant evening! It was like pure theatrical crack...to be honest I feel a bit deflated now it's all over, but anyway...on to the plays! Just for reference, the full cast of actors involved turned out to be:
Kwame Kwei-Armah, Sam West, Ralf Little, Elizabeth McGovern, Stephen Mangan, Juliet Rylance, Donald Sumpter, Gemma Jones, Tom Hollander, Sharon Small, Doon Mackichan, Obi Abili, Kevin Spacey, Haydn Gwynne, Katherine Parkinson, Tobias Menzies, Sharon Maughan, Rob Brydon, Fiona Shaw, Simon Woods, Sian Thomas, Natasha Little, Nancy Carroll, Ronni Ancona & Maureen Lipman.

For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, what happens is that the night before the performance a load of writers, actors and directors get together with some props for inspiration, then the writers go away and have to come up with a 10 minute play overnight, in time for the directors and actors to arrive the next morning and do something with it. They then have the whole day to rehearse...and we get to see the end result! I'm going to do a play-by-play review, just to make things easier. I apologise if it's all a bit scatty though!

( Fighters )

( A Handbag )

( An Act of Love )

( Get Tested )

( Dinner )

( Tears )

( Other points of note )

I think that's everything! Basically it was great to hang out with schiaparelli again, have some free champagne, and immerse myself in the theatrical world for a bit. Though like I said at the beginning I did feel a bit empty and deflated afterwards as I desperately want to be involved in that world permanently...but it all seems so far away. I really didn't want to come back to uni today but I have to keep reminding myself that I need to get this over and done with first before I can move on to other stuff. Le sigh. And the silly horoscope I have on my google hompage was suprisingly accurate today:
It can be hard to get back into the groove of working today, especially if the memory of a fine experience lingers from the weekend. Pursuing pleasure might sound like a good idea, but it probably won't pay the bills. Try to make it through the day without jeopardizing the rest of your workweek.
Good advice, really...

Ok, so tonight's theatrical excursion was Cloud Nine at the Almeida, the object of squee being Tobias Menzies...although I do have to say that all the cast were excellent! Not so sure about the play itself though as it was funny and very well done, but I got a bit tired of all the cross dressing and gender/sexuality bending towards the end. It was a bit like they were trying to see how much they could cram into the 2 hours (?). But that's only a minor criticism really.

As for Tobias, well I found the character he played in the second act more funny, but that's probably because he had more lines! He fluffed one of his big speeches by corpsing slightly actually, which was just too cute! And he was brilliant at portraying the sexual magnetism so important to his character in the first act, though I suppose this could be because the character was so sexually repressed that he was going for it whenever and wherever possible. Costume-wise he was sporting a pair of rather nice boots in the first half, and then a tight shirt in the second half that, fortuitously, appeared to have quite a high bottom button meaning that you could catch glimpses of his stomach. Hee!

Afterwards I lurked in the entrance hall and he came out with some of the other actors after about 10 minutes, looking hot in a brown jumper and jeans and with slightly messy hair. And he's sooo tall! Maybe not quite Oli Chris standard, but still...guh! Being 5'10 myself I do appreciate a taller man! ;)
There was a group of Americans also waiting who collared him first, but they seemed to have a shortage of pens so I got in there first and asked him to sign my programme, which he did very willingly after putting down the bag and half-eaten fairy cake he was holding! He has very nice writing! I couldn't decide whether to ask him for a photo or not, but by then he was busy signing the other people's programmes and I felt like I'd kind-of lost the moment. So I'm a bit annoyed at myself. But oh well, I'm sure there'll be another opportunity in the future...and I'll probably see him around East Dulwich again anyway! :p

And so like an addict seeking the next fix, it was with inevitability that I found myself in the audience at the Theatre Royal Haymarket watching Toby Stephens being one damn sexy mofo...instead of in the audience at the Graham Norton Show watching Jackie Collins and some other people trying to plug whatever it is they had to plug. Granted it probably would have been funny...but then The Country Wife was also rather funny, so I think it was a win overall! Not a particularly intellectually stimulating play but fun nonetheless...and I also gained quite a bit of amusement from the party of American pensioners that appeared to be sitting around me; one of them said Toby reminded him of Hugh Grant! Er WTF? And another of them was called Wendell. Hehe. Toby was brilliant of course - swaggering about grinning lasciviously.

There was also another guy who was rather tasty and very good who, from reading the programme, I have discovered is called John Hopkins. I don't think I've seen him in anything before but I will definitely keep an eye out for him from now on! He had a gorgeous voice, and was just generally tall and yummy...and wore his shirt with only one button done up most of the time. Hehe. Which reminds me that I must mention the costumes - they were a mix of modern (jeans) and period (frock coats) and I really liked the way they'd done it. It just brought home the idea that all these ridiculous sexual shenanigans are still relevant today as ever.

Afterwards I went and waited at the stage door but barely had time to collect myself before Toby came out. He seemed in a bit of a hurry as he didn't ask my name when he signed my programme so I didn't feel right in pestering him for a photo. Still though...GUH! And I have my Betrayal one anyway.

( Gratuitous Toby photos )

And now I have Tobias Menzies in Cloud Nine to look forward to tomorrow! :D

Ok so this signing was slightly disappointing in that more of the cast were expected to be there - it was only Julian, Pippa & Karl at first and then Tamsin turned up at the end - but it was still an excellent day! Lovely to see everyone from all the various forums and fansites too. :)

There's no doubt that Pippa and Julian know who I am now; Pippa said "Oh hello!" when we got to the signing table and Julian didn't even have to ask my name for what to write on the DVD! That latter point is either brilliant or very, very bad. Lol. I also got them to sign the poster that Rebecca nicked off the Tube and gave to me, but have only just realised that Pippa somehow missed out on signing my DVD. :(
Tamsin didn't sign my DVD either because she turned up when we were in the middle of eating in the pub, but I gave my poster to Lucy from the JRT forum for her to sign so at least they've all done that. And I gave them all some of the Green Wing fairy cakes I made so that was good! Though apparently Julian was eating doughnuts at the end of the evening! Lol. He was looking FIT though in a lovely tailored coat and lots of layers. Gah!

( Photos! )

Oh! And Steve was supposed to be there but his wife had gone into labour (typically brilliant timing, lol) and apparently it's a boy called Harry James, according to Pippa! Awwww! Mini-Mangan will be the cutest thing ever! ♥

So after we'd eaten and sat in the pub chatting for a bit Penny (little_tart), Stacie (macslover) and I got the train back to Manchester and got taunted on the way by Kim ringing us up and telling us how much we all featured on the new extras on the DVD. So we just had to watch it when Penny dropped me at my house after the train got back:

( Cut for spoilers? )

Right I think that's about it...I don't think I'll be making any of my classes today seeing as I woke up rather late! Whoops.

I fucking went to the Landscape With Weapon afterparty!!!

Play itself was fantastic as always...they really pulled out all the stops as it was the last night, and at the stagedoor afterwards we gave Julian a card (which I had made), chocolates and marshmallows (also homemade) to say thank you for being so lovely and putting up with us all these past few months! Though I'm slightly disappointed because he hugged and kissed the girls who gave him the chocs and marshmallows and I just got a verbal thank you! Humph. He didn't actually look at the card though so hopefully next time I see him he'll remember me and be a bit more forthcoming! ;)

Lucy (the girl who made the chocs) had done them for the whole cast but Tom never came out so Pippa told us to go to the restaurant where they were having the afterparty...so we did! Even though we were soooo nervous! It was upstairs in a private room so Lucy and I were creeping up there around all these corners even though the doorguy was like "Yeah sure! Go on up!" and when we went in luckily Pippa saw us and waved at us and I got up the courage to tap Tom on the shoulder and then he was so incredibly sweet and grateful for the chocolates and looked a bit sheepish when he said he'd sneaked out the back way! And he kissed Lucy twice on the cheek and offered us a spring roll and shook our hands...and then we left.

What a mental evening!

Last night was brilliant...I ended up seeing the play again even though I hadn't planned to (it was inevitable really, hehe) AND even though I didn't get to ask my question in the actual Platform talk, I waited outside the stagedoor afterwards and Julian answered it for me and said I was basically right and very intelligent! :D :D

Ok so I'm going to try and remember everything I can about what was said in the talk, because it was all so interesting and brilliant:
( Cut for rambling and probable lack of any sense )

So yeah, afterwards I was about to try and buy a ticket for the performance that evening when the internets came good again and Ros from the Stephen Mangan forum offered me a spare ticket that she had...so that was all good! Part of the reason that I wanted to see the play was also so that I could ask Julian my question at the stagedoor afterwards, so that's what I did. I went and lurked there with Ros and her friends, Chi from the JRT forum, and also Sian (schiaparelli) and her friend Gigi. Julian came out pretty quickly (I expect he probably noticed a few familiar faces in the audience and expected us to be there, haha!) but got collared by this couple who rambled on at him for ages (argh! diediedie!) so he had to hurry through everyone else a bit because he was expected back inside. But I did get to ask my question:

ME: I kind-of got the impression from seeing the play and reading the script that your character might've been having an affair with Ned's ex...is this something that you noticed or thought about at all or am I just reading too much into it?! It's just that he seems to know an awful lot about where Ned's been and how she feels, so...

JULIAN: Yes we did think that something might've been going on there, and that you could take the first scene as him popping round partly to try and find out why their marriage broke down, but in the end we just play it like he has a bit of a soft-spot for her and nothing has actually happened. So basically, you were right and well done, you're very intelligent!

*squee*
I also got another photo, because I'm greedy! :p

Pippa and Jason had also come out and signed a few things and had a bit of a chat and left...so we hung around for aaaages waiting for Tom. Ros and her friends left to get a train, Chi left soon after talking to Pippa, so it was clearly just the hardcore who stayed! I wanted to ask Tom about POTC3 because I read somewhere that in an interview after POTC2 he said he would be having a proper swordfight in the next film...but it was nowhere to be seen! So I just wondered if he'd filmed it and it had been cut from the actual film...meaning the possibility that it might be in the deleted scenes on the DVD. But sadly it was not to be as I stayed til 11.30 and then left to get the bus home...he was blatantly boozing it up in the Green Room! So, did he turn up eventually or not Sian?

In other news...I am SO EFFING EXCITED about Doctor Who later! Eeee!

Bobbing hell...this is literally the first chance I've had to get online since Saturday morning! Seriously though, this was one of the best weekends ever! I'm going to do an update over two entries just because the events can be divided up nicely, and numero uno is my report on Betrayal at the Donmar, and meeting Toby Stephens afterwards. Eee! :D

( I also have photos! )

Right, off to write about the rest of my weekend now before I fall asleep!

So I went to see The Tempest at the Royal Exchange on Monday and it was very good...but it would've been hard for it to be bad with Pete Postlethwaite playing Prospero! I have to say I was slightly disappointed with Oliver Kieran-Jones after thynk2much raving about him in The Revenger's Tragedy as I felt he stumbled over the verse a bit and just didn't really grab me. Though I suppose Ferdinand isn't a particularly stretching part to play. On a more shallow note, however, he did walk around with his top off for one scene and can I just say yum? Hee!

I was really taken with the actors who played Ariel and Caliban though (Steven Robertson and Simon Trinder). Steven had an adorable Scottish accent and was always moving and flitting about the stage. He really managed to bring the 'spirit-ness' of Ariel to the fore. I also admire him for the fact that for the most part his costume was a baggy white shirt and a pair of tighty-whiteys! Lol. Similarily Simon Trinder really showed Caliban's wildness through his physicality and he was very athletic, and I felt he spoke the verse beautifully too. His name rings bells though, but looking at his bio in the programme nothing really springs to mind...any ideas you obasc lot?

Jonathan Keeble (Sebastian) also impressed me and I remembered him from Cyrano de Bergerac where he played the baddie De Guiche. He has brilliant comic timing and snarky eyebrows (yes, I was sitting that close!).

As for the staging, I also think that was done very well for the most part, although the sound effects for the shipwreak at the beginning basically drowned out all the dialogue. It's such an intimate theatre but they really managed to create a sense of this hostile island, mostly through covering the stage with a load of sand (must've been a bitch to clear up) and the incongruity of having that with the actors all wearing stiff formal suits.

So, all in all it was definately worth the £8 ticket! ;)
They're staging Henry V when I'm back here for uni in the Autumn...should be good!

Whee, this is going to be a big update!
( Thursday - DT on Parky )
( Friday - Treats at the Garrick )
( Saturday - Landscape With Weapon (again!)/GW Convention reunion type thing )
( This morning - watched the latest DW! (Spoilers within) )

I think that's everything! I also amazingly managed to do half of my Early French coursework over the weekend so maybe I'll actually manage not to completely fail it?

I'm really in the mood for spamming my journal with a ton of pretty...so there are a lot of images below the cut!

( Sex on a stick )

I'm gonna go and lie down now...

Ok, so I will try and save the squeeing til the latter half of this entry but the main thing I want to say is that if you're able to then you have to go and see this play...it's brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, thought provoking, very topical and also rather funny! I went to see it with ebonybeach, and loony_daydreams and her friend Hiba.

( Cut for spoilers and length )

Ok so I think that's probably enough trying to be grown-up and sensible, the next part will be very shallow and full of squee...you've been warned!
( More spoilers probably )

( Stagedoor lurking )

Yays! Best. Night. Ever.

Oh my fucksy...BEST DAY EVERRR!
Firstly, I'd like to apologise for my lack of photos. I was a lazy arse and didn't take many because everyone else was...so I plan on nicking other people's later! :p
I tried to put this in some sort of order but it degenerated into a load of random points:
( I called Steve Mangan a spunkface! )

Right, I think that's everything! I may add some more later if I remember something.

Wahay, so overall I think this signing wasn't as good as the others...mostly for the reason that I missed Julian by about 2 seconds because he turned up literally just as we'd gone through! Curses! And then we queued up again cos we're cool like that but he left after about 40 minutes, before we'd got to the front again. If I find out that he came back again I shall be very annoyed! Anyway, on to the reportage:

( This is better than your face! )

Le fin! If Julian is at the convention on saturday (please God!) then I'm going to berate him for his bad timing! :p

So I finally got round to seeing Cyrano de Bergerac today, which of course features the lovely Oli Chris (Boyce in Green Wing for those who don't know) as Christian. I got up at 8am so that I could go and get a ticket for the front row 'banquette' seats as they're only released at 9.30am each day, and they're only £8! I got such a good view and was right in the action - at the furthest the actors were probably only 3-4 metres away!

I met up with some people from the Green Wing Convention forum beforehand, and we managed to get the theatre manager to ask the stage manager to ask Oli if he would come out and see us after the performance...and he agreed! :D

The performance itself was fantastic. They really tried to involve the audience and a lot of it was very funny, but also rather sad...especially the ending. But yeah, that's all the review you're gonna get from me...I'm really not very good at talking about the deeper meaning/bigger picture behind things!

So yeah, Oli came out afterwards and chatted to us and signed a few things. He's really lovely and seemed quite annoyed that he'd be unable to make the convention as the play is still going on then. Other info we got out of him is that he's currently filming something in Liverpool, no idea what though! And he wouldn't tell us anything about the Special, grr! ;)

( Also, here's a few photos! )

:D

Well, after what he said at the signing I knew this was coming...but I am still soooo happy!

( Julian Rhind-Tutt is a God! )

And he still included a signed photo for Vashti as well so I'm going to have to post it to her!