Courtyard Theatre in London brings expeimental Shakespeare to the Stage

Following on from the success of their production of Romeo and Juliet staged in the Isles of Dogs last year, the Admiration Theatre Company are performing their latest Shakespeare adaptation - Tower Hamlet.

The challenging performance will be given by five small groups of experienced actors and delivered using one of five theatrical methods - Traditional British, Stanislavski, Lecoq, Mime, and Grotowski. The ambitious project takes four scenes from Shakespeare’s famous play and adapts them for a contemporary audience ever mindful of local history and current geography.

Admiration Theatre are an experimental group who are clearly on a mission to promote theatre as a unique and challenging art form and persist to educate the public in the differences between the many forms of stage acting traditions. Artistic Director, John Seaforth explains: "We believe that putting these five methods in one production is the best way to create for the audience a public debate on theatre as an art form."

Asked about the inspiration for selecting the chosen traditions, Seaforth believes Stanislavski is "the greatest single influence on theatre training of all time," and that "mime is underrated in Britain."

As for the others, Lecoq was a natural choice due to the influence and reputation of Shakespeare adaptations in London whereas Grotowski’s pioneering methods of ’being’ the character was a radical step forward from an actor ’representing’ a character. The essence of a good actor is not acting, but reacting.

To add a local and contemporary flavour the performers were asked to research the local history and geography of the locations setting, Tower Hamlets, so the audience can expect to discover some interesting, and perhaps little known facts of past events in Tower.

Tower Hamlets runs from 2^nd February to 21^st February at the Courtyard Theatre on Pitfield Street in North London. Tickets prices are £12.

How does a competition where the winner gets a month of time to spend at a choice of resorts sound to all of you? All of you must put your names forward, I am convinced we need to to win this and get out of London for a bit because I am deadly bored of it!

Plan D at Tristan Bates Theatre in London

The Tristan Bates Theatre on Tower Street in London, is a self-professed ’thorn in the side of the west end.’ It has a reputation for staging innovative and powerful plays and Plan D is no exception.

Written by actress and playwright Hannah Khalil, winner of the 2007 Special Commendation in the Verity Bargate Award for her moving play ’Stolen or Strayed,’ Plan D is a far-reaching account of a family with deep buried secrets set during the 1948 war between Israel and Palestine. When the family is visited by a cousin who brings warning of a powerful and unseen force, they must decide whether they can trust him.

In what is a complex political issue, the story is inspired by first hand accounts of Palestinian Arabs who survived the atrocities that eventually led to the State of Israel commandeering Arab territory that is still being fought over today.

The mounting troubles in the Middle East began when the United Nations declared Israel independence and recognised it as a State within its own right in the Middle East. Already fraught with tension the relationships between Israel and bordering Arab nations deteriorated and Israel found itself under attack.

Having successfully defended all fronts, Israel moved to expand the territory granted to them by the United Nations at the expense of many Palestinian Arabs. The war left many Palestinians, dead or severely wounded. Many survivors found themselves homeless and persecuted.

Khalil uses the tense situation of the Holy Land to reflect the mistrust and tension between the family and visiting cousin which have had reviewers in Ireland drooling. Writing in Culture, Jane Coyle remarked:

"a play whose subject matter is heartbreakingly apt for these fraught times... a little piece of narrative magic."

Plan D runs at the Tristan Bates Theatre from 26^th January to 13^th February. Tickets cost between £7-£10 and booking in advance is recommended as some nights are already sold out.

Some thrilling news everyone, I was talking to my mate last night and he has just got a lovely new gig at an human resource software company. Well done Thomas

The Little Dog Laughed in London's Garrick Theatre

Taking a satirical view of Hollywoods cut-throat agents and closet homosexuals, ’The Little Dog Laughed,’ staged at London’s Garrick Theatre is a witty, dynamic and altogether enjoyable theatre experience.

Set in New York, the story revolves around Mitchell, an up and coming film actor, and his secret passion for men. The story is catapulted forward when he encounters and falls in love Alex, a Manhattan rent boy who doesn’t consider himself gay. The story is cleverly put together with cinematic influences in keeping with the major industry of Tinseltown. The story is effectively narrated by Diane, Mitchell’s agent, a manipulative and cynical vixen in high heels and Armani suits. Her sharp tongue cuts into her fellow cast with scathing put downs, suggesting she would ’rather give firearms to small children’ than allow a writer to do a final cut. Her best moment however comes when she is asked to keep her word. ’My Word?’ she exclaims, ’You’re asking a whore for her cherry!’

As the relationship of Mitchell and Alex deepens, Diane becomes increasingly worried about protecting her client’s secret from the gossip mongers of Hollywood’s fickle film industry - and their apparent distaste for homosexual men. Matters are complicated however, when Ellen, Alex’s friend come occasional bed buddy announces she is pregnant to the sexually confused rent boy. In the clutches of drama we wait for the sting in the tail to kill us off and are not disappointed.

Director Jamie Lloyd keeps things ticking over like a finely tuned motor, fluent scene changes, perfect comedy timing and such high-octane pace there is barely time for a pit stop from start to finish. The set is minimalistic yet effectively suits the rapid scene changes and numerous locations the character find themselves in. For comedy value, you get your money’s worth and the twist in the tale makes this enjoyable little dog all the more worthwhile.

And now for an update on work for you all to critique, I have finally finished changing the images for the tattoo removal stockport webpage. I really don’t know how I feel about this one, any criticisms are welcome

Fringe Show Review: The Lady Or The Tiger

The show ‘The Lady Or The Tiger’ can be seen until February 13 at the Orange Tree Theatre. It is really a parity to the Arabian Knight’s tale. The story is about a princess whose lover is punished and has to choose between two doors. Behind one door is a tiger waiting to kill him and behind the other is a beautiful woman to whom he will marry. The princess knows who is behind which door, but what will she do? Will she show him the right direction?

The adapters wisely try and keep everything simple. They have reduced the cast to just four- King, Princess, playing most of it for light comedy and reducing the cast to four, the King, the princess, the lover and a narrator who also represents everyone else.

The title song has a Latin beat, which captivates everyone, while a few others offer a distinct 50’s pop feeling. There is also a sing along for those who would be interested. The best track has to be ’Gold’ which is played while the Princess bribes many officials to tell her the secret. The other dramatic climax ’ What Would You Do?’ is flat to say the least.

Andrew C. Wadsworth plays the Narrator and the role of everyone else. He does a good job by portraying the shows light and jolly tone in a very engaging and interesting way.

The real revelation in the show though is Riona O’Connor, who could be the next big thing when it come to acting. She has a distinct charm and can also be funny and sing a couple of songs along the way.

Howard Samuels is very entertaining in his role as a ego filled monarch, while Eke Chukwu catches your eye as the hero. The same cannot be said about his singing though as he seems to be having the wrong notes all the time.

This is a great show to see and you can surely bet that you will have fun.

Nadine’s surprise engagement party: I think I know what we should plan. We should arrange some chalets val d isere as a surprise.

Enron at the Noel Coward Theatre in London

The mind-boggling complications of high-finance, stock shares and hedging are brought to life in comprehensible laymen terms in ’Enron.’

Focusing on the rise and fall of the corrupt American Energy company that changed the face of business before collapsing to its insolvent knees in 2001, Enron transcends us into the world of finance and the subsequent irregularities business and politics thrive on. Playwright Lucy Prebble expertly redefines this difficult subject matter to simplify how hiding real facts and producing phantom figures is a possible metaphor, or cause, of our current financial plight.

Following the meteoric rise of Enron under the leadership of dynamic Chief Operating Officer, Jeffrey Skilling and his ambitious and eager to please Chief Financial Officer, Andy Fastow, we are given a detailed insight into how Enron attempted to hoodwink the business world by hiding their assets in shadow companies to effectively push the price of shares in their company up.

Though the subject matter is as dry as it is intriguing, director, Rupert Gould invites light entertainment by way of barber shop quartets singing stock market prices, eclectic musical interludes and a dazzlingly choreographed star wars style routine, complete with light sabres, to explain the deregulation of electricity in the California fiasco that left one of America’s best known states in darkness.

Consequentially, the light show in Enron is awe-inspiring, with illuminated rods lining the stage and a giant translucent centre-piece that projects political video footage, is used as the stock market indicator and effectively as a screen for off stage characters to oversee action on stage.

What this all amounts to is a fast paced, informative and part-time witty production chronicling contemporary issues. Samuel West superbly transforms Jeffrey Skilling from a nerdy ideas man into a uber-confident world player before sinking into the desperation of his demise. The stunning Amanda Drew ignites the stage with high-powered sexuality and is shafted in more ways than one by her corrupt counter-part.

Final thing, I have just looked at the design for this hr software page and I have to say in my web trained opinion it is incredably eye-catching. I was having the most difficult time actually finding any particulars about the company or services however, which made me wonder what is more crucial, charm or working order? Why is it that most sites aren’t actually able to do both?

A Movie of 'Airwolf'?

I wonder if they will make a movie of ‘Airwolf’. According to someone in this forum, a script is already being worked on. It wouldn’t surprise me. Hollywood are so low on new ideas they will drag anything back into the light of the present day if it will make them a few extra dollars.

Someone else in the discussion made another valid comment; the helicopter in the original TV series was a pretty cool cucumber at the time, but today’s choppers can do everything that it did. If there is a new film going to be made then the helicopter will have to be something very, very special. And if that is the case then the movie will be heavily reliant on CGIs. Yawn.

It all makes me wonder why the film industry is so lacking in original themes for movies. After all, just how many remakes of old television shows have there been? Oodles of sitcoms have been reinvented for films and they have turned every comic you can think of into a movie; and not just the ones about superheroes. Even cartoons are not safe! There was a movie of ‘Tom and Jerry’ with drawings that sucked and they have made awful ‘live actor’ versions of ‘Scooby Doo’ (twice) and ‘The Flintstones’. In fact, a large amount of modern remakes have turned out to be absolutely atrocious; think about something like ‘Starsky and Hutch’ and then tell me I’m wrong...

So, you can probably fully expect to see a movie of ‘Airwolf’. It may even come out just after the new ‘A Team’ hits the cinemas...

Boring old Hollywood; when will you finally come up with something that is a bit more interesting?

Aren’t cinemagoers tired of seeing the same old things time and time again?

Room to Preform.

This blog has got a ring of truth to it. Lots of bands tend to do the same thing for years on end and it soon becomes really boring.

Any band or singer is entitled to try changing their style now and then. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

Isn’t it better to take a chance rather than just plugging away at the same old thing? Lots of groups develop a really distinctive sound by trying their hand at different styles.

Music is not stationary, it is transient and it is important that artists have room to breathe and to expand their ideas.