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Snapshots from England
Oct. 6th, 2015 02:18 pmI'm not going to chronicle every step of my last 10 days in England, but I am going to try to pass on the best stories. I saw Hamlet, but that gets another post. Cut-tagged because yes, there are a lot of spoilers when discussing that play.
Theater seen:
- Hamlet
- The Play That Goes Wrong
- The Importance of Being Earnest (with Poroit playing Lady Bracknell)
- John Finnemore's Souvenir Cabin
Hamlet was brilliant... and I don't usually like Hamlet, which gives a clue to how much has been changed in the play. Mind you, being in Benedict Cumberbatch's spitting zone (and he is a spitter) didn't hurt. (No, he didn't get me, but the confetti did once.)
But blasphemously for a Shakespeare and Cumberbatch fan, my favorite was The Play That Goes Wrong. Describing it will make it sound just like Noises Off, and the similarities are overwhelming... but Noises Off is, no matter how hilarious, at heart the story of professionals acting unprofessionally. The Play That Goes Wrong is the story of an earnest amateur company finally tackling a play that lies within their scope and size ("Unlike our 2013 season, which included Checkov's Two Sisters; The Lion... and the Wardrobe, and our summer musical extravaganza, Cat") only to be betrayed by the set, the props, one of the tech crew, and their own inexperience. But they're trying Just! So! Earnestly! that you can't help but root for their uphill, howlingly funny climb.
Another highlight was the Radio Times Festival - well, not the festival itself, which was mis-advertised, packed with the wrong kinds of vendors (cat rescue, will lawyers, and a knife maker, among others) and run with the kind of efficiency you'd expect out of The Play That Goes Wrong.
But the "How the BBC Works" tent had a clip of their very first broadcast ("The shows at first will likely be uninteresting. Please bear with us.") and showed how to photoshop you into a photo of Twelve and Clara. And it had the Women in Sherlock Panel.
For Women in Sherlock, most of the audience questions went to Moffat, Gatiss, and Vertue because they could show what went on "under the hood" so to speak. But Una Stubbs, Amanda Abbington, and Lou Brealey weren't completely out in the cold - and while I have my opinions of Abbington, she was a champ signing with the fans while Lou went down the line, holding out her arm and waiting for people to duck under for photos.
I could do a whole post on that panel, and may. Must say, what I liked most of it was hearing Moffat speak without the gloss of other people selecting quotes, then telling me what he really meant and how I needed to feel about it.
After a week, it was off to Cheltenham for the Literature Festival. We stayed at the Queen's Hotel, which has the perfect location and luxury appointments, including wallpaper designed over 175 years ago for Parliament. I have to say, every time I saw the elevator doors open to the elegant Regency stairs, skylights, and historical wallpaper, I thought the very same two words:
The Shining.
The main event for me at the festival was Austentacious, a Jane Austen improv show based off of audience title suggestions. Our show was "Snakes on a Carriage," with the earnest, impoverished Mr. Addison Lee taking on the evil Lord Uber and his snake-dancing sister.
But I lie a little bit, because the biggest attraction was the Waterstones book tents, and their tempting ways of changing the book selection on the tables every hour or so. I'm a bit surprised that I managed to stay under the weigh limit on my luggage!
Theater seen:
- Hamlet
- The Play That Goes Wrong
- The Importance of Being Earnest (with Poroit playing Lady Bracknell)
- John Finnemore's Souvenir Cabin
Hamlet was brilliant... and I don't usually like Hamlet, which gives a clue to how much has been changed in the play. Mind you, being in Benedict Cumberbatch's spitting zone (and he is a spitter) didn't hurt. (No, he didn't get me, but the confetti did once.)
But blasphemously for a Shakespeare and Cumberbatch fan, my favorite was The Play That Goes Wrong. Describing it will make it sound just like Noises Off, and the similarities are overwhelming... but Noises Off is, no matter how hilarious, at heart the story of professionals acting unprofessionally. The Play That Goes Wrong is the story of an earnest amateur company finally tackling a play that lies within their scope and size ("Unlike our 2013 season, which included Checkov's Two Sisters; The Lion... and the Wardrobe, and our summer musical extravaganza, Cat") only to be betrayed by the set, the props, one of the tech crew, and their own inexperience. But they're trying Just! So! Earnestly! that you can't help but root for their uphill, howlingly funny climb.
Another highlight was the Radio Times Festival - well, not the festival itself, which was mis-advertised, packed with the wrong kinds of vendors (cat rescue, will lawyers, and a knife maker, among others) and run with the kind of efficiency you'd expect out of The Play That Goes Wrong.
But the "How the BBC Works" tent had a clip of their very first broadcast ("The shows at first will likely be uninteresting. Please bear with us.") and showed how to photoshop you into a photo of Twelve and Clara. And it had the Women in Sherlock Panel.
For Women in Sherlock, most of the audience questions went to Moffat, Gatiss, and Vertue because they could show what went on "under the hood" so to speak. But Una Stubbs, Amanda Abbington, and Lou Brealey weren't completely out in the cold - and while I have my opinions of Abbington, she was a champ signing with the fans while Lou went down the line, holding out her arm and waiting for people to duck under for photos.
I could do a whole post on that panel, and may. Must say, what I liked most of it was hearing Moffat speak without the gloss of other people selecting quotes, then telling me what he really meant and how I needed to feel about it.
After a week, it was off to Cheltenham for the Literature Festival. We stayed at the Queen's Hotel, which has the perfect location and luxury appointments, including wallpaper designed over 175 years ago for Parliament. I have to say, every time I saw the elevator doors open to the elegant Regency stairs, skylights, and historical wallpaper, I thought the very same two words:
The Shining.
The main event for me at the festival was Austentacious, a Jane Austen improv show based off of audience title suggestions. Our show was "Snakes on a Carriage," with the earnest, impoverished Mr. Addison Lee taking on the evil Lord Uber and his snake-dancing sister.
But I lie a little bit, because the biggest attraction was the Waterstones book tents, and their tempting ways of changing the book selection on the tables every hour or so. I'm a bit surprised that I managed to stay under the weigh limit on my luggage!
