It is on IPlayer, cheers. I have a VPN but why would I need one to watch it? And where the **** do you get the time to watch every TV series under the sun, sometimes twice, read books, see every live band possible and earn a living?
Not you ya muppet, Kiwi...you can only watch iPlayer with a UK based IP address - you still have him on ignore so you couldn't see I replied to him too?
I actually don't know! For a start, apart from this site, I don't do social media... I watch TV when I'm away from home working and stuck in digs - if I'm not out for a meal and drinking. I'll squeeze in a couple of episodes of something at the weekend - depending on how the Rs game goes depends if I need some severe violence or something a bit more chilled. I rarely watch live TV anymore. Only did 30 gigs last year, that's just over two a month - have 25 booked so far this year, so probably be about the same. We've started adding a couple of theatre trips to that too. I don't really read in the winter, normally a pastime I indulge in when sat out in the sun. Not normally a fan of biographies unless I'm really interested in their stories, but apart from that I read all sorts of stuff, hi-brow and lo-brow. Life's too short, got to make time to enjoy yourself
Anyone seen Mobland on Paramount+ ? Quite gripping and violent. Tom Hardy menacingly brooding. Brosnan and Mirren in it too. Worth a watch and I’d say better than Gangs of London, if that’s your sort of thing.
Helen Mirren is once again terribly cast and has a ludicrously laughable stupid accent which she cannot carry off and don’t get me started on her part. Tom Hardy holds it together though. Without him it would be dire. The man does little wrong
Pavillion Theatre, Glasgow tonight for a theatrical production of Dracula. Typical Victorian era theatre, closely packed seats, but thankfully no pillars like the Royal, so a clear view to the stage. Long show, two and a half hours including interval. Very good, atmospheric production well acted by the cast....but only in Glasgow would you get someone heckle Dracula half way through the show! at a serious moment of the show, someone started making really loud ghostie noises...the actors on stage looked raging, paused for a few seconds and repeated their lines, immediately followed by ghostie noises again! The actors stormed off stage in a huff and the house lights went up...the culprit and his pal get escorted out along with all their empty cans of Bud only in Glasgow on a Wednesday night! Impromptu interval meant that half the audience went to the bar for a top-up, and were still there when the show restarted, so lots of shuffling people trying to find their seats in the dark with lots of tutting from the luvvie brigade - instead of waiting a whole ten minutes for the actual interval!! An enjoyable evening
And back by (un)popular demand - Shakespeare! Saw Much Do About Nothing at the RSC last night. The modern hook was to stage the play (originally set in Messina, Sicily) in Messina FC just after they have won a major European competition (it’s a war originally). The governor becomes the teams owner, the duke the team manager, and the main romantic leads players, the women being a broadcaster and the daughter of the owner. Considerable effort goes into setting up this scenario in the first twenty minutes, including a very clever set, and then it seems to be forgotten about. Which was a shame as it’s an odd play, half comedy half rather nasty about a girl being falsely accused of something and all of the men, including her father and her fiancé, immediately believing she is guilty. It is, of course, unknown whether Shakespeare was making a point or whether it’s just a misogynistic story line. But it worked well in the context of modern footballers, but by that stage the football setting was largely forgotten. Enjoyable stuff. Usual Shakespearean guff about hidden and mistaken identities, and the baddie who sets up the heroine has no motivation to do this and then simply disappears, which is odd. Overall well acted and good use of (modern) music.
Yep, or 99% of it. The staging is really just a vehicle for the words. Even Baz Luhrman’s Romeo+Juliet kept most of them intact. The more plays you see the more obvious it is how much he recycled plots and scenarios, the language is the key thing. There has always been big editing of the scripts though. Apparently a recent version of Much Ado About Nothing in London dumped a scene that was retained in the version I saw (it wouldn’t have been missed). An unabridged version of Hamlet would be over 4 hours long. Shakespeare was never shy of using 400 words when 4 would do.
Shakespeare is a massive hole in my cultural knowledge/appreciation. We never studied him at school and I've never seen any of his plays live. Such a heathen! I did recently watch Branagh's film version of Henry V, which I really enjoyed, but there seemed to be an odd line thrown in for effect that the Bard certainly wouldn't have written, which kind of defeated the object for me. All or nothing, Kenny. I recall seeing an American film back in the day called Joe Macbeth, which was the Macbeth story transposed into a US gangland scenario. No Shakespearean language in that.
