I hate complainers.  All they do is focus on the negatives.  Moan, moan, moan… Wait a minute…do I detect the deployment of irony?  Well, probably not, depending on your definition of irony, which you’re probably mentally complaining about already as you read this. I try not to complain.  I really do.  It’s a terrible habit.  I try not to complain about the Turkish Swimming Cats that somehow live in my house, spraying their acrid scent everywhere:  ‘It’s your fault for attempting to domesticate such beautiful, wild beasts’, Inner Monologue tells me.  I try not to complain about the tinny, senseless music commonly encountered on the top deck of buses: ‘Listen to the bass-line, you pernickety old sod.  It’s really rather galvanizing’, Inner Monologue reproaches.  I try not to complain as my upstairs neighbour clomps and stomps and hurls abuse at his girlfriend:  ‘Don’t go up there with a baseball bat’, Inner Monologue suggests, ‘Just call that nice policeman that spends his beat in the local Subway eating free sandwiches’.  It’s very easy to complain.  Especially in a profession built on subjectivity.  I have nothing but admiration for my first bad review.  Touching nerves makes a nice noise.  Love and hate still stem from the same old frontal insula. I’m writing a play about ex-servicemen and the difficulties they face readjusting to civilian life.  The BBC screens a depressive slice of codswallop about ex-soldiers, presented by a bilious and self-congratulatory ex-serviceman obviously desperate enough to switch from the military to brief televisual celebrity.  I mean, come on.  The program is about ex-servicemen on the streets, and he interviews, erm, three of them?  On the street.  No coffee, no sofa, no attempt to make them feel comfortable or to actually pierce the heart of their stories.  Just a wallow in despondency and kudos to him for his socially acceptable drinking habits.  And not a solution in sight.  But wait!  This is OffWestEnd.com, not OffPrimeTime.com.  Why am I talking about television?  Well.  You have to be even more grateful for theatre when schmucks like this worm their way into the public domain.  At least with theatre the very process of putting on a play denotes a collaborative effort between dozens of people.  You don’t often get a complete turkey if it has to pass through that many hands (unless it’s Hollywood, where power is wholly disproportionate).  But theatre is incredibly unique, particularly the fringe, because the very act of working for free or thereabouts ensures, if not perfection, a fellowship pledged to bagging the same prize. 

Which was why I was saddened to sit through almost three hours at one of our most lauded subsidized theatres and watch a show that appeared to have had money thrown at it like custard pies at a circus.  And all you could see was the money, loosely held together by solipsistic ideas.  So excuse the complaining this week.  It’s not an attractive quality.  We can all do a little better.  Even my cats.  –>

Remember the Liverpuddlian preacher who, much like a gargoyle sluicing rainwater, used to spiel damnation through a megaphone by Oxford Circus?  Where did he go?  He was admirably relentless.  Now that was mind-numbing show for performer and participants alike.  Even Peter Pan El Musical seems preferable to

Santos Pedro El Diablo Lengua.  One of my favourite comedians has a yarn in which our vociferous priest of the put-down was pointing wildly at Saturday shoppers, screaming: 

‘You’re going to hell!  You’re going to hell!  You’re going to hell!’ 

A big fellow, hooded and sun-glassed, came bouncing by. 

‘You’re going to hell!’ 

The big fellow turns, and without breaking his stride, says: 

‘Nah, mate…H-M-V.’ 

You can’t deal with damnation better than that.  It is a pity more religions don’t have the boon of a sense of humour.  It’s a useful piece of artillery in the battle royale for peace. 

Oxfam called me up today.  They addressed Miss P Snowdon, and wouldn’t quite believe me when I informed them that Miss P Snowdon was, in fact, me with the baritone.  They asked for credit card details for future donations when I’m finally off menial wage and I explained I didn’t really trust my numbers with them just yet, what with the sex change they’d allocated me and all.  He was interminably sweet, though, and confided to me that: 

‘All my family are actors too!  It’s alright, I understand!’ 

I saw a very unusual show this week.  It was called Deliverance, and was set in the convenience of my own living-room.  The performance lasted about three hours with no interval, and was a true story (though, I suspect, heavily mythologized).  Having recently enjoyed Douglas Henshaw’s turn as Satan at the Almeida, I happily entertained this tale of a lost woman’s redemption.  But my, erm, philosophical enquiries were met with scoffing and doublespeak.  This is faith, I suppose.  I join Oscar Wilde in the wish for a Confraternity of the Faithless, an order for people who simply cannot believe. 

As much as the sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins are on my constant To-Learn List, organized religion sometimes raises my hackles. Is it professional deformation?  My last Shakespeare job was crammed with devoted Hawkins enthusiasts.  Still preaching, albeit from the wolf, not the lamb. 

When the performer of our one-woman-show called Deliverance regaled us with her possession and exorcism of a parade of devils, I was surprised to hear that ‘Fantasy’ was the name of one of them.  Fantasy?  Really?  Is it so pernicious that it gets its very own demon?  Maybe we on this side of the curtain need our demons to act and write.  Maybe each performance is a duel to reclaim some unfathomable acre of soul. 

Again, I agree with Oscar Wilde.  His whole conception of humanity sprang out of imagination and could only be realised by it.  Invention, empathy, reliance on the intangible…Well, it all sounds pretty sacred to me.   

That said, HMV sounds pretty good, too. –>

Apologies to those anticipating a call-to-arms for Sir Alan to hit the boards of the Nash.  The lambasting of Lloyd-Webber’s thirteen-week promotion for his own musical shows off the backs of tax-payers seems mightily overdue.  Damn straight bring back the Play For Today — A venture last seen in 1984, briefly glimpsed in 2006 but now missing-presumed-dead…25 year revival, anyone? 

The question to be asked —to utilize a pilfered phrase from a presidential hopeful— concerns the audacity of hope.  You can’t deny the popularity of I’d Do Anything et al (whilst we’re on it, does the chorus of children singing that line send shivers down anyone else’s spines?  Where is The Daily Mail when you actually need it?).  It could be that the alternative of Dad’s Army reruns or You’ve Been Framed fails to stir revolt in the country’s remote-fingers.  But why do so many mindlessly enjoy these advertisements cloaked in culture’s clothing? 

Because everyone loves a success story.  That is, everyone likes to think that at some point in their life someone will notice their potential and fling them into a position of power, fame, wealth, whichever your particular poison may happen to be.  And to see a shelf-stacker catapulted into the dubious net of stardom is something that resonates deeply in the ambitious pockets of people’s souls. 

Of course, this is in a sense a right-wing coup.  The slavering desire to yank yourself to the top, cutting bloody swathes in the competition…it’s not for everyone.  As Mammet says, there’s nothing more unsatisfying than a character suddenly discovering that ‘oh, they can do it!  They do have the ability’.  They’ve always had the ability.  It’s a very romantic idea that pre-dates Young Skywalker and ‘The Force’.  But plot-wise?  It’s a cop-out.   

The reality of these shows (ha ha) is that they perpetuate the idea that anyone can, in a flick of fate (or in this case, a producer’s eye) get what they want.  Which sidesteps the idea that the best way of getting where you want in this domineering world is good old-fashioned graft.  I think it was Henry Irving said it takes 11 years to train as an actor.  Not six auditions and a televised vote-off.  

There is a reason why you’ve never seen an Olivier or Oscar acceptance speech go something like this: 

‘I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank…me.  Thank me so much.  Thank me for all the hard work, thank me for the blood, sweat and tears, the prodigious talent…’ 

Hard work speaks for itself.  But the residual talent, from whereof it comes is and always will be a thing of mystery.  You can toil over flint for fire, but you can’t stop it raining.  Which is why I’m still dumbfounded that I’ve manage to land a role in one of my favourite theatres.  Someone somewhere must be pulling some strings, because last time I checked I’m only on year 9 of my training.  Sorry Mr Irving.  I’m still learning.  Promise. –>