Titter Ye Not...?

Review
Up Pompeii
Royalty Theatre


The Royalty Theatre have chosen a corker for their season finale. And I have to admit I had mixed feelings about going along to it - here is another well-loved classic from TV and film adapted for the stage with all the potential to ruin some youthful memories. If you've seen my reviews of other classics such as "Dad's Army" and "Allo Allo", you'll know I viewed them with similar trepidation... Could any production of Up Pompeii do justice to it without succumbing to a half-cocked (ahem!) Frankie Howerd impersonation? I had more or less decided that I'd give it a miss, until a friend recommended it as a "must see". So I dragged my sister along and I'm glad I did!

I'm sure you all know the plot - Vesuvius is about to errupt, while a Roman senator, Ludicrus Sextus (Peter Kelly), and his family get up to all sorts of things they shouldn't, under the watchful eye of the head slave Lurcio. It is brim full of innuendo, double entendres and straight up smut!

There is a distinct pantomine atmosphere to it with a lot of audience engagement - characters cajole the audience to laugh at jokes, (or not!) depending on how good or bad they are. And some of them are awful!

There are a lot of laughs, and even with a fairly small audience, the actors build the momentum and keep the mood high.

David Farn plays Lurcio with quite a bit of ham, but, thankfully no half-cocked (or not that we saw!) Frankie impersonation. He made it his own character which was all to the good. Irene Lathan is suitably manic as Senna the Soothsayer, and I especially like Henry Cockburn (surely this was no coincidental casting choice??) as the unfortunate and iffeminate Nauseus, and Michael Luke as the very gruff  Capt Treacherus, adding just the right amount of machismo to the proceedings!

My only criticisms would be that The Royalty has a very small stage and there was a lot of scenery on there and, at times, a lot of actors which made it all a bit crowded. The final scene with its excellent special effects and sounds could be an absolute killer (pun fully intended!) as the volcano erupts but it just lacked a little bit of crispness in the execution which left the audience slightly unsure if it was time to applaud or not...which is a shame as it was definitely worthy of a longer show of the audience's appreciation.

Full of laughs, it is well worth the £8 entry. It runs until Sat 28th June. Definitely not one to miss! Thanks to Kathy for persuading me to go along!

For more reviews of theatre in the North East have a look at www.spikemikeisbreakingaleg.blogspot.co.uk

Looking for inspiration...

Something different for Hawksword - I have a guest blogger! Meet Richard (that's his Sunday name), who has leapt manfully into the breach to rescue my floundering blog from the doldrums it had fallen into, with appropriately enough, a little piece on inspiration! Take it away, Dickie...

My Creative Muse

When Denise asked me to write something for her blog I had to think long and hard (easy tiger) about what I would write because I knew I was going to have to prove to her that I can discuss subjects without the superfluous use of innuendo!

To those of you who don’t know me I am an aspiring author and when I’m not writing over at my blog Not A Domestic God , I’m bashing out the corrections of my debut novel, so when asked if I would write something by Denise, I began thinking about how I work, particularly with regard to my writing. There is a theme that runs through al of it, and it’s something that I have done since my time at University, and that is setting up office anywhere but my desk in my room, or home, I have even been known to sit with my laptop on my knee on a long bus journey. 

I was not always this way inclined, when I was younger, and there was all the initial excitement about JK Rowling, and the news reports showed those clips of her writing in a secluded corner of a café, I like many people I know thought ‘God what pretentious cow’, but here I am about ten years later doing exactly the same thing.  I have realised that while me and JK have completely different reasons for writing outside of the home, we both have valid enough reasons for doing so.

I don’t have a child; therefore I am unable to reason that I have to take a child out for a walk to be able to get her to sleep, and it is only when the said child is asleep that I can “carpe diem” and write my masterpiece.  In my case it is a fully conscious decision to write in café’s, pubs, and libraries (yes I go to libraries I love the smell of books, especially an old book). 

What I discovered from an early age was that at home there are many distractions; television, chores that need to be completed, reading and a mother who doesn't understand that to turn my writing from a hobby into an actual business I need to have time to write and not to be distracted by multiple requests for me to make coffee, and locate her various stationary or electrical goods.

I suppose the second reason I write elsewhere is that being able to watch people, affords me the luxury of ‘accidentally’ overhearing their conversation and observing their behaviour, which stimulates that niggling part of my brain that makes me ask What If?  In turn it is these questions that often prompts me to write.

When/if I start to find myself flagging what I do is pack my laptop into my backpack and move onto the next café, or walk around in the fresh air (if it’s not too rainy) and then return (hopefully to get to the seat near the socket) to the same café and carry on from where I left off.  

The world is an interesting place and I think in the future when I'm a huge glittering successful author (go ahead laugh) that I will call the world my muse. I find life intrinsically beautiful and interesting and it is from life that I draw my inspiration. As a writer I love to explore the relationships that humans form with each other. Sounds utter baloney doesn't it? Maybe it is, but I do find people fascinating.

I love hearing about other writers and the way they write, so if you want to you can either follow my blog (greatly appreciated) or follow me on Twitter @dickiebird123 . 

No mackintosh required.

Saturday 22nd June was the second ever National Flash Fiction Day.
To celebrate it, I invited Amy Mackelden to run a Flash Workshop in the library.

Cue a deluge of 'fnar fnars' and grubby old mackintosh jokes. You can come to your own conclusions as to whether the joke or the mackintosh was grubby! I have heard such jokes in some form or other before and am well used to dealing with them - hey! I'm a librarian, when it comes to nudge, nudge and wink, winking I can out-innuendo the best of them.

A flash workshop is not about learning to lurk in a grubby mac and, with sudden and surprising alacrity, to jump out and reveal your hidden attributes. But in actual fact, I find that there is a similarity. Flash fiction wraps a story up in a few well chosen, well placed words. It either wraps you in a familiar cardigan, comfortable and relaxed, or it presents you with a grubby mac, alien and perturbing, hiding who knows what? In either case, just as you are thinking that you know exactly what's what, flash whips open its chosen vestment and reveals something unexpected.

And it has to be said, our workshop surprised us! Innocuous everyday objects revealed deep dark secrets! Who would have known that Amy's pretty box might contain a clutch of macabre treasures! Holly Golightly's underwear, Schroedinger's cat, severed digits and unsavoury pickles, parallel worlds and alien universes. All these and more lurked quietly in the box waiting for their moment to jump out and surprise us!