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Showing posts from July, 2016

Bye Bye Beautiful Bath

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The best thing about staying at the university was that they kicked you out at 10am. No lazing about, up showered, packed and exited. Then we headed to breakfast which was amazing. I hadn't expected much but there was ENDLESS supplies of tea and coffee and juice, plus there was cereal, fruit, yoghurt, pastries and a full choice of traditional hot food. It was a pleasure to sit down and have a relaxed breakfast, and then head off into town. We could stay parked at the uni for free all day on Sunday, so we grabbed the bus into town and headed for photo opportunities. The evening before we had taken some shots down by the river, and I had taken Julie and Nikki to where Tom had filmed some of his scenes in the BBC adaptation of Dracula. As he had filmed his scenes at night, I was most insistent that it was important that we did the same! OMG, I'm wearing a teepee! I really wanted to go back to the Fashion Museum. If I'm ever in Bath I have to go there, and they had a new ex

While The Sun Shines (Royal Bath Theatre - 23/7/2016)

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OK I lied. My break from Rattigan didn't last long. I heard that two of the actors from Musketeers were performing in While The Sun Shines. I scoured bookshops for the play text to see if it would be worth making the long trek to Bath to see it, and whilst it's not in print at the moment, I did manage to track down an old copy of the play. I'm like a dog with a bone, it doesn't matter how long my search takes me, I WILL find that book I've been looking for! I howled with laughter when I read the play, but I was still put off organising a trip to Bath. Why? It's a 460 mile round trip for a start. Hotels in Bath are very expensive, and the train journey is both long and expensive and there are no through trains. I talked myself out of going. Plus the play was only on for three weeks, I couldn't go on the first or last week soooo.....no point in trying to sort out a trip down there. I was a bit doleful about this, but it was only a play I was missing. Livi

Miles for Smiles (Burketeers' run 10K in aid of Operation Smile 10th July)

I hadn't aimed to be in London over the weekend of the run, so I didn't bother entering it, I couldn't justify the expense of going to London yet again. However, at a later date I was asked if I fancied watching The Deep Blue Sea again and of course there was no way I could decline such an offer, so I ended up going down to London town after all! With regard to the play on the Saturday night, it was wonderful to be able to watch it a second time around. You get the opportunity to notice things that you didn't acknowledge either when reading the play, or watching it for the first time. I think some subtle changes had also taken place, when Freddie came back at the end of the play his intentions were a little clearer; this time he untied Hester's dressing gown showing that he was hoping she would succumb to his advances. One of the overwhelming things second time around is noticing how the audience reacts around you. This time, I was more aware of how shocked and

Terence Rattigan (Box Clever Challange June)

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I watched Flare Path earlier this year, plus I had tickets booked to watch Tom Burke in The Deep Blue Sea, and then someone mentioned to me that Alison Dowling and Tamla Kari from The Musketeers were starring in another Rattigan play, While The Sun Shines. I had read Flarepath, and was about to read The Deep Blue Sea, and thought that instead of reading just one novel this month, I would try and read a number of Terence Rattigan's plays instead. The thing that I find I most like about reading Rattigan's plays is that they are very much like reading an ordinary book. Rattigan does not have characters speaking over each other, and his pages are filled with descriptions that allow you as a reader to visualise what is going on, and so rather than ending up feeling confused (as happens with some plays when you read them) with Rattigan you know what is happening, therefore you are given the opportunity to think more deeply about the context of the play and the depth of the cha

Tracking Tom to Towton! (A Weekend of Tom Burke and Tom Jones!)

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It was a friends birthday and to celebrate we were heading out to Doncaster races to hopefully win a few pennies and then watch Tom Jones perform afterwards. Now I've seen the Welsh Warbler a few times and he is brilliant live, he can still really belt out those numbers, so it seemed like it would be a good weekend, but just to make it even better, I asked my mate if she fancied taking on another one of our infamous road trips on the way home! Of course Kate was up to the challenge, without me saying a word, she already knew it had to be Tom Burke related! When he was performing in Reasons to be Happy, I asked him about the film that he did with his father as part of The Complete Walk for the Shakespeare celebrations. Tom advised that he was in Henry VI part 3, and that they filmed in a small church, near to where the battlefield was in Towton. Looking at the map, it wasn't too much of a diversion on the way home from Doncaster, so we were set, plans in place for the weeken

The Brothers Karamazov - Fydor Dostoyevsky (Box Clever Theatre Challenge - May)

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Having read Tolstoy and Chekhov, I decided it was time to add another well respected Russian author to my compendium. Crime and Punishment would be the natural choice I suppose, but the title of this novel intrigued me and so it is my reading challenge for May! Fydor Dostoyevsky There is a complexity and brilliance to his writing. The book is narrated by an unknown person who tells us the trails and tribulations of the Karamazov brothers. He recalls the events that he has witnessed, but as he goes off on tangents telling his tales, he sometimes shows his cynicism to the events which unfold. Just like when a person you know tells a story and they go off at tangents, so does this storyteller. The book does not have a linear feel, and it can get distracting as you leap from one tale to the next and as a reader you never fully resolve the first tale before moving onto the next and back again. You therefore need to keep your wits about you to recall all the events, and what has happe