Get Brecht made me do a smile. Good work.

I do love a bit of Brecht. An ex-girlfriend was of the musical theatre persuasion, so for a while I got to see a lot of local stuff. Best thing their company ever did was a stripped-down staging of The Threepenny Opera. Come to think of it, two ex-girlfriends were in that. Watching one of them sing Pirate Jenny in a wedding dress was quite scary, but in a good way.

poprock wrote:

I do love a bit of Brecht. An ex-girlfriend was of the musical theatre persuasion, so for a while I got to see a lot of local stuff. Best thing their company ever did was a stripped-down staging of The Threepenny Opera. Come to think of it, two ex-girlfriends were in that. Watching one of them sing Pirate Jenny in a wedding dress was quite scary, but in a good way.

Eek. Not the same, but with most of my girlfriends having come from this stupid small industry, they're often popping up when I least expect it. A couple of years back I had two exes and current flame all in the same (small) room after an opening night performance. Now that was scary.

I had a one act play on at Glasgow's Oran Mor a few years back and I'm hoping to have my second one on in London later this year. In a couple of weeks I'm going to see a production of Of Mice and Men at the Swansea Grand.

Scout wrote:

I had a one act play on at Glasgow's Oran Mor a few years back and I'm hoping to have my second one on in London later this year. In a couple of weeks I'm going to see a production of Of Mice and Men at the Swansea Grand.

Oh nice one, what was the show? Was it part of Play/Pie/Pint?

WorKid wrote:

So what exactly do you do Kaz?

Help to run PR for the National Theatre of Scotland. Started out freelancing on project in 2014, and then full-time for the last three years. It's been superb. I like the ethos as a touring company: compared to the National in London we don't have a theatre building, so all our work tours to audiences wherever they are. It means you get a great mix of projects for local communities around the country mixed with stuff that goes all over the world. As someone who had little interest in or knowledge about theatre when I started it's been eye-opening to catch so much world-class stuff over the years. I've gained a huge appreciation for it. 

Speaking of world-class stuff *cough*, I can highly recommend anyone in Edinburgh catch The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart next month- I think it might be our longest-running and biggest-hit of a show after Black Watch. Also if you're in Brighton or London our show Adam is coming up this year. It ended up being the best reviewed show at last year's Fringe, and is quite possibly one of the most emotive things I've ever seen on a stage. 

Right, that's enough promotion, I'm meant to be on a sick day.

I also want to go watch a ballet this year. Promised myself I’d go try one - just don’t know where to start though. I wanna see something of a decent level and not some am farm version set up by the woman who runs the chip shop.

I do a behind the scenes photography project with an Am Dram company that I know, who did a production of The Wedding Singer.  It was actually really good with some of the catchiest songs you'll ever hear.  They even managed to get me on stage briefly to cameo as a wedding photographer, which was quite fun.  It won't be my stepping stone to greatness, right enough.  I'm happy behind the camera.

Having done a similar thing last year (which was a more troubled production) I wondered why anyone would subject themselves to such torture for free but after seeing the smoother, more enjoyable side of things this year, I absolutely get why people sign up for things like this.









I also saw Miss Saigon last month in Edinburgh.  Went in pretty much blind and it was fantastic.  

And last night I went to see Blood Upon the Rose.  A musical take on the true story of Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford, who fell in love around the Easter Rising in Dublin.  It's a fairly well known story for those with an interest in it.

It was crap.  They played to a sold out audience in the Armadillo in Glasgow and a mostly sold out audience in the second half.  The script felt like it was written in a high school drama class, with people referring to each other by their full names and life stories when they met.  Acting was crap (with the obvious exception of the female lead and one or two others) with no one appearing to be talking to each other.  And the music was rotten too.  

First song started out well enough but the second song in was some horribly mis-judged, bouncy little number about finding a girlfriend that wouldn't have been out of place on CBeebies.

Lastly, there were two large screens for the benefit of the folk at the back of the theatre.  The cameraman seemed to be someone who'd never used a camera before as he left auto-focus on which kept getting thrown by the stage smoke.  So 50% of the time, the camera was frantically searching for focus.  Infuriating.

We Googled the show at half time and found out that the actors were amateur so expectations were lowered for the second half.  My sister and I were actually all for bailing at half time but my mum was invested so we stayed.  In fairness the second half was an improvement, mostly because they stopped talking and started shooting.

Irish accent agogo.



Tbh, the whole thing seemed geared towards folk whose idea of a good Saturday night is to "Put the rebs oan" (listening to Irish rebel songs) as folk were cheering and clapping whenever anyone said anything about being an Irish hero.

The only actual highlight of the show was the end.  They sang, "Grace", which is a genuinely lovely song about the whole affair and the crowd joined in.  Had they taken that kind of approach throughout the night, I may have had kinder words about it all.

Props to the guy a few rows behind me that shouted, "Up the RA!" at the end but got caught out by a false ending so had to try again a minute later.

If you get a chance to see Rocky Horror Show live I'd go for it. I'd also go for the back half of the seating unless entering into the sprit of it by dressing up as you feel a mite out of touch. It's a brilliant, raucous night no matter what.

Have been twice if I remember right. Once blessed seeing it with Nicholas Parsons as the narrator.

If I'm going theatring ever again it better be gay as fuck.

https://youtu.be/NEekAXWCGZg

@Kazuo Can I bother you for totally off-the-record opinions on Aberdeen Performing Arts and Cumbernauld Theatre?

How are they seen from inside the industry? Good at some things, particularly? Crap at what others?

That’s awesome, thanks fella.

Background research for work (one is a client, the other might be soon) and a bit of opinion from the horse’s mouth is worth a thousand Google searches or corporate mission statements.

I’ll read up on Achilles …

Grand.

(By the way, our agency designed the NTS brand … small world eh?)

I’ve heard good things about this Cyrano. Might try persuading the Mrs to join me for a trip south of the river to see it. I haven’t actually been to a performance at Tramway since Alan Cummings’ Macbeth.

Only made it to the Five Letters opening event at the Festival this year. Projection mapping is in danger of becoming passé, but two out of the five short pieces were really rather good, so it’s not quite dead yet.

Closing fireworks tonight, but I’m staying in Glasgow.

Mrs Poprock was about to be outraged at the older lady climbing on a chair right in front of her, blocking her view, until said older lady stated to sing. Bloody immersive choir people …