Show Reviews: Patience

I was going to review Rocky Horror tonight, but I've left it so long I've found I can't remember a thing about it.   I know I enjoyed it, but just saying that doesn't make for much of a review.   So I thought I'd skip it and review Patience instead.   Patience is a Gilbert and Sullivan and it was put on by Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group.   It follows the story of Patience, the simple milkmaid, who has never been in love.   And she's very glad about that, because it seems to be making all the other ladies thoroughly miserable.   They're all madly in love with the poet Bunthorne, who doesn't return their love, because he's in love with Patience.   Then, Patience's childhood sweetheart Archibald arrives back in the area.   He and Patience fall in love, but Patience rapidly realises that she mustn't love him because he's perfect and therefore her loving him would be selfish, and not real love.   But she tells him to feel free to love her because she's plain ("Yes, that's true"), so his loving her wouldn't be selfish.   As soon as the other ladies see Archibald they immediately transfer their love from Bunthorne to him, and Patience decided to selflessly sacrifice herself and love Bunthorne.   However, she eventually confesses to Bunthorne that she really loves Archibald.   Angry Bunthorne tells Archibald to become an ordinary man or he'll curse him.   Archibald agrees, mostly to escape the cloying affections of the other ladies.   When he has done so, he loses some of his perfection in Patience's eyes, leaving her free to love him, and so the whole mess is resolved!   The ladies all go back to their old fiances, and Bunthorne ends up alone.   I do love a good ridiculous Gilbert and Sullivan plot!  

Interestingly this production had a shortage of women.   Usually it's men who are in short supply.   I enjoyed the sets and costumes and everyone's performances, though Patience was a bit serious.   I like my Gilbert and Sullivan done frivolously.   But great music, great songs, and a very enjoyable show.       

Book Reviews: The Casual Vacancy

Being a massive fan of the Harry Potter books I was pretty nervous when I picked this up.   I knew it was going to be nothing like Harry Potter, and by all accounts nowhere near as good, but my curiosity forced my hand.   I needed to know what J.K. had been up to.   It centres around a local election.   It turns into a pretty fierce and dirty fight and brings out the worst in a lot of the characters.   It's told from the point of view of lots of different characters.   Perhaps a few too many to be honest.   It takes a while to get them all sorted out in your head.   I thought I might like it because I enjoy her humour and characters more than her storytelling, and even a book with no magic in it would surely still have just as many funny bits and characters just as appealing.  I was wrong.   Just about every character in this is detestable.   And while the humour is definitely still there, it's a lot more well hidden.   The humour in this comes from the skilled way J.K. depicts a small, claustrophobic rural community and its small minded petty people who care more about image and their own comfort than their neighbours' welfare.   I think just about every character reminds me of one or more of my parents' friends.   It's surprisingly gritty.   There's plenty of sex, drugs, self-harm, poverty, bullying and people generally being awful to each other.   And it's convincing too.   I never thought J.K., the author of Harry Potter, would be able to do grit, but it's properly shocking and dark.   There's so much conflict between children and parents too.   There doesn't seem to be a single happy family in the village.   Really makes you think about what's under the surface and what seemingly happy people are hiding.   And of course it doesn't have a happy ending.   The wrong person wins the election, the socialists lose their fight and children die.   I can't say I really enjoyed this book.   It's well-written, interesting, insightful, moving, but not really my sort of thing.  I much prefer my books with some magic in them.  

     

Film Reviews: Soylent Green

A classic movie that I only just got round to watching.   I really enjoyed this one.   For a start it's got Charlton Heston in it (yum yum).  It's a 70s sci-fi film with a difference.   A lot of sci-fi films from the 70s look unbelievably dated (with the obvious exception of Star Wars, which is still BRILLIANT!), but this one doesn't, mostly owing to the fact that it didn't try to look to look "futuristic" in the first place.   It's about a dectective called Thorn (Heston) who is investigating the murder of a high-ranking official in the Soylent company, which makes processed food from sea algae, which feeds the majority of the population.   The chain of events leads him to a Soylent processing factory where he sees human remains being processed into Soylent Green.   The rumours are true; the oceans are dead and have stopped supporting algae.   The discovery is too much for Thorn's assistant, an old man who remembers what the world used to be like.   He goes to a special clinic to die, and is played music and videos of how the world used to be before it got so hot.   He dies happy.   The film still works today because it's still chilling to watch, as people sleep on the streets and in the stairwells and queue up for water and Soylent Green.   It's poignant in today's world of global warming fears, strained resources and rapid population growth.   Seeing people get excited about luxuries such as a stick of celery and a tomato and air conditioning reminds us of how much we take for granted and what we could lose.   It also, shockingly, has young and beautiful girls in it who are referred to as "furniture" (they come with the key) for rich men.   Horrible.   A good and thought-provoking classic movie, but not exactly a feel-good film.

Songs: Marry Me

Today this is stuck in my head.   Eurovision cheesiness at its best.   I still don't know why this didn't win!   And girl kisses at the end.  What more could you ask for?

Photography: Roman Holiday, Day 1

I've decided to split up my Rome photos by day, seeing as there are so many of them.   Day 1 is mostly HDR, seeing as it was overcast and the light was bad.   The non-HDR photos just looked flat and uninteresting.   We went round the Colosseum and had a bit of a wander around the Palatine Hill as well.   Carrying my equipment round Rome all day for a week certainly took its toll on my shoulders, but I think the results were worth the pain.

 Colosseum, obviously.   I love how the HDR turned boring, grey, overcastness into fierce storm clouds.

Arch of Constantine as seen from the Colosseum.    Also love how the HDR turned mundane tourists-in-the-way to splashes of brilliant colour.

                                                                    Arch of Titus

                                                Colosseum seen from the Palatine Hill

                                                                 Arch of Constantine

 Vittorio Emmanuele monument.   AKA the typewriter.   Most Romans don't like it cos it's so pompous and self-indulgent.  I do though.   The marble glows white in the sunshine.   This was my best attempt to get it without traffic in the way.

      Poppies coming up between the paving slabs in the forum.   The only non-HDR photo from the day that I liked.   There were poppies absolutely everywhere.   It was beautiful.