Voyage to the Prohibited Planet
Thursday 10th November 2011; Theatre In The Mill
Engine Oil. he Tiger, The Wizard and the Closet. Cold Mikado. Alternative titles to musicals that there could be, but it was ‘Voyage to the Prohibited Planet’ that BUSOM – Bradford University Society of Operettas and Musicals - chose as the title of their latest production, a scratch based on the 1980s musical ‘Return to the Forbidden Planet’ which, itself, is based on the 1950s movie ‘Forbidden Planet’ which, just to add another layer of confusion, is based on Shakespeare’s play ‘The Tempest’.
(Though I’m pretty sure there are no aliens with boppers on their heads, robots or 12-foot space creatures in Shakespeare’s play, but please let me know if I’m wrong).
The musical tells the story of a surveying crew of space pilots who, under the command of Captain Tempest, enter a meteor storm and have to land on the planet D’illyria, where they meet Doctor Prospero, a mad scientist, and his daughter and robot, attracted by his promise to fix their ship. Through their encounters on the planet they learn about Doctor Prospero’s mysterious mind-altering ‘X Factor’ formulation and how the science officer is actually his long-lost wife, plus fight against a 12-foot monster that enters through the airlock.
Throughout the dialogue the musical is peppered with 1950s and 1960s rock ‘n’ roll tunes.
So, with a nice pint of real cider in hand, I wandered up into the theatre to witness the BUSOM production, their first since their recent 24-hour show production of ‘Fame’. And whereas that performance was peppered with forgotten lines, missed cues and improvisation – run of the mill when you consider the nature of how long they had to learn the piece and no reflection on how much fun it was to watch – this was a much slicker affair with minimal set – it amounted to nothing more than a dozen chairs, some music stands and a black curtain – but a lot of fun to be had and some impressive sound and lighting effects scattered through it.
The opening of the musical was possible the most unusual that I’d been to with the cast encouraging everyone to put their hands on their head and make raspberry sounds in the style of an aeroplane safety briefing. Nothing like breaking the ice there. And for those of you wondering why, it would be explained later.
It was then onto the main production with James Howe taking the lead role of Captain Tempest, possessing possible the biggest, if you mind the pun, visual joke of the evening, wearing a metallic badge on his jumper that looked like a, er, rocket with two large exhaust bits. If you’ve seen the second Austin Powers film you’ll know what I’m getting at. If you haven’t then you are in possession of a clean mind and I salute you!
His costume was one of a handful of remarkable tops, from the three ‘aliens’ covered in green body paint and boppers to Stuart’s remarkably genuine looking Star Trek top. If I didn’t know better I’d say he had it already in his wardrobe when the musical was planned, but that’s only a guess. But I’m right.
As Captain Tempest James was a well-chosen lead, with a good sense of humour in his acting and a good voice to carry off the tracks, even if he did have to rely on a folder for some lines and music, a technique carried over from the 24-hour show and used by a lot of the cast during the piece, which I wasn’t expecting as they usually are good at being script-less.
His duet on the classic ‘It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World’ with Anna Garlick as science officer Gloria was both funny and well executed and Anna’s performance throughout the show was a highlight, proving to be an exceptional character actor and very funny visually, whilst also being able to carry off the songs.
It was after this song that the effort put into the effects in the production showed off, with great used of strobe and sound effects to really simulate a ship in distress, and it was always inevitable when casting Daniel Ratcliffe and Stuart Sellens as redshirts, that they’d both get killed throughout the course of the play, with Daniel being the first of several victims to the monster.
As the musical continued on there was one thing that annoyed me about it, and that’s more down to the nature of the musical and the truncated form, rather than BUSOM’S performance of it, but it reminded by of the musical ‘We Will Rock You’ which I had the mixed-pleasure of seeing a while ago, where songs are set-up awkwardly in the script with lines such as ‘We’re going to crash. Great balls of fire!’ being the Forbidden Planet equivalent of ‘To get there, we have to cross the Seven Seas of Rhye – queue song!’. But that’s a bugbear of my own and more, as I say, down to the nature of the play.
This did at least have the improvement over the Queen musical in having a backing chorus of aliens and no bastardised lyrics of ‘Radio Ga Ga’, though some of the songs were tweaked here and there to fit in with the plot.
We now got to the point of the ship crashing on the planet, with Dave Jennings as Prospero once more diving into the deliciously evil role with gusto, managing to keep his performance just on the right side of hamming it up but also being one of the strongest male singers of the evening. Naomi Fowler got to play robot Ariel 5000 – which sounds to me like a really powerful detergent or a futuristic Little Mermaid, but I digress – being intentionally very robotic in her performance and being happy to stand on stage with painted card strapped in front of her and a Chinese take-away container on her head.
(We’ve all been there of course, just not necessarily in front of an audience, just at home after FND).
Rachel Mitchell played Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, reprising her smitten-teenager role from the 24-hour show and being even better at it, being possibly the most enthusiastic and believable character on the stage. I hope to see more of her in future productions as she has really excelled in her two appearances so far.
It was also at this point that Joel Blakemore, the ship’s Shakespeare-spouting chef ‘Cookie’, came into his own, once more proving he’s worth being cast with another hilarious portrayal of a down-on-his-luck character, thoroughly geeking it up with his performance, use of Sonic Screwdriver, and ability to collapse on stage.
The chorus of ‘Good Vibrations’ was well done and timed well and Joel’s solo of ‘I’m Not Going To Wash For A Week’, backed by the alien chorus of Lyndsey Niven, Emelie Ollila and Poppy Brooks, was a joy to listen to, Joel doing an excellent job in an area he has struggled at times before.
The show was also punctuated by some excellent background acting from the cast, reacting to other characters and songs such as during ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, a very good performance by Lyndsey, Emilie and Poppy, whose vocals were thankfully not as blotchy as their green make-up.
Having Bill Harding on piano – doing a stirling job on tracks of mixed tempos – really benefited this production over the PA songs of the 24-hour show, not drowning out the singing of the solos.
Rachel Mitchell was back up next, performing a fantastic version of ‘Teenager In Love’, again cementing herself as an asset to the group, the track beautifully sung and acted with passion, though perhaps needing a little bit more volume against the piano.
Joel and Rachel continued to put in great performances, alongside James as the vain Captain, James pulling off his personality well through creative use of props and his hair, which itself almost deserves a credit for its performance, who shone in his version of ‘Young Girl’, even if his moving back and forth across the stage was a little monotonous. Rachel, however, added to the track by some cracking acting as the song continued, clearly getting sadder as she realised her feelings for the captain were not reciprocated.
Next was the welcome return of Anna as Gloria the scientist, dragged back on stage for some more comic acting before we were treated to another enthusiastic and dramatic performance by Dave Jennings, with a catchy adapted version of the Elvis classic ‘All Shook Up’.
But, as the monster burst through the air lock once more, we got a freeze frame from the cast and a funny dramatic summing up from Sara Pietrzik as the narrator, before the interval arrived. Though, even after most of the cast left the stage in the blackout, Dave remained in character on the floor, but luckily he did break out whilst we were downstairs so he didn’t have to lie down for twenty minutes.
After a quick blast of fresh air it was back into the theatre for the second part with the cast back in their freeze frame positions, and some well-timed sound effects as Stuart shot the creature but ultimately met his maker. A green light was used to simulated Gloria’s imprisonment in jail and the second Elvis track of ‘Jailhouse Rock’ re-inforced it, a well performed by the cast, especially considering the tricky dance moves which, for the most part, were performed successfully. The song also got the audience happily clapping along.
The performance of the ‘Shoop, Shoop Song’ that followed by the aliens was almost perfect compared to the original and Rachel continued to shine as Miranda, now in a weird wig, and treating us to track ‘Robot Man’ and excelling at it. Plus, it was a good excuse for the cast to burst into doing an adaptation of the Macarena behind her, which Stuart knew he couldn’t miss out on, returning to the stage back from the head but now with a Red Dwarf-inspired hologram H on his forehead.
The plot of the musical continued with a nod to the X Factor reality show – in this case the X Factor formula seemingly kills the robot rather than releasing eight years of tosh into the charts – and the destruction of the monster, before the audience are encouraged to help ‘reverse the polarity flow’ (you know what, I don’t think that’s real science) by repeating the movements from the very early introduction, much to the embarrassment, I might add, of me and my friends!
It turned out in the plot that the X Factor has made Ariel 5000 human, allowing Naomi Fowler to emerge from the restrictions of playing a robot and putting in some great, hilarious acting contributions to the end, bouncing well off Joel as an interesting pair.
At this point it’s also worth noting some other great performances on the night. Sara Pietrzik as the narrator only had a few solo lines other than chorus work but delivered them with comic relish; Joseph Page as a member of the crew was possibly the most enthusiastic member of the crew, especially during ‘Born To Be Wild’ where, between him and David Collinson, the lyrics were brought to life in funny fashion from every wild arm gesture and on-stage hug; plus ‘Andrzej Frelek’ who bounced off the other people on stage in a good role.
Jon Carter and Nartani Nithianandasivam were also integral parts of the cast as well, but I would have liked to have seen more from them.
With the musical coming to a close there was just time for Dave Jennings to deliver a cracking version of the ‘Monster Mash’ before the cast launched into a spirited version of ‘I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper’.
Overall it was another excellent production from BUSOM, with standout performances from Anna Garlick, Rachel Mitchell, Dave Jennings, and Joel Blakemore; four fine comic and well-acted performances, complimented by great turns from James Howe, Naomi Fowler and the rest of the cast, and powerful singing from the trio of aliens.
If there was one criticism I would have is that the performance only came to about fifty-five minutes sans interval and was I hoping for a longer show, but what we did got was well acted, funny and full of great, singable songs, delivered well by an enthusiastic cast, complimented by some excellent piano, sound effects and lighting tricks.
With maybe fewer obvious scripts to rely on and a bit more material it would have been a practically flawless production but, as always, going to see a performance by BUSOM is not a disappointment, and I look forward once more to their next production, ‘Around The World In 80 Minutes’, just in time for Christmas.
[7.5 / 10]
Cast:
Captain Tempest – James Howe
Gloria – Anna Garlick
Miranda – Rachel Mitchell
Prospero – Dave Jennings
Ariel 5000 – Naomi Fowler
Cookie – Joel Blakemore
Boson – Andrzej Frelek
Steward – Emily Bennett
Narrator – Sara Pietrzik
Crewman – Joseph Page
Aliens – Poppy Brooks, Lyndsey Niven, Emelie Ollila
Redshirts – Daniel Ratcliffe, Stuart Sellens
Chorus – Jon Carter, David Collinson, Nartani Nithianandasivam
Directors – Christine Brighouse-Johnson, Bill Harding, Zoe Howe
Piano Man – Bill Harding
Crew – Mike Bedford, Nicki Bedford, Kate Concannon
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Sunday, 6 November 2011
The Shepley Lion: News in the Roar
Today is a classic example of how the Internet can make wacky stories develop a life of their own.
Earlier in the day one of my friends re-tweeted a National Rail post that a lion had been spotted crossing a train line with a cub near Shepley near Huddersfield. No matter how unlikely this seems - if it does exist then it must have escaped from some sort of private zoo unless it's picked West Yorkshire as an unusual holiday destination - it's really come alive on the internet, covered by the BBC, The Guardian, The Belfast Telegraph, The Huffington Post, and many others you can find from a quick Google search.
But it doesn't stop there in the world of social networks. Already the lion is on Twitter (@shepley_lion) and there is even now a lion cuddly toy available for purchase on Amazon. Granted it's a standard toy with a PhotoShopped t-shirt print but still, I kid you not.
I'm off to bed now. If I don't wake up in the morning to find it has a Facebook fan page and a blog I'll be disappointed. And if it's not covered in the Sun with a headline like 'Lion spotted on the Mane-Line' or 'Leaves on the line? No lion on the line' I'll be upset.
Earlier in the day one of my friends re-tweeted a National Rail post that a lion had been spotted crossing a train line with a cub near Shepley near Huddersfield. No matter how unlikely this seems - if it does exist then it must have escaped from some sort of private zoo unless it's picked West Yorkshire as an unusual holiday destination - it's really come alive on the internet, covered by the BBC, The Guardian, The Belfast Telegraph, The Huffington Post, and many others you can find from a quick Google search.
But it doesn't stop there in the world of social networks. Already the lion is on Twitter (@shepley_lion) and there is even now a lion cuddly toy available for purchase on Amazon. Granted it's a standard toy with a PhotoShopped t-shirt print but still, I kid you not.
I'm off to bed now. If I don't wake up in the morning to find it has a Facebook fan page and a blog I'll be disappointed. And if it's not covered in the Sun with a headline like 'Lion spotted on the Mane-Line' or 'Leaves on the line? No lion on the line' I'll be upset.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
It's time once more to battle with charity symbolism....
It’s that time again when I play the eternal battle that faces most people each year. You want to support the cause but in doing so leads you to two weeks of a continuous fight with your clothing, a pin, your conscience and your over garments.
Yes; I’m talking about the humble poppy.
Now, I support the reasons behind wearing a poppy and am happy to wear mine with pride. I don’t write into ‘Points of View’ to deride news readers and every presenter from Countryfile to Balamory (is that still on?) wearing them on TV from mid-July, or however early it is they wear them these days; I don’t particularly support the wars we might be involved in but want to support our soldiers both past and present; and I don’t mind wearing the red one over a “white” poppy. But what I don’t enjoy is the total faff that wearing a poppy brings.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to make out that wearing a poppy is a real trial, as if doing so is really difficult like nuclear fusion, building a space rocket or trying to work out just how Nicki Minaj comes up with the lyrics to her song. It’s just an annual annoyance that really gets my goat.
Let’s start by trying to find a poppy. Now, where I work at the University of Bradford, you can rely on them having them at main reception, where I picked up my first (notice the word first, and remember it). But elsewhere it’s tricky to find them. As I wandered through town there was no one selling them in the street, weird considering you usually have to bat away charity sellers down the main street like the pilot in film ‘Airplane!’, and there were none on sale in Morrisons, which is weird considering you can already buy Christmas crackers and puddings seven weeks ahead of time but nothing for, like, eight days away. It’s almost like you have to hunt them down to find them, and surely it shouldn’t be like that?
Secondly, once you’ve found a poppy and purchased one, the struggle then begins to keep it on your clothes. For reasons unknown to me, each year they insist on selling the poppy in two-parts, like a really boring Kinder toy: the poppy, and a pin. Now, when you buy an AIDS or cancer ribbon, or get a badge free in your favourite magazine, they’ve invented the technology of the safety pin that is, you know, attached to the thing. You open the pin, slip it through your clothes and, voila, it’s attached to your outfit and only a very heavy wind, a Tom and Jerry-style magnet, or Chuck Norris is going to remove it. But, for some reason the Royal Legion think that a pin is ample to allow you to keep hold of your poppy for a week.
And herein lies the flaw. From my experience it’s fine if you always wear nice linen shirts which the pin stays in pretty happily. But if you wear a t-shirt or, heaven forbid, something woollen or bobbly, you might as well just buy your poppy and chuck it immediately on the floor as if you don’t really like it.
Even a small blob of your favourite brand of blu-tac style adhesive on the end fails to provide a permanent solution as that soon shuffles its way off the end of the pin and falls to the floor, only to be followed by the poppy in some sort of weird clothing suicide pact.
You can spend five minutes carefully pushing the pin through your top, ensuring you don’t snag too much fabric so there’s plenty of pin-end left to compensate for the movement of your clothing, and still within half a day the pin will have wriggled free, allowing your poppy to make its escape on the floor somewhere, meaning you have to spend the whole day re-tracing your steps to find it like some sort of sub-par orienteering day trip; add the pin to your collection of them; or buy a new one.
Not that I’m against paying another pound for a new poppy – it goes to a good cause after all – but I’d rather spend extra and buy one where the poppy actually comes with a safety pin attached.
Now for the past couple of years I have been in the possession of an enamel poppy badge which does come with an attached pin but even this has its flaws. Firstly, it’s smaller than the usual poppy so it doesn’t really show the support as much; secondly, as I have done, you put it somewhere safe and lose it between each Remembrance Sunday, especially when you’ve moved twice in twelve months as I have. And, if you want to buy a new one, good luck. They’re rarer than the ordinary poppies.
So, that leaves you with Hobson’s choice of sticking with the traditional poppy, the one that moves around more than the head of the caravan club as you, as etiquette and social standing dictates, change your clothes on a daily basis. One day it might be fine; the next, as you choose to wear a more flexible t-shirt, the poppy makes a bid for freedom.
One solution would be to stay in the same clothes for a fortnight, but that brings with it its own pitfalls. Like a lack of friends and people avoiding you. And stickiness.
If you are lucky enough to keep hold of your poppy then having one leads to an unfortunate tic. You know, as you sit at your desk, or in meetings, constantly fiddling with it to a) ensure it’s still there and not blowing away down the corridor; b) there’s enough pin-end left that it’s not going to wriggle to freedom; and c) it’s not curling up to form the poppy equivalent of those wrapped wafers you get in posh coffee shops. If people didn’t think you were eccentric before they will after you constantly look like you’re inspecting your left nipple all the time.
Somewhere I believe there is, next to the fridge mountain and wine lake, a pile of poppies a mile high, somewhere outside Glamorgan, where all the free poppies have blown off people’s tops, ready to be gathered up, dusted down and re-sold. I swear I saw it on Google Earth.
And, of course, in between losing your poppy and finding somewhere that actually sells them, you are poppy-less and thus feel like, even though this probably isn’t the case, everyone is looking at you disparagingly for not wearing a poppy.
For next year I’m going to get a t-shirt printed that has a large picture of a poppy on the front that says ‘I bought a poppy but the stupid pin is as much use as Gordon Ramsey at a Weight Watchers meeting for the easily offended’ and just donate a fiver to the cause instead.
In conclusion I agree with the cause behind poppies and I think people should wear them but I think they need to sort it out. A minimum of £2 in these times of inflation is not much to ask in exchange for a poppy that comes with its own attached safety pin, and having them available at more places. You can get cash back at Morrisons, why not poppy back (and sexy back if they have time, but that’s for another discussion…)?
I’m not against giving them more than a quid; after all I must buy about five poppies per season, when a season is only two weeks. It’s like Man United replacing their striker every match throughout their season because they fall off the terraces and disappear, only left with a small metallic souvenir. You wouldn’t expect to purchase half a dozen pumpkins in the run up to Hallowe’en or replace your Christmas tree every week as it doesn’t stay up. So why should we put up with it in the run up to Remembrance Sunday.
[You can, of course, keep replacing eggs at Easter. Yum.]
I can walk into any pub round here and purchase from a vending machine tampons, condoms, inflatable sheep and god knows what else that you can get for £2.00. Why not poppies? Or at least gaffer tape to affix it to your chest like some sort of bomb.
I want to wear a poppy with pride but at the moment the poppy appeal is not that appealing. I can’t support it well if every time I change my top, move or sneeze I have to re-align it, ensure it’s still on and fiddle with it like I’ve got OCD and demand it be perpendicular to my beard.
Sort it out somebody. Else I’ll be buying one of those sticky ones you get for cars and attaching it to my chest, looking like some floral version of Iron Man.
Or maybe just an idiot.
Phil bought his first poppy on October 27th and it stayed with him for four days. He’s currently on the hunt to purchase his second. So don’t judge him for not wearing one, OK!
Yes; I’m talking about the humble poppy.
Now, I support the reasons behind wearing a poppy and am happy to wear mine with pride. I don’t write into ‘Points of View’ to deride news readers and every presenter from Countryfile to Balamory (is that still on?) wearing them on TV from mid-July, or however early it is they wear them these days; I don’t particularly support the wars we might be involved in but want to support our soldiers both past and present; and I don’t mind wearing the red one over a “white” poppy. But what I don’t enjoy is the total faff that wearing a poppy brings.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to make out that wearing a poppy is a real trial, as if doing so is really difficult like nuclear fusion, building a space rocket or trying to work out just how Nicki Minaj comes up with the lyrics to her song. It’s just an annual annoyance that really gets my goat.
Let’s start by trying to find a poppy. Now, where I work at the University of Bradford, you can rely on them having them at main reception, where I picked up my first (notice the word first, and remember it). But elsewhere it’s tricky to find them. As I wandered through town there was no one selling them in the street, weird considering you usually have to bat away charity sellers down the main street like the pilot in film ‘Airplane!’, and there were none on sale in Morrisons, which is weird considering you can already buy Christmas crackers and puddings seven weeks ahead of time but nothing for, like, eight days away. It’s almost like you have to hunt them down to find them, and surely it shouldn’t be like that?
Secondly, once you’ve found a poppy and purchased one, the struggle then begins to keep it on your clothes. For reasons unknown to me, each year they insist on selling the poppy in two-parts, like a really boring Kinder toy: the poppy, and a pin. Now, when you buy an AIDS or cancer ribbon, or get a badge free in your favourite magazine, they’ve invented the technology of the safety pin that is, you know, attached to the thing. You open the pin, slip it through your clothes and, voila, it’s attached to your outfit and only a very heavy wind, a Tom and Jerry-style magnet, or Chuck Norris is going to remove it. But, for some reason the Royal Legion think that a pin is ample to allow you to keep hold of your poppy for a week.
And herein lies the flaw. From my experience it’s fine if you always wear nice linen shirts which the pin stays in pretty happily. But if you wear a t-shirt or, heaven forbid, something woollen or bobbly, you might as well just buy your poppy and chuck it immediately on the floor as if you don’t really like it.
Even a small blob of your favourite brand of blu-tac style adhesive on the end fails to provide a permanent solution as that soon shuffles its way off the end of the pin and falls to the floor, only to be followed by the poppy in some sort of weird clothing suicide pact.
You can spend five minutes carefully pushing the pin through your top, ensuring you don’t snag too much fabric so there’s plenty of pin-end left to compensate for the movement of your clothing, and still within half a day the pin will have wriggled free, allowing your poppy to make its escape on the floor somewhere, meaning you have to spend the whole day re-tracing your steps to find it like some sort of sub-par orienteering day trip; add the pin to your collection of them; or buy a new one.
Not that I’m against paying another pound for a new poppy – it goes to a good cause after all – but I’d rather spend extra and buy one where the poppy actually comes with a safety pin attached.
Now for the past couple of years I have been in the possession of an enamel poppy badge which does come with an attached pin but even this has its flaws. Firstly, it’s smaller than the usual poppy so it doesn’t really show the support as much; secondly, as I have done, you put it somewhere safe and lose it between each Remembrance Sunday, especially when you’ve moved twice in twelve months as I have. And, if you want to buy a new one, good luck. They’re rarer than the ordinary poppies.
So, that leaves you with Hobson’s choice of sticking with the traditional poppy, the one that moves around more than the head of the caravan club as you, as etiquette and social standing dictates, change your clothes on a daily basis. One day it might be fine; the next, as you choose to wear a more flexible t-shirt, the poppy makes a bid for freedom.
One solution would be to stay in the same clothes for a fortnight, but that brings with it its own pitfalls. Like a lack of friends and people avoiding you. And stickiness.
If you are lucky enough to keep hold of your poppy then having one leads to an unfortunate tic. You know, as you sit at your desk, or in meetings, constantly fiddling with it to a) ensure it’s still there and not blowing away down the corridor; b) there’s enough pin-end left that it’s not going to wriggle to freedom; and c) it’s not curling up to form the poppy equivalent of those wrapped wafers you get in posh coffee shops. If people didn’t think you were eccentric before they will after you constantly look like you’re inspecting your left nipple all the time.
Somewhere I believe there is, next to the fridge mountain and wine lake, a pile of poppies a mile high, somewhere outside Glamorgan, where all the free poppies have blown off people’s tops, ready to be gathered up, dusted down and re-sold. I swear I saw it on Google Earth.
And, of course, in between losing your poppy and finding somewhere that actually sells them, you are poppy-less and thus feel like, even though this probably isn’t the case, everyone is looking at you disparagingly for not wearing a poppy.
For next year I’m going to get a t-shirt printed that has a large picture of a poppy on the front that says ‘I bought a poppy but the stupid pin is as much use as Gordon Ramsey at a Weight Watchers meeting for the easily offended’ and just donate a fiver to the cause instead.
In conclusion I agree with the cause behind poppies and I think people should wear them but I think they need to sort it out. A minimum of £2 in these times of inflation is not much to ask in exchange for a poppy that comes with its own attached safety pin, and having them available at more places. You can get cash back at Morrisons, why not poppy back (and sexy back if they have time, but that’s for another discussion…)?
I’m not against giving them more than a quid; after all I must buy about five poppies per season, when a season is only two weeks. It’s like Man United replacing their striker every match throughout their season because they fall off the terraces and disappear, only left with a small metallic souvenir. You wouldn’t expect to purchase half a dozen pumpkins in the run up to Hallowe’en or replace your Christmas tree every week as it doesn’t stay up. So why should we put up with it in the run up to Remembrance Sunday.
[You can, of course, keep replacing eggs at Easter. Yum.]
I can walk into any pub round here and purchase from a vending machine tampons, condoms, inflatable sheep and god knows what else that you can get for £2.00. Why not poppies? Or at least gaffer tape to affix it to your chest like some sort of bomb.
I want to wear a poppy with pride but at the moment the poppy appeal is not that appealing. I can’t support it well if every time I change my top, move or sneeze I have to re-align it, ensure it’s still on and fiddle with it like I’ve got OCD and demand it be perpendicular to my beard.
Sort it out somebody. Else I’ll be buying one of those sticky ones you get for cars and attaching it to my chest, looking like some floral version of Iron Man.
Or maybe just an idiot.
Phil bought his first poppy on October 27th and it stayed with him for four days. He’s currently on the hunt to purchase his second. So don’t judge him for not wearing one, OK!
Sunday, 30 October 2011
The Apprentice Rap
Just a quick one for tonight, but for anyone who saw Harry Hill's TV Burp this weekend, or especially those that didn't, enjoy...
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Review: Quorndon Muffins
A week or so ago the Students' Union bars got in new muffins, with "traditional British flavours" such as jam and custard, apple and custard and spotted dick, among others, basically traditional British desserts in muffin forms. And tonight was my first chance at trying one.
Manufactured by 'Quorndon', which sounds like the vegetarian godfather, they have appeared on the bar in a very eye-catching bar-mounted display case.
Priced at £1.20 they are nearly twice the price of the muffins from the shop, about 2/3rds the size, and half as tasty. They're not bad muffins, in fact they are quite tasty, but don't quite reflect the flavour labelled on the packaging. I tried the spotted dick flavour, a dessert I enjoy but haven't had the chance for many years, and it didn't really taste of it. It was basically a muffin with raisins in and a weird yellow custard-style splodge within that didn't taste of custard and was the consistency that could lead to a crude joke involving spotted dick and an STD.
The muffins do proclaim themselves to be enjoyable warm or cold, so maybe heating them in the microwave brings out their flavour, but unfortunately it's rare you go down to the bar with such a piece of electrical equipment and, if you do, what are security doing letting you bring in large kitchen appliances?
Overall, not a bad tasting muffin but for 80p would rather try the bigger and tastier shop muffins and their supposed flavours are misleading. I shall try and pocket one later and warm it up to see what it tastes like. After paying for it, of course.
5/10
[And, yes, I know it's nearly one in the morning and I'm reviewing muffins... time for sleep methinks!]
Manufactured by 'Quorndon', which sounds like the vegetarian godfather, they have appeared on the bar in a very eye-catching bar-mounted display case.
Priced at £1.20 they are nearly twice the price of the muffins from the shop, about 2/3rds the size, and half as tasty. They're not bad muffins, in fact they are quite tasty, but don't quite reflect the flavour labelled on the packaging. I tried the spotted dick flavour, a dessert I enjoy but haven't had the chance for many years, and it didn't really taste of it. It was basically a muffin with raisins in and a weird yellow custard-style splodge within that didn't taste of custard and was the consistency that could lead to a crude joke involving spotted dick and an STD.
The muffins do proclaim themselves to be enjoyable warm or cold, so maybe heating them in the microwave brings out their flavour, but unfortunately it's rare you go down to the bar with such a piece of electrical equipment and, if you do, what are security doing letting you bring in large kitchen appliances?
Overall, not a bad tasting muffin but for 80p would rather try the bigger and tastier shop muffins and their supposed flavours are misleading. I shall try and pocket one later and warm it up to see what it tastes like. After paying for it, of course.
5/10
[And, yes, I know it's nearly one in the morning and I'm reviewing muffins... time for sleep methinks!]
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Bradford Monopoly [Review]
I have always been a massive fan of Monopoly since I was a little kid. It’s one of my very few claims to fame that, in 1997, I was the second best young Monopoly player in the UK, not a bad achievement really even if it does involve a particular year, the word ‘young’ and, of course, second. But, I did get to play the game in the Bank of England with real money even if I did miss the chance to go to New York as first prize.
But, I digress. Since then I have been a collector of Monopoly boards, snapping up ‘Here and Now’, ‘Classic’ in a wooden box replicating the original 1930s version, ‘Yorkshire’ and ‘Revolution’ versions, not including the old traditional one I have, plus the one for my home town, ‘York’. At one point I did contemplate buying every UK version ever made until a quick visit to Wikipedia made me realise just how many Waddingtons / Hasbro had released, and that I didn’t have rich parents or a swelling trust fund to help me fill my dreams.
As we near the end of 2011 the number of local themed Monopoly boards has become considerable – there is even a Leeds University one for heaven’s sake – and now we finally have one for Bradford. However, though I’m not scoffing at my adopted home town finally getting a board of its own, it doesn’t half smell of a cash-in.
At this point I’m going to disappoint some of the readers and say I’m not going to review the game of Monopoly. Chances (haha) are you’ll know if you like the game or not so changing a few place names won’t really make a difference to your enjoyment of the game. For those of you that haven’t, there is not enough time for me to spill out the rules of the game in this review, and certainly no reason to without boring the socks off the majority of readers.
You insist? Well, in a nutshell, up to six players journey around properties on a square board, buying them up and charging players who subsequently land on them rent, with the aim being to grab up sets of properties, build properties on them, and bankrupt the other players, all the time also having the opportunity to receive random gifts and benefits in the form of chance and community chest cards, whilst also trying not to be trapped at the dining table with your family for four plus hours waiting for someone to become skint or throw their money over the board in frustration. Satisfied?
Basically, the Bradford edition is like any of local adapted edition: the traditional Monopoly board with a makeover, with locations from London replaced with Bradford and West Yorkshire landmarks, buildings and areas, and a photographic montage stuck in the middle. Sadly, the houses and hotels don’t get replaced by mills and student accommodation, nor do the chance cards have ‘You receive a speeding fine for your quad bike’, ‘You come second in the Omar naan challenge. Receive £10’ or ‘You are assessed for building repairs but you are not Unipol registered so don’t have to worry’. Actually, scrub that, they have paid some attention to the cards. ‘You’re late for a show at the Alhambra Theatre’ (we’ve all been there); ‘You won a trolley dash around Morrisons’ (Clean up on aisle three); and ‘You have been caught littering on the streets of Little Germany’ (that was probably me, I live there), plus others, are included, so some imagination has gone into it. But still no mention of quad bikes.
And, before any typical Telegraph and Argus trolls comment, there isn’t a large hole in the centre of the board to reflect the failed Westfield development. Jeez.
What you do get is seven playing pieces, two dice, a speed die, a wad of money, houses and hotels, a cloth bag, chance, community chest and place cards, an instruction manual, of course the board, and a nice new smell as you open the box. And the ability to mortgage Ilkley Moor, something I’m sure Bradford Council have considered between ruining the old Odeon and cocking up the City Park by opening it in, er, January.
The board, of course, lives and dies on its properties, and it’s on this where there is much more of a sense of commercial input that on, say, my York board. Yes, there’s been a lot of sponsorship of squares by local radio stations and papers on previous boards, but it’s taken to all new levels on this one. As well as the usual suspects of the Alhambra; the National Media Museum and Odsal Station, we also get ‘Richard Dunn Sports Centre’, clearly valid to share a set with Odsal Stadium and Valley Square; Bronte Water Coolers instead of water works balanced against, er, the standard electric company (Yorkshire Electricity missed a trick there) and two squares dedicated to ‘Prestige Car Care’ and ‘Prestige IT Support’. I mean – who? What? Clearly they paid to be on there (presumably about half-way along the rate card as they are on the orange spaces) but, is it just me, or would you personally rather pay a few extra quid for the board and have some proper properties on there, like perhaps the University or Little Germany or Lister Mill? I don’t think ‘Advance to Prestige IT Support’ has the same ring to it – face it, you’d get there, they’d umm and err, put you on hold and tell you to turn it off and on again – as many others and just adds to the smell of corporate cash-in.
Elsewhere the properties are as expected – though I’m not sure how happy Haworth will be with being stuck in the poorest properties – even if additions like the ‘City Park’, which isn’t even finished yet are not totally unexpected but weird. Maybe they should have stuck in a current photo of it unfinished and then Hasbro could post out a sticker of the finished version when they finally get round to it.
Overall, the Bradford Monopoly board is a worthy purchase if you live in our fair city. Effort has gone in to customise some of the chance / community chest cards to expand on the properties featured, and there’s not many other opportunities you’d get to own ‘Bingley Music Live’, the ‘Wool Exchange’ and the ‘Telegraph and Argus’, though the latter at 220 Monopoly pounds if quite steep considering it was under a quid last time I picked up a copy.
Sure, the board smells of a Hasbro call centre calling up local businesses asking for sponsorship (“Come on, shove your logo on a community chest square”; “ A square for Kirkgate Market? Nah, what about a car care company we’ve not heard about?” (that said, all the free publicity they’re getting in this review must make it worth it for them); or “Shall we PhotoShop the miserable looking chap walking in front of the Alhambra Theatre? No. OK.”) and I would rather pay more for the board than random sponsorship, but it does what it says on the Bradford-photography-laden box (Ooh! That Mosque near Laisteridge Lane! Ooh! A Dalek! Ooh! East Riddlesden Hall!) and for £25 it’s nice to have something more relevant and local.
Positives: Nice customisation of cards, well built, if you like Monopoly you’ll like this.
Negatives: Poor choice of some places due to sponsorship, if you hate Monopoly you’ll hate this.
7/10
But, I digress. Since then I have been a collector of Monopoly boards, snapping up ‘Here and Now’, ‘Classic’ in a wooden box replicating the original 1930s version, ‘Yorkshire’ and ‘Revolution’ versions, not including the old traditional one I have, plus the one for my home town, ‘York’. At one point I did contemplate buying every UK version ever made until a quick visit to Wikipedia made me realise just how many Waddingtons / Hasbro had released, and that I didn’t have rich parents or a swelling trust fund to help me fill my dreams.
As we near the end of 2011 the number of local themed Monopoly boards has become considerable – there is even a Leeds University one for heaven’s sake – and now we finally have one for Bradford. However, though I’m not scoffing at my adopted home town finally getting a board of its own, it doesn’t half smell of a cash-in.
At this point I’m going to disappoint some of the readers and say I’m not going to review the game of Monopoly. Chances (haha) are you’ll know if you like the game or not so changing a few place names won’t really make a difference to your enjoyment of the game. For those of you that haven’t, there is not enough time for me to spill out the rules of the game in this review, and certainly no reason to without boring the socks off the majority of readers.
You insist? Well, in a nutshell, up to six players journey around properties on a square board, buying them up and charging players who subsequently land on them rent, with the aim being to grab up sets of properties, build properties on them, and bankrupt the other players, all the time also having the opportunity to receive random gifts and benefits in the form of chance and community chest cards, whilst also trying not to be trapped at the dining table with your family for four plus hours waiting for someone to become skint or throw their money over the board in frustration. Satisfied?
Basically, the Bradford edition is like any of local adapted edition: the traditional Monopoly board with a makeover, with locations from London replaced with Bradford and West Yorkshire landmarks, buildings and areas, and a photographic montage stuck in the middle. Sadly, the houses and hotels don’t get replaced by mills and student accommodation, nor do the chance cards have ‘You receive a speeding fine for your quad bike’, ‘You come second in the Omar naan challenge. Receive £10’ or ‘You are assessed for building repairs but you are not Unipol registered so don’t have to worry’. Actually, scrub that, they have paid some attention to the cards. ‘You’re late for a show at the Alhambra Theatre’ (we’ve all been there); ‘You won a trolley dash around Morrisons’ (Clean up on aisle three); and ‘You have been caught littering on the streets of Little Germany’ (that was probably me, I live there), plus others, are included, so some imagination has gone into it. But still no mention of quad bikes.
And, before any typical Telegraph and Argus trolls comment, there isn’t a large hole in the centre of the board to reflect the failed Westfield development. Jeez.
What you do get is seven playing pieces, two dice, a speed die, a wad of money, houses and hotels, a cloth bag, chance, community chest and place cards, an instruction manual, of course the board, and a nice new smell as you open the box. And the ability to mortgage Ilkley Moor, something I’m sure Bradford Council have considered between ruining the old Odeon and cocking up the City Park by opening it in, er, January.
The board, of course, lives and dies on its properties, and it’s on this where there is much more of a sense of commercial input that on, say, my York board. Yes, there’s been a lot of sponsorship of squares by local radio stations and papers on previous boards, but it’s taken to all new levels on this one. As well as the usual suspects of the Alhambra; the National Media Museum and Odsal Station, we also get ‘Richard Dunn Sports Centre’, clearly valid to share a set with Odsal Stadium and Valley Square; Bronte Water Coolers instead of water works balanced against, er, the standard electric company (Yorkshire Electricity missed a trick there) and two squares dedicated to ‘Prestige Car Care’ and ‘Prestige IT Support’. I mean – who? What? Clearly they paid to be on there (presumably about half-way along the rate card as they are on the orange spaces) but, is it just me, or would you personally rather pay a few extra quid for the board and have some proper properties on there, like perhaps the University or Little Germany or Lister Mill? I don’t think ‘Advance to Prestige IT Support’ has the same ring to it – face it, you’d get there, they’d umm and err, put you on hold and tell you to turn it off and on again – as many others and just adds to the smell of corporate cash-in.
Elsewhere the properties are as expected – though I’m not sure how happy Haworth will be with being stuck in the poorest properties – even if additions like the ‘City Park’, which isn’t even finished yet are not totally unexpected but weird. Maybe they should have stuck in a current photo of it unfinished and then Hasbro could post out a sticker of the finished version when they finally get round to it.
Overall, the Bradford Monopoly board is a worthy purchase if you live in our fair city. Effort has gone in to customise some of the chance / community chest cards to expand on the properties featured, and there’s not many other opportunities you’d get to own ‘Bingley Music Live’, the ‘Wool Exchange’ and the ‘Telegraph and Argus’, though the latter at 220 Monopoly pounds if quite steep considering it was under a quid last time I picked up a copy.
Sure, the board smells of a Hasbro call centre calling up local businesses asking for sponsorship (“Come on, shove your logo on a community chest square”; “ A square for Kirkgate Market? Nah, what about a car care company we’ve not heard about?” (that said, all the free publicity they’re getting in this review must make it worth it for them); or “Shall we PhotoShop the miserable looking chap walking in front of the Alhambra Theatre? No. OK.”) and I would rather pay more for the board than random sponsorship, but it does what it says on the Bradford-photography-laden box (Ooh! That Mosque near Laisteridge Lane! Ooh! A Dalek! Ooh! East Riddlesden Hall!) and for £25 it’s nice to have something more relevant and local.
Positives: Nice customisation of cards, well built, if you like Monopoly you’ll like this.
Negatives: Poor choice of some places due to sponsorship, if you hate Monopoly you’ll hate this.
7/10
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Dave Gorman’s PowerPoint Presentation, St. George’s Hall, Bradford, Saturday 15th October 2011 @DaveGorman @jayforeham
Dave Gorman’s PowerPoint Presentation, St. George’s Hall, Bradford, Saturday 15th October 2011
Supported by Jay Foreham
My road to seeing Dave Gorman live has been like a story about the worst ever stalker. I’ve been a fan of the comedian since watching his ‘Astrology Experiment’ on television many years ago, then picking up his books, and keeping up with his work through his writing, stand-up DVDs and shows like ‘Genius’.
Come last year I finally got the opportunity to see him live but, due to a combination of a burst ear drum, a brain infection, bells palsy and being admitted to hospital (I’ll put my violin away in a minute) I had to miss his tour due to being locked up inside Leeds General Infirmary and my ticket going to waste.
Fast forward fourteen minutes and, in full health, I finally managed to catch up with Dave at the Student Radio Awards in Hatfield where I finally got to talk to him about radio and finally meet someone on my list of people-I’d-really-like-to-meet. (Next up Rowan Atkinson, Nick Park and Danny Wallace if anyone knows there addresses).
Move forward another six months and I see that Dave is due to perform at St. George’s hall, about ten minutes from my front door: an opportunity not to miss! Unfortunately I knew I’d have to miss it because I was off to Wales with a friend to DJ with manager’s best friend’s wedding in a field in Wales, so I didn’t bother getting a ticket.
It was only two hours before the gig when I was surfing on Twitter with a pint of cider while two friends soldered some XLR cable (honestly I’m not making any of this weird intro story up yet) that I realised he was in Bradford on the night and, now not having to visit the land of our fathers, I was free, so a quick call to the theatre bagged me a ticket. All that was left to do was stumbled to KFC an hour before the doors, wolf down some fried chicken as all the other proper restaurants were full, and head over to the theatre.
Amazingly, as I am a sad individual who goes to the theatre on his own (last night’s excuse was I’d only bought the tickets within a film’s length away from the start), I actually managed to bag a decent stalls seat at the end of a row so got a good view of the two hours of comedy.
The gig was opened with a thirty-five minute set from probably the best comedy support act I’ve ever seen. I always enjoy seeing the support acts as they can bring something new to the table; I even bought tickets to see Al Murray just to see Chris Ramsey support, but found the main act just as good of course. I’ve not quite reached the level of some people who bought tickets to a film just to see the new Harry Potter trailer before it, as has happened.
The opening act was comedy singer Jay Foreham who performed a dozen or so comedy songs plus some other small skits, all of which were fantastic, especially ‘Stealing Food’; his musical take on the Royal Wedding which opened the set; and closer ‘Moon Chavs’, which he promised would stick in people’s minds for ages and ruin their week. Yes, it’s still circling in my head. It seems that I’m late to the game with Jay as, posting ‘Moon Chavs, Chavs on the Moon’ on Facebook during the interval gave my friends the opportunity to post the successive lyrics on my profile. Clearly someone who is popular with a lot of people.
Though it was a basic set-up of just him and a mic, there was a smattering of interesting extras thrown into his set, from lighting changes to a song-duet with a member of the audience, and though not all the songs was massively laugh-out loud funny, they were some of the best original comedy songs I’ve heard in a long time and all brought a smile to my face, up there with Weird Al and the Barron Knights. Plus, he was selling his CD during the interval for a fiver, one of which I snapped up – bargain! – so I’d recommend you grab one of them if you see a tour date.
Jay Foreham was a fantastic opener to the set; at thirty-five minutes it was far more than you’d expect from an opening act, the songs were catchy, funny and memorable, and he was a likeable person, even going out to meet people in the lobby.
After a twenty-minute interval it was time for Dave Gorman to come on stage, possibly one of the funniest Jewish comedians around. And if you don’t get that then go and see his show!
Armed with nothing more than a large screen, a clicker for swapping slides, a laptop and a lapel mic, Dave jumped straight into his PowerPoint Presentation, though arguably it really should be a KeyPoint Presentation as his laptop was by Apple, but calling it by that name would make it sound like it’d be a businessman showing off pie charts and graphs on economic strategy development. I also knew it wasn’t PowerPoint as there was no animated GIFs to be seen.
It is difficult to describe the show for two reasons: firstly, not to give away the hilarious jokes, which I won’t; secondly because, like surfing around on the Internet that makes up the basis of the show, the stand-up routine jumped from topic-to-topic so quickly it was like one of those conversations you have in the pub that you can’t remember how you got onto it from talking about something unrelated. It’s a tribute to the structure of the show that the majority of the topics came from him listing his vital statistics such as facial hair, religion and marital status.
There are too many topics to mention but his takes on Twitter, mobile phones and comments on Internet news articles were amazing, and because of the way he laid them out everyone leaving the theatre will be observing things as they go through their daily lives and these triggering memories of the show. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at a mobile phone advert, in particular a HTC one, again in the same way.
His stand-up was supported by great screen shots, graphs, videos and photos and all combined to make it a visual and engaging show and, though themes would jump from one to another, he’d written in lines that harked back to completely unrelated stories and it all gelled really well. Plus, it’s a show connected to real-life as a lot of it spanned from his actions on Twitter and out there in the wide world and, yes, after the show I found the posts he would refer to, showing it was indeed all based in truth. Observational, and real-life, comedy, after all, is the best.
I really enjoyed Dave Gorman’s stand-up on Googlewhack and, if you enjoyed that, you will love this even more. At just over an hour it was maybe a little shorter than I’d like but he’d packed in plenty of observational humour into that time and I can’t complain as it was one of the best stand-up performances I’d seen, even if at times the speed of his delivery meant it wasn’t always easy to follow what he was saying. Plus, the timing of the show was crucial for one more joke which was possibly the best planned ending to a show ever and tied in nicely with everything, continuing the theme of tie-ing up as Jay Foreman was brought back onto stage during the show to support the encore.
If you can still get tickets to any of the later gigs on the tour I would highly recommend you do. A laugh-out-loud two hours from a solid support and excellent main act that, through the choice of subject matter and its relation to our everyday life in 2011, will stay with you for a long time. I just hope they bring it out on DVD so I can share the laughs with other people who may miss this.
9/10
Supported by Jay Foreham
My road to seeing Dave Gorman live has been like a story about the worst ever stalker. I’ve been a fan of the comedian since watching his ‘Astrology Experiment’ on television many years ago, then picking up his books, and keeping up with his work through his writing, stand-up DVDs and shows like ‘Genius’.
Come last year I finally got the opportunity to see him live but, due to a combination of a burst ear drum, a brain infection, bells palsy and being admitted to hospital (I’ll put my violin away in a minute) I had to miss his tour due to being locked up inside Leeds General Infirmary and my ticket going to waste.
Fast forward fourteen minutes and, in full health, I finally managed to catch up with Dave at the Student Radio Awards in Hatfield where I finally got to talk to him about radio and finally meet someone on my list of people-I’d-really-like-to-meet. (Next up Rowan Atkinson, Nick Park and Danny Wallace if anyone knows there addresses).
Move forward another six months and I see that Dave is due to perform at St. George’s hall, about ten minutes from my front door: an opportunity not to miss! Unfortunately I knew I’d have to miss it because I was off to Wales with a friend to DJ with manager’s best friend’s wedding in a field in Wales, so I didn’t bother getting a ticket.
It was only two hours before the gig when I was surfing on Twitter with a pint of cider while two friends soldered some XLR cable (honestly I’m not making any of this weird intro story up yet) that I realised he was in Bradford on the night and, now not having to visit the land of our fathers, I was free, so a quick call to the theatre bagged me a ticket. All that was left to do was stumbled to KFC an hour before the doors, wolf down some fried chicken as all the other proper restaurants were full, and head over to the theatre.
Amazingly, as I am a sad individual who goes to the theatre on his own (last night’s excuse was I’d only bought the tickets within a film’s length away from the start), I actually managed to bag a decent stalls seat at the end of a row so got a good view of the two hours of comedy.
The gig was opened with a thirty-five minute set from probably the best comedy support act I’ve ever seen. I always enjoy seeing the support acts as they can bring something new to the table; I even bought tickets to see Al Murray just to see Chris Ramsey support, but found the main act just as good of course. I’ve not quite reached the level of some people who bought tickets to a film just to see the new Harry Potter trailer before it, as has happened.
The opening act was comedy singer Jay Foreham who performed a dozen or so comedy songs plus some other small skits, all of which were fantastic, especially ‘Stealing Food’; his musical take on the Royal Wedding which opened the set; and closer ‘Moon Chavs’, which he promised would stick in people’s minds for ages and ruin their week. Yes, it’s still circling in my head. It seems that I’m late to the game with Jay as, posting ‘Moon Chavs, Chavs on the Moon’ on Facebook during the interval gave my friends the opportunity to post the successive lyrics on my profile. Clearly someone who is popular with a lot of people.
Though it was a basic set-up of just him and a mic, there was a smattering of interesting extras thrown into his set, from lighting changes to a song-duet with a member of the audience, and though not all the songs was massively laugh-out loud funny, they were some of the best original comedy songs I’ve heard in a long time and all brought a smile to my face, up there with Weird Al and the Barron Knights. Plus, he was selling his CD during the interval for a fiver, one of which I snapped up – bargain! – so I’d recommend you grab one of them if you see a tour date.
Jay Foreham was a fantastic opener to the set; at thirty-five minutes it was far more than you’d expect from an opening act, the songs were catchy, funny and memorable, and he was a likeable person, even going out to meet people in the lobby.
After a twenty-minute interval it was time for Dave Gorman to come on stage, possibly one of the funniest Jewish comedians around. And if you don’t get that then go and see his show!
Armed with nothing more than a large screen, a clicker for swapping slides, a laptop and a lapel mic, Dave jumped straight into his PowerPoint Presentation, though arguably it really should be a KeyPoint Presentation as his laptop was by Apple, but calling it by that name would make it sound like it’d be a businessman showing off pie charts and graphs on economic strategy development. I also knew it wasn’t PowerPoint as there was no animated GIFs to be seen.
It is difficult to describe the show for two reasons: firstly, not to give away the hilarious jokes, which I won’t; secondly because, like surfing around on the Internet that makes up the basis of the show, the stand-up routine jumped from topic-to-topic so quickly it was like one of those conversations you have in the pub that you can’t remember how you got onto it from talking about something unrelated. It’s a tribute to the structure of the show that the majority of the topics came from him listing his vital statistics such as facial hair, religion and marital status.
There are too many topics to mention but his takes on Twitter, mobile phones and comments on Internet news articles were amazing, and because of the way he laid them out everyone leaving the theatre will be observing things as they go through their daily lives and these triggering memories of the show. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at a mobile phone advert, in particular a HTC one, again in the same way.
His stand-up was supported by great screen shots, graphs, videos and photos and all combined to make it a visual and engaging show and, though themes would jump from one to another, he’d written in lines that harked back to completely unrelated stories and it all gelled really well. Plus, it’s a show connected to real-life as a lot of it spanned from his actions on Twitter and out there in the wide world and, yes, after the show I found the posts he would refer to, showing it was indeed all based in truth. Observational, and real-life, comedy, after all, is the best.
I really enjoyed Dave Gorman’s stand-up on Googlewhack and, if you enjoyed that, you will love this even more. At just over an hour it was maybe a little shorter than I’d like but he’d packed in plenty of observational humour into that time and I can’t complain as it was one of the best stand-up performances I’d seen, even if at times the speed of his delivery meant it wasn’t always easy to follow what he was saying. Plus, the timing of the show was crucial for one more joke which was possibly the best planned ending to a show ever and tied in nicely with everything, continuing the theme of tie-ing up as Jay Foreman was brought back onto stage during the show to support the encore.
If you can still get tickets to any of the later gigs on the tour I would highly recommend you do. A laugh-out-loud two hours from a solid support and excellent main act that, through the choice of subject matter and its relation to our everyday life in 2011, will stay with you for a long time. I just hope they bring it out on DVD so I can share the laughs with other people who may miss this.
9/10
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