The trouble with young people today...

We are now being 'entertained' by Dancing on Ice 2011, which has arrived here quite quickly after it was shown in Britain. I won't look anything up because I hate spoiling it for myself - I want to know who wins, but only when I've seen all the dances and outfits, the lights and the sequins, the thrills and the spills, the spins and the jumps. So please don't tell me the outcome, as we're only four weeks into it and I've got heaps of time to waste on the sofa yet. I love the fact that a rider appears on the bottom of the screen reminding viewers not to phone up as 'voting has now closed'. Several months ago. In another country.

I was discussing the dancing phenomenom with friends. As I don't watch any programmes about singing, cooking, decorating, surviving on tropical islands (or even a house) and all the other things that TV producers think we find interesting, it is odd to me that I am so intrigued by the dancing programmes. Perhaps it is because I can't dance to save myself but have always loved the combination of strength and fluidity of movement (being called a 'sugar plum elephant' when I tried my own childish version of galumphing didn't help much, thanks Dad!).

Ballet is impressive, ice-dancing is spectacular and Torvill and Dean are outstanding. One friend reckoned that dancing teaches people respect, elegance, grace, appropriate behaviour and standards of physical contact. In fact, she went so far as to say that 'the trouble with young people today' is that they don't dance 'like we used to'.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that my dancing generally consisted of raving in a field with a glo-stick or leaping up and down in a mosh pit with lots of other sweaty types. I did go in for country dancing when I was a kid (I liked all that heel-toe stuff) but my sisters took the piss. And I once stopped Levellers fans in clogs from stamping on my friend's head after he fell asleep during The Fall at Reading Festival. But I'm not sure that counts. Perhaps that's the trouble with me, too.

Convenience Foods

We are really lazy, aren’t we, us humans?

At the supermarket I noticed that the chopped variety of the tinned tomatoes was all sold out. (Supermarket shopping simultaneously thrills and stimulates me – can you tell?) Fair enough; they were on special, but so were the non-chopped ones and there were still heaps of those left.

Further investigation (gosh, I could work for Fairly Slow with in-depth research like that) proved the second cheapest option also had diced and whole, and once again the diced were sold out – people were clearly paying more for these than the cheapest chopped. Why? Is it so very hard to chop our own tomatoes?

Sure, it may take a fraction longer in the kitchen before tipping them into the pasta sauce, and perhaps time is money, but what is that really worth? A good twenty cents a can in this case it appears.

We buy all sorts of labour- and-boredom-saving groceries; pitted olives, grated cheese, tea and coffee with milk already added (because it’s such a hassle to get the milk out the fridge and add it ourselves), ready-diced pumpkin… actually, that’s quite a good one as peeling and chopping your own pumpkin is a real faff.

So where does it stop? And more importantly, where do we send our suggestions? Because I find peeling oranges really tedious. Invariably the juice squirts everywhere (in the eye or on the white blouse being its preferred landing places) and you get sticky fingers and the rind has to be disposed of somehow and you’re usually on the run or in a car, and they’re simply not as convenient as they might be.

And with all that extra time available, just think of the things we could do... maybe an extra sudoko or two.

My Newest Favourite Thing: FC Barcelona

Obviously I would rather it were Liverpool waving that trophy aloft, but as that was never going to happen this season, it couldn't happen to a better club than Barcelona FC.

Their play in winning the Champions League Final 3-1 was superlative. Mesmerising football and spectacular precision passing by the likes of Pedro, Villa, Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez made for sumptuous viewing. Mascherano was marshalled into mid field/ defence but most of the action was taking place in the attacking third.

En passant I must say that Wayne Rooney's goal came with an excellent finish, but Giggs was off-side when he received the ball that led to the pass that set up the goal that Wayne scored. 

Barcelona played like a team that knew each other's moves so well they could have executed those tricks blindfolded. It was magical, artistic, fantastic craftsmanship with no diving for penalties, rolling around on the floor, Hollywood tactics or scything tackles (from either side, to be fair).

And then there was Lionel Messi. There is very little that can be said about him that hasn't already been said. He is masterful and quite simply the best footballer on the planet. He and his fellow Catalan genii split the Manchester United midfield like Zorro's rapier through crumbly Lancashire. It was a joy to watch.

It's always fun to see Fergie and his show ponies annihilated, although to his credit he knew and respected it, saying afterwards, "They play the right way and they enjoy their football. They do mesmerise you with their passing and we never really did control Messi. In my time as manager, it's the best team I've faced."

The Weevil asked me what she should tell my nephew - 'Do we want Manchester United to win because they are English?' No. If it were any other English club (even The Arse), then yes, I would probably want them to succeed. But I already have to hear Red Shite fans bleat on about how they have now won more titles than Liverpool, they are the best team ever in England; at least we are still the best English team ever in Europe.

Juke Box Jury

All Shook Up, Showbiz Queenstown
Memorial Hall, Queenstown
19 - 28 May, 2011

Does the world of entertainment really need another juke box musical, or have they become a dime a dozen? Your response to that question will determine your reaction to Showbiz Queenstown’s latest offering; All Shook Up.

Their marketing trumpeted, ‘The story’s all new; the songs are all Elvis’, which is wrong on both counts. The story is pretty much all Shakespeare – a haphazard mix of the more basic elements of Twelfth Night and As You Like It. Girl (Natalie) likes boy (Chad) but he likes someone (Miss Sandra) else so she dresses as boy to get his attention and he falls for her/him resulting in much confusion and hilarity. Subplots involve misdirected letters (in this case a Shakespearean sonnet), forbidden love, and discovering love that was beneath your nose the whole time. And it’s all set in 1950s bubblegum, small-town, Middle America without the racial tension; it really is all white here.

Elvis wrote very few of his own songs – in fact out of the 26 songs in the show, he only wrote two; Heartbreak Hotel and Don’t Be Cruel. Although they were all popularised by him, the fact that they were penned by others works in his favour. Musical arrangements by Stephen Oremus have transferred the numbers into something new and different, from the show-stopping Can’t Help Falling in Love in fabulous four-part harmony, to the spectacular Devil in Disguise as Mayor Matilda Hyde (Jo Blick) admonishes the hip swivelling roustabout Chad (James Stephenson) in a rocking country/gospel number, complete with angelic host and restrained demons.

Emily Burns as Natalie Haller (the female mechanic who attempts to fix Chad’s broken motorbike and then become his side-kick; trying to sidle her way into his affections) has a great vocal range, and her rendition of Love Me Tender in her deeper ‘male’ register is excellent. The singing is of a uniformly superb standard, and Julie Anne Molloy as Sylvia delivers the stand-out vocal performance with There’s Always Me, which blends emotion and technique to perfection.

A huge plaudit must go to the band (under the musical direction of Cheryl Collie), which performs on stage hidden behind a curtain for most of the show, and keeps the tempo cracking along. As is typical of this style of musical, the songs do nothing to further the action but they are entertaining – a couple behind me were playing ‘guess the song’, which with the standard of dialogue really wasn’t hard. At times the show drags a little as the songs are shoehorned into the script and, although the choreography (Tiffany Menzies) is excellent, the dancing is often lacklustre. Some of the best physicality came from Jim Haller (Chris MacKenzie) who displays some great wobbly legs and bad jelly shaking, as Chad teaches him to dance in yet another of the Footloose moments.

The minimalist nature of the set worked well, allowing for some interpretative staging. The moving statues were eye-catching (makeup by Ella Chaney), while the mimed bus in It’s Now or Never, and the Mayor’s ‘car on roller-skates’ (‘driven’ by the comically taciturn Sheriff Earl – Paul Halsted) drew appreciative applause from audience. The space (and even bare stage at times) should afford the characters room to develop, but there is nowhere for them to go.

Nowhere is this more evident than the story of Dean (Samuel Farr) and Lorraine (Nicole Graham). The role of the buttoned-up conformist aching to break free is perfect for the meerkat-like Sam, and Lorraine has a great and powerful voice with a hint of country grunt, but the story under-sells their talents. Half-way through Act One they have already paired up to the disapproval of their parents, and that’s pretty much it.

In the original, Lorraine is African-American, which adds a whole new dimension to the Mayor’s reluctance for her son, Dean, to form a mixed race relationship – remember the Civil Rights Act wasn’t passed for another ten years. She is more than just a snob, as she is portrayed here; she has serious issues to consider. When Lorraine, Dean and Chad sing If I Can Dream (with lyrics such as 'If I can dream of a better land, where all my brothers walk hand in hand, tell me why oh why oh why can't my dream come true?') the Martin Luther King echoes would be deafening. 

The racial aspect also tempers Jim's feeling for her mother, Sylvia - he has so far overlooked her for romance although he is happy enough with friendship. Director Bryan Aitken has had to work around this (presumably due to the performers who presented at auditions) which he does very smoothly, although the absence of this tension leaves the musical a touch flat.

The character of Chad is equally one dimensional. He rides into town to touch the juke box (positioned on the side of the stage throughout) to make it play, and he infects the town with music and passion. And then what? James Stephenson struggles with the role; trying to make a shallow, image-obsessed philistine seem appealing to a gaggle of women is no mean feat, and he over-uses hand gestures to declare emphasis. He finds some subtlety with the duet You’ve Got to Follow That Dream; sung with Natalie, this is touching and inspiring duet on the first night, but it turned into a Showbiz Idol sing-off later in the season.

His rival, Dennis (Caleb Dawson-Swale) has delightful timing when he focuses, and his geeky, twitching nervousness belies a soulful centre. Although vocally a little weak, he proves his acting ability with a completely different role from last year’s (equally competent) the Artful Dodger in Oliver! Miss Sandra (Caroline Pegna) delivers the songs that suit her range well (One Night With You and Hound Dog do; Let Yourself Go patently doesn’t). She has the best line of the show – “You marry your cousins don’t you?” – and is the only character other than Natalie who is permitted any development. Her conversion to prim museum curator to flirtatious seductress is obvious but well executed.

One further bouquet must go to Emma Newell who designed the programme to look like a record (half of the cast have probably never seen one before). This sets the scene before the first chord is strummed. It’s a fun, bright, rollicking, toe-tapping, dispensable, candy-floss show; unimaginative and not particularly demanding for actors and viewers alike, although the singing can be challenging. It features a predominantly young cast and will probably be a favourite among high schools. It’s child’s play and boy, do they have fun at play-time!

Welly Wouldn't!

I loathe the idea of the 'Wellywood' sign. For those of you who have matters of importance to worry about, this will probably have passed you by, so let me explain. The owners of Wellington Airport (Infratil: 66% and Wellington City Council: 34%) have decided that it is a good idea to spell 'Wellywood' out on the hillside approaching the airport in big white letters, a la Hollywood. Many Wellingtonians disapprove.

For a start, it seems like a waste of money. We are told that it is not really for Wellingtons but for national and international visitors alike to admire when they fly into the capital city. Apparently fixing a 3.5 meter high steel word to a hill turns a place into an item on people's bucket list. I have never felt an urge to visit Hollywood, sign or no sign, and Mosgiel hasn't exactly got them flocking. Besides, most passengers who arrive at Wellington airport are too busy clinging onto the seat in front of them, utilising the sick bag or praying to the gods of wild weather, to notice anything other than a safe landing.

Yes, it is extremely derivative. Wellington has a thriving arts culture, comprised of theatre, dance, music, literature, film and television. Actually, scrap that last one, seeing as that is what is happening to Avalon studios. Just because Peter Jackson and Warner Brothers can over-ride the rights of the workers in this country with a snap of their fingers, should Wellington rent out prime advertising space to them as well? And when I say rent, I mean give for free, because of all the so-called benefits they will bring the economy regardless of the draconian and dictatorial changes to employment law.

Cobham Drive (the road down which nearly all traffic must drive as it leaves Wellington airport) already has plenty of original sculptures which interract with the one force Wellington doesn't lack - no, not bureaucracy; wind! Petty-minded people vandalise these on a regular basis. Do you really think they would leave those letters intact? You might as well write 'Steal Me' up on the cliff - I'm sure that a giant 'O' would become the latest in haute-decor for student flats in Newtown.

Actually the Hollywood sign is unsprisingly copyrighted, and the people who own the rights to it have threatened Wellington Airport with legal action if they persist with this quest for mediocrity. This potential crusade against the world's most litigious people isn't really worth fighting, is it?

One digital media agency, Skull and Bones have created their own sign generator with which techno-folk can mock-up their own copywood message. The responses are spectacularly uninspiring and unoriginal (with 'I'm a cliff'; 'Hamilton' and 'Help' being the best offerings) thus indicating that unoriginality isn't unique to the owners of the airport. Hardly anyone outside Wellington cares enough to notice, but those who do are defintely having a larff!

Our Man in London: All's Well That Ends Well

All’s Well That Ends Well at The Globe, London

First trip to The Globe of the year and probably not an obvious choice of play to go and see. All’s Well seems to be viewed as one of Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’, but I am not sure I see the problem in the same way as I am meant to. The problem is meant to be that the main characters are a flawed bunch. While I agree that they are, another problem is the story. Some bits just don’t add up. Why would Diana give that lengthy performance in front of the King of France at the end and end up with being threatened with being thrown in jail? Is Bertram really so dim that he did not realise that the ring he is given was the one worn by Helena? How come he did not realise that the Italian he was in bed with had suddenly developed a French accent?

Putting aside my pedantry for a moment, this was a great performance. The only bad review I could find of it in the London press was from the Daily Telegraph. To me that means it is worth seeing, although worryingly the Daily Mail gave it a good review. I had no idea who any of the actors were in it, even though I should apparently know of Janie Dee who plays the Countess of Rousillon. I always think you are on safe ground with UK actors if you say you have seen them in The Bill or Casualty and move the conversation quickly on.

To me the star of the show was James Garnon’s Parolles. But with such great lines to deliver and playing the buffoon it’s probably hard to mess it up. Ellie Piercy as Helena was also great despite one reviewer calling her dull and drab. I might be biased though because I think I have a crush on her. I did have a bit of a problem with Sam Crane as Bertram. He looks very young and a bit like the Tory Chancellor George Osborne. Plus he was being very rude about the lovely Helena. I was tempted to ask him outside at one point but decided I would see him afterwards.

I feel a bit metrosexual about this next point but think I am going to make it anyway. The costumes were stunning. Usually when I watch Shakespeare acted out in Jacobean costumes, they are par for the course and unremarkable, but there really was something stunning about these ones. I could quite happily prance about in the King of France’s togs but doubt I would make it to the end of my street in one piece.

That’s all for now, I have a train to catch and work to pretend to do. Next up is Merchant of Venice at the revamped RSC theatre in Stratford.

Adieu... from Our Man in London

Caps off to the Lion Foundation!

I recently learned that The Lion Foundation is involved with an initiative to recycle the aluminium screw caps on wine bottles. This pleases me greatly, and appeals to my wombling mentality.

I like recycling. I like the feeling that I can contribute something to someone else. When we were kids the Scouts used to collect newspapers. It was my job to bundle them up in orderly piles, tie them up with string and leave them out on the front doorstep.

At school there was a collection of ‘silver paper’ which went to the guide dogs (not the blind dogs as I used to call them), although what they did with it I couldn’t imagine. There was one particular type of chocolate (was it a Penguin or a Kit-Kat?) that had silver paper backed with a greaseproof layer. You could waste hours in the warm kitchen peeling these wrappers apart rather than doing your homework upstairs.

The earnest presenters on Blue Peter were always collecting keys or stamps or foreign coins for various appeals. I can’t remember (if I ever knew) why or where they went – probably to the starving children in Africa; we were all very concerned about them in the early 80s I seem to recall. The motives were less important than the actions themselves. It was and is fun to collect things, and it’s even better that this aimless hoarding has a purpose, even if that purpose is obscure.

After all, we all like to do good deeds; it makes us feel better, and what’s wrong with that? No charity is entirely altruistic. If I can do good by eating chocolate or drinking wine, then so much the better. There’ll be a big box of wine bottle tops turning up at the Lion Foundation soon, and I’m sure we’ll both appreciate it!