Friday Five: Best Beatles

I am currently directing a show for the Arrowtown Entertainers as part of Arrowtown Autumn Festival. It is called Beatlemania 64 and, unsuprisingly, is set in 1964 and features many songs from that era, predominately tunes by The Beatles. I have, therefore, been listening to a lot of their work over the past couple of months and have resumed my erratic relationship with their music.

When I first heard The Beatles, I loved them. They were jolly, had sing-a-long tunes, and were a lot better than most of the disco pap on the radio (I grew up in the 70s). Then I became a fan of punk. The Beatles - especially the hippy trippy stuff - was music for my parents' generation, and no self-respecting teenager listened to their parents' music: we had our own.

In later university years, their stuff was played and plundered and sampled at clubs. I appreciated their talents, thought it made for good cover material, but preferred The Stones. Then Oasis came along - the latest in a long line of Beatlemaniacs, and we had to hear all over again how wonderful they were. Everybody loved the Beatles, and if you wanted an ounce of individuality or point of difference, then they could not be your band of choice.

Now we are trying to get everyday people (who can sing but would be the first to admit they are not 'singers') to imitate their harmonies. And I am struck once again by their talent, but also their energy and enthusiasm. I'm still not a fan of the drug-addled Sgt Pepper days (I can't say I've ever heard a song that I thought would be improved by a sitar, a kazoo, or maracas - or a ukulele for that matter, but that's another story), but I admit they have produced some fine tunes in their time.

5 Favourite Beatles Songs:

1. I Saw Her Standing There - one of the first songs of theirs I ever heard, and they made teenage romance sound cool rather than ooky
2. If I Fell in Love with You - so simple and effective and honest
3. Eight Days a Week - happy, happy, happy, and then they throw in a minor chord or two for the angst
4. Eleanor Rigby - I'm a sucker for a cello and the double string quartet arrangement on this track is excellent. Like Simon & Garfunkel's A Most Peculiar Man, the year before, it was quite a shock for a happy go lucky band to sing a song about loneliness, isolation and depression - and it was so good!
5. Paperback Writer - love the intro; love the harmonies; love the heavier bass; love the lyrics - as a wannabe writer myself, I would probably have to say this is my favourite!

Three for Stevie



My hero: Captain Fantastic

His 400th league appearance for Liverpool. Three goals against Everton - the first time anyone has scored a hat-trick in the Mersyside Derby since Ian Rush (who scored four goals at Goodison in 1982) and the first Liverpool player to score three in the derby at Anfield since Fred Howe in 1935. Did I hear you say absolute legend? Oh, yes.

And the rest of the team were pretty amazing too. Suarez and Carroll combined well up front, and there was constant delivery of the ball into promising areas. Reina was solid at the back, Kelly made some great runs, and even Carragher managed some decisive tackles without getting booked. I know we're a long way off the pace, but footballing brilliance is always worth watching.

Friday Five: Sleep No More

I've been having quite a few sleepless nights recently. It's not that I've got a guilty conscience (at least I don't think I have) or that I've been eating cheese before I go to bed (is that even a real excuse, or just propaganda from the anti-cheese board?) but I have got a lot on my mind, and between that and the only-just-this-side-of-psychotic cat, I keep waking up around 3am. So this seemed appropriate:

5 Things I Do When I Can't Sleep:

1. Lie awake thinking, 'why can't I sleep? This is so annoying!' - that's really annoying
2. Watch sport: football; cycling; cricket; tennis; rugby - there's usually something interesting being played on the other side of the world
3. Drink herbal tea - I find it goes well with cheese (Ha!)
4. Make lists of things I need to do - not sure it helps as I am often just about to drift off back to sleep when I remember something I forgot to put the list and then lie awake worrying about that instead
5. Blog!

Symphony of Birdsong in the Land of the Lawnmower

My mum sends me articles from newspapers - I carry them in their brown envelope in my handbag and pull them out to read when I have to wait in queues or when the person I am meeting hasn't yet arrived at the cafe or the pub and I don't want to look like I've been stood up - they're very useful for that.

They usually concern books or films, or the English language, or the changing face of feminism, or the state of community values in the face of virulent capitalism. And sometimes they are about the beauty of the English countryside. You see, I'm sure my mother is trying to lure me back to Blighty and so the articles she sends are resolutely positive.

If she doesn't win me back with brilliant writing ('the land of the lawnmower' is as good a description of suburbia as any I have read), it will be with nostalgia for the inimitable scenery and the quintessential sound of the dawn chorus, as in this bucolic column by Mike McCarthy, part of which I have copied below (follow the link to read the full article):

"I live in the suburbs; I live in a land of neat gardens, estate agents' boards, car ports, walked dogs, lawnmowers, endlessly similar houses and nothing much happening, a land which my generation, the baby boomers, excoriated as the epitome of boring and sell-out (in songs such as Pete Seeger's 'Little Boxes'), a land which no one would ever describe as resplendent; yet the dawn chorus transforms it entirely.

"Like the visits of Father Christmas or the Big Friendly Giant, it takes place when most of us are asleep and so we miss it, and I feel as if in the last few weeks I have discovered a secret: that even the land of the lawnmower can approach perfection, and that in the shower of birdsong cutting through the silence, the stillness and the great bursting light overhead, for a brief half hour of transformation, even suburbia can become a place of wonder." 

Friday Five: Look-i-like-me

5 People I've Been told I look Like:

1. Victoria Wood
2. Roy Orbison (by Him Outdoors - don't husbands say the nicest things?)
3. Rachel Hunter
4. Julia Roberts (I know - they must have been blind and it was a long time ago, but I'll take it)
5. Some woman off Time Team - I don't know which one because I've never watched it, but a friend insists it's me (it's not - I'd know)

A cup is a cup is a cup

You may belittle the (Carling) League Cup all you like, but it does my heart good to see Stevie G leading his team to victory and wafting the silverware aloft. The match itself, however, did not do my nerves, nails and voice any good at all.

Friday Five: Popular TV

I've started directing another play and taking more singing lessons, plus with the reading that I do for review and dramaturgical purposes, I haven't got much time for television, but there are a few shows I will watch (whether as and when programmed or later, having recorded them, which has the added bonus of missing all the adverts).

I loved the Downtown Abbey Christmas special (shown in the middle of summer, but enjoyed nonetheless with my female friends, Him Outdoors and a bottle of Central Otago Pinot Noir) and will watch Coronation Street if I'm home when it's on.

I've begun to take note of Single Father with the incomparable David Tennant and Suranne Jones (Karen from Coronation Street), and Homeland with the wonderful Damien Lewis (who appears to be becoming the new Hugh Laurie - i.e. the Americans want to appropriate him). As I've only seen one episode of each, however, it's too early to tell, and the former is a four-part miniseries anyway, so perhaps that doesn't count.

Football and cricket also meet the regular viewing requirements, but there are some programmes I consider 'appointment viewing'.

5 Favourite TV Shows (at the moment):

1. Frozen Planet - David Attenborough narration over some of the most incredible photography of some of the most amazing landscape and animals; inspiring and beautiful
2. Outnumbered - Fantastic acting from both the parents and children. If ever I feel the merest twinge of remorse that I have not reproduced, five seconds of this programme supports my decision
3. Miranda - Comedy for grown-ups who haven't ever grown-up, with great scripts and asides to camera
4. QI - A quiz programme that doesn't really care about the score; Stephen Fry and Alan Davies plus a coterie of educated and entertaining guest panellists. It's been going for ages and I still enjoy it
5. The Graham Norton Show - Series 10 (I think) and still going strong - a 'light' entertainment chat show with a mix of guests, stand-up, regualr features and performers that works - better in format than Johnathan Ross, or any other chat show on TV