Much Ado About Something

Well after all the excitement of my blog from 3rd May (Learning Me Your (Hebrew) Language) I finally got to see The Merchant of Venice on Monday night as part of The Globe’s international Globe to Globe season.  Every review (and this one) I have read since has focused largely on the demonstrations and disruptions that some members of the audience created.  Oh, yeah, did I not mention that the evening turned out to be a hotbed of political activism before my very eyes?  The nature of the specifics of the protests can be found here, but in spite of all the police, security guards and airport style detectors, over the course of the evening several realisations became very clear to me.

1.     You can never see the same play too many times.  

      This particular production depicted Shylock in the most humane way I have ever seen, ultimately giving me a completely different feeling about the rest of the characters, and therefore questioning the validity of their happy endings.  This was an unexpected pleasure.    

2.     Peaceful protests can be really rather lovely.  

     People on opposing sides of the debate, held placards in separated areas on Bankside in the afternoon sun, smilingly handing out leaflets and playing music, demonstrating the importance of standing up for beliefs and sharing opinions with respect.  It was powerful.

3.     Protests lose their impact when art is disrupted.  

      Once inside the theatre, the outbursts and banner-unfurling became sinister. Censorship is always worrying, and the organised disruptions at regular intervals of the performance only seemed to alienate the protesters and their valid cause from the rest of the audience.  It suddenly felt very important that the play continue as was summed up to loud cheers by one audience member, as he shouted “Carry on, we’re all with you!” 

My view

      The play did carry on, and the professionalism of the actors was rewarded by an extended curtain call, with many of the audience getting to their feet.  I felt they deserved it for their interpretation of a complex play not just for the challenges that particular performance had faced.

And as for the initial concerns that I had aired in my previous blog - those relating to understanding an evening of Hebrew Shakespeare?  Well, they were completely unfounded.  Even if I hadn’t been able to see the English summarised subtitles at the end of each scene, I knew exactly what was going on.  This was mostly, I suspect, due to knowing the plot well, but also the visually rich interpretation that included dancing caskets, well-timed slapstick, and the most wonderfully symbolic costume for Portia that recognised the binding legalities to which she was subject, but then cunningly changed into the chains that held the arrested Antonio, and ultimately Shylock, in the dramatic court scene.    

A final highlight for me was that The Globe’s Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole poked his head into the middle gallery at the interval to check we were all OK (several of the protesters had been seated in the row in front of us.)  I did wonder for a second whether it would be a good opportunity to pitch my novel/script/personality at him; this could have been the only time I got the chance.  In the event, he seemed a little flustered what with all the threats and metal detectors and stuff, so I let him get on. 

Shame.  He seemed like a nice man.  

It's All About The Key Change

The time has come, it can be held off no longer.  It is time to discuss Eurovision.   Oh yes.


For those of you not completely up to speed, the first semi-final was on 22^nd May, the second semi-final is tonight and the final is still to come on Saturday 26^th May.  There are plenty of marvellous preview-style blogs and commentaries (notably No Geek Is An Island and Hikaru Blue, or on Twitter you could follow @Walter_1oo) but I imagine that this late in the day, you will have digested these at length.  No, what?  You mean you haven’t been following @Eurovision and receiving daily tweets updating you on how the rehearsals have been going for the past few weeks?  What are you?  Inhuman freaks?

I am fully aware, however - all joking aside - that not everyone feels as joyously giddy as I do at this time of year.  There is just something about the weeks leading up to the contest that puts a spring in my step and makes me feel smiley.   It has always been this way, even when I was a kid – it was a night to keep free, a night when I had plans.  My other commitments (Brownies on Mondays and ballet on Thursdays) would pale into boring insignificance and make this annual springtime Saturday night of international glamour the absolute pinnacle of my little year.   Whilst it may have meant more to me than to others, I defy anybody alive in 1981 to convince me they did not spend the weeks following that year’s contest whipping off a tea towel that had been tucked into their knickers and pretending to be Cheryl Baker.  We all did it.   Every last one of us. 

Since then I have watched each contest in earnest, using either home made notebooks to record comments and score each entrant, or in later years, taking advantage of the score card provided helpfully by the BBC.  These days of course, I like to think I have no need to rely on the continent's plethora of shimmying sequinned bodies in order to feel a sense of occasion.  I like to think my grown-up life is a little more sparkly and cosmopolitan than when I was a youth.  Now that I’ve knocked Brownies on the head, for example, I have much more time for flicking out my hair with straighteners, and applying sparkly eye-liner.  No, the appeal of the ESC is no longer the glamour.  It is the comedy.

People who think I take Eurovision very seriously, have missed the point.  I take the celebration of it, and the need for a party during it, very seriously indeed.  But the hilarity and at times down-right unhinged nature of the contest are in no way lost on me.  A yearly event that in my own life time has included musical theatre’s own Michael Ball and Andrew Lloyd Webber alongside the horror film inspired, masked Finnish death-metal group, Lordi and in more recent times, the irrepressible Jedward, can only be, in my opinion, A BRILLIANT THING.  It is funny, irreverent and as a good a reason to get together as any other.  I know it is silly but that’s the appeal. 

Linda Martin - winner of my favourite ESC - 1992.

A few days ago I was laughed at (with some scorn and disdain I might add) by some people that are very distantly related to me.  They thought it was ridiculous that I was having a party on Saturday for the sole reason of celebrating Eurovision.  I later seethed inwardly, minding my manners and being far too respectful, as I listened to them outline their street party plans for the Jubilee.   Taking away any particular monarchy-related feelings for a moment, I have to ask WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?  Both events invoke a sense of national pride and present England on the world stage for all to see.  The beauty of Eurovision is that is provides an annual reason to have a party and is far more comedic.  Waiting sixty years to celebrate somebody having done their job for a long time seems more restricted and a little joyless.  Have all the Jubilee parties you want, but don’t imagine for a second you are less ridiculous (not my word!) than thousands of Eurovision revellers the week earlier.

Last year's party lounge

Aside from the comedy, the other beauty of the ESC amidst all of the random craziness on offer, is that there is sometimes a hidden gem of a song, glinting out from behind all the tack.  In 2010 Tom Dice's  Belgian entry was simple and beautiful.  (It now holds pride of place in several of my playlists, not just my Eurovision one) and no road trip is complete without belting out Chanee’s In A Moment Like This from the same year – Denmark were robbed, no doubt about it.  (A perfect example of a Eurovision key change, I tell you.  PERFECT!)  As for this year, the Hump, as he appears to have been rebranded, has been strategically chosen due to his Eastern European popularity, and at the time of writing, the bookies seem to be acknowledging that in their odds.  However, as our 2003 nil points/Iraqi invasion debacle shows us, it is all down to politics.   Will we win on Saturday?  No, probably not.  Is that the point?  NO!  It is an excuse to get friends and family together, drink too much, eat too much and have a laugh.  And if we are very lucky, the winning song will include a technically brillant costume change that children around the globe can recreate for weeks to come. 

It will out-glam Brownies into a cocked hat, and no mistake.

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

All this wannabe writer malarkey is really quite funny.  Almost three years ago, I had the sudden inspiration for the plot of the book I am now writing.  Like all best ideas, it came whilst I was drunk.  I thought about it, planned it out, and then had to wait for another two years (after leaving that pesky time-consuming career) before I could actually start to create the ideas I had been brewing all that time.  Nine months on, and I have completed a decent chunk of a first draft, but it is a slow, steady slog.  An enjoyable slog, but a slog nonetheless.  There are days when I have no idea what is going to happen next – I sit in front of my laptop perfecting my Pacman score so as to feel some sense of achievement by tea-time.  But then there are days when the smoke is metaphorically billowing out of the keypad with the ferocity of my typing, and the ideas are flying around so quickly, I have to make bullet points just to harness most of them for later.  All in all, however, it is a very solitary pastime.  This works well for me, as a silent house is still something that feels unique.  Growing up in what can only be described as the craziest house in all of Christendom, I would escape to my bedroom and to my books, only to have the peace shattered by a crying baby, a carpet-wetting emergency or a fisticuffs brawl between whichever siblings had sneaked additives that day.  Silence was my preferred state then, and it still is now, even though it is far easier to achieve in my current life.

And yet, for the other writing project I’m working on at the moment, silence is not so good.  No, you see, I have a writing partner!  This may not seem too unusual to some, but it is unbelievably out of character for me.  I have always preferred to work alone.  At job interviews, I would spout the usual guff about being a team player, but I never really was.  I liked to have control of my particular area of stuff and just be able to get on with it.   When we had to work as a team on school or college projects, I would feel either hampered by the weaknesses I perceived in others, or massively intimidated by cleverer people.  Either way, I just wanted to be left to my own devices to get on with whatever collaborative activity had been assigned. 

But now here I am, in a proper grown up collaboration!  After a Christmas night in the pub last year (and once again, alcohol played its necessary role) it dawned on my friend, Lisa McMullin and I that we should write something together.  This realisation followed hot on the heels of an overheard conversation from the adjacent table of men that disappointingly (yet oh so predictably) stated that ‘women aren’t funny’.  The immediate response from us, after the sharp intake of breath (and after having a Scrubs fantasy moment where we stamp on their heads in such an amusing way they can't hold back their mirth) was to list all the women we found hilarious, both past and present, ultimately culminating in a spontaneous re-enactment of an obscure Victoria Wood scene from a late 80's playlet thingy that most people have never heard of, but that me and Lisa knew word for word.  It was then that we decided to do some writing. 

It is still early days yet, but so far it has been immeasurable fun.  Best of all though, the regular trips to London to meet up and create a work of beauty have resulted in me buying a writer's bag!  Look, it makes me appear arty and intellectual.  (You need to nod at this, even if I can't see you.  Humour me.)

Look at it's beauty!

I also feel I deserve your rousing claps for having worked out how to put photos into the blog.  Go ahead and clap away!  You could even cheer if the mood takes you!  I am so panicked that I am going to get sued for using a picture whose copyright info I have misunderstood, that I am only going to use photos I have taken myself.  This means there will be an abundance of headshots of me with a variety of hairstyles, and several pictures of objects around my house.  Look, not only have I given you ‘bag’, but, brace yourselves, here is ‘bedside table mess’. 

Stare at it's might!

I am spoiling you!  Enjoy.

We Need To Talk About Feminism

In my hastily cobbled together bio (see right) with more clauses than Santa’s family tree, I noted that I am a feminist.  More of that another time, but for now I will just say, that I know lots of women.   Not one of them would accept being barred from schools or Universities where men with equal or less intelligence attend; not one of them would rest if there were laws that meant their opinions, knowledge or expertise were disregarded due to their gender; and not one of them would accept that the only route to a better job would be to sleep with the boss.   However, out of all these women, many would argue that they are not feminists.  Anyhoo...

Here’s what was on my mind recently.

I have spent the last couple of months watching Scott and Bailey.  If you missed it, it was a police drama on ITV, starring Suranne Jones, Lesley Sharpe and Amelia Bullmore.  I thought it was brill.  There were bucket loads of things I liked, but amongst all of them, it just felt real – real characters, real situations and real storylines.  Despite the necessity of the makers to provide drama and suspense in order to entice viewers, there was a sense of natural dialogue lying amongst the grotesque murders and passionate affairs.  Whilst I have zero understanding of what a Serious Crime Squad syndicate might actually be like, it felt authentic.   I love mysteries and cop shows with the best of them, (Dolly Bantry is a LEGEND) but when Scott and Bailey is lodged firmly amongst what I imagine to be similarly realistic contemporary police shows such as Lewis or even New Tricks, the show’s script (particularly the exchanges between Janet Scott, Rachel Bailey and Gill Murray) is incredibly well-written.  It mirrors exactly the kinds of conversations I have had in my own place of work with my own colleagues and my own friends. My opinion, but there you go. 

It was after reading a article in the Guardian that I started to have an inkling about why I might have been subconsciously drawn to this aspect of the show.  Put simply, it passes the Bechdel Test. 

If you are, like I was until very recently, a stranger to this test, it is really straightforward.  It applies a three point criteria to a film (or TV show in this case) to assess the prominence it gives its female characters.

1.     Does the film/show have more than two named female characters?

2.     Do they talk to each other?

3.     Do they talk to each other about something other than men?

When I first read that, I laughed, and dismissed it as being a non- issue.  But then I thought about it.  Lots of films meet one of the points.  Some might meet two.  But of all my favourite films, the ones that I think, make me the person I am and inspire me in life, NOT ONE passes all three criteria. 

At this realisation, I tried, once more, to pretend it didn’t matter.  They are still great films, I reasoned.  They can still give pleasure with every viewing. They can continue to illuminate and enlarge upon life’s meaning, and the daily journey we trudge together.  Can they?   Does it actually matter if the characters are mainly men, or separate individual females that never meet, or females that meet and whose sole topic of conversation is men?  Does it actually matter?

The thing is, in my actual life, my real life.  I know lots of women.  Whether these women are my friends, my family, my neighbours or ladies that jiggle about next to me at Zumba every week, these are people I have regular conversations with.  In the last week, I have talked to a wide variety of these women about a wide variety of topics.  Off the top of my head these have included politics, education, travel, fertility, pregnancy, cars, vibrators, reality TV, University, house prices, periods and food.  There have also been conversations where we have talked about relationships, weddings, sex and impotence.  But (and my mother would be relieved to hear this) the sex and men talk has been but a small fraction compared to all of the other equally fascinating things that have come out of my mouth, and the women I knows’ mouths in the past seven days.  And that is where not passing the Bechdel test feels like a terrible problem. 

It is completely unrealistic. 

Yes, I know that films are often plot driven, and the plot needs to be told within a specific timeframe.  So rather than hear two female protagonists (if the film even has two female protagonists) discussing who they voted for in the local elections, before one of them gets back on Rom-Com message and kisses a boy in a station as the credits roll, they instead cut out all the ‘realism’ and just do the traditional boy meets girl stuff.   I also appreciate that there are always going to be films that contain more men, or films that are going to feature more women, that only talk about men.  (The achingly funny Bridesmaids, causes heated discussions on the Bechdel website, as to whether the women are only discussing men because by default, men are intrinsically linked to straight marriage, so are therefore ethereally present in bridesmaid dress discussions whether they like it or not).  No, the thing that makes me feel dispirited to my core is how so few films exist that meet all three criteria.   There should just be more.  It’s as simple as that.

A few days after becoming aware of the Bechdel test, I watched The Lincoln Lawyer.  I’d seen it last year on a plane, enjoyed it and so watched it again.   (It is a thriller with a lawyer and a baddie, and a bit of suspense, made in 2011 and set in present day America.)  Very soon I became aware of its Bechdel limitations.  Despite there being a variety of of female prostitutes, background cops or secretaries, in terms of named female characters, there were seven.  (There were twenty-nine named characters in all.)  However, there wasn’t one scene that showed any of these women talking together. One final cause for contemplation was that amongst the actresses, Marisa Tomei played a prominent role.  She got second billing on IMDB  and played the ex-wife of the male protagonist.  Despite her character being a brilliant prosecutor, and having a complicated relationship with the father of her child, she was shown in minimal scenes; either watching her male ex-partner work from the back of the court, or waking up in bed with the same ex, and showing a bit of shoulder flesh.  An accomplished actress woefully underused.

 Yet despite this gnawing unease, I enjoyed the film.  It was just like lots of other films I have seen and enjoyed. It is just clear to me now, however, that these films are men’s stories, written by men, acted by men, and about men, with women on the sidelines supporting the action by being off screen most of the time.  As long as I recognise that, it's OK.

Anyway, back to Scott and Bailey and the reason I dragged my little soapbox here, stepped on it and started waving my arms about like a mad woman.  Scott and Bailey doesn’t do that.  It doesn’t have women on the sidelines.  It doesn’t have women standing at the back of the room looking on as the men lead the narrative.  I guess it has men on the sidelines, although in the main cast, there are lots of them.  (The male characters are named, they talk to each other, and not just about women.)  But they are on the sidelines.  And that might not have occurred to anyone that it is a problem, because, you see, it isn’t.  It is a small feminist drop in a male-centered ocean.   If the vast majority of telly was this way, men might feel a bit pushed out, and be moved to write a blog post about it, but the fact remains, that the vast majority of telly is not this way.  

Some shows are predominantly about men.  Some are predominantly about women.  Often the shows that are predominantly about women tend to actually be women talking predominantly about men. (Have I used predominantly too much yet?)  However, every so often, I want to watch drama that recognises that women are the main characters in their own lives and that the stories of those lives are not actually always to do with the men.  Not all the time, and not in isolation.  

Sometimes they are about the local elections and vibrators.  

Or cheese.

Learning Me Your (Hebrew) Language

*WARNING*

The sentence immediately following this warning is going to make me sound wanky and pretentious.  Please ignore the inner voice that shouts ‘bellend’ loudly at the screen, and in the words of the awesome beefcake that is George Michael, listen without prejudice.

In a few weeks I am going to The Globe theatre on the banks of the Thames to watch a performance of The Merchant of Venice… in Hebrew.

Yup,  so…anyway  *foot shuffle, look downwards*…still there?  Oh, goodo.  Let’s carry on then.

‘Do you speak Hebrew?’ I hear you ask. 

‘No,’ I reply.

‘Are you going with Hebrew-speaking friends that will explain what is happening as it goes along?’ you query, with puzzlement.

‘No, I’m going on my own’, I respond proudly.

“Are you even Jewish?’ you say, grasping at straws.

‘NOT EVEN A TINY BIT’ I shout back, good-naturedly.

This lively and informative Q & A could go on for hours, but I’m away at the weekend and I’ve got packing to do. Instead I’ll just explain why.

Well, to put it simply, why not?

When the email arrived a few months ago, about Shakespeare’s Globe  Theatre's 2012 season, Globe To Globe  – every Shakespeare play performed in a different language over several months – I was intrigued immediately.  The email (just a basic mailing list send-out; sadly, they didn’t actually invite me personally) directed me to the website  and to, what I like to call, the One Armed Bandit of Cultural Fabbyness.  Put simply, you choose the language that you prefer from the central dial, and then watch as the play and performance date cha-ching into action, lining up along side like a pub slot machine with Shakespeare goodness rather than the usual cherries and jaffa cakes.  (I have never actually played a pub fruit machine.  There are jaffa cakes aren’t there?  *Confused look*)

Anyway, I held my breath, carefully selecting the language in which I am most proficient – German.  My GCSE (grade C, thank you) has stood me in good stead for many an important interaction over the years  (Ich tanze gern…mein mutter ist ein kleiderschrank…) so I was confident that I would handle a well-acted dramatisation if played out before me.  Imagine my horror when the rolling slots settled, aligning German with … Timon of Athens! 

Now, Timon of Athens may be Super-Shakey’s finest work to grace the stage, but I have never read it, seen a performance of it, nor watched a Kenneth Branagh DVD version on a Sunday afternoon with tea, toast and a blanket.  To put it bluntly, as a Timon of Athens virgin, to be deflowered in a language whose key phrases, I am only now beginning to realise, I have but a smattering, would be too intense an experience for little old me. 

‘But what of the Globe-to-Globe season? ‘ I fretted internally.  It would all be going on without me and I would experience overwhelming pangs of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) that, as we all know, can be truly debilitating,    

So, I collected myself and returned to the Globe’s website.  Being very clever, and thinking outside the box, I considered the problem the other way around.  Which play did I know best?  Which performance would I follow regardless of language?  Which was the play I would be able to offer a running interpretation alongside, such was the level of my understanding?  And then it became clear. 

The Merchant of Venice.

The Merch was my very first experience of Shakespeare, and like all dry-mouthed, nervous fumblings that hint at orgasm without delivering, you never forget your first time.  Year Ten, 1993 (one year into the progressive name-change for what retro fans might still call Fourth Year seniors) I encountered Antonio, Shylock and Portia in my GCSE English class.  Brace yourself for a cliché but it was as if a whole new world had opened up, waving me inside with the promises of exhaustive word-play and enjoyable confusion.  The Merch was fab.  I devoured it, read around it, learnt chunks of it and realised that life would never be the same again.  That same year, Mr. Branagh entered stage right with his cinematic Much Ado About Nothing, so my Shakey love-affair continued. 

So, back to the one-armed bandit of English literature - after choosing The Merchant of Venice and twirling the dials, it appeared that the language selected for this is Hebrew.  Optimistically, I am supposing that there will be some words that are the same (character names for example) and the fact that the play will be acted on stage, should jolly everything along, making the plot more apparent than if it were just being spoken, say, on the radio.

The final encouraging thought popped up before I clicked ‘book now’ was that as a youngster on a school trip to Germany in 1990, we were made to go to mass, what with it being a Catholic school, and it being a Sunday, and us having to do as we were told.  So I sat through an hour of German churchyness, where it transpired that my newly-perfected enquiries about the location of the nearest station, or being able to tell everyone loudly and proudly that I was twelve, were rather inadequate to my literal understanding of the words used.  But here’s the thing.  I knew exactly what was going on, because of almost weekly mass attendances every Sunday of my little life up to that point.  I knew what was happening without the individual words being understood.  This was the deciding argument in the tiny mental wrangle I had before booking tickets. 

Only after receiving the confirmation email, did I recognise the fact that I have not actually attended a weekly Merchant performance every Sunday at 10am for the whole of my childhood.  This is a shame because firstly, how wonderful would that have been (just think of it!) and secondly, I may still find myself confused when it comes to the performance at the end of the month.  However, just as it was when I was in Year Ten, I am sure it will be an enjoyable confusion; the kind that envelopes you, making you sit back and relax as you become surrounded by marvellous words, actions and meanings, and you just go with the flow, knowing it will all be clear at some point.

For now, however, just so we are all up to speed, may I direct you to this website which has given me a head start in the Hebrew basics.  Among the key phrases listed, ‘I don’t understand’, ‘Please say it again’ and ‘ My hovercraft is full of eels’ are sure to provide me with the essentials for my exciting night at the theatre.

L'chaim!

Shalom.