Thursday 15th November
I know it's only half way through November, but in a very significant way, today began my Festive Season. At around this time of year, towns and cities large and small across the UK begin switching on their Christmas lights. Yes, I know it's too early. Yes, I Know it's only the middle of November. But it's time to turn on the lights and everyone wants a skin character as part of their festivities, so that means it Boon Time for Rainbow, which is all good for me.
So my Festive Season began today. In this business (whatever business I can be said to be in), work is seasonal, so from now until the end of the year I need to work as much as I can, because January and February will be a wasteland. First Switch-on of the year was in Welwyn Garden City with Bart and Homer. They're good characters to take to events like this, because they're mobile and easy to animate and the artists can go to town and have fun with them. We had a pretty full-on evening, with an appearance in the shopping mall, one outside in the town square, a trek across to John Lewis for the third, back for the fourth, to switch on the lights and a final fifth appearance in the shopping mall to finish. It took a little bit of negotiating, as these things often do, especially when they involve a change of venue during the day, but everything went really very smoothly. Well, from our end of things they did; the Christmas Lights failed to switch on when the button was pushed, but everyone had had a fun evening so no-one minded too much. It was a late finish though, by the time I'd been back to Rainbow and then home, and the winter nights are starting to become a little chill.
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Wednesday 14th November
As I shuffled up the steps to DSL this morning, it occurred to me that I might have been a bit hasty in trying to go out amongst young people last night, as The Lurgey clearly still held me in its snotty grip. Consequently I was functioning on half-power for the whole of the day, which is not good when you're wielding three feet of sharp steel. A very early night tonight. And soup.
As I shuffled up the steps to DSL this morning, it occurred to me that I might have been a bit hasty in trying to go out amongst young people last night, as The Lurgey clearly still held me in its snotty grip. Consequently I was functioning on half-power for the whole of the day, which is not good when you're wielding three feet of sharp steel. A very early night tonight. And soup.
In which I am laid low by the Lurgey
Monday 12th - Tuesday 13th November
The Lurgey is a widely recognised medical condition. On the scale of seriousness, it lies somewhere between A Cold, which is a moderate inconvenience, and Man-Flu, which as everyone knows is a killer and against which the chances of survival are perilously thin. Men tend never to catch A Cold, or if they do it will barely manifest itself, the symptoms being little removed from the usual personal habits of the adult male (sniffing, coughing, occasionally wiping the nose on the nearest available bit of rag, selective hearing loss and a tendency to fall asleep on the settee). Man-Flu, by contrast, can result in almost total paralysis for a period of several days BUT - and this is a very important BUT - it only affects men who have someone to run around after them for the duration of the illness. Without the presence of a nursemaid, there is simply no point in having Man-Flu, and this is something that the virus seems able to detect as it has been scientifically shown to avoid infecting men who might have to just get on with it and look after themselves. This leaves us with The Lurgey, which comes in a variety of recognisable forms based on the relative quotients of Snot, Thick-headedness, Sleepiness, Deafness, That Weird Hot/Cold Shivery Thing and Need For Soup.
It usually takes a pretty heavy dose of Lurgey to keep me of my feet. I have before now gone into work suffering from fairly serious cases of The Lurgey because I've never believed in taking a day off sick unless you are actually dead (and in any case, if you work in TIE you have no choice. I did - once - miss two days of work on a TIE tour, but that was Man-Flu and it was literally two days before I could get from the bed to the telephone to call a doctor, and then becasue we weren't local no doctor would agree to see us). The downside of this incredible fortitude is that I will almost always contract The Lurgey the moment I have a day off. True to form, I had two days lined up on which I wouldn't have to work, and would be able to get all my TTP homework done. But no, sensing a brief respite from the grind, my carcass let down its defences and in came The Lurgey. result: Two completely wasted days of sleeping on the sofa and sneezing a lot.
But on Tuesday night, I had to get up and leave the house, as Brian had tickets for Kate Nash at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. Kate Nash is very close to Brian's heart, not least because he discovered her before almost anyone else, and first saw her playing live to an audience of about six (that's six people, not an audience of six-year-olds. Though more of this later). I'd heard the album and been pleasantly surprised but this was my introduction to Kate Nash as a live performer, and she's become a bit more popular, to the tune of packing out the Shepherd's Bush Empire, which is pretty good going. Once we'd arrived and were having a medicinal beer, we began to notice that those packing it out were almost exclusively about twenty years younger than us, and as we waited for her to appear we fell into playing a desperate game of Spot Someone Older Than Us. I think we got two. Luckily, the Nash was so good that we stopped caring that we were the only people there who weren't teenage girls or music journalists and I was very glad that I'd fought off The Lurgey sufficiently to make it. Great stuff, it was. Completely wasted on the young and healthy.
The Lurgey is a widely recognised medical condition. On the scale of seriousness, it lies somewhere between A Cold, which is a moderate inconvenience, and Man-Flu, which as everyone knows is a killer and against which the chances of survival are perilously thin. Men tend never to catch A Cold, or if they do it will barely manifest itself, the symptoms being little removed from the usual personal habits of the adult male (sniffing, coughing, occasionally wiping the nose on the nearest available bit of rag, selective hearing loss and a tendency to fall asleep on the settee). Man-Flu, by contrast, can result in almost total paralysis for a period of several days BUT - and this is a very important BUT - it only affects men who have someone to run around after them for the duration of the illness. Without the presence of a nursemaid, there is simply no point in having Man-Flu, and this is something that the virus seems able to detect as it has been scientifically shown to avoid infecting men who might have to just get on with it and look after themselves. This leaves us with The Lurgey, which comes in a variety of recognisable forms based on the relative quotients of Snot, Thick-headedness, Sleepiness, Deafness, That Weird Hot/Cold Shivery Thing and Need For Soup.
It usually takes a pretty heavy dose of Lurgey to keep me of my feet. I have before now gone into work suffering from fairly serious cases of The Lurgey because I've never believed in taking a day off sick unless you are actually dead (and in any case, if you work in TIE you have no choice. I did - once - miss two days of work on a TIE tour, but that was Man-Flu and it was literally two days before I could get from the bed to the telephone to call a doctor, and then becasue we weren't local no doctor would agree to see us). The downside of this incredible fortitude is that I will almost always contract The Lurgey the moment I have a day off. True to form, I had two days lined up on which I wouldn't have to work, and would be able to get all my TTP homework done. But no, sensing a brief respite from the grind, my carcass let down its defences and in came The Lurgey. result: Two completely wasted days of sleeping on the sofa and sneezing a lot.
But on Tuesday night, I had to get up and leave the house, as Brian had tickets for Kate Nash at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. Kate Nash is very close to Brian's heart, not least because he discovered her before almost anyone else, and first saw her playing live to an audience of about six (that's six people, not an audience of six-year-olds. Though more of this later). I'd heard the album and been pleasantly surprised but this was my introduction to Kate Nash as a live performer, and she's become a bit more popular, to the tune of packing out the Shepherd's Bush Empire, which is pretty good going. Once we'd arrived and were having a medicinal beer, we began to notice that those packing it out were almost exclusively about twenty years younger than us, and as we waited for her to appear we fell into playing a desperate game of Spot Someone Older Than Us. I think we got two. Luckily, the Nash was so good that we stopped caring that we were the only people there who weren't teenage girls or music journalists and I was very glad that I'd fought off The Lurgey sufficiently to make it. Great stuff, it was. Completely wasted on the young and healthy.
Sunday 11th November
Day two of this weekend was Unarmed Combat Boot Camp with Bret. Bret is scarier than Philip, partly because he's one of the guys at the top of the game and he really knows what he's talking about - it was he and Richard who taught Philip ten years ago - and partly because he is that particularly discomfiting combination, The Deadpan American. All of which combined puts me hopelessly in awe of Bret and turns me into a hopelessly clumsy arse whenever I have to assist him. I'm absolutley sure that Bret must think I'm a gormless simpleton, but at the same time he did write me a letter of support for my TTP application, so he must at least believe I have some redeeming potential.
So we began the day with Bret teaching us all the Unarmed techniques which we might never have been taught before, or at least might only have covered briefly, once, five years ago. Things we hardly ever use and would never teach to beginners. Then we moved on to some more familiar territory and things got a bit harder because now we had to demonstrate each move and do it properly. These were all techniques which we use regularly and perform almost without thinking, only now we have to do everything with pinpoint accuracy whilst our every motion is scrtinised by Yoda for imperfections. Then it got really scary, because in the last part of the day we were each given three or four of the most commonly used techniques to teach to the rest of the gang. This meant not only getting it right ourselves, but having to think about how to teach it to someone else. With the someone elses being Bret and Philip. Who weren't smiling much. And then told us all the things we'd done wrong. Which were legion. Any genuine teachers who may be reading this will I'm sure by now be wearing that slightly smug, slightly condescending smile that we've all seen on teachers when they watch other people who aren't teachers try to teach something really really simple and find themselves flailing around in a vat of sticky inadequacy. To all of you I say this: Yes, we know it's really hard. No-one said that teaching anything is easy. Except maybe Geography, which as we all know can be tught by PE teachers in between doing PE. But just you try teaching something that, on the grounds of your successful application you are supposed to know how to do blindfold, to a big, dour American Jedi Master and his seven-foot, black-clad, Undead-17th-Century-swordsmaster underling and see how easy it is.
Suffice to say that each of us left DSL this evening wondering what the hell we were doing there, as we clearly knew nothing and would never be able to speak in front of a roomful of people again. Tonight there was no pub, becasue on top of everything else, I found today that I am in the grip of the Winter Lurgey.
Day two of this weekend was Unarmed Combat Boot Camp with Bret. Bret is scarier than Philip, partly because he's one of the guys at the top of the game and he really knows what he's talking about - it was he and Richard who taught Philip ten years ago - and partly because he is that particularly discomfiting combination, The Deadpan American. All of which combined puts me hopelessly in awe of Bret and turns me into a hopelessly clumsy arse whenever I have to assist him. I'm absolutley sure that Bret must think I'm a gormless simpleton, but at the same time he did write me a letter of support for my TTP application, so he must at least believe I have some redeeming potential.
So we began the day with Bret teaching us all the Unarmed techniques which we might never have been taught before, or at least might only have covered briefly, once, five years ago. Things we hardly ever use and would never teach to beginners. Then we moved on to some more familiar territory and things got a bit harder because now we had to demonstrate each move and do it properly. These were all techniques which we use regularly and perform almost without thinking, only now we have to do everything with pinpoint accuracy whilst our every motion is scrtinised by Yoda for imperfections. Then it got really scary, because in the last part of the day we were each given three or four of the most commonly used techniques to teach to the rest of the gang. This meant not only getting it right ourselves, but having to think about how to teach it to someone else. With the someone elses being Bret and Philip. Who weren't smiling much. And then told us all the things we'd done wrong. Which were legion. Any genuine teachers who may be reading this will I'm sure by now be wearing that slightly smug, slightly condescending smile that we've all seen on teachers when they watch other people who aren't teachers try to teach something really really simple and find themselves flailing around in a vat of sticky inadequacy. To all of you I say this: Yes, we know it's really hard. No-one said that teaching anything is easy. Except maybe Geography, which as we all know can be tught by PE teachers in between doing PE. But just you try teaching something that, on the grounds of your successful application you are supposed to know how to do blindfold, to a big, dour American Jedi Master and his seven-foot, black-clad, Undead-17th-Century-swordsmaster underling and see how easy it is.
Suffice to say that each of us left DSL this evening wondering what the hell we were doing there, as we clearly knew nothing and would never be able to speak in front of a roomful of people again. Tonight there was no pub, becasue on top of everything else, I found today that I am in the grip of the Winter Lurgey.
Saturday 10h November
The second of our Teacher Training Programme weekends opened with a session on Physiology and warm-ups by Janet, who is the best qualified to talk about this sort of thing since at one time she was a fitness instructor. Every member of the BASSC teaching staff has had at least two previous lives before taking up stage combat. Janet, for example, was a fitness instructor but also worked for the BBC creating sound effects (Edge of Darkness was one of hers - the sound of punches to the face in that series were made by mixing the noise of a gunshot with the sound of the biggest bloke they could find being slapped on the back whilst wearing a leather jacket). Jonathan, as I've mentioned before, has lived a great number of previous lives and seems to have been around for roughly three hundred years (looking well on it though). This puts we four trainees in a good position, as we've all come from something completely diffferent: Gordon is an actor, Ronin has managed venues, Sam used to run a fancy dress shop and I have a tattered history of crap jobs streaming behind me like a length of bog rol stuck to the heel of my shoe.
In the afternoon Philip came in to lead another session on theories of teaching, in which I can make it appear that I know far more than I do, by making sure I use long words and sentences with at least three clauses.
At the end of the day, Ronin, Sam and I went to the pub for a couple, where I listened to the lads' torrent of enthusiasm for the future of stage combat with the growing realisation that this was what I felt like about theatre fifteen years ago, whereas now I've really stopped caring.
Hmm.
The second of our Teacher Training Programme weekends opened with a session on Physiology and warm-ups by Janet, who is the best qualified to talk about this sort of thing since at one time she was a fitness instructor. Every member of the BASSC teaching staff has had at least two previous lives before taking up stage combat. Janet, for example, was a fitness instructor but also worked for the BBC creating sound effects (Edge of Darkness was one of hers - the sound of punches to the face in that series were made by mixing the noise of a gunshot with the sound of the biggest bloke they could find being slapped on the back whilst wearing a leather jacket). Jonathan, as I've mentioned before, has lived a great number of previous lives and seems to have been around for roughly three hundred years (looking well on it though). This puts we four trainees in a good position, as we've all come from something completely diffferent: Gordon is an actor, Ronin has managed venues, Sam used to run a fancy dress shop and I have a tattered history of crap jobs streaming behind me like a length of bog rol stuck to the heel of my shoe.
In the afternoon Philip came in to lead another session on theories of teaching, in which I can make it appear that I know far more than I do, by making sure I use long words and sentences with at least three clauses.
At the end of the day, Ronin, Sam and I went to the pub for a couple, where I listened to the lads' torrent of enthusiasm for the future of stage combat with the growing realisation that this was what I felt like about theatre fifteen years ago, whereas now I've really stopped caring.
Hmm.
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Friday 9th November
I had three jobs to do today: To take Oona the Laguna to the Renault palace over at Park Royal for her MOT, to prepare all the stuff I needed to prepare for our imminent second TTP training weekend and to go into The Shop for a pitiful four-hour evening shift. To be perfectly honest, I could have done without the evening shift and had only volunteered to do it in order to keep The Shop sweet so they don't start to think I'm entirely superfluous and let me drift away completely. A single four hour shift is really not worth doing, since by the time I've bought a travel card, eaten in the canteen and had tax deductions taken off I actually take home about a tenner, which is the same amount of money I used to take home from a four hour early morning shift in the newsagent's, long ago at the age of sixteen. I therefore reserve the right to be in A Grump for the course of the evening when doing a lone four-hour shift. And to eat a cake from the canteen.
I had three jobs to do today: To take Oona the Laguna to the Renault palace over at Park Royal for her MOT, to prepare all the stuff I needed to prepare for our imminent second TTP training weekend and to go into The Shop for a pitiful four-hour evening shift. To be perfectly honest, I could have done without the evening shift and had only volunteered to do it in order to keep The Shop sweet so they don't start to think I'm entirely superfluous and let me drift away completely. A single four hour shift is really not worth doing, since by the time I've bought a travel card, eaten in the canteen and had tax deductions taken off I actually take home about a tenner, which is the same amount of money I used to take home from a four hour early morning shift in the newsagent's, long ago at the age of sixteen. I therefore reserve the right to be in A Grump for the course of the evening when doing a lone four-hour shift. And to eat a cake from the canteen.
Thursday 8th November
Birmingham was my destination this grey and murky morning, as I got in the car at 6am and heaved her onto the M40 - a road I'm quickly becoming intimately familiar with. Three shows a week is somehow much, much heavier going than two shows a week, which is all the more remarkable when you consider that in the old days we used to do two shows a day, five days a week, usually with a drive in the middle of the day. I wonder whether I'd still be able to do that now? And what I would look like by the end of the week if I tried?
The school I arrived at was one of those forbidding Victorian constructions whose main hall nestles right in the centre of the building at the furthest point from any given entrance, and which involve a more than usually strenuous get-in. And it was in Birmingham, which we know from experience can add a whole new kind of forbidding to any working day. But on the positive side we were doing Children of Iron, the Victorian play, which suits this kind of big, forbidding old hall, and whose workshop I enjoy the most since everyone gets plenty to do even with a cast of thirty. They were hard work, though far from the worst we've had (who were also in Birmingham), and against all our expectations they really pulled it together in the afternoon and put on a pretty good show. But it was still a hard enough day for me to need a trip to the pub once I got home.
Birmingham was my destination this grey and murky morning, as I got in the car at 6am and heaved her onto the M40 - a road I'm quickly becoming intimately familiar with. Three shows a week is somehow much, much heavier going than two shows a week, which is all the more remarkable when you consider that in the old days we used to do two shows a day, five days a week, usually with a drive in the middle of the day. I wonder whether I'd still be able to do that now? And what I would look like by the end of the week if I tried?
The school I arrived at was one of those forbidding Victorian constructions whose main hall nestles right in the centre of the building at the furthest point from any given entrance, and which involve a more than usually strenuous get-in. And it was in Birmingham, which we know from experience can add a whole new kind of forbidding to any working day. But on the positive side we were doing Children of Iron, the Victorian play, which suits this kind of big, forbidding old hall, and whose workshop I enjoy the most since everyone gets plenty to do even with a cast of thirty. They were hard work, though far from the worst we've had (who were also in Birmingham), and against all our expectations they really pulled it together in the afternoon and put on a pretty good show. But it was still a hard enough day for me to need a trip to the pub once I got home.
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