Iestyn Edwards Wonders...is it Lumpy or Runny?

   Click to read a pre quel featuring Gerard    Click to read a pre-prequel featuring Gerard         Barney, who I was having things to do with, never really wanted to take me sailing.  We hadn’t had a cross word up until then, either, all summer.  It’s a con, sailing. It looks really nice from not too close up. Like early colour cine film. But I’d really wanted to go out on the river, and though he knew how it was likely to end, he always tried to be the gentleman.   I’d only been on the cross-channel ferry before, and I was looped bloody painfully into a child’s lifejacket, my espadrilles were wet. And  Barney, bless him, was clearly distracted, banging  on as we passed the raras out on the decking feature about how the committee was touting for someone to write the official history of the Yacht Club.     I said, ''From what I've heard it'll read like Swallows and Amazons  writ...

  Hot to frot with the weatherman Fish      Remember when Barry from the council came round to check on my financial status, said that I needed to get clear in my mind what constituted being self-employed as opposed to 'employed' and forewarned me to expect a pamphlet from the inland revenue?    Please see this previous blog entry   Well, the pamphlet came when I'd just been coaching one of the adult actors in a Derek Crofts production.   Said Derek to me, 'His flesh is thrilling, but the speaking is weak!'   I referred to this coaching job when I filled in the questionnaire section on the pamphlet. P ermitting myself some artistic licence,  at times, obviously.      Are you confused about what constitutes being self-employed as opposed to employed? For your own self-elucidation we advise you to answer in writing the questions highlighted in the enclosed pamphlet with specific reference to your last comple...

     Going to Iraq I panic-packed tinfoil, garlic and a plant sprayer.   ‘ We all do that, mate,' Marine Stacks said, over high tea in the Basra A-Pod. 'One boxing glove, the TV remote, fiancé’s Tupperware - I’ve bought all kinds of shit out to theatre in the past. Comes from being in the right state of grace before a tour to either of the big two war zones. You’re so hungover from getting mortal the night before you’re practically blind. You need to know that if the worst comes to the worst, you’re going out on the best night possible in dear old blighty. You must have done that on your last day before you flew out here?  Whatever you're last doing becomes what your ghost will be doing for all eternity.'   The afternoon before the Combined Services Entertainment tour had flown out to Iraq, I had emailed the Department of Transport.   Further to your request to put my complaint in writing, I think the best way for you to...

  I'm reposting this piece about how performers 'leak' information when they don't trust either themselves or their material. Cal Broderick, the subject of the interview, has been suffering from anxiety depression and is taking time out to go to stay with relatives in Australia. By way of being an old school rest cure. He'll work while he's out there, but needs help getting there in the first place. He and I have been chatting over the time since the original interview was posted, so I can tell you what a hard time he's had and how much he deserves this - random, I know - help.    You get a bespoke diet plan from Cal if you donate.     https://www.gofundme.com/calbroderickaus   Actor Diana Quick, coaching me, said that I was 'leaking'.   'Where?'  I asked, looking down, aghast.     'In the 'and then the lover' line...'   Of Jacques's Seven Ages of Man speech, natch.   I was flailing my hands and retracting my chin...

  My Facebook feed is ever awash with performers' posts along the lines of:   Sparkly privileged little me got a standing ovation at all seventy-six gigs I ran between on Saturday, and everyone said I was the best ever, jinx, bewitched, no comebacks .     Perhaps the posts are a cry against what Hazlitt described:   [Creative people] in general (poor devils) I am afraid are not a long-lived race.  They break up commonly about forty, their spirits giving way with the disappointment of their hopes of excellence, or their want of encouragement for that which they have attained, their plans disconcerted, and their affairs irretrievable; and in this state of mortification and embarrassment (more or less prolonged and aggravated) they are either starved or drink themselves to death.    But even so it's good to admit that some gigs are just okay - or bad, even.    Or that you aspire to be better.    Or that you fe...

                                           Keeping the breath down...   At curtain down on last Saturday's matinee performance of Les Miserables , second cover Paul Wilkins was told he was going on as Marius that evening.    'I came off after the matinee at five thirty, and there was a call from the company manager saying that Rob Houchen hadn't felt well all during that show. A bit later there was an update that Rob had definitely gone off ill. The first cover, Ed, was saying that his ensemble track would be more in his head than Marius's - and he wasn't well, either. So, I was on.'   Paul then started to say that he had told himself that there was no need to get in a panic; that he had tried to stay cool, calm and collected during the show. I interrupted to quote Judge Judy:   'That's a conclusion. I want what you did, what you said, what was ...

  Stacks, the Marine, thought he'd like to see an opera but wouldn't understand what was going on.    'Surely it's not like the footie where you can just turn up to and get what's going on from the off?'   I googled  Who’s Afraid Of Opera? for him to watch.   And found this...   Panda's Thumb reports that elementary music teacher Teresa Wagonner was put on paid administrative leave by the superintendent of schools in Bennett, Colorado. Her offence? Playing a twelve-minute clip from the thirty-year-old children's series Who's Afraid of Opera? for her classroom. The series features legendary soprano Joan Sutherland and some cute little hand-puppets who alternate elementary explanations of the libretti with vocal performances of selections from the operas featured. Apparently, Ms. Wagonner's selected episode, Gounod’s Faust , angered fundamentalist Bennettians, already on the warpath over Waggoner's musical choices f...

  Call me soon, mother dear, for I'm to be a theatre case study for a great new social media app.    https://getclipcrowd.com/   I feel so lucky. It all sounded so modern. Particularly to someone who doesn't sing songs written after 1935 or dance ballet post the Swan Queen.  Before I arranged to meet C lipcrowd CEO Ben Bidwell, I had to listen to  The Archers on an analogue radio (such a comfort to get snatches of interference from Radio Luxembourg), do ballet barre to some vinyl played on the Dansette   Conquest and put myself up the chimney with a Bailey brush.    When we were discussing somewhere central for the meeting, Ben seemed surprised that I said Pret was a place I knew on Piccadilly.   'Oh, I thought you'd say somewhere more like...er...more...'   'Like Fortnum's, the RA or in front of the Wellington Monument?' Ben Bidwell, Clipcrowd CEO   I looked straight across at Ben in Pret for the sa...