Singing for my supper

How wonderful to see these broadcasts from Glyndebourne! Highly recommended. And, as always, The Cunning Little Vixen (just broadcast as at writing) leaves me breathless, tearful, and smiling. http://glyndebourne.com/cinema-and-online-2012

It seems that last year's "Catching up on missed TV" festival chez nous has rolled right on into the new year without missing a beat, and we've kicked off 2011 by finally watching the modern series' of Dr Who. We've wanted to give it a look for a while - like many, harboring fond memories of the show from our own childhoods, and wanting to see how they resurrected it - but when we discovered that David Tennant grew up in the same neighbourhood as our Glasgow family, it was just the push to ensure that we dug in and caught up. It would be a huge understatement to say that we have most definitely not been disappointed, and are having a BLAST with the adventures of the Tenth Doctor. It's a far cry from Jon Pertwee ("my" Doctor as a child - whoops, I'm dating myself!) and the wobbly-sets and toilet-plunger aliens which used to define the series; the high production values of the new episodes are almost cinematic at times, even if they do (tha...

A well-timed nudge expressing pleasure that I'd "finally posted again" (!) reminded me I hadn't yet posted my annual roundup for the year. Somehow while working on that I was also moved to experiment with a "new year, new look" for the blog so apologies for any glitches - work in progress! So, without further ado: In 2010 ..... I finally caught up on about 5 years of British television I'd managed to miss; this project started out merely as entertainment, but quickly became something much more artistically important and, in a way, prompted the theme of dramatic exploration that drove my performing year. We started the year with North & South and were bowled over by this amazing production - it would be hard to overstate what a tremendous artistic "reboot" it prompted (it even warranted its own blog entry ). Impressed as we were, we decided to give some of Richard Armitage's other productions a try which led us first back to S...

In between rehearsals this week, I also was busy with a couple of photoshoots, including a 40s-style session with a friend. We had a blast! More Poe-recital ruminations coming soon, but in the meantime, a touch of Old Hollywood in the 21st century..........

Which, after yesterday's 103-in-the-shade (no joke), felt positively balmy. Mishmash, in bullet points: Long but beautiful drive north - armed with some great audio (how wonderfully easy it is with mp3 players!), I took the long way around both to avoid traffic and to enjoy a more scenic route, which I most certainly did - clinging to the interstates or the main routes with their endless vistas of strip malls and fast food it's easy to forget how beautiful the US landscape can be, and the semi-rural route I travelled was definitely the right choice. Settled in, got the internet up and running, and now getting down to business... Costume fitting: Neither purely in period, nor purely not, but a wonderful pan-national-pan-period-couture style that immediately adds ideas for character. It's great to have seen the costumes so early on, too (I don't start staging until tomorrow) because it means I can factor that in as we start to rehearse. I finally tracked down a bicyc...

11 musical numbers and 12 dialogues to finish memorizing before rehearsals start on July 6th. Two photo shoots to complete. School's out. Heatwave. All washed down with a healthy dose of "Gene-Genie-isms", since our continued march through the British TV we've managed to miss in the last 5 years includes currently catching up with Ashes to Ashes (aside: it's slightly dangerous to let my husband watch this program in the large quantities we're currently enjoying it, since his dry sense of humour and Manchester upbringing mean that he lapses into his own brand of Huntspeak all too easily. The plus side to this is that I haven't stopped laughing in about 4 days, so I'm not really complaining...). Next up: doing every scrap of laundry I can find so I leave the troops with clean clothes. And packing.

No, not the Hollywood film, but the BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's socially conscientious, almost-penny-dreadful, almost-epic novel of the same name set against the Dark Satanic Mills of 19th century "Milton" (Manchester) in "Darkshire" (Lancashire) which we caught up with over the last few days. How on earth we missed this one when it was first released in 2004 I'll never know, but better late than never! Firstly, this is without a doubt one of the best period dramatizations I've ever seen. Period. It has the usual beautiful and historically-accurate production values one has come to expect from the BBC's lavish television adaptations of classic works, but seems to go even one step further with a sumptuous score that out-Finzi's the man himself, and cinematography that takes your breath away. Eat your heart out, Hollywood. Enough of Mrs Gaskell's own dialogue is left intact that you are inexorably drawn into her world where change and tr...

Thanks to the miracle of the internet, we've been able to keep up with some of our favorite British television shows, not least of which the cozily old-fashioned, all-for-the-honour-and-glory (ie no monetary prizes) and wonderfully academic University Challenge . We've been following it avidly, not only enjoying the sometimes absurdly arcane question s, but also enjoying watching the competitive edge sharpen throughout the rounds, culminating in tonight's final between Corpus Christi, Oxford, and Manchester University. We knew it would be close between these two teams, each of which had consistently been "fast on the buzzer" for that opening question, but our money was on Corpus, led by the rapidly-becoming-a-celebrity Gail Trimble, a Latin doctoral scholar who seems to know well... to know just about everything , and passes on her knowledge with an air of authority and (slightly simpering) charm that has made her the current darling of the series. She would hav...

... and even if the livin' ain't "easy", it's certainly a slower pace than it has been for quite some time. Posting may also be slower this month as "vacation mentality" starts to take over! Recently occupying much of our time has been the fantastic (and fantastically under-broadcast) Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows . For anybody involved with the theater at any level, it should be required watching. And for any non-theatrically-connected readers who see it and think it's merely a clever and affectionate caricature of theatrical eccentricity, I am here to tell you that it is one of the most truthful depictions of the performing life I've ever seen and (give or take the occasional ghost...) far closer to documentary than drama! It's also quite, quite brilliant. A genuinely funny and engaging script, interesting characters, stunning performances and blazing insight about "the craft of the art" - and the problems that go wit...