Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Long Weekend...

It's a long bank holiday weekend and me and the Missus have had a few days relaxing and I am waxing lyrical.

'Life can quite simple, can’t it? I mean, essentially, you’re affectionate some of the time and we do rude stuff and in return I make you happy. That’s pretty much the deal, isn’t it?'

The Missus stares at me. It's the sort of knowing look I imagine a farmer gives to his favourite sheep before sending him off the slaughterhouse.
'When you gonna start your end of the bargain then?’ she asks.

After more than 15 years together, the Missus still hasn’t lost her sense of humour. Bless her and her vicious and uncompromising tongue...

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Big Break…

The truth is, of course, it probably won’t be a big break at all. The last time I planned to stop playing pool, snooker or any other cue sport for any length of time I went stir crazy after four months and was back playing in a money league after six. As much as I sometimes wish otherwise, it would seem potting balls on a baize of any description is something of an addiction, but it’s also one off those meditative, relaxing practises I need to keep my equilibrium.

The masterplan to take a year out at the end of the season is already gathering pace, though, and in my head it’s like I’ve almost made the leap, which is when, of course, I’ve started playing some good stuff and have started to enjoy playing competitively again.

But I need the break. I have a play on next year and it’s important I put everything I can into making it work so that it’s not only artistically and personally satisfying but so that it also leads somewhere in terms of commercial success, whether that’s getting it staged at a bigger theatre or using it as a platform to tout my writing skills and land writing gigs elsewhere.

On my theatre CV I have a huge amount of artistically credible work as a writer, director and producer: Fringe theatre plays on political and feminist issues, a large-scale community play in Docktown, a community musical in Elvis: The Howden Years, a theatre-in-education tour on domestic violence, a play commissioned by a London health authority on care in the community, the latest show about The Forgiveness Project… And I’m proud of that work because it suggests a continuity of commitment to good causes and a socially responsible and responsive theatre practice.

The one thing I’ve never done, though, is to sit back and take a really businesslike approach to my theatre work and think: How I do make this go somewhere else that will directly benefit me?

So the answer I’ve come up with is to put a comedy on that I’m currently writing with an eye on box office success. I also want to direct this or at least co-direct it and I’m going to run it like a business so I want it to make money and I also want it to have a life after that and be taken on elsewhere. To do that I need to ensure I get some theatre producers in the audience. If I want to get other work from it then I need to ensure I also get some commissioning editors and dramaturg folk along.

This whole process is obviously going to take a lot of work so it’s goodbye competitive pool and hello theatre world. I’m back and I’m hoping it will at least be with a bang of some sort…

Monday, August 13, 2012

RIP: Sid Waddell…

Sports commentator extraordinaire Sid Waddell died at the weekend after a long battle with bowel cancer.

To many he was the voice of darts, both on the BBC when the sport was in its pomp during the 1980s and then on Sky TV when the game’s elite players broke away from the British Darts Organisation to form the Professional Darts Corporation and broadcast tournaments on Sky TV. And for that reason he was one of the voices of my youth as any pub sport on TV was heavily watched at home when I was growing up.

Waddell, the son of a Northumbrian miner, went to Cambridge and graduated in Modern History before embarking on a TV career, launching pub sports TV show Indoor League with Fred Truman as host and also carving out a career as a TV writer with children’s shows Jossy’s Giants and Sloggers.

His darts commentary, however, was the work that won him real affection. In an age of contained and softly spoken expert analysis, Waddell’s boyish enthusiasm and clearly partisan enjoyment of darting contests was refreshing.

He freely mixed classical allusions with the sort of banter you’d hear in any working men’s club or pub and we, his fans, loved him for it.

Some of his more memorable quotes included:
‘Jockey Wilson… all the psychology of a claymore.’
‘There hasn't been this much excitement since the Romans fed the Christians to the Lions.’
‘When Alexander of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer... Eric Bristow's only 27.’
‘We couldn't have more excitement if Elvis walked in and asked for a chip sandwich.’
‘Bob Anderson came on stage like the Laughing Cavalier… now he looks like Lee Van Clef on a bad night.’
‘Wade is like a man trying to eat candy floss in a Hadrons Collier.’
‘Keith Deller’s not just an underdog… he's an under puppy.’
‘Look at the man go… it’s like trying to stop a water buffalo with a peashooter.’
‘This lad has more checkouts than Tescos.’
‘William Tell could take an apple off your head. Phil Taylor could take out a processed pea.’
‘Jockey Wilson... What an athlete.’
‘He's about as predictable as a wasp on speed.’
‘It's like trying to pin down a kangaroo on a trampoline.’
‘That's the greatest comeback since Lazarus.’
‘It's the nearest thing to public execution this side of Saudi Arabia.’
‘He looks about as happy as a penguin in a microwave.’
‘The pendulum swings back and forth like a metronome.’
‘He's been burning the midnight oil – at both ends.’
‘As they say at the DHSS, we're getting the full benefit here.’
‘I don't know what he's had for breakfast but Taylor knocked the snap, crackle and pop outta Bristow.’
‘Eat your heart out Harold Pinter… we've got drama with a capital ‘D’ in Essex.’
‘If we'd had Phil Taylor at Hastings against the Normans, they'd have gone home.’

And these were just a few of them.

Thanks for the memories, Sid. I have only one word to describe you: ‘Magic darts!’

Olympics: Part III...

Some thoughts on London 2012:
i) Well done the British aristocracy with medals in shooting, rowing and equestrianism. Yes it may be a lazy assumption to make but quite a lot of them sounded a bit posh, didn't they? Come on. They did...

ii) We are brilliant at track cycling. Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton retire with more gold medals and new kids Jason Kenny and Laura Trott, who was very sweet, come in and look like nailed-on favourites for gold in Rio in 2016. We need to study why we have success in this area and transpose that blueprint to other areas because we are stupidly dominant at this.

iii) So many great moments to enjoy: Jade Jones winning an unexpected gold at Taekwondo; Mo Farah winning golds at 10,000m and 5,000m; Nicola Adams winning the first women's boxing gold; Gemma Gibbons winning an emotional silver at judo; Jess Ennis handling the pressure and coming through to win gold; Yorkshire providing a shedload of gold medals for Team GB.

iv) The Spice Girls should never, ever be reunited again. We've got rid of cholera and we don't want to bring that back. The same should apply to the Spice girls.

v) Well done team America for winning the basketball. It's brilliant to see the most well-paid sportsmen in the world doing so well in an Olympics. Basketball should not be an Olympic sport. Same as tennis in my opinion. What next? Golf? Football? Oh, hang on...

vi) Paul McCartney singing Hey Jude. We don't expect Ali to box any more. We shouldn't expect McCartney to still be the singer he was 30 years ago. Just stop. Please...

vii) Seb Coe. To quote Chris Morris: 'I hate Seb Coe.' But him and his team have done good here.

For me, London 2012 has shown that when there is a combination of the money and the political will and that joins with the support of the people, then Britain can still be great and punch well above its weight.

You just wish politicians of any hue who end up running the country would harness this sort of enthusiasm and funding to make a difference in things like dealing with youth unemployment and rebuilding the economy instead of letting the poor get poorer and bringing in legislation to allow their rich mates to get richer.

But there are no medals and international kudos for that. And you know most politicians, particularly the current lot, don't actually give a fuck about that either. So expect it to be business as usual.

Sad but true...

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Olympics: Part II...

Olympics fact: in volleyball the coach can pull each player off twice.

Make your own gags...