Twitaceous Era 7: You guys enjoy Dick

This week on my Twitter feed I'm all about sharing second-hand theatre news, like a Netto Baz.

Anna Carteret, Paul Chahidi, Ferdy Roberts in Shakespeare in Love, to distract from Tom Bateman's... existence.
10:37 AM - 23 Apr 2014

It does seem harsh to surround him with a cast like that when the furniture will out-charisma him anyway.
10:38 AM - 23 Apr 2014

I have received a communication from the Doge #suchmask #soVenice #wow
11:26 AM - 23 Apr 2014

Twitaceous Era 6: In their pants

Here's some stuff I rambled on about this week on my Twitter feed:

If there's a better song to start the day with than the Cagney and Lacey theme music then my name's Mary Beth.
FAVORITE 1
9:47 AM - 16 Apr 2014

Did someone say something about the pot calling the kettle a twat? #robertlindsay
12:31 AM - 17 Apr 2014

If Seth Numrich is thinking of becoming a London stage regular this is a move I can very much get behind.
RETWEET 1
1:46 PM - 17 Apr 2014

Book review: King Rat

One of China Miéville's earlier urban fantasies, King Rat follows Saul who, following his father's murder which he gets falsely accused of, is sprung from jail by a supernatural figure calling himself King Rat. It turns out Saul is half-rat, and rat royalty at that, and his new home is in the sewers underneath London. The main plot focuses on the return of the animals' nemesis, the Pied Piper, and a half-rat half-human is a combination that could beat him once and for all. Reveling somewhat in the grossness of a human living as a rat, the book's entertaining at the start and has a strong ending, although it lost my interest in the middle - I think there were probably too many in-depth descriptions of jungle music tracks for me.

Twitaceous Era 5: Meat coma

This week on my Twitter feed, I'm at the Young Vic a lot so I'm tripping over hot actors everywhere I turn.

Fecal Attraction's changed its poster image to just the bunny. NOW WHERE COULD THEY HAVE GOT THAT IDEA FROM? http://partially-obstructed-view.blogspot.com/2014/03/theatre-review-fatal-attraction.html
9:59 AM - 9 Apr 2014

I'd demand a share of the profits but... #lol
10:00 AM - 9 Apr 2014

This sounds terrible. I MUST SEE IT AT ALL COSTS! http://www.landortheatre.co.uk/index.php/booking-office/musicals/zanna-dont-85/
1:07 PM - 9 Apr 2014

Twitaceous Era 4: Scottish king shag list

This week on my Twitter feed, more dark mutterings about crashing theatre websites, because we all know that's what gets the followers flooding in.

This church's "DEATH COULD NOT HOLD HIM IN HIS GRAVE!!!" poster is making me think less "Easter," more "vampire apocalypse."
RETWEET 1 FAVORITES 2
9:11 AM - 2 Apr 2014

Been watching Bates Motel. So far the maddest thing is there's a girl called Bradley, and NOBODY thinks that's weird.
FAVORITE 1
5:58 PM - 2 Apr 2014

"naked giant and the beanstalk" #bloghitsoftheweek Pretty sure even MY blog doesn't feature that.
10:21 AM - 3 Apr 2014

Book review: Cold Comfort

I got the first couple of Quentin Bates novels on a kindle special offer, and after Frozen Out a few months back I figured I'd also give Cold Comfort a go. This one sees the recently-promoted Gunnhildur investigate the murder of a famous-for-being-famous Icelandic celebrity. I didn't dislike it but I think this is where I part company with Bates' Icelandic mysteries. The trouble is I'm never the best with remembering character names, and in crime novels that can be awkward when there's a bit surprise appearance by X who's suddenly revealed to be the killer... and it takes me several pages to remember which one X is. So add to that foreign names that I can give no mnemonic association to, and the Icelandic tradition of patronymic surnames that makes everyone's names blur into each other, and I'm frequently too lost to end up caring much. Here I spent several pages thinking we'd had a nasty incestuous revelation about the murder victim and her brother, only to eventually realise we were dealing with one of her lovers and it hadn't all gone a bit Game of Thrones after all. I wasn't really getting enough from the story to make up for all that confusion, and Gunna herself is a bit of a bland central character so I can't see me revisiting the series.

Twitaceous Era 3: "Look who's Jewish!"

This week on my Twitter feed you won't find any April Fool tweets because I'm, like, above that sort of thing.

It took nearly 24 hours but I got my Streetcar Named Scully tickets. It had better be LITERALLY PERFECT after that farrago.
8:00 AM - 26 Mar 2014

Theatrical Spot: Felix Scott at the Old Vic. Also a Slitheen whose name I don't know.
8:54 PM - 26 Mar 2014

Also an usher warning a crisp-eater to finish before the show started. No, really, an usher somewhere did her job, I saw it happen.
8:56 PM - 26 Mar 2014

Twitaceous Era 2: A terrifyingly powerful farter

This week on my Twitter feed, booking tickets for A Streetcar Named Desire is a baffling ordeal.

Good People's "society's poorest playing Bingo in desperate hope of some extra cash" storyline is looking well timely right now.
FAVORITE 1
9:25 PM - 19 Mar 2014

Theatrical Spot: #heppletattoo in Soho.
6:51 PM - 20 Mar 2014

Glad to see Southwark Playhouse ditching the 8pm start times but interested to see how they'll coordinate opening both venues simultaneously
6:51 PM - 21 Mar 2014

Book review: The Goldfinch

With Donna Tartt only writing about a book a decade, there's always quite a lot of fuss and expectation when the latest comes out. One way she avoids too much comparison with her much-loved debut is by going for a different genre every time - where The Secret History was a literate thriller, The Little Friend was a sort of Southern Gothic and now her third novel The Goldfinch is a personal odyssey for one young boy from Manhattan, who grew up not too badly off but spends his teens first among the very wealthy, then with a gambling-addicted father outside Las Vegas. The catalyst that sets his life in these directions is a terrorist attack at an art gallery, from which he salvages the titular painting. Not handing it in immediately, the longer he leaves it the bigger trouble he thinks he'll be in if he does, so the painting becomes a constant, secret companion.

In a way The Goldfinch is the story of Theo's life as told through the prism of the painting and his relationship with it - when it's out of sight, out of mind for a few years the story skips forward until it comes back into his life again. As well as this inanimate companion that's always there, Tartt creates a number of memorable characters that pass through his life, often returning to it when it seems like he should never meet them again. I can't say much more without giving too much away but if you're prepared for Tartt's often too-dense prose (Theo seems to spend several chapters walking through rubble at the start) it's a rewarding, moving experience and there's a couple of characters in here who feel classic already.

Twitaceous Era

This week on my Twitter feed: Another anniversary, this time marked by a pornographic flower.

Coming back to my desk after a sunny lunch break is NOT made any easier now we're in a windowless room.
3:03 PM - 12 Mar 2014

Theatrical Spot: Nick Hendrix (clothed) in Notting Hill.
7:04 PM - 12 Mar 2014

Right, who left Audrey II's vagina in the middle of Canary Wharf? http://twitpic.com/dy71j5
3:01 PM - 13 Mar 2014

Dick Twittington 52: "buttonhole rose"

This week on my Twitter feed our department at work gets moved to, basically, a cupboard..

The evil corporate air conditioning is broken, I'm sweating like a 1970s DJ in a creche :(
3:40 PM - 5 Mar 2014

Theatre review: I Do http://partially-obstructed-view.blogspot.com/2014/03/theatre-review-i-do.html
10:55 AM - 6 Mar 2014

I used the phrase "lapel rose" in that review because "buttonhole rose" sounded like a euphemism for "anus."
11:00 AM - 6 Mar 2014

Dick Twittington 51: Hot desking

This week on my Twitter feed is dominated by my libido, which I'm sure is a big change etc etc.

Sleb Spot: Martha Plimpton on The Cut.
9:25 AM - 26 Feb 2014

Congrats @stewartwpringle - Stewart Pringle appointed artistic director of Old Red Lion http://shar.es/FAmDZ
11:32 AM - 26 Feb 2014

This fire alarm is all very well as long as it's cutting into my work time and doesn't steal my lunch break #priorities
1:40 PM - 26 Feb 2014

Book review: The Cuckoo's Calling

J K Rowling's second post-Potter novel, and the first in a new series, has of course been most famous for the fact that it was published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, a disguise that was uncovered a lot earlier than she'd hoped - although she's going to continue writing the series under the Galbraith name as originally intended. But The Cuckoo's Calling also turns out to be a good murder thriller in itself. Having got used to using exotic character names her new protagonist is the son of a rock star and a hippie groupie, which leaves him with the unusual name Cormoran Strike. It's a provenance that's inconvenient for who he now is, a former military policeman who lost a leg in Afghanistan and is now a private detective, but finds it hard to blend into the background when people find out about his famous dad.

Hints that this is written by the most famous living author continue to the plot of The Cuckoo's Calling, which extends the celebrity theme with the supposed suicide of a supermodel. The murder mystery part is well plotted and there's a shady group of characters to fill the pool of suspects, plus an obligatory plucky assistant for Strike in Robin, a temp secretary he's hired, sort of accidentally, and can't really afford. And knowing who the real writer is makes it fun to see if there's any clues to her identity - Strike seems to have a different nickname with everyone who knows him, which is apt for a pseudonymously-authored story; and I liked him confronting the killer with the truth, only to be told it was so fanciful the detective should take up writing fantasy fiction instead.

Dick Twittington 50: Justifiable homicide

This week on my Twitter feed, I get cryptic.

There's a busker outside Waitrose. But he's a busker playing jazz on a baby grand piano because, like I say: Waitrose.
RETWEETS 2
2:37 PM - 19 Feb 2014

I think the *other* jug-eared Big Favourite Round These Parts might ride on our bus, too #cryptic #cassio
6:44 PM - 19 Feb 2014

If Brookstein ever gets cancer, remind me to describe it as "lazy flu."
9:01 AM - 20 Feb 2014

Dick Twittington 49: Dumbed down for the likes of you

This week on my Twitter feed, the words "rail replacement bus service" haunt my nightmares.

JULIE ATHERTON KLAXON http://shar.es/Q8YnU
10:57 AM - 12 Feb 2014

Dolly's new album cover was designed by Billy from The Kitchen Sink. http://twitpic.com/dvaunf
3:47 PM - 12 Feb 2014

What I'm most looking forward to about Mr Burns: Finding out why it's called Mr Burns if it's about a Sideshow Bob episode.
1:27 PM - 13 Feb 2014

Book review: Brenda & Effie Forever!

Another Brenda & Effie novel by Paul Magrs, there's a lot of hints being dropped that Brenda & Effie Forever! might be the final book in the series. Brenda, the Bride of Frankenstein and Whitby B&B owner, and her best friend Effie, the last in a line of powerful witches who now runs an antique shop, start off on holiday in Paris where they bump into their local equivalents M Ananas and M Banane (aka Mr Pineapple and Mr Banana, or the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame.) They warn them about great danger if they return home, which is of course exactly what they get.

The story sees the two old ladies and their friends encounter the ghosts of the Brontë sisters, who now run an underground (literally) school of magic and jujitsu, and I thought it took a while to get as quirkily funny as some of the earlier books in the series, but by the second half of the book there's plenty of bizarre little observations that had me chuckling. As for whether this is the final Brenda & Effie volume, it seems to me as if Magrs left the ending open enough that he could call it a day if he wanted, or bring the pair back if he decided he had more stories to tell. For me there's a few too many loose ends left to call this a conclusive ending - I want to know about the dust, for one thing.

Dick Twittington 48: Your Mum

This week on my Twitter feed there's a Tube strike, some gubbins about theatre and TV, and gratuitous Robert Lonsdale nipples, because that's the sort of thing I do to pass the time.

I'm worried that my journey into work this morning was relatively straightforward, & I'm being softened up for Hull on Earth on the way back
1:08 PM - 5 Feb 2014

Yay Eve Best confirmed! I mean, even Kathryn Hunter couldn't make Antony & Cleopatra bearable to me, but better with Eve Best than without.
3:08 PM - 5 Feb 2014


That's weird, I was only wondering the other day when Pig! No Pig! would resurface http://shar.es/QGdpH
11:30 AM - 6 Feb 2014

8th Bloggieversary

Not that I have much to say in these any more but for the record... I've been blogging on one platform or other for eight years now, and I've even splintered off from one Livejournal to two different blogs. Partially Obstructed View, in which I say far too much about theatre, and this one, in which I say very little about anything any more. So off I go to continue doing just that.

Book review: Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl seemed to be the book to be seen reading on the Tube last year, so just to be awkward I've waited until this year to catch up with it. It does turn out to deserve its popularity though: Amy goes missing on her five-year wedding anniversary, and her husband Nick is the obvious suspect. The story is told alternately through the point of view of the couple, Nick's chapters starting from the day of her disappearance so we see a couple who are being slowly pulled apart by financial problems, and Amy's going back to their first meeting, so we see a more hopeful time and what brought them together. As Nick protests his innocence both to the police and the readers, evidence against him seems to mount up.

But the book then takes a surprise flip into a different direction altogether, with further twists along the way, which means there's not much more I can say about it without spoiling it. But Flynn presents the various red herrings and fakeouts with such conviction the book turns out to be gripping and really effective.

Dick Twittington 47: "Ur nuuuuur!"

This week on my Twitter feed: A cat photo, because it's internet law that I post at least two a year.

At risk of self-parody but I don't fancy anyone in the Swan's summer ensemble and now I don't know what to think http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/the-roaring-girl/cast.aspx
3:25 PM - 29 Jan 2014

Damn, I can't make this. Still, Tom Wells klaxon: http://www.arcolatheatre.com/events/outbox-snapshots
RETWEET 1 FAVORITE 1
4:48 PM - 29 Jan 2014

I mean.... *technically* I could rush across London after King Lear...
4:49 PM - 29 Jan 2014