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

Dick Twittington 46: Moderately funny

This week on my Twitter feed, my internal calendar is all confused at going to Shakespeare's Globe in the winter.

Ray Cooney's still working? RAY COONEY'S STILL ALIVE?
12:14 PM - 22 Jan 2014

"81-year-old directs farce he wrote decades ago" suggests just the kind of radical theatre I expect from the Menier http://shar.es/UYGjd
12:17 PM - 22 Jan 2014

There is NO earthly reason I should have Madonna's "Dear Jessie" stuck in my head. And yet...
1 FAVORITE
2:55 PM - 22 Jan 2014

Dick Twittington 45: "nipples showing through shirt"

This week on my Twitter feed, it's mainly all about the topless men. And then apparently I won an award! The two things may be related.

"So when did you get your new computer?" "Er, I think about a month ago... oh wait, it was this morning." I'm getting ALL the mentals today.
4:21 PM - 15 Jan 2014

@merseytart Production photos for Tovey's new play. You may need a lie down. http://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/thepass
1 RETWEET
4:58 PM - 16 Jan 2014

"I haven't been on a bus in 10 years, ha ha!" Gosh, you must be terribly middle class. Well done you.
9:00 AM - 17 Jan 2014

Book review: Raising Steam

The latest terry Pratchett novel, or at least the later Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, sees the railways arrive in Ankh-Morpork in Raising Steam. Over the years the Discworld books have become the story of a society in a state of unstoppable progress, its landscape unrecognisable from the cod-mediaeval swords-and-sorcery spoof it started out as. Pratchett is the gently genial voice supporting progress and Raising Steam has particularly little patience for the Luddites and reactionaries of this world or his own: The arrival of trains on the Sto Plains proves the last straw for a breakaway group of religious dwarfs who start a terror campaign against the railway and the clacks machine (the telecommunication system introduced a few books ago.)

Of course racism, or at least speciesism, is behind a lot of this, and the recent integration of the goblins into Ankh-Morpork has put a lot of backs up. Pratchett's metaphors for the real world are getting, if anything, even less subtle than ever, but it's hard not to like how eloquently and passionately he argues against the sort of people who fight against change on principle. This isn't one of his funnier books unfortunately, and a lengthy buildup in the second half of the book ends in anticlimax, although that's kind of the point. Still enjoyable though.

Dick Twittington 44: A potted history of Caucasian rap

This week on my Twitter feed is another fairly quiet one. I'd say "quality over quantity" but I think the most cursory of glances will confirm that it's not quality.

"He's NEVER played gay before!" Except in Annually Retentive. And Ashes To Ashes. http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/glad-to-play-gay-russell-tovey-interview-9045878.html
4:04 PM - 8 Jan 14

"Vietnamese Street Food: 3 baguettes for £1!" Ah, those famous Vietnamese baguettes.
9:20 AM - 9 Jan 14

Did we know this? Looks like it's not just me and @trpw who've noticed The Faction: Virtual SRB! http://newdiorama.com/news/simon-russell-beale-to-appear-in-the-factions-hamlet
12:47 PM - 9 Jan 14

Dick Twittington 43: Bullocks

This week on my Twitter feed was the first of 2014. It was the first week of 2014 elsewhere as well, but that's not important right now.

Happy New Year, the Twitter. Let's hope 2014 blesses the world with the greatest gift of all: Less Barlow on the telly.
12:02 AM - 1 Jan 14

2014's first Theatrical Spot: Noma Dumezweni dodging my friend Phill & calling him "darlin'" by the Noël Coward stage door.
2:14 PM - 1 Jan 14

Well, thanks to the Odeon Leicester Square selling the same seats twice, I guess we're not seeing Sandra Bullock In Space today!
4:17 PM - 1 Jan 14

Book review: Heartshaped Box

I've made, if not a tradition, then at least a bit of a habit of reading ghost stories over Christmas. Having exhausted the more traditional fare in recent years I ended up with something not quite as cosy as the Dickens or James standards I normally get through, but technically a ghost story all the same. Joe Hill's Heartshaped Box has a very up-to-date premise, in which there's a ghost for sale on the internet: Jude, an ageing rock star with a fondness for collecting the gruesome and arcane sees the ultimate addition to his collection on an online auction site (for legal reasons it's made very clear that it's not eBay.) When he actually receives the package there is indeed a ghost in there, but instead of the docile old man he's been promised he gets the late stepfather of one of his ex-girlfriends, who thinks Jude mistreated his stepdaughter and wants revenge.

I found this an interesting horror novel, a genre I don't really read that much of any more, and as well as doing the suspense elements well there's a satisfying nastiness to it as well. The ghost's true motivations aren't entirely hard to guess but it makes for a pretty grim turn to the story as well. Maybe not exactly festive, but then I do appreciate an antidote.

Dick Twittington 42: #ShitsingHair

For the last week of 2013 on my Twitter feed, Christmas happens. This may not be an entirely surprising turn of events.

Happy Christmukah, The Twitter.
9:47 AM - 25 Dec 13

Man with, beard, Christmas jumper & baby strapped to chest in Dulwich Park. I can feel Twitter's ovaries exploding from here.
12:27 PM - 25 Dec 13

Starting my review/awards of the year post, I've already awarded Best Nipples.I just can't fathom why the Oliviers committee didn't want me.
1 FAVORITE
2:08 PM - 25 Dec 13

Nodded off. Dreamt Lord Lucan resurfaced on Come Dine With Me.
7:21 PM - 25 Dec 13

Something Something Gallifrey

What people usually ask me soon after Christmas Day: "Did you watch Doctor Who?" followed by "Did you enjoy it?"

What everyone asked me this year: "Did you watch Doctor Who?" followed by "Did you understand it?"

"The Time of the Doctor" by Steven Moffat, directed by Jamie Payne. Spoilers after the cut.

Dick Twittington 41: Fops on the tube

This week on my Twitter feed, bits of a theatre fall down, and programming at another one stops making sense.

Writing my American Psycho review; meanwhile the team at the next bank of desks is getting VERY excited about their new business cards.
10:37 AM - 18 Dec 13

@TootingGareth I wanted to do a #themorethingschange hashtag but the character limit was against me.
11:29 AM - 18 Dec 13

Theatre review: American Psycho http://partially-obstructed-view.blogspot.com/2013/12/theatre-review-american-psycho.html
1 RETWEET
11:54 AM - 18 Dec 13

Let Zygons be bygones

Yes, this post did take a little while for me to get round to. Still, I got there before the next episode aired (just.)

It's not often people on the internet agree about anything, let alone Doctor Who, but it seems to have worked in the case of "The Day of the Doctor," the 50th anniversary special - and indeed all the surrounding programming spread around the BBC.

"The Day of the Doctor" by Steven Moffat, directed by Nick Hurran. Spoilers after the cut.

Dick Twittington 40: Turned on beyond endurance

This week is a non-stop parade of filth on my Twitter feed.

Catching up with Only Connect. Hywel naming mathematical terms is strangely arousing.
1 FAVORITE
2:58 PM - 11 Dec 13

@bridgetorr I'm genuinely baffled by Twitter wetting its knickers over Kester and not noticing Hywel's existence.
3:11 PM - 11 Dec 13


"He needs to show me more respect innit - I'm his friend's best friend's cousin!" #overheardonthebus
9:33 PM - 12 Dec 13

Book review: Love All The People

I moved to the UK in 1993, and Bill Hicks died in early 1994, so I never got a feel for the huge popularity the US comedian had been building up over here. Having heard a lot about him subsequently I've watched a few performances to see what the fuss was about, and now read the book Love All The People, a collection of his writings and transcripts of his recorded performances. Although I feel like the angry but strangely loving comedian is someone whose influence and reputation is well-deserved, the book is irritating because the editors haven't really done any actual editing - the same routines are repeated in transcripts from various performances. The justification given is that it's to allow people to see how the same material evolved over time, but you'd have to be a real Hicks obsessive to want to re-read the same routine half a dozen times with small variations, so after a while there was a lot of pages getting skipped. Interesting man though.

Dick Twittington 39: Mexican vampires

This week on my Twitter feed included my birthday, but I kept quiet about that.

Well, I'm pretty sure there's nothing anyone on the internet will have Strongly Worded Opinions about today.
8:54 AM - 4 Dec 13

Jeez, Sean Foley's doing all right for himself lately isn't he? *other theatre directors are available*
3:15 PM - 5 Dec 13

Sloane Square http://twitpic.com/dno23a
3:17 PM - 5 Dec 13