Twitaceous Era 37: A friendly handshake and a dry hump

This week on my Twitter feed I have Opinions about next year's Globe summer season, because of course I do.

I love how A Number attracts so many real father/son actors despite the relationship being so twisted. Yet more proof actors are weirdos.
5:57 PM - 19 Nov 2014

So far: Leg injury and fairytales #intervaltweets
8:54 PM - 19 Nov 2014

The cat's got a furball stuck in his throat. Mum & stepdad are now calling him "poor little sick soldier" because my family is certifiable.
3:57 PM - 20 Nov 2014

Twitaceous Era 36: Sad smiles and head-shaking

This week on my Twitter feed I end up in Birmingham, which you'd think would be a tricky thing to do if you didn't intend to.

Radiant Vermin. Ridley's totally using an automated title generator now, isn't he?
10:57 AM - 12 Nov 2014

Today's news in summary: Apparently someone's landed a probe on Kim Kardashian's arse.
6:08 PM - 12 Nov 2014

Sleb Spotted Luke Thompson & Nick Hendrix in quick succession and now I'm no use to anyone. At Hampstead, looks like Wildefire press night.
7:00 PM - 12 Nov 2014

Twitaceous Era 35: #toast

This week there's just too many cooks on my Twitter feed.

BARROWMAN's on the telly. I see he's gone full Scottish again.
2:00 PM - 6 Nov 2014

"It takes two to tango." "Don't try to confuse me with choreography." #Dagenham
10:32 PM - 6 Nov 2014

There's going to be a "live Hunger Games experience" in a purpose-built arena.Which sounds alarmingly like it'll be the ACTUAL Hunger Games.
5:25 PM - 7 Nov 2014

Twitaceous Era 34: Some undead pierrots

This week on my Twitter feed, buses start talking to me in the voices of Joanna Lumley and BRIAN BLESSED, but apparently this isn't a sign of psychosis.

I'm writing a disco musical about the Great British Bake-Off. It's called Here Lies Loaf.
10:15 AM - 29 Oct 2014

Sleb Spot: Oliver Chris definitely qualifies as my new stalker. (Phone wanted to correct to Oliver Cromwell. Which would be disconcerting.)
7:00 PM - 29 Oct 2014

Opera Spot (Spopera?) Bryn Terfel on a bike. (For when "Christ on a bike" is too enthusiastic for the circumstances.)
7:26 PM - 29 Oct 2014

Book review: A Game of Thrones

Having, slightly late to the party, got completely wrapped up in the TV version of Game of Thrones, I figured I'd read George R.R. Martin's original A Song of Ice and Fire books to get caught up and maybe even get ahead of the TV series. I'd wanted to read them for a while but the length put me off, as I only really get time to read on buses and trains and it takes me ages to get through even a shorter book, but as it turns out I finished A Game of Thrones in just under a month.

Having some familiarity with the universe and the story obviously helped (it also meant I chuckled every time Jon Snow is described as being close to tears, because I thought "yes, that's the facial expression he can do.") But Martin's prose is also very easy to get on with, detailed without being boring. For anyone who's avoided it so far, it's a fantasy novel but the magical elements are kept very much in the background, the main sweep of the story starting with a murder mystery of sorts, the "Hand of the King" of Westeros having met with a suspicious end. The new Hand, Ned Stark, investigates and discovers that his predecessor might have come across a secret that puts the whole line of succession in question, meaning by the end of the book there's numerous claims on the throne, but only after a lot more backstabbing (metaphorical and literal) and intrigue have gone on.

I don't think I'll read the rest of the series so far in one go (five books published so far, seven if you count the fact that two of them have been split into two volumes each) because I like to mix my reading up a bit, but I am going straight on to A Clash of Kings because I'm happily back in the Ice and Fire universe for now. I'd heard this first book was the one the TV series stuck to most closely, and it is indeed pretty much identical to the first season; I'm interested to see how the two versions diverge a bit more from now on.

Twitaceous Era 33: Other people's bodies must work differently

This week on my Twitter feed: Some stuff.

@stevenperkins I usually don't know what I'm having for dinner while I'm eating it. We can't all be good cooks.
RETWEET 1
11:14 AM - 22 Oct 2014

The many face of Nicole Shitsinger: http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/nicole-scherzinger-cats-photos_36232.html #doesnthavetherange
11:04 AM - 24 Oct 2014

I see there's a new series of "Russell Howard plays last year's viral videos then shouts them back at you."
12:31 PM - 24 Oct 2014

Tiger, tiger, not so bright

I'm not OK with the amount of child actors in Doctor Who nowadays.

"In the Forest of the Night" by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, directed by Sheree Folkson. Spoilers after the cut.

π Anxiety

That's what these kids today get excited about: Geometry.

"Flatline" by Jamie Mathieson, directed by Douglas Mackinnon. Spoilers after the cut.

Twitaceous Era 32: He looks like a jockey

This week on my Twitter feed I correct the world's incorrect opinions about theatre.

Well Bad Education certainly knows how to do guest stars #allam
5:31 PM - 15 Oct 2014

@Weez there's certainly something of an in-joke for anyone familiar with his dulcet tones.
5:37 PM - 15 Oct 2014

Tsk, the Apprenti I fancy always go early. Poor miniature Scottish Tovey-alike. #Apprentice
2:31 PM - 16 Oct 2014

Are you my mummy?

A trip on a train leads the Doctor and Clara into a situation stickier than George Sampson's stomach. HASHTAG TOPICAL COMEDY!

"Mummy on the Orient Express" by Jamie Mathieson, directed by Paul Wilmshurst. Spoilers after the cut.

Twitaceous Era 31: "Too Apocalyptic"

This week on my Twitter feed I take a break from sitting in a dark room watching a play, to sit in a dark room watching a film.

I'm at the ballet tonight BECAUSE CULTURE. Lithe, partially-clad culture.
6:48 PM - 8 Oct 2014

So... did they just decapitate a littlun, or was a pig meant have just turned up because of reasons? #intervaltweets
8:41 PM - 8 Oct 2014

Finally off to see Pride. You've probably all built it up too much so if I hate it I'll blame you.
3:19 PM - 9 Oct 2014

The Moon's (not) a balloon

Having a look at what Peter Harness has written before, I see he's one of the writers on the upcoming Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell adaptation. And since his Doctor Who episode was a decent debut, that bodes well enough.

"Kill the Moon" by Peter Harness, directed by Paul Wilmshurst. Spoilers after the cut.

Twitaceous Era 30: He tried to breastfeed Max

This week on my Twitter feed there were a lot of casting announcements I could feel smug about.

FUCK OFF WAITROSE WITH YOUR CHRISTMAS TREES.
FAVORITE 1
6:06 PM - 1 Oct 2014

@MovieTheatrGoer Canada Square branch. Fairy lights, the works.
6:25 PM - 1 Oct 2014

This barbecue pork pasta salad I'm eating in the interval is rather marvellous. The play's all right too #intervaltweets
8:58 PM - 1 Oct 2014

Book review: A Blink of the Screen

As he mentions a number of times in his notes accompanying them, short stories aren't something Terry Pratchett finds particularly easy to write, so there aren't many books of them. A Blink of the Screen collects those short stories he was commissioned to write for other collections or magazines, and even a few pieces of writing done for Discworld conventions, spanning his whole career. In fact the first story, "The Hades Business," is from a school project when he was 13.

The book's separated into Discworld stories and non-Discworld stories, the latter including one from 1986, "The High Meggas," which decades later would come back as the basis for the Long Earth series. My favourite of these has to be "Final Reward," in which a fantasy writer kills off the hero of his long-running series, only to find him on his doorstep having come to "meet his maker."

Of the Discworld stories, the longest one is probably the best, "The Sea and Little Fishes" following a terrifying day when Granny Weatherwax starts being terribly nice to everyone. But there's also a sweet Cohen the Barbarian story, "Troll Bridge," and I liked the lyrics to the Ankh-Morpork national anthem, the only national anthem to deliberately include a load of mumbling in the second verse since that's all anyone would sing anyway.

Twitaceous era 29: A low tolerance for acrobats

This week on my Twitter feed I'm terrorised by corporate fun and a public speaker who shouldn't.

Today I'll be livetweeting my firm's mandatory "fun" day at the O2. Because if I have to suffer so do you.
FAVORITE 1
9:47 AM - 24 Sep 2014

Colleague: "Having known Nick for a year I'm pretty confident he's going to hate this more than anyone here."
10:02 AM - 24 Sep 2014

Well someone was singing "Don't Stop Believing" before we even entered the venue, so he's not wrong.
10:03 AM - 24 Sep 2014

We have flashing wristbands. Yay! Accountancy!
10:38 AM - 24 Sep 2014

Book review: Half Bad

Sally Green's Half Bad is the latest attempt to create a young adult fantasy phenomenon. In a world where witches live alongside "fains," the witches are divided into Black and White, with the White side very much in charge - officially the good guys, they run the witches' bureaucracy and seem to have carte blanche to kill any Blacks they come across. The protagonist, Nathan, is the son of a White mother and a Black father, and as such is under a cloud of constant suspicion as he grows up, and relentlessly bullied. In theory everyone's waiting to see which side of him will become dominant when he comes of age, and dispose of him if it's the "wrong" one, but as he gets older he increasingly suspects the authorities have some other plan for him.

Using the classification of Black and White means Green is able to make Half Bad an allegory for racism, and of things being controlled by the side that's arbitrarily put themselves in the right and everyone else in the wrong. It's hardly the subtlest metaphor, and she hammers it home somewhat in the first half, but by the second half when Nathan has escaped the clutches of the Council and goes on the run, the story picks up. The ending is a bit too abruptly and obviously setup for further volumes but Green's story had had enough interesting moments by then that I'll probably look out for future installments.

Invisibility watch? Really?

Frankly I think Doctor Who's adaptation did no justice at all to Pinter's original.

"The Caretaker" by Gareth Roberts and Steven Moffat, directed by Paul Murphy. Spoilers after the cut.

Doctor's Eleven

Late again because of All The Theatre, I'll just do a quick blog on this week's Doctor Who.

"Time Heist" by Steve Thompson and Steven Moffat, directed by Douglas Mackinnon. Spoilers after the cut.

Twitaceous era 28: We'll stand on a staircase like in Fame Academy

A bit late because I wasn't online much yesterday, here's what I gibbered about this week on my Twitter feed:

"Barbican audiences will be able to see 3 Beckett productions in one day." OR MAYBE THEY COULD JUST TAKE A CHEESE GRATER TO THEIR OWN FACES.
RETWEET 1 FAVORITES 2
3:09 PM - 17 Sep 2014

I'd have taken a photo of the baby facepalming in his sleep on the bus cause it was adorable, but I'd have been, you know. Arrested.
10:28 PM - 17 Sep 2014

I would argue the audience got EXACTLY what they bargained for, and would normally have been cheated out of http://wos.im/1r3OmBn
RETWEET 1
4:41 PM - 18 Sep 2014

I don't think that was even a real nursery rhyme

A bit late with my Doctor Who post this week - that's what happens when you have ALL THE THEATRE to see. Still, here we are with an episode that gets another of the regular BBC One idents given a Doctor Who twist - I liked the Dalek on the roundabout but the TARDIS going underwater with the hippos is a good addition, hopefully over the weeks they'll all get the same treatment. And I guess kudos for not starting with the obvious choice of the Moon rover one.

"Listen" by Steven Moffat, directed by Douglas Mackinnon. Spoilers after the cut.