Romeo-ld

(Headgate Theatre, Colchester)
Romeo and Juliet
Priory Players. Act I 55m. Act II 50m.

Generational role reversal of Shakespeare's play set in an old people's home (in rival Montague and Capulet wards) with disapproving children instead of parents for the aged lovers. Ingenuously a lot of it comes off, in better fashion than Priory's similarly experimental punk Richard III (qv), although the feudal aspect amongst grumpy old people seems a little odd when taken out of context, but a fine cast of veterans show the unexpected charm and humour of the play, making winsome romantic lines sound rather charming and witty when coming out of the mouths of septuagenarians, some of whom are on the top of their game.

d: Lorraine Haworth
s: Sara Green, Tony Winn, Paul T. Davies (as the Nurse), James Potter, Ivy Dillon, Helen Bridge, Donna Potter, Nigel Walford, Sara Carr
piano: Izzy Liddamore

#MenToo

At this interesting time of insecurity for the male sex, the picture of Marilyn Monroe and Cary Grant in Monkey Business (from 1952), sums up the whole dilemma quite neatly: Marilyn at the time was the emerging hot property, cast by the male-run Hollywood studios as a stereotypical "dumb blonde" sexy secretary. It was also one of her major breakthrough roles on the road to superstardom, and a glittering opportunity to work alongside one of Hollywood's most eligible of leading men.

Not all leading men were as debonair or as gentlemanly as Cary Grant. In such a provocative situation as this, many in Hollywood (especially producers) overstepped the mark, with actresses eager for further their careers on the notorious "casting couch".

Therein hangs the tale. It has come back to hit men hard in recent years; with certainly more harm and detriment to their careers than women. One such offender, actor Kevin Spacey, found himself completely removed from a film that had been finished because of his alleged misdemeanours off camera, that were next to nothing to do with his performance on screen. Should we now remove other famous leading men from films for fathering illegitimate children? For raping young wannabes (male or female) who were also big fans? Or for having illicit sex with other famous women who were possibly thrilled and secretly flattered that they were having an affair with such a big star.

In the present climate, women are rightly striking back, but the general state is a perilous one, as it has generally been for some time, little by little - so well emphasised in The Full Monty, the quintessence of male insecurity; losing it all, literally and metaphorically. It is likely that, regardless of who is really winning the Battle of the Sexes, the Men were always destined to lose it.

It is also a sphere of global impeachment and world scandal that has unfortunately also produced its victims: Guilty until proven Innocent, and immediately tarnished by the mere allegation in the eyes of a reactionary Media in the instant access culture. Even some noted female actresses have expressed their concern at how the whole thing has snowballed too far, and how the whole art of flirtation and courtship and seduction may be destroyed as a result. So redress has to be made, both for the Men as well as the Women.

So here's to the male species, in its flawed and imperfect and self-confident way - still essential to sustain life on this planet. Ultimately they all aspire to be like Cary Grant.

2017 - what were we thinking?!

Well, it's been the first year of Citizen Trump (to put the word "President" beside his name does an indignity to the office), and also the fall-out of the accursed "Brexit". The best thing that can be said about the former is that there's (hopefully) only another three to go, and as for the latter, we can only be thankful that the UK is dragging itself slowly towards cutting the umbilical chord with Europe, as it realises what an inherently stupid idea that was.

London can take it

A word to the wise. If you look around the city of London at the moment, contrary to media suggestions that the city is on heightened terror alert, you will also see several signs around the West End and elsewhere saying "everyone welcome". It is a symbol of the city's indomitable spirit: London endured a Blitz and many other dangers besides. Just like New York, it is a city that goes on ceaselessly, in spite of its many perils over the years.

The nation's letter of rejection

Note this moment. This nation signed away its empire, signed away its many colonies, and now Britannia signs away her closest allies, to render it an even smaller island than it was already in a much bigger world.

Carrie Fisher: a missive

It's probably fair to say that my first crush back in 1978 was on Carrie Fisher - in the form of the character she was playing in Star Wars of course, but to me the two were inseparable, and still are.

She was often very insecure and typically self-castigating about herself in the role ("it made a star of Princess Leia, and I just happened to look like her"), but what became self-evident from the later SW films was how Carrie herself brought such pugnacity to the role, that was so missing without her; when she returned to the role 22 years later in The Force Awakens, it looked a rather cosmetic Leia Organa, but Fisher the actress had lost none of her conviction.

As is well known, she has brushed with death 30 years before - her drug overdose is charted in her semi-autobiographical Postcards from the Edge. It brought out the other side to Carrie Fisher, that in point of fact was always there if one took the trouble to notice it. The later years for me were, to be honest, times of increasing disillusion - her revelations about "going through the crew" and of her affair with Harrison Ford make her death seem ill-timed with a slight element of distaste. But she was what she was - and a manic depressive too, it was part of her whole being and in some ways the secret of her appeal.

I met her once at an autograph signing event in 2003. She was a vision embedded somewhere under layers of mascara, in a hotel function room behind the Dominion Tottenham Court Road (the place where I first saw Star Wars, on Carrie's birthday in 1978.) She was pleasant, smiled adequately, as did I, and left it at that. I was just another geeky fan in the queue, after all.

Years before that I had written a fan letter as an aspiring actor and film maker, to which she graciously signed a photo - which I did not ask for but she sent along anyway - in reply.

I've never known Carrie personally, but I felt as if a part of me has - and in some ways I am glad of the distance between here and Beverly Hills, between her pain and fame and any of my woes. I can't possibly relate to her lifestyle or her problems, but I do feel a curious sense of symbiosis - how apt that her death should be just as much publicised as parts of her life.

The final thoughts have to be with her family - Debbie Reynolds is a survivor, not only of a scandalous break-up from her husband Eddie Fisher after his affair with Elizabeth Taylor, but also now of her - and our - brightest stardust, and Billie Lourd has now not only lost a mother but also probably her best friend.

But Carrie's (and Leia's) name and aura live eternal, certainly for long-term fans like me.

(message originally posted on Facebook)

United States Wars

Reading the novelisation of The Force Awakens recently I came upon a passage where Princess (aka. General) Leia Organa declines an invitation to visit the New Republic Senate, because there are too many factions that would quietly want her dead. As a character who has become part of an old establishment, now turned into a warrior and leader, the comparisons with Hilary Clinton are striking.

It sets me thinking as a further reminder of how, unwittingly or otherwise, the Star Wars saga has been a semi-commentary for the course of American political istory too. Back in 1977, the US was recovering from the humiliation and the trauma of the Vietnam war (that Lucas admits was an early creative influence), but within 3 years, the "feelgood" factor, whether phoney or otherwise, spread its way from the culture of Star Wars into American politics. The subsequently elected president, Ronald Reagan, also declared the Soviet Union to be an "evil empire" and announced his Strategic Defence Initiative, quickly dubbed by the press, "the Star Wars strategy."

This was all of its time when Star Wars was still very much part of the zeitgeist, but the parallels with history continued: in 1999 out came The Phantom Menace, with its tale of an old Republic threatened from without (and within) by sinister forces and a seemingly unknown enemy - within 2 years the Republic of the United States was attacked for the first time on its own mainland in Washington and New York. When the second Star Wars prequel came out in 2005, Lucas reciprocated the eerie historical similarity, by showing the Jedi temple ablaze, in an echo of New York on September 11th (above).

We now have the reestablished Republic (in Star Wars) now under threat from a new sinister "First Order", with a new tyranny also threatening the United States, so the parallels look like continuing for a while yet.