![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
May. 30th, 2008 11:40 pmVery interested to see Jan Poortvliet, one of the Holland 78 side that made me an Oranje fan for life at the age of seven, is the new manager of Southampton. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on the Saints' fortunes now.
Went to the New Theatre Royal this evening to see Corpus Christi Amateur Dramatic Society's production of Brassed Off. I'd heard from the parents that Jan from the Town Hall, whom I know from the mayoral year, was going with her colleague Kathy. In the upstairs bar before the show I spotted Brenda, a family friend who also works at the Town Hall, and went over to say hello. She was sitting with Jan and Kathy, so we all talked for a little while - they're all patrons of CCADS, and Kathy has several relatives in the society. Tonight her nephew, John-Paul McCrohon, was directing and playing Andy, while his partner Kerry Joyce played Gloria.
Standards are slipping at the New Theatre Royal - they no longer serve Lambrini :( I had to make do with a rum and coke.
The play was brilliantly performed. It had all the poignancy and humour of the film while adding a couple of new dimensions, like having Danny's 9-year-old grandson Shane, played superbly by Harry Fielder, as a kind of narrator. Kerry Joyce was fantastic as Gloria and the play benefitted enormously from having the Denmead Brass playing on stage as the Grimley Colliery band.
In the first band rehearsal scene, they played The Floral Dance. After the tune ended, when Danny ranted at the band "The composer in his infinite wisdom put quavers in, because he wanted them" etc., with a couple more hes and hises, I sat there thinking how that was a howler in the script, because the composer of The Floral Dance is female. Then again, when Danny at the end of his rant demanded to know if anyone had anything to say, Harry rose and was about to say something before thinking better of it. I like to think that mistake was what Harry was going to point out...
At the interval a sixtyish man came up behind me and said "You're enjoying the music, I see. Are you a Yorkshireman or a Lancastrian?"
"I'm a local," I smiled.
That surprised him. He said he was from "up there", Holmfirth. I didn't bother mentioning the village's claim to fame as he'd probably heard it a thousand times. We talked a little about the play (he too called Rodrigo's Concerto d'Aranjuez 'Orange Juice') and he asked if I'd seen the film - yes. After asking what I thought of young Harry's performance as Shane - excellent - he said Harry was his grandson.
Towards the end of the interval Brenda appeared behind me and said to meet them out the front at the end if I wanted a lift home.
The play ended with the Denmead Brass fittingly getting to play out the evening with a couple of tunes. As we drove out of central Portsmouth Kathy and Jan both said they were very impressed with Kerry's performance, and that in the scene where she plays the Concerto de Orange Juice she really made it look convincingly like she was playing the flugel herself (in fact she was miming to one of the Denmead Brass). On the way back we talked about various TV shows. Brenda brought up the imminent start of Big Brother 9. She and Kathy squeed over that for a few minutes; Brenda lamented that she'd be on holiday for the beginning, so Kathy promised to tape the opening night for her and keep her updated with text messages, while Jan called them sad people. I just said I used to watch but haven't since BB7. Then Jan said she liked Dr Who, starting a discussion I was able to join in positively.
At Stubbington, where Kathy lives, we got out of her car and transferred to Jan's. When we dropped Brenda off, Jan tried to give Brenda back a half-full big bag of Minstrels but she wouldn't take them, so they ended up offering them to me. Back on the road, I said to Jan that I could tell her how I fell out of love with BB now that the two fangirls weren't with us. So I told her the story. She was very much in tune with my views, commending me for having switched off then saying how there'd been a lot of manipulation of reality shows, plus all the scandals over phone votes like Ant and Dec's undeserved prize, and she concluded "It's got to stop".
Went to the New Theatre Royal this evening to see Corpus Christi Amateur Dramatic Society's production of Brassed Off. I'd heard from the parents that Jan from the Town Hall, whom I know from the mayoral year, was going with her colleague Kathy. In the upstairs bar before the show I spotted Brenda, a family friend who also works at the Town Hall, and went over to say hello. She was sitting with Jan and Kathy, so we all talked for a little while - they're all patrons of CCADS, and Kathy has several relatives in the society. Tonight her nephew, John-Paul McCrohon, was directing and playing Andy, while his partner Kerry Joyce played Gloria.
Standards are slipping at the New Theatre Royal - they no longer serve Lambrini :( I had to make do with a rum and coke.
The play was brilliantly performed. It had all the poignancy and humour of the film while adding a couple of new dimensions, like having Danny's 9-year-old grandson Shane, played superbly by Harry Fielder, as a kind of narrator. Kerry Joyce was fantastic as Gloria and the play benefitted enormously from having the Denmead Brass playing on stage as the Grimley Colliery band.
In the first band rehearsal scene, they played The Floral Dance. After the tune ended, when Danny ranted at the band "The composer in his infinite wisdom put quavers in, because he wanted them" etc., with a couple more hes and hises, I sat there thinking how that was a howler in the script, because the composer of The Floral Dance is female. Then again, when Danny at the end of his rant demanded to know if anyone had anything to say, Harry rose and was about to say something before thinking better of it. I like to think that mistake was what Harry was going to point out...
At the interval a sixtyish man came up behind me and said "You're enjoying the music, I see. Are you a Yorkshireman or a Lancastrian?"
"I'm a local," I smiled.
That surprised him. He said he was from "up there", Holmfirth. I didn't bother mentioning the village's claim to fame as he'd probably heard it a thousand times. We talked a little about the play (he too called Rodrigo's Concerto d'Aranjuez 'Orange Juice') and he asked if I'd seen the film - yes. After asking what I thought of young Harry's performance as Shane - excellent - he said Harry was his grandson.
Towards the end of the interval Brenda appeared behind me and said to meet them out the front at the end if I wanted a lift home.
The play ended with the Denmead Brass fittingly getting to play out the evening with a couple of tunes. As we drove out of central Portsmouth Kathy and Jan both said they were very impressed with Kerry's performance, and that in the scene where she plays the Concerto de Orange Juice she really made it look convincingly like she was playing the flugel herself (in fact she was miming to one of the Denmead Brass). On the way back we talked about various TV shows. Brenda brought up the imminent start of Big Brother 9. She and Kathy squeed over that for a few minutes; Brenda lamented that she'd be on holiday for the beginning, so Kathy promised to tape the opening night for her and keep her updated with text messages, while Jan called them sad people. I just said I used to watch but haven't since BB7. Then Jan said she liked Dr Who, starting a discussion I was able to join in positively.
At Stubbington, where Kathy lives, we got out of her car and transferred to Jan's. When we dropped Brenda off, Jan tried to give Brenda back a half-full big bag of Minstrels but she wouldn't take them, so they ended up offering them to me. Back on the road, I said to Jan that I could tell her how I fell out of love with BB now that the two fangirls weren't with us. So I told her the story. She was very much in tune with my views, commending me for having switched off then saying how there'd been a lot of manipulation of reality shows, plus all the scandals over phone votes like Ant and Dec's undeserved prize, and she concluded "It's got to stop".
