Swearing in a posh voice.

I've never been to the Edinburgh Festival Theatre before, in fact I don't much go to the theatre at all. Prior to courting my sweetheart, my theatre-going have only extended to seeing Aladdin starring TV's The Krankies and Peter Pan starring Eastending warbler Anita Dobson, both at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. And I think I'd been on a field trip there too to look "behind the scenes" (We actually looked in the control room in front of the scenes. It was very hot and Tracey from my class fainted. Caused quite a stir. The control console had these really trendy rubber continuous faders on it - might even have been the clear ones with the LEDs behind them but I might just be confabulating that.).

I like Stewart Lee and enjoyed his TV and radio shows with Richard Herring, but was fairly non-plussed by his show at the Fringe Festival in 2005 that went on for too long and wasn't that funny.

A lot of his humour simply amounts to being alternately crude and clever, and exploiting the transition or mixture for comic effect. I guess that's why the partnership with Richard Herring was so funny to watch; it's a comedy of contradictions and that, by it's nature, is more effective with two contradicting people, especially when one is fat and one is thin. Not that Stewart Lee is so "fii-iit" these days. PPP says a friend of hers used to fancy Richard Herring, but that ended when they saw him stumbling around in the Pleasance court yard one Edinburgh Festival many moons ago. The story is funnier when she tells it.

Jerry Springer: The Opera is an exercise in presenting something that is simultaneously crude and erudite.

The Jerry Springer Show is a popular talk show, the object of which is to examine the universal human problems of love and hate, dishonesty and trust. These themes are exemplified by the participants who are the most wretched, desperate and doomed folk around, struggling in doomed, desperate and wretched relationships. The method of the show is to hold these unfortunate's situations up to scrutiny and invite mockery and judgement from a studio audience who attend, hoping to see some lesbians, chicks with dicks or fist-fighting (or preferably, a combination of all three), with Jerry Springer as the ring master. After a sequence of ever-more incredible and unlikely revelations, Springer will sum up and conclude that people are all different and we should just "look after yourselves, and each other".

As far as I can see, the show is primarily the suggestion of counselling, made entertaining. Although it doesn't really offer counselling to anyone itself, it show-cases the talking cure and advocates tolerance and discussion over stubborn self-absorption. In essence this is commendable but usually the positive, universal elements of the conflict are obfuscated by the spectacle of the trailer-trash fighting each other and marrying their tri-nippled cousins etc until the final denouement by Springer. I think for most people it's pure schadenfreude: The parade of losers puffing themselves up like something special, then having a fight and generally behaving in a vile and uneducated way. Viewers like to see these caricatures pierced and mounted on the rotisserie of condemnation, sacrifice and redemption, and it is easy to see The Jerry Springer Show as the pinnacle of bad-taste, victim exploitation television, and dismiss it as such.

What Jerry Springer: The Opera does is take the content and object of The Jerry Springer Show, gradually inflate and exaggerate it so that the issues and rules are applied to a more epic, explicitly universal scale: God vs Satan, Good vs Evil. A further level of misdirection is introduced with the operatic aspect of the show, and I suppose this is what makes it a theatre show as opposed to a weblog. Using some of the conventions of the musical opera makes the whole thing funny again and provides the main laugh of the show. Simply put, while people swearing at each other about betrayal in southern American accents is just debasing and pitiful, people singing that same stream of expletives in their formal soprano warble is suddenly actually very funny.

I laughed a great deal. Part of the humour is simply down to the bizarreness of opera singers singing about being sodomised with barbed wire and the vocal show-down between Satan and Jesus was the highlight for me, being a five-minute solo of "Fuck You" countered with "Talk to the stigmata". The script itself has some very funny jokes but I admit a lot of its appeal is thanks to the characters' blunt disregard for one another; symbolic gods treating each other with humanistic contempt and the absurdity of Satan (who is the coolest character, ironically) insisting to Springer that he sort out he and God's irreconcilable differences with a special after-life episode of "The Jerry Springer Show in Hell".

Very good show. The set and the production is physically sparse but successfully exploited with effective lighting and pretty canny video projections that are unobstrusive when required and add a great texture and context to the action when things heat up or the scene changes. The music was good and all the sound seemed pretty on the money to me. I had some problems understanding some of the singing, but I guess that's a problem more to do with the style than to do with a technical issue. The performance and the choreography was polished and there weren't any technical problems that I could see, except the seats were a bit shallow and a bit hard. Oh, and the tables in the foyer were creaky and wobbly, but did have pretty neat pedestals.

I went to see Jerry Springer: The Opera at Edinburgh Festival Theatre on the 25th April 2006. It only cost £22 for two tickets because we got a twofer.

Tsotsi

"Tsotsi" means thug, and this is the name the central character of this film goes by. The character is played with a wonderful lack of expression, especially when compared to his caricature gang: the friendly fat kid with the catchphrase, the uneducated and murderous skinny weasel and the speccy philosopher. Tsotsi has the uneasy menace of someone who has to deal with his inhumanity to his fellow man by becoming less than human: Keeping his feelings tightly under control to allow him to be as ruthless as he needs to be to get by. This façade cracks when the speccy philosopher challenges him over the unnecessary murder of a stranger on the packed commuter train, and Tsotsi spins off into a new problem, acquiring a baby, and a few questions about his own nature. Though the actual meat of the film is pretty grim and depressing, it’s course and it’s conclusion is promising, if not exactly happy. The casual brutality of the dusty township where the gang lives in tin-rooved huts becomes more ugly when it spills over into the kinds of leafy suburban streets we’re used to seeing on television, but this is not a terribly violent or bloody film. Sure there are some guns waved around, but what violence there is is not explicit, with only the consequences shown in a detailed way. It's an emotional film rather than an action film. This was an enjoyable, interesting film that is different from most around, and the performances are great, particularly the lead (Presley Chweneyagae) who is as menacing as he is vulnerable.

I saw this film on DVD at home on a Sunday afternoon. My spell checker is insisting it is called "Tootsie".

Derailed

This film is a thriller starring Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston and Vincent Cassel. Cassel is funny as a part-gallic robber, murderer and extortionist. It says something about a film (I don't know what) when a frenchman seems unconvincing, while actually playing a frenchman. Aniston is unremarkable as a brittle businesswoman bored with her absentee husband and Clive Owen does not engage as a martyred family man trying to spice up his life. The characters are all unlikable - people who have families and wealth and are still happy to risk it for some cheap excitement. After the first half an hour, the only reason I had to keep on watching was to see if the plot was as predictable as I thought. Anyway it was. Though perhaps I'm being a bit unfair, because the very last mini-twist was good, and I laughed. Clive Owen's character is pretty good at the end, but I still get him mixed up with Clive Dunn. Maybe Clive Dunn should have been in this, it would've been better, because on reflection, Dad's Army was usually pretty good.

I saw this film on rented DVD, at night time.

La Clique at the Spiegeltent

This was a show I went to see at the Spiegeltent at the Fringe Festival, and had it highly recommended to me from previous years. Yeah it was ok, but ultimately it was a variety performance, and not a particularly risque or good one. The norwegian who could dislocate himself and squeeze through a pair of tennis racquets (unstringed) was quite good, but only because he was funny with it. There was some woman with big knockers who could do the hula hoop, some dancing Argentineans in sharp suits, a vaudeville singer doing utterly unremarkable covers of modern pop classics, the most profoundly un-erotic stripper I can conceive of, a fit chick in a very tiny, very transparent leotard doing some balancing, and a thunderous flying roller-skating thing where the bloke had big eighties hair and swung a woman out over the audience by her head (and stuff). The Caesar twins were on it as well, which was just as much homo-erotic posturing as I'd imagined. I said "Who's that dumpy charver waiting by the door?", my date said "I think it's one of the Caesar twins." Well I imagined them a bit more statuesque, but they're only about five foot tall, and pretty ugly, like goblins. Very muscley though, which I suppose is quite impressive. And that about sums the show up: technically pretty good (everything is fit into a little circular stage about 8 foot across), but otherwise fairly unremarkable, and certainly nothing you haven't seen before.

My Name is Rachel Corrie

This is a play with something to do with Alan Rickman, and it sounded quite interesting, even though the Sheriff of Nottingham was not in it at all. It's about a girl, Rachel Corrie, who grows up in Olympia, Washington State, has a passion for activism and justice and goes off to the Gaza strip to help the citizens not get squashed by bulldozers, and eventually gets squashed by one herself. A sad story to be sure, and one that doesn't readily supply a moral. It's all true too, adapted for the stage directly from Rachel's notes, letters and emails, but I admit I've never heard of Rachel Corrie outside of discussions of this play. That isn't such an amazing thing given my predilection towards inactivism, and my tendency to fence-sit and vigorously hedge when it comes to complicated matters. I enjoyed it a lot. It's a monologue that follows Rachel's journey from hometown teenage bedroom to shattered cement battlefield and I was quite moved by it. I particularly liked the flashback to Rachel's days in Olympia as part of a support group for schizophrenics, because it was funny, and without this editing and to-and-fro, this could've easily turned into something totally maudlin. As it was, the diaries and letters have been presented as a coherent narrative that demonstrates Rachel's idealistic spirit, and though nobody could say she wasn't naive, she seems aware of her naivety, and calls it hopefulness instead. Which I find moving and outstandingly bold - activism of the most significant kind.

It is testament to the power of this play that, upon exit, I was not alone in thinking I should do more with my life, try to make a difference more. But as something of a polemic against war and organised aggression, I was also deeply aware that there are two sides to every story, and watching this play, I'm struck by the question of whether I think Rachel's death was a waste of a life, or a bold sacrifice which has publicised her peaceful cause. The fact that her name lives on to spark discussion points to the latter, but the small likelihood of this making any difference to the worlds' foreign policies indicates the former. Rachel asks in hushed tones about who actually benefits from the suggestion that criticism of Israel is anti-semitic, and leaves the question open, but this is not a balanced discussion of the conflict, nor does it even have a lot of comment on the basis of the conflict itself. It casts the Palestinians as teetering on the brink of destruction under the heel of a US-funded military, and the protest is based on the inequality of powers rather than the essential wrongness or rightness of the individual causes.

I saw this at the Pleasance.

When it was first on the telly here, I watched a few bits of a few episodes of The West Wing but it never really appealed to me for a few reasons. One of the main things that put me off was the alien jargon and organisational structures that the story is embedded in, but after prompting, and watching a few episodes at once (my lovely girl started getting sent them from amazon on their rental thing), I got the hang of that. Or at least, I got the hang of which bits I needed to understand and which bits were just scenary. After that there was no stopping me, and we whizzed through every season as soon as we could get our grubby mitts on them. The characters are all brilliant, but flawed in some way, and they have some high capers each episode, sometimes involving nuclear detonations. It's very smart, and that's what I like about it. Bartlett is the smartest man in the world, surely, I'd vote Bartlett in the next elections.

Anyway, I was sad when the last season came round, because it meant this beautiful thing was almost over. As if to soften the blow, the whole last season was a bit of a dull one, and fairly anti-climactic, and I can't help but feel the writers copped out a bit by making everyone live happily ever after. CJ, the smartest woman in the world, should have had her own spin-off show (like Joey), but fortunately, Josh Liman did get his own show, called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. He stars in this along with Chandler from Friends, both playing different people of course, and they are very good indeed. This show is basically the same as The West Wing but in a different setting, and because of this, it is fabulous and I have been devouring each episode with gusto. Again, it's a big ensemble cast, again the characters are quick-talking, principled individuals out to save the world. I recommend it heartily for those who enjoyed the West Wing.

Heroes

I've acquired a few episodes of this show recently, and I like it a lot though it's got some problems. It's a story of people realising they've got super powers of various kinds, and it's about time someone filmed something like this. It is quite exciting if only for this reason, but it is very Lost-ish in deployment. In the same way Lost frustrates because it is clear than the next episode is not going to reveal anything of any apparant significance (I stopped watching), Heroes is a bit frustrating because nothing is happening fast enough, though every scene is loaded with portenteous looks and shock "No way!" moments. Nothing is getting revealed. Despite that it seems rather simplistic and childish too, the characters are very thin and cliched and the science is implausible. Nevetheless, these are mostly criticisms that I could also level at many comics, and above all, this is a comic-like show. It's written and played out in a comic book story-arc kind of way, and comics are referenced throughout, and I for one am finding it hard to wait for the end, where I'm sure everyone will gang together to chin the baddies. Probably except for a Phoenix type character who is very powerful but uncontrollable. That's what I reckon. I just hope they make the cheerleader's costume tight enough.

Unbreakable

I never saw this film before last week when it was on the TV, but I always imagined it was a bit rubbish. This idea is probably based on M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs", which was a bit rubbish, though I admit I own on DVD and perversely think is very enjoyable, despite it's bit-rubbishy nature. This was really good. Maybe I'm getting excited about these all these super-hero comic stories coming to the screen (Heroes etc), but I was pleased by this a great deal too. It's got Bruce Willis as a maudlin-but-nails everyman, which is never a bad thing, as he is the dude. Rather like his character in Die Hard I suppose, except his powers are formalised more in this film.

I didn't expect the ending, which I'm told is an important part in these films, though I probably should have seen it coming. I think the story is really based on the idea that traditionally, comics have started with the hero, and then the hero spends his time discovering villainy and then combatting it. It's nice to see this turned around, with the villain is actively out to discover the hero in order to find meaning to his evil, his corrupted existence. I like this "super-powered ordinary people" story but it makes me yearn to see Watchmen on the big screen. Dr Manhattan being genuinely freakish as any super-hero would be, and Ozymandias being really clever. This is what makes Batman, and Judge Dredd such exciting characters - they are just ordinary people in a freakish world, behaving in a maladjusted way towards it. Their super-power is simply to be really hard, and really smart. This is why Batman chinning Superman in "The Dark Knight Falls" is my favourite comic moment. He overcome the Man of Steel by sheer force of brains and his nails-ness. Totally in the same way that I would, if I was ever fighting Superman.

The Fantastic Four

Jessica Alba is smoking hot in this film. Seriously, quite eye-boggling. "The Invisible Chick" is so clearly and undeniably a five-star fox of the highest order. More like The Fantastic Phwoar, ha ha. The film is pretty enjoyable, even ignoring Alba's tight outfit performance. I am looking forward to the sequel (even though I never really got much out of the Silver Surfer as a character) because I love a comic cross-over story. I hope it will have Galactus in it, with his funny bucket-shaped hat, that's hilarious.

Hot Fuzz

Really liked Spaced, and got to really like Shaun of the Dead though I wasn't so impressed on my initial viewing. Upon revisiting it, I enjoyed it a lot, and continue to do so, and so I was looking forward to seeing Hot Fuzz. Well, it was ok, but exactly no more and no less than what you'd expect, given it's premise.

The question in Shaun of the Dead is "what would ordinary people do in extraordinary situations?", and the answer is: "more or less ordinary things". The funny things in Shaun of the Dead are everyday people trying to deal with heroism in their own self-deprecating and unskilled way, and trying to save lives, make desperate sacrifices etc, when the only guidance they have ever had in their lives about these matters comes from their TV screen. They don't all suddenly become super-hard guerilla fighters with amazing tactics and unswerving bravery, they actually just go to a place they feel safe, and weather the storm in whatever amateur way they can.

The question in Hot Fuzz is "what would extraordinary people do in ordinary situations?", and the answer is: "more or less extraordinary things". The village has a dark underside that super-cop Nick Angel (Simon Pegg's character) is an obvious antidote to. The whole joke of the film is the incongruity of this: a sleepy countryside village being subject to the same conspiracies, chases, shoot-outs and heroic bloodshed as in your big-budget action blockbuster: Part of the main shoot-out is set in the local Somerfield, and the cops in riot gear storm the meat counter with a row of supermarket trolleys.

I laughed out loud quite a lot throughout it, so I enjoyed it a lot, but I felt it was less than it could have been. There's something uncomfortable about how it is half homage, half parody. By parodying the action genre so affectionately, they dilute the action aspect, but then still rely on it to deliver excitement - particularly obviously in the explosive shoot-out finale. And I suppose, the worst thing is, is that they don't even do it that well. Edgar Wright uses his trademark quickfire jump-cut sequences of ordinary things (going to the toilet, toast popping up, kettle boiling etc) to poke fun at film editing techniques, and I used to love that, in Spaced and in Shaun, but it is used abrasively and to excess here, particularly in the mugshot-taking/filling-in-forms sequences which go on for at least twice as long as they should.

Simon Pegg plays the straight man in this film, so was naturally and happily upstaged - Nick Frost is the real star of the show, showing great comic timing and revelatory acting. A lot of the jokes are very funny, but I think the visual humour was lacking, and as a script for a film, I think it falls between stools rather when it can't decide what to play straight and what to play for humour.

Saying all of that, while it was less than what it could have been, it was a lot more than some others, and Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright are a team that are engaging and very enjoyable to watch: They are people doing something they clearly really enjoy, in a pretty obvious way, and because of that, with a fairly predictable outcome. Very much the bloke[s] down the pub: Very funny, telling the same old jokes (which were good to begin with) and enjoyable to be with, but predictably so. This is not really a bad thing: Pegg, Frost, Wright, I still love you, but I think I might go to a different pub once in a while.

I went to see this at the pictures in the VUE cinema in the Omni centre in Edinburgh. We had to sit near the front, so the screen was big and the action was a bit hard to follow, and the sound was too loud and pretty distorted. I wonder if this distorted audio is a limitation of their equipment at these levels, or whether it is just a symptom of being sat in a place in the auditorium that full-price seats shouldn't be in.

I have been listening to a new podcast lately, it's called Shift Run Stop and it is, to paraphrase the intro, a fun podcast about cultural stuff, games, comedy, interviews etc. It seems to aim for the magazine format, but thankfully misses it, usually being realised as an series of little vignettes from an interview with an interesting person, chopped up and interspersed with a few other smaller pieces, usually reviews of films or art shows, or other little digressions. A regular feature is Dave Green's snackspot, in which snacks are discussed.

The mixture of sources and subjects, together with the likable and excitable presenters makes for a frankly rather joyful, overheard conversation, the kind you hear in the pub, and stop talking yourself to listen to. The subject of the podcast, broadly speaking, is technology and internet culture, or geek culture. Which, as we know is simply the culture of people who are very interested in something. It is made by my very good friend, Leila Johnston, (who is one of those irritatingly clever and funny people who really make all of my activity seem entirely ephemeral and mundane), and a chap called Roo Reynolds, who is a much better presenter and sounds like the BBC that he is, but really the presenters stay rather out of the picture, and it's about the guests.

On the whole, the guests are really good, not just people with a book to promote. Well, they might have a book to promote, but it's relevant - this isn't a chat show. The last guest was Naomi Alderman, who I've never heard of, but she was a writer on Perplex City, which was an interesting project that I was aware of, but had never played because it required too much attention. I am a lazy. Anyway, her interview is genuinely exciting, extremely appealing (and I suspect, well-edited) and this is not an unusual episode in this sense. Earlier episodes featured a challenging Adam Curtis, a modest Paul B Davis and an inspirational Sarah Angliss (I am thinking my ideal date would be a night out at the wine bar with Sarah Angliss and Naomi Alderman), none of whom I had heard of before, all of whom I am now addicted to.

This is the first podcast I've ever listened to. It's just a downloadable audio file. I don't listen to podcasts, because I don't listen to the radio. I don't have a time that I listen to radio shows, so it was difficult to know how to consume this podcast. I eventually put it onto my walkman and listened as I walked to work, but then I have to turn it off when I get there, and I want to keep listening. But I can't, because then I'd not be able to get any work done.

Anyway, this is worth listening to, and it's getting a good reception on iTunes too, where it is punching well above it's weight in the hit parade. It is interesting if nothing else, and often informative and I find, as a creative designer and maker working in a technical field, rather inspirational.

Shift Run Stop