photo friday: lego boys

This week has been a hell of a thing...

Firstly work got so crazy I had to go back to making a master list of all the things I had to do, which I haven't really had to do since I started back at the Nut House... but I ended up with a raft of tasks that weren't my usual ones, so I knew if I didn't keep them all straight in my head I'd miss one.

Then on top of that I haven't really had time to do all the things I usually do in addition to the new stuff. Thank goodness for Pixie, who just got on with all the stuff I couldn't.

Also this week, after what felt like forever, the workmen finally game to make the repairs to the roof of my apartment block to fix the issue I had last year with water in places it shouldn't be. This involved a gigantic crane and them seemingly tearing up half of the roof. Which may not have been a problem had they done it during the period of time where we hadn't had any rain for over a month, no, no... they had to come right after we had rain.

So of course I came home on Tuesday night to find that some very dirty water had dripped down the wall in a number of spots, plus some general grit and dirt that must have fallen though the crack between the wall and the architrave while they were ripping up the old gutters.

That meant that I spent a good chunk of this evening washing down that wall, moving furniture around and vacuuming the carpet. Not exactly the most interesting way to spend a Friday night. Doubly so because I had to nail the backboard back onto the little bookcase since I tried to move it while it was full, and I think I ripped all the nails loose.

We've also had two Fringe shows this week, and I had a haircut with Tink in the middle of the week, so compared to a normal week for me, it's been very busy.

It was great to see Tink again though, and hear about all of her dramas after the fire next door to their place. The weirdest thing though is that the place they've now moved into is almost a perfect combination of the last two houses... it has the kitchen and laundry of the last place and more of the feel of the place before. Cool, but strange.

And what with the combination of all the things she had to tell me, and all the things I had to tell her, plus the haircut, we ended up sitting around and chatting until almost 11pm.

The nice folks from Adam also finally got around to reinstating my FTP files, so at least the mood icons are working again on the blog, although I still can't actually get into the account yet, but this is at least progress.

I've also been having a little bit of a nostalgic flashback the last couple of days because this time last year Ma and I were in Sydney... which is doubly on my mind because we don't currently have a plan for heading back any time soon. It's still be nice to head over there for the Vivid Festival in May, but I feel like that could be better in theory than in practice.

I was also really sad to hear about the death of one of my favourite authors, Terry Pratchett. But at the same time the number of people sharing their favourite Discworld quotes on social media made me very happy.

I don't know that I have a favourite quote... but I do have two favourite characters... Granny Weatherwax and the anthropomorphic personification of Death.

Which is part of why I found the three tweets they used to announce Terry's death with so touching... as well as the fact they just sounded like Terry.

The messages read:

AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

Terry took Death's arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.

The End.

Good travels Terry!

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fringe: le gateau chocolat's icons

Mama Chocolat is looking FIERCE!

This is my fourth time (well, if I count La Soirée) seeing the wondrous diva that is Le Gateau Chocolat, and he has never looked better.

From the moment he struts on stage looking every inch the superstar with a hat to die for in this brand new show, Icons, he commands your attention.

And then he sings.

That wonderful, glorious voice... I've used all the possible words to describe it previously, but it's just a joy to be in the same room as... and when he hits those low, low, looooooooooow notes, I just shiver with pleasure as his warm and oh so deep voice goes though me like a rumble of mellifluous thunder.

Plus sitting in the front row and having him sing right in front of you is the most pleasurable thing.

This new show feels much more intimate than either Le Gateau Chocolat or I Heart Chocolat... this very much feels like a show that lets you into Chocolat's heart, and past. And those things from his past, musical, romantic and otherwise that made him the amazing performer he is today.

And there were more than a few moments that I could completely relate to both the song and the feeling or situation it represented. But none more so than his truly sublime rendition of For Good from Wicked (I had to ask him what it was after the show, because it was so amazing) which struck VERY close to home and brought me to tears.

As with any great performer though, Le Gateau knows how to take the audience on an emotional journey and that any moment of catharsis needs to balanced out by laughter... and he is able to provide that in spades... from an over the top rendition of Meatloaf's I Would Do Anything For Love complete with Beyonce/Diana Ross hair and a wind machine, to the moment when an overly enthusiastic gesture meant that the wig for the next number got hopelessly tangled in the guitar of the musical director, and Le Gateau had to perform the number holding the guitar and wig up to his head.

Then on the flip side of that, he turns Whitney Houston's How Will I Know into a wonderfully soulful ballad (not to mention the fact that he goes out into the audience and just stands, perfectly still, as this beautiful song spills out of him)... and when he turned his full operatic prowess to what I'm guessing was Vesti La Giubba from the opera Pagliacci... there can be no doubt of his amazing voice.

Unlike previous shows the costume changes are minimal additions right up until the final number... but it's totally worth it for the fantastic finale.

The show may be inspired by Le Gateau's Icons, but it proves that this glorious Chocolat diva is an icon himself. And as I've said after both of the other shows, that brief hour we get to spend with him is never, ever enough.

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fringe: a simple space

Seriously, when it comes to Fringe, there's circus and then there's A Simple Space by Gravity and Other Myths!

This is the third time we've seen GOM, the second time at A Simple Space and they just keep getting better and better.

And this time around the show does feel like the more polished version of the one we saw last time. It's always interesting to see the difference between what was quite an intimate show (due mostly to the venue and the proximity of the performers to the audience) turn into this very smart and polished piece.

They still manage to keep everything looking simple though... costumes, lighting, the space itself, because the real stars here are the performer's bodies.

Seriously, there are parts of this show I could just watch all day long (and it's not even the parts where the guys take their shirts off)... specifically Lachlan (who's definitely my favourite, I'm not gunna lie), Jascha and... apologies, I'm not sure who the base was for that... where Jascha and Lachlan never touch the floor, only walking all over the base... and the piece where Jascha never touches the floor and instead walks over the bodies of the rest of the cast is just breathtaking.

And I can only imagine how amazing it would have been for the people selected from the audience to lay under Rhiannon (who was also in Cadence) as she did the handstand canes routines and walked over both cast and audience members.

Although I did get a yellow balloon animal... well, kind of an animal, more of an avant guard modern art balloon sculpture from one of the boys after they were all racing against each other to make balloon animals behind their backs.

Those are some of my favourite sections... the spots where they're in competition with each other and skipping, flipping, making balloon animals, holding their breath or hand-standing.

Musician Elliot, also previously seen in Cadence just works brilliantly with the performers... and although he's drumming, it came out as raindrops or any other sounds that he wanted, which was just gorgeous to listen to. And when did his body percussion section, first as call and repeat with the audience, but then when he pulled off his shirt and used his body as a drum until he was all pink... that was just amazing.

The other brilliant thing about Elliot is the spaces where he was silent (which sounds counter-intuitive I know, but half of music is knowing where to put the silences)... and the only sounds were the performers breathing or grunts. Usually that stuff gets covered up, smoothed over, so it all seems pretty and artful... well screw that, I'd much rather hear the exertion and know that what they're doing is damn hard work. To me it always makes it seem that much better and more interesting.

I also love to make sure that at some point in the trick I take a look at whoever the base is... I feel like the bases don't always get as much of the love as the performers like Jascha and Rhiannon who end up right at the top of things, but next time you see a circus act, pay attention to the bases and you'll see how much damn work they put into making everything that's happening at the top look serene and delicate.

There isn't anything I can point to and say "that was the weakest part of the show"... every single thing about this show is just amazing, and several hours on, my hands are still slightly tingly from all the applause I was giving them.

Circus rarely gets much better than this, so any time you get the chance, make sure you go and see them.

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fringe: inconceivable

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.

It's one of those movie lines that you just know... and if you're a fan of The Princess Bride, you would find it hard to resist quoting the line along with the actors in a theatrical version.

Which is the idea behind Inconceivable by theatre troupe Dramatic Inspirations... the audience was invited to quote lines from the play along with the actors.

It's an idea that could go horribly wrong, but on this occasion it wasn't too bad... there are certain lines that EVERYONE knows, there were a couple of girls near us who clearly had been watching the movie on repeat in anticipation and we were also sitting in front of a row of nerdy boys.

The only issue with this approach is when the actors don't present the lines exactly as you remember them, or with different intonation than the movie... which is going to happen (for example, the "Buttercup is marry Humperdinck in little less than half an hour" which essentially all came from Patinkin's accent).

Directors Michael (who also played Westley) and Emma Shaw also chose to go with a girl for the role of the child in the real world story, which kind of changed the dynamic a little, but not enough that it was a probem. But Megan Folland who plays the girl does a good job with the role.

Andy Jenkin as Inigo and Ian Milne as Fezzik are both brilliant, both capturing the essence of the characters... plus Jenkin is gorgeous with his Inigo facial hair.

While it's hard not to make comparisons to the movie cast, Shaw manages The Man in Black well, but I found that Bel Sims as Buttercup was playing her a little more... dim... than I would have liked. Likewise Josh Mitchell does a great job as the creepy Count Rugen, but he does need to speak a little more loudly so he can be heard past the the first couple of rows, especially when the crowd is laughing.

Adam Trimboli doesn't have the best of costumes, however he does have the attitude of Prince Humperdink down to a tee.

Special mention does have to go to Matt Thomas as both Miracle Max and the Clergyman with the speech impediment. Although because the audience knew what was about to happen when the Clergyman walked out, he got a laugh even before he'd said anything.

It wasn't always the most polished of productions, but it was clearly done with great affection for the original material and that definitely counts for a lot.

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fringe: boris and sergey's vaudevillian adventure

I can say without a doubt that Boris and Sergey's Vaudevillian Adventure by Flabbergast Theatre is the best puppet performance I've seen since Cabaret Décadanse.

In fact, as I said on Twitter after the show, pardon my French, but they're fucking brilliant.

And you wouldn't think to look at the two little faceless leather puppets, but they're just brimming over with personality, thanks to the amazing puppeteer crew, particularly the two guys doing the voices (and heads and one arm).

But at the same time, there are points at which you completely forget that they're inanimate objects being manipulated by the six people you see (or more accurately, start not to see) on stage, they become real.

Especially when one of them came off stage and proceeded to hump the side of my head to the sounds of Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. A very weird but incredibly amusing experience.

Without giving too much away, there's puppet acrobatics, cross dressing, explosions, flashbacks, poker, audience participation and a finale that was both moving but also flat out incredible.

Oh, and if Flabbergast made little versions of the baby Sergey puppet as merch, I wouldn't have been able to buy one fast enough... so damn cute!

And the "hidden in plain sight" puppets from the finale are just sublime.

Of course now I'm kicking myself that we didn't go and see the other show they were doing for the first half of the Fringe as well as this one... so the two plucky little puppets are going down on the list of shows to watch out for again next year!

But seriously, do yourself a favour, go and see Boris and Sergey! You'll laugh your ass off, you could shed a tear or two... and if you're really lucky, you may even be sexually harassed by a puppet.

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fringe: cadence

This was the second to last show for Cadence by a brilliant new quintet of performers, the last show is next Saturday, and I cannot emphasise enough that if you don't have a ticket, you are definitely missing out on one of the best and most unique shows of the 2015 Fringe.

This is one of the few shows I've been to where the audience broke into a spontaneous standing ovation at the end.

And it's just not like anything I've seen before. It's circus but it's not, it's music but it's not, it's five very unique performers bringing their very diverse skills together to make something greater than the sum of it's parts.

I've mentioned before that I'm not always a fan of just pure circus done for the sake of pure circus, but this was almost so distilled down to it's essence that it had gone all the way around and come back the other way.

But to take a step back for a moment, the quintet is made up of circus performers Daniel Liddiard and Rhiannon Cave-Walker, drummer, musician and sampler Elliot Zoerner, digital artist and remixer Tom Brown and brilliant (and not to mention gorgeous... those hands, oh my stars) guitarist Geordie Little. And the show goes through each of their talents and skills one by one and then like the work of Zoerner and Brown, it remixes and splices it all together at the end in an incredible way.

Liddiard and Cave-Walker tumble and balance, Liddiard stands on his hands like a champion and Cave-Walker blends dance and circus... Zoerner takes a single sound and warps, weaves and bends it until it's an entire song of it's own... Brown samples TV chefs and turns Jamie, Nigella and Gordon into an amazing hip-hop inspired sound... and Little weaves those lithe fingers and sharp little fingernails across the strings and body of his guitar, teasing out sounds I didn't even realise that you could get a guitar to make.

And like Gravity and Other Myths, which Liddiard, Cave-Walker and Zoerner are all members of, they do it all in street clothes.

The best part of the show was the finale where they bring all the elements together... Liddiard starts tumbling around the stage, Zoerner and Brown use a microphone to sample his landings and body slaps to turn it into a beat, Little provides the melody and when Cave-Walker arrives to join Liddiard you realise that he has been running a duet without a partner the whole time.

If there's a single flaw in this show it's the fact that it only runs for thirty minutes... but mark my words, we have definitely not heard the last of Cadence, and I cannot wait to see what they do next!

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shoporama saturday shopping

Even though we ended up doing a lot of stuff today this is going to be a reasonably quick update because I've also got two Fringe reviews to write and my computer took about a billion years installing updates when I got home.
But for a day where we didn't really know what we were going to do with our time, we certainly found ways to fill it.

Fortunately both Ma and I were running late this morning... I say fortunately because it's better than the occasions where I'm running late and she isn't.

The supermarket safari was pretty average... Although even though we didn't seem to have massive amounts more groceries than usual, we did collectively spend more money than usual.

Then we came back here for general unpackery and whatnot... All the while trying to decide what the hell we were going to do until our first show of the evening at 4pm.

In the end we decided on a quick(ish) trip to IKEA, followed by a trip to Marion.
The IKEA trip was supposed to just be for yet more picture frames, but I also wanted to pick up a larger kitchen bin than the one I bought when I first moved in. Now either I imagined a larger bin or else they've stopped making it, both of which aren't useful.

But I got the frames, and some really gorgeous scissors (which for some reason look Japanese to me), and a couple of general bits of useful uselessness.

Then we headed off to Marion for what was mostly an exercise in killing time.

It did, for some reason, turn into something of a shoporama. It started with some plastic containers for Ma and some Lego for me... because AFOL. Then I got distracted by the "sale" sign at Gametraders and bought more Funko Pop figures (although one of them is a different Olaf to put away for Ma for Christmas).

Then Ma found a bag she liked while I was in another store looking at the strangest thongs I have ever seen in my entire life. Seriously, go and look at that picture... that's a product on a shelf in a store, for real actual people to exchange for cash. Yeah, somebody sat in a meeting and came up with that idea, and then a designer sat down and drew those, then they were made. What the actual fuck!

On the down side, they have the strap that I prefer, which is just wrong since that style of thong is in short supply.

Anyway, from there we came back here, dropped off all our shopping and basically turned around, wandered downstairs and across the square to the Channel Nine Studios to see our first show, then came back here, killed some time and headed out into the city nice and early so that we could get some dinner, have a wander and still be in plenty of time for our later show.

We ended up eating at Owens Noodles... which was delicious, but really difficult to eat given the shape of the container, and neither of us actually finished it all since the only available size was "holy fuck that's giant".

Then we just went and found a spot in Gluttony and watched the passing parade/horror show of humanity until it was time for the show.

So a pretty long day all in all, but fun was definitely had.

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photo friday: funhouse friday

By the end of today my brain was very broken...

It's been a strange week overall really. I spent about five and a half hours cleaning the apartment last Sunday in preparation for the inspection on Tuesday. As I said on Twitter on Sunday evening, while I hate the process of doing the big clean up, I do love the apartment once it's all bright and shiny. Especially because I end up doing all the sorting out and organisation that tends to get skipped over in my normal housework routine.

And of course, I got full marks more or less from the land agent. Plus he finally got around to sending out a plumber to fix the issue with the toilet cistern I've had more or less since I moved in. It was reasonably minor, but it's been bugging me, and I've mentioned it at each inspection, so I'm glad it's finally been dealt with.

Then there were just the two Fringe shows this week... one planned, the other completely unexpected when I was offered free tickets. And after the show on Thursday I decided that I would stop off at the Blinc light show in Elder Park on the banks of the Torrens for the Adelaide Festival.

My overall thoughts... m'eh.

The lighting grid in the rotunda (above left) is great, but everything else is a bit lackluster... especially the projection on the Festival Theatre, because with all the other lights around making sure people can see where they're going and what they're doing, the whole thing ends up really washed out and less interesting than I would have otherwise have hoped.

And there's were a collection of talking faces over on the far side of the bridge that were rigged up with speakers... and one of them was this horrible screechy, processed voice that you could hear clear across the river and half way to the rotunda, and was frankly creeping me out every time I heard it.

The elephant should have been good... but given that it's floating in mid air instead of being anchored to a base, it just feels fake... plus it looks like slightly cartoony CGI to me.

I did have a brief moment of fun with the "sound horn" installation, where you spoke into a cone and it transferred the sound into light and along a tube to a wall display. Everyone before me had just been saying a word here or there, and getting slightly lackluster results.... and the only thing that popped into my head was my third favourite Press Gang quote ("You're a warped, repressed, power-mad bitch! You don't have the morals of an alley cat! And you never made a friend that you didn't use!"), which gave some pretty impressive results.

I ended up hanging out for a little over an hour, but part of that was lining up for the rotunda and grabbing a hot chocolate after it got a little chilly.

And then today I felt like my feet didn't touch the ground for the whole day. Every time I turned around I had some other little weirdness crop up and they just ended up filling my whole day. I didn't really get to any of my regular jobs, it was just one random thing after another.

I also managed to put the finishing touches on a plan I had earlier in the week when the #MarchBabiesRock hashtag made it's annual reappearance on my Twitter stream...

I found TeeSpring who seem to be somewhat like the Kickstarter or t-shirt ideas... so I figured I'd put together the "tastefully printed hashtag t-shirts".

Now I just need some preorders before they'll print the shirts. So if you're a March baby, or you know one, consider one of these lovely shirts! I would have already ordered one for myself, but I honestly can't decide between the dark grey and bright red versions.

So all in all, it's been a hell of a week. Thank all the appropriate deities it's a long weekend!

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fringe: a butterfly effect

I have to thank cast member Jaklene for giving me free tickets to this show following my review of Death Comes At The End last weekend.

I'll be perfect frank, A Butterfly Effect by First Draft was not the show I was expecting to see. Based off the blurb in the Fringe Guide and the fact that I'd seen cast members Jaklene Vukasinovic and Coby Yolland in a comedy improv show previously, I was expecting something more in that general vein.

What I got was something altogether different... and, to be honest, even more interesting.

This was the first time I've seen what I think was serious improv theatre. At least I think it was all improvised... I've only really seen comedy shows with improv prior to this, and they have a degree of audience participation, or at least audience suggestion, whereas this had none of that. It did feel like the four actors had major points they had to hit in each scene but everything else was a little akin to a duck... seemingly smooth and natural on the surface but paddling their little hearts out underneath.

As a result the whole thing felt incredibly natural and almost totally unscripted. Which I guess is how improv theatre should feel.

The show itself is divided into two halves, presented in a number of vignettes between a couple of the characters... both halves tell ostensibly the same series of events, but in a very Sliding Doors kind of way... the first half (at least of this version) was very combative... all the characters are in conflict with each other in some way... whereas the second time around there seems to be one tiny change to what characters do and don't know as the first scene starts and that ripples through the whole play and while the vignettes are all very similar, there's a casting swap here or there and the whole thing felt so much more relaxed.

And the small cast manage to deal with both versions of the characters beautifully. But I have no idea if that's generally the way the show goes, the heavy version and then the light version... I know the details should be different every time, but whether those major decisions remain the same I really don't know. That is the fun about improv shows though, no matter what the genre, the show I get to see may be radically different from the show you get to see, and that's very cool.

In addition to Coby and Jaklene, the other half of the cast is Amanda Knights and Ben Watts. And I have to say that Watts does an amazing job of portraying the worst kind of Lothario man-child and makes himself really easy to want to boo off stage at certain points in both stories.

So while it wasn't in any way what I was expecting... I am very glad that I got a chance to see it. And my thanks again to Jaklene for the tickets.

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fringe: a midsummer knight's dream... what?

Sometimes you see a Fringe show where there are only ten people in the audience. Sometimes you see a Fringe show where the title doesn't really match the content of the show. Sometimes you see a Fringe show where despite everyone's best intentions it just doesn't come together.

A Midsummer Knight's Dream... What? (and yes, that's the whole title) from Into the Mask Theatre is sadly all of these things at the same time.

Firstly, despite the title, it's not actually Shakespeare... having seen the show and re-reading the blurb, it's still not completely clear that that's not the case. Yes I can kind of see the parallels between the Bard's tale of fairies and lovers, but this was a story all of it's own.

Which isn't to say that it's a bad story, it's just not what I was expecting and it's also... well, the best phrase I can really think of to describe it is a little bit awkward. And it was made a little worse because there were only about ten people in the audience.

It's not due to a lack of energy from the performer, Shane... he was definitely putting his all into it. And there were points that were amusing, and the entire character of the cyclops, with the decidedly Muppet inspired voice, was a definite stand out. The masks that were used to transition between the different characters were also gorgeous, even (or perhaps especially) the one with the erect penis for a nose.

His musical accompanist was quite cute in a nerdy musical blonde way, and could definitely play the living daylights out of both the keyboard and guitar he used throughout the show.

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