The Power Play

Well, I promised you I'd tell you a little something of what I've been doing, and here is one:

Ryan J-W Smith is the author and director of "The Power Play" in which I had a small and very sweet part. The play is an Elizabethan-style tragicomedy written in iambic penthameter and bears resemblance to a story of "Hamlet before the death of the king".

I have to say, at first I was sceptic about another "upstart English son" taking on the form of Shakespearian writing. But it didn't take long and I was pleasantly surprised (and so apparently were others who made his second play "Love's Labour's Won" the Pick of the Fringe this year in Edinburgh).

As a bonus we were playing at the beautiful Vanburgh Theatre at RADA.

He is well worth a visit and perhaps you might like to read the play. You will find the website here.

The pictures to the show were taken by myself, so I'm afraid none of me, but there are some of "The Taming of the Shrew" now in my portfolio courtesy of Richard Hammerton.

Anyone got a Marsian I could borrow?

What a drag!

I was given a 50 Pound Virgin voucher, bought myself loads of DVD's and tonight, just when I wanted to watch one of them, I find out the celophane had been opened and the disk wasn't acually in there...

It was stolen. Bummer.

And I really wanted to find out who wins between Aliens VS. Predator (and then sell the piece of crap on ebay to get my money back, which is really what hurt).

Funny enough nobody stole any of the Godfathers (they were on offer, I couldn't refuse) or Ghostbusters, Broke Back Mountain or Serenity (which I watched last night, is a piece of crap but made me laugh). This tells me our thief was out to save my tastebuds in film.

To the thief: I enjoy watching trash occasionally. I hope you soil your pants watching the DVD I bought, rot in hell for your sins and slowly gets your guts torn out by something that looks like a hibrid of a Predator/Alien.

Honey, I'm home! ...or 10 steps to bankrupt yourself in 4 months.

1. Be an Actor
2. Go on profitshare tours that last 3,5 months
3. Go on a holiday you can't afford
4. Come back from Holiday and decide to do more unpaid acting work
5. Move house
6. Let your housing association charge you extra fees they never mentioned
7. Help someone out, then let them F*** you over for money
8. The girl at the bar is cute...
9. Oversleep on your first day back to work

When all else fails try the one I haven't had the guts to yet:

10. Marry, arrive home early, find your wife in bed with another actor (musician, forearm-tatooed biker...). Then pay the legal fees for the divorce and her deserved psycho-therapy (after all, you did see her naked, didn't you?).


...Hello Boys and Girls!

Well, I've just been through steps 1-9, so apologies for not posting lately. However, as I now live in a place that has internet I'll tell you all about the last few months in the next couple of posts.

To be honest, I have had a ball lately! Unfortunately my plan to hypnotise my bank manager, make him give me all the money and then make him squawk like a chicken has failed.

Lemme hear your best money-wasting stories!

Chris

Zaehming of the pointed mouse...

Well, the beautiful English summer is here (with all its buckets of rain) and as "there's small choice in rotten apples" I find myself playing open air Shakespeare again! :)

Humour aside, I'm really looking forward to it. I get to be Lucentio (yet another lover) in a production of The Taming of the Shrew.

Therefore despite all Nature's precipitation ("Tush, tush! Fear boys with bugs.") we will face the weather.

The play will be set in 1940's, and we will be playing British Entertainment Soldiers for ENSA who are puting on Taming of the Shrew. Complete with Jazz band and all.

I love the concept, now I'm curious to see if it will work, ha ha. "And thereby hangs the tale", so pray that "nothing comes amiss; so money comes withal".

Here is a flyer with the touring dates for those who are interested to come and see it!

PS: The title of this post is courtesy of Babelfish English to German and back again...

Pirate Mania!

Oooarrr me mayteys!

Last weekend I did a three day street Festival called Made in Deptford. We did a play about pirates because some rumour the original skull and crossbones flag comes from St Nicholas Church.

I was amazed when I started reading up on the history of pirates. You always think female pirates are an invention of Hollywood, but do check out the history of Anne Bonney and Mary Read!

And in this picture of Blackbeard it isn't smoke coming out of his ears, he used to knead wicks into his hair and set them on fire when he was attacking ships making him look so devillish that others would surrender without a fight! ...crazy cat.

Apparently they also had fairly democratic systems on the ship. Set rules and voting rights. (And the occasional removal of a captain when they thought he was a wimp.)

Well, Hollywood eat your heart out, there's plenty more material to make films of!

...aehm, about that offside rule...

All right Nicole, this one's for you and your friends...

Anybody who knows me understands that I'm not the greatest sports fan. In fact, I quietly pretend to myself that eating contests and swim suit competitions are sports just to make myself believe it's all right to break a sweat while I practice cooking.

Ironically on Saturday I have been given a part in a commercial where I am to portray the stereotype German soccer fan for the World Cup 2006.

Good actor that I am, I've been doing my research:

• I found out that those funny guys in the black are not a team of their own
• You don't get a parking ticket for parking on the white line
• Tripping the guy with the ball and then jumping onto him with the full force of your body wheight to make sure the bastard stays down is not a good idea in soccer

And finally I did some reseach on my costume... Here are my two finalists: What do you think?

Chris in the circus of horror plastic critters.

Why do we do it?

I am sitting at a foreign desk at an office I've never been. Typical office boxes, typical patter on keyboards, typical crap coffee. One should think this should be in an efficient, pleasant (-ish) surrounding in order to slave away for the greater good of rich men's pocketbooks, but no!

I find myself surrounded by no less than 3 rubber ducks, a see-through box of eight rose shaped soaps, 12 baby pictures, three stress balls, 4 (!) Calendars, a card with Garfield on it saying "I'm allergic to mornings", 2 plastic drinking bottles, a rubber band in the shape of a Giraffe, a box of fruit tee, a plastic cut-out of 'Angelica' from Rugrats, and finally a 12 inch mahogany deep set frame showing a black and white foto of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

Now, I understand a certain amount of parafinalia defining a persons personal space and character but honestly... My question is this:

What could possibly make us humans believe we need all this shit around us?

Why would any human with usually a grand total of two hands have THREE stress balls? What are you gonna do with it? (Don't answer. ...or actually do answer!)

What possible purpose can a rubber duck have in an office surrounding? The chances of it seeing water here are directly proportional to it falling in your coffee cup!

And please: For what reason would anyone have 4 calendars??? Well I'm gonna do some stretching I've got a new instructor who believes I can loose the stress balls...