Theatre: Our Man in Havana......

Presented by Creative Cow 
By Graham Greene
Adapted by Clive Francis

“You should dream more, Mr. Wormold. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.” 
Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana

Cuba 1958. Meet Jim Wormold – a hapless vacuum cleaner salesman who gets sucked in to a dirty world of espionage and double agents when the chance of helping out MI6 with a job or two proves too good an offer to resist. And, quite frankly, he could do with the cash to pay for his teenage daughter’s ever increasing lifestyle. 

Thrillingly adapted for the stage by Clive Francis, this uproarious farce is filleted to perfection from Graham Greene’s hilarious, subversive and ever popular novel.

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Hmmmm well the positives were four actors who absolutely worked their socks off and portrayed so many different characters amongst them. 

The premise of the story could have been hilarious but the execution was actually boring. The scenes were far too short and because they didn't achieve anything in the rushed and confused dialogue the actors had to supplement with words to the audience to tell us what's going on. And  for scene changes the constant movement of a table/desk and chairs was distracting. 

Billed as a farce but no laugh out loud moments and all played at the same manic pace so no highs or lows. A missed opportunity as it could have been really good. 
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Knitting......

Finished knitting this tunic last night, then today was so lovely and sunny and warm that I couldn't keep it on beyond lunch time 😂😎😅

Diss Organ Festival.......

Sunday morning was a damp grey day and Hubby was out for the day meeting friends. He had been out all day Saturday doing his charity work too so when the weather brightened up and Daughter mentioned on Facebook that she was going out I invited myself along.

Daughter, O and I went to Diss in Norfolk for this...

There were an amazing collection of organs of all shapes and sizes, playing all varieties of music. They were mostly surrounding a large park land field but carried on through the high street too.

I can't take any credit for these photos as Daughter took them all and I've stolen them.

It was as much fun seeing the workings round the backs as it was admiring the pretty painted fronts. This mechanical one had to be continuously turned by hand.

As we walked passed the beautiful lake we bumped into Daughter's friends and stopped for a brief chat till a bored O dragged us away.

We called into St Marys church to have a look around and admired their organ pipes too. 

Lunch was in a Costa, O's choice as he knows what he likes in there. 

Then we walked on to the museum. A lovely small space that was crammed full of interesting things. Hands-on curios to investigate and the elderly volunteer on the desk came over especially to make sure O knew it was ok to touch and eagerly encouraged him. 

After walking back towards the lake and stopping in the queue for icecreams we bumped into other friends I knew and O enjoyed saying hello to their dogs. 

The Loades family, who are very well known locally, have done an amazing clean up job on their heritage model fairground which is now fully working and was here on show for the first time since the 80's. The smaller chap in the photo is about forth generation "fairground Loades" (I think) and so eager to follow us in to explain all the exhibits to us. 

And although there were very few fairground type games O still managed to ring the bell twice on this one to win himself a prize. 

A lovely day out :-)
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Theatre: Waiting for God.......

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Jeffrey Holland and Nichola McAuliffe star in this premiere stage production of the BAFTA Best Comedy Series nominated Waiting For God, which delighted TV audiences across several BBC series in the 1990s. This all-new script is penned by the sitcom's creator Michael Aitkens.

All the favourite characters from the original series are reimagined by the cast of nine for 2017, facing the challenges that come with growing old disgracefully in the era of the silver surfer. At Bayview Retirement Village, battle-axe extraordinaire Diana Trent conspires with new resident Tom Ballard to give the conniving manager his comeuppance through a hilarious conspiracy with unexpectedly heart-warming results.

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Hilariously funny and I'd highly recommend it

😂😂😂

Theatre: The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart........

Venture across the wintry Scottish Borders for Eastern Angles’s next spring tour show – The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by David Greig.

Follow Prudencia – an academic on her way to attend a conference in Kelso. As snow starts to fall, she begins a mystical adventure of self-discovery accompanied by plenty of folky musical moments. The strange and beautiful Scottish tale is told by four mischievous storytellers. Sometimes they speak in boombastic rhyming verse, sometimes through beguiling traditional folk songs, which will set your toes tapping and your heart racing!

Originally produced by National Theatre of Scotland in 2011, Eastern Angles' production will tour across the East from 15th March starting at the John Peel Centre in Stowmarket.

Part live folk-gig, part folk tale, part barn-storming comedy - David Greig’s modern play will thrill and haunt in equal measure.

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"Strange" definitely,  "beautiful" hmm not that I could see.

Really not sure what to say about this one which I saw with Daughter and R. My first comment as we left the lovely small Sir John Mills Theatre was "Well they all worked really hard, didn't they?" Daughter laughed saying "I just knew you'd say that". Well I do like to start with a positive lol.

Just four performers and their musicianship and voices were really good. The Scottish folk singing was entertaining but the actual story was weird and got quite surreal in places. There were some clever uses of the limited space and the rhyming word play was quite funny in a few places, but for a script that was so weird it went on far too long.
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Hope you don't mind.......

This is one of those times when I don't really need to write down all about today's lovely walk through a park I've never been to before, or say about Daughter's early message invite to join her and O on this lovely sunny day. "I'll come get you, pack yourself some lunch, we are meeting our friend there" she said.

So after the inevitable what-shall-I-wear debate, not knowing if sunshine means warm or not we set off and arrived after our friend had already had time to buy and drink her first cuppa. Lovely hugs as I hadn't seen her for some time. Lots to chat about, fun in the maze, finding the panda, O setting riddles and wanting passwords, picnic in the play area and baby ducks in the pond but no photos.

Of course I don't need to write it here as our friend is my blog-buddy so she knows it all already!
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May Challenge......

On facebook I'm in a crafting group and someone has come up with the idea of setting a monthly challenge.

The first challenge for May is to "make your version of this card".

It seems the majority of crafters in this group are card makers that watch the crafting channels and buy the equipment they sell, use dies and mangle type machines for cutting, stamps and embossing tools and other fancy gadgets.
I don't make cards like that. I rarely make cards at all.

I do craft though and wanted to join in the monthly challenge mainly to show my support for someone trying to add a little fun to the group.
So my version of that card became a bag!

Theatre: Northanger Abbey.........

A Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Production, on tour.
A delightful stage version of Jane Austen’s earliest novel

Catherine Morland loves a good novel and the more ‘horrid’ it is the better.
At 17, she is taken by her aunt to Bath where she encounters the social whirl denied her at home. When Catherine accepts an invitation to the Tilney’s country seat at Northanger Abbey, lurid images from her favourite gothic novel Mysteries of Udolpho threaten to overwhelm her. However, all misunderstandings are eventually resolved and, as in all the best Jane Austen novels, the young heroine finally gets her man…

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A brilliant performance we thoroughly enjoyed, my friend applauded standing!
The leads were amazing, especial Eva Feiler who gave us the wonderful Catherine, funny, naive, fanciful, polite, caring and a little forthright all in one. And she was very ably supported by the other seven actors who had to swap around to cover many more characters.

My only criticism is of the use of dry smoke (or whatever it's called) which I absolutely hate. Unless there is need to walk through thick fog hiding Jack the Ripper, or misty graveyard to be confronted by zombies, which this play didn't, then I don't think it adds to the atmosphere and for us in the very front row it rolls off the stage at face level!
But of course that is a totally personal thing which I'm sure didn't spoil this for anybody else, they probably didn't even notice it.
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