Up the wooden hill...
Mar. 13th, 2006 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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oxfordgirl sent an email to a mailing list I'm on, advertising a play she was in. She described it, broadly, as an evening of cheap knob-gags. Well, with a pitch like that, how could you say no ?
OULES is the Ouxford University Light Entertainment Society, and they put on (I believe) one production a term. I'd link to their website, but it's so hideously out of date that it doesn't seem worth the effort.
The panto was exactly what Oxfordgirl had led me to expect - an amateur performance, featuring self-referential humour, a good bunch of crude jokes and plenty of opportunities for shouting "huzzah!" It was entertaining, a bit surreal in places and did have moments of amazing inventiveness. If I were going to be picky, I'd mention that the script could have done with a bit of an edit towards the end, and some bits were veering on the shoddy. But really, I enjoyed it and I laughed a lot.
It's always interesting to note in student societies which of the people involved can act well. Some people moved naturally on stage, others didn't. One would have been great, if only he'd worked out how to project his voice. Others would startle by being of a very high standard - in particular, one girl's voice came as a complete surprise when she got to her solo.
And, as you might expect, Oxfordgirl made a thoroughly, er, smashing Prince Smashing (the dashingest prince around) and turned in one of the most consistent performances in the show.
Interestingly, there was a curtain raiser in the form of an extremely loosely-jointed mystery called The Horrible Hot Air Homicide. A list had been passed round the audience beforehand, onto which people were invited to write words. Each word was used somewhere in the playlet - and often in a (seemingly) plot-relevant way. I did wonder if those members of the cast who weren't on stage were frantically re-writing the ending behind the scenes.
Certainly the improv stuff was remarkably well pulled off (and if the plot was a bit, er, random in places it was still extremely entertaining).
Overall, a thoroughly good night out for £4 - I'd recommend it when they've next got a show in town. And for those who don't know: the Moser Theatre is tricky to find - because it's underneath the bar, and the signs disappear just when they'd be most helpful. Go to the right of the bar, and head down the stairs.
During the interval, some chap commented on my t-shirt. I was wearing a Zombina and the Skeletones t-shirt, and he was the second commenter in 24 hours. Both commenters were called Matt (Oxfordgirl, I have no idea if this was Lightly Entertaining Matt - it was the chap playing the white-shirt-and-grey-trouser-wearing Prince). I told both of them that Zombina were doing a gig in London on Friday night. All in all, I was a little disappointed I wasn't going to see them myself. However...
On Friday night, I leapt in my car, observed hideous traffic in Reading, and did something terribly, terribly clever with backroads to get myself onto the M4. I then ploddded slowly down a very busy M4 to ChrisC's house. I leapt ahtletically from my car into his, and we plodded equally slowly back up the equally rammed M1.
Despite me repeatedly pointing out turnings which led to elephants, more elephants and the Elbow Storage Depot, ChrisC stayed determinedly on the road to Bedford.
Sadly, on account of the plodding we missed Komakino (actually, since I've no idea what they sound like, I don't know if it was sad or not. Maybe I did well to miss them) and landed at Esquires just in time to get drinks and find friends before the band came on stage.
I've written about Bloc Party enough before that I don't have a lot interesting to say any more. They've been writing stuff for a new album and were showcasing a handful of new songs, which varied from "OK" to really quite interesting. The drummer started chipping in backing vocals a while ago, and some of the new material is written with three vocalists in mind. Yay... the more bands that have multiple vocalists the better in my book.
Oh, and I was impressed by them doing a clearly unscheduled and unrehearsed encore. As they left the stage (post-encore) someone grabbed the mike and yelled into it "Tulips! Do Tulips!" The venue had put its lights on and its music on, but a bunch of hardcore fans continued clapping and yelling for Tulips (which is a B-side)... and got it.
I dislike the fact that bands plan their encores so carefully, and thoroughly approve of such unexpected extras.
Bloc Party have been doing a tour of small venues in the last couple of weeks, so Esquires was (I reckon) somewhere between upstairs and downstairs at the Zodiac in size. (Yes, if you're not an Oxford gig-goer that's a really useless metric. I know. I'm sorry, I just can't really guesstimate sizes or numbers in any transferable way.) It's apparently a former church, and, though square, has retained dignified wooden fittings round its walls and ceiling and is a pleasant space. And it played a jolly variety of intra-band music. And it serves bitter - not great, not anything I recognized, and certainly not out of a handpump but Pintwatch has got so used to venues that don't even bother at all that it did a little dance of joy by the bar. Best of all, Esquires has decent sound! I can't actually remember the last time I enjoyed such nicely balanced, clear sound. Hurrah for Esquires - they could certainly teach the Zodiac a thing or two (my ears had barely stopped whimpering from the thoroughly painful time they had at the Zodiac's Buzzcocks gig last week. Note to self: earplugs!)
On the way home again, we discovered that large parts of Bedfordshire had shut. Accordingly, the return journey was longer, scarier and involved a lot more Luton than expected.
oxfordgirl sent an email to a mailing list I'm on, advertising a play she was in. She described it, broadly, as an evening of cheap knob-gags. Well, with a pitch like that, how could you say no ?OULES is the Ouxford University Light Entertainment Society, and they put on (I believe) one production a term. I'd link to their website, but it's so hideously out of date that it doesn't seem worth the effort.
The panto was exactly what Oxfordgirl had led me to expect - an amateur performance, featuring self-referential humour, a good bunch of crude jokes and plenty of opportunities for shouting "huzzah!" It was entertaining, a bit surreal in places and did have moments of amazing inventiveness. If I were going to be picky, I'd mention that the script could have done with a bit of an edit towards the end, and some bits were veering on the shoddy. But really, I enjoyed it and I laughed a lot.
It's always interesting to note in student societies which of the people involved can act well. Some people moved naturally on stage, others didn't. One would have been great, if only he'd worked out how to project his voice. Others would startle by being of a very high standard - in particular, one girl's voice came as a complete surprise when she got to her solo.
And, as you might expect, Oxfordgirl made a thoroughly, er, smashing Prince Smashing (the dashingest prince around) and turned in one of the most consistent performances in the show.
Interestingly, there was a curtain raiser in the form of an extremely loosely-jointed mystery called The Horrible Hot Air Homicide. A list had been passed round the audience beforehand, onto which people were invited to write words. Each word was used somewhere in the playlet - and often in a (seemingly) plot-relevant way. I did wonder if those members of the cast who weren't on stage were frantically re-writing the ending behind the scenes.
Certainly the improv stuff was remarkably well pulled off (and if the plot was a bit, er, random in places it was still extremely entertaining).
Overall, a thoroughly good night out for £4 - I'd recommend it when they've next got a show in town. And for those who don't know: the Moser Theatre is tricky to find - because it's underneath the bar, and the signs disappear just when they'd be most helpful. Go to the right of the bar, and head down the stairs.
During the interval, some chap commented on my t-shirt. I was wearing a Zombina and the Skeletones t-shirt, and he was the second commenter in 24 hours. Both commenters were called Matt (Oxfordgirl, I have no idea if this was Lightly Entertaining Matt - it was the chap playing the white-shirt-and-grey-trouser-wearing Prince). I told both of them that Zombina were doing a gig in London on Friday night. All in all, I was a little disappointed I wasn't going to see them myself. However...
On Friday night, I leapt in my car, observed hideous traffic in Reading, and did something terribly, terribly clever with backroads to get myself onto the M4. I then ploddded slowly down a very busy M4 to ChrisC's house. I leapt ahtletically from my car into his, and we plodded equally slowly back up the equally rammed M1.
Despite me repeatedly pointing out turnings which led to elephants, more elephants and the Elbow Storage Depot, ChrisC stayed determinedly on the road to Bedford.
Sadly, on account of the plodding we missed Komakino (actually, since I've no idea what they sound like, I don't know if it was sad or not. Maybe I did well to miss them) and landed at Esquires just in time to get drinks and find friends before the band came on stage.
I've written about Bloc Party enough before that I don't have a lot interesting to say any more. They've been writing stuff for a new album and were showcasing a handful of new songs, which varied from "OK" to really quite interesting. The drummer started chipping in backing vocals a while ago, and some of the new material is written with three vocalists in mind. Yay... the more bands that have multiple vocalists the better in my book.
Oh, and I was impressed by them doing a clearly unscheduled and unrehearsed encore. As they left the stage (post-encore) someone grabbed the mike and yelled into it "Tulips! Do Tulips!" The venue had put its lights on and its music on, but a bunch of hardcore fans continued clapping and yelling for Tulips (which is a B-side)... and got it.
I dislike the fact that bands plan their encores so carefully, and thoroughly approve of such unexpected extras.
Bloc Party have been doing a tour of small venues in the last couple of weeks, so Esquires was (I reckon) somewhere between upstairs and downstairs at the Zodiac in size. (Yes, if you're not an Oxford gig-goer that's a really useless metric. I know. I'm sorry, I just can't really guesstimate sizes or numbers in any transferable way.) It's apparently a former church, and, though square, has retained dignified wooden fittings round its walls and ceiling and is a pleasant space. And it played a jolly variety of intra-band music. And it serves bitter - not great, not anything I recognized, and certainly not out of a handpump but Pintwatch has got so used to venues that don't even bother at all that it did a little dance of joy by the bar. Best of all, Esquires has decent sound! I can't actually remember the last time I enjoyed such nicely balanced, clear sound. Hurrah for Esquires - they could certainly teach the Zodiac a thing or two (my ears had barely stopped whimpering from the thoroughly painful time they had at the Zodiac's Buzzcocks gig last week. Note to self: earplugs!)
On the way home again, we discovered that large parts of Bedfordshire had shut. Accordingly, the return journey was longer, scarier and involved a lot more Luton than expected.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-13 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-13 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-13 10:52 pm (UTC)Hm, which I guess makes you the winner (albeit by nefarious means!)
Drat.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-13 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-13 11:01 pm (UTC)It was however delightful to cross weasels with you madam. *flourishing bow*
*turns and flounces away*