Cyberclogs

Well well well...! That's my first live performance as a Radio Theatre Group actor over and done with, as our first radio show in the RTG season ran yesterday afternoon, Sorry, Wrong Number! at the Ramshorn Theatre and it was a lot of fun to do I must say. I played two parts in the show as the murderer and a Western Union man, both parts had uniquely different voices, so I did my best to shine up my vocal chords and give it all (I also managed not to fluff just about!). The other cast members were great too I have to say, especially Linda Woolfson who had the toughest job playing the central character Leona Stevenson, a neurotic bed-ridden wife who overhears two men on a phone planning a murder. John Love also did great job as the irate Sergeant Martin (and 1st killer!) and of course Teresa did sterling work as all the phone operators (her nurse's voice was great too!). A big shout of course also deserves to go out to Bruce Downie our director, who directed us with much patience, humour and light-heartedness, and also for his frantic operation of all those sound effects that made it uniquely a part of Radio Theatre. We should be able to get a copy of the performance from Bruce at some point in the near future so hopefully I'll be able to play it and back an say "Hey! I was in that!". (And then cringe ha ha!)

Anyways the RTG has been great fun and it was really good to perform at the Ramshorn at last (only my 2nd time there and I'm already performing in it!). So the Hitch Hiker will follow next week, rehearsals have been not too bad so far, and tomorrow I get a night off so we reconvene on Monday to carry on. So I'll post up more as we progress towards more... suspense!! ;))

Welly well... its been a while since I've giving an update on my acting activities so thought I would blog about it (I may have more to blog about tonight at this rate!).

On the Radio Theatre Group front things have been going pretty well so far, Bruce Downie the director of the theatre group has been good to work with and is quite encouraging and also quite helpful in providing ideas on how to play the characters. Its also nice to see that the small cast (just four of us well five if you include James Keenan, but he'll come in later) are all a really nice pleasant bunch (so no divas or prima donnas in sight thankfully!). Its also been quite an interesting learning process on developing the voice and getting the right character voices for the scenes and its a good because the rehearsals are really starting to come on (we'll have two more next week). In the play we are working on Sorry, Wrong Number! I only have two characters to play, the killer and a Western Union Man (both roles couldn't be more different!) but its been great to be involved in it so far. So Sorry, Wrong Number! will be on live at the Ramshorn Theatre this Wednesday coming at 1.15pm, so I'm really looking forward to it, its more acting experience at any rate, and Bruce will record the live show so I'll get to hear how good/bad I will be!

Anyways onto the Patter Merchants, which to be honest has been a bit of struggle this time round, certainly not as much fun, mainly because of the difficulty involved in choosing appropriate scenes (that Herr Bill will approve of! No offence Bill!). But also because one of our group (Barry) has barely kept in touch and he has only showed up for one class so far and myself and Wilma were supposed to be each doing a scene with him but he has been impossible to contact as we have sent him dozens of emails and texts with no reply (why do people do that??!! Its a real peeve of mine). So if Barry doesn't show tonight then Wilma and I will have to move on and try and work on another scene together. My other scene with Felicity (or Fliss as she prefers) has been going well so far and is shaping up so that's something I guess.

Anyways that's enough reporting for now, more will follow later in the week...

I've got a few more developments to mention about my current "acting" career and it looks like things are starting to get a bit busy in that department. As you may or may not know (or those who wittle away time reading this blog may know) I'm currently doing acting classes that will lead up to another Patter Merchants performance in late November, and in addition to this I'm also doing some more classes with Iain McAleese on Monday nights (which have been fun, tomorrow night we will do a ensemble piece from Brecht). And last week I got a reply from Bruce Downie who runs the Radio Theatre Group who has offered me smaller roles in two of his radio plays! As part of their Suspense season the RTG will be doing 3 old radio plays. So naturally I'm a bit excited by all this but it does seem all things definitely do happen at once.

The Radio Theatre Group has been something I've been trying to find out and get into for a while so I'm quite chuffed to get to be a part of it, it also means I'll get to peform live at the Ramshorn Theatre (a bit of a step up from Gramofon's small space! gulp!) with script in hand and performing with an old fashioned radio mic. I will have 3 nightly rehearsals this week and 2 next week for the first radio play, so I kind of know to what expect as I previously had audtioned round at Bruce's flat (where the rehearsals will take place). The roles as I said are smaller ones but fairly sizeable nonetheless so I'm looking forward to making a start on them. So we'll see how it goes, at any rate its more acting experience and that's what counts. I'll post up more details as they follow and as our rehearsals progress. So in the meantime stay alert and we'll keep you in.... suspense!!!

Well on the Patter Merchants front I've managed to get one scene together for it with Felicity from our group (or Fliss) as we will be doing a scene from an old play He Who Gets Slapped (Bill vetoed Hedda Gabler), where I will play the part of a clown, so yes that means I will need to dress up as a clown and get wear make-up and get slapped! Its all in the name of fun, I just I hope I don't get dermatitis!! But well you've got suffer for your art I suppose.

Trying to source the second is proving a bit more difficult I have another scene in mind but our tutor Bill has reservations about my ability to pull it off, ah well, to be fair it could be a difficult scene (from The Glass Menagerie) to stage convincingly. I supposed as actors you need to learn to walk before you run when it comes to tackling the more challenging scenes. However there are times (and no offence to Bill) that he doesn't provide much encouragement for his students and it would be nice to get that from him from time to time. Its also proven quite difficult this time round to even source appropriate material ourselves that is suitable for the group, as plenty of scenes have been "vetoed".

Oh and onto my second lot of acting classes with Iain McAleese, as I had my first class with him there on Monday and it was very good, nice to be working with Iain again, as I have to say he is very down to earth and (yes) encouraging to people. At times Iain can of course be a bit full-on and give alot of direction (and by that I mean he can interrupt you quite a bit) but he definitely is very helpful and I'm pleased to be working with him again. So far its been good fun getting into messing around with improv and next week we'll learn a bit more about Bertholt Brecht (the German playwright). After that its back to chewing over which scenes we'd like to do again in Iain's group. So it might be about time get some duologue books methinks.

On Thursday night I went to see Killing Joke at the ABC (this is the 4th gig I'll have seen at the ABC this year! Which means all the gigs I've seen this year were at the ABC) and I'm pleased they were bloody good. I don't know a vast amount of their material but thankfully I managed to recognise most of the songs they played and they sure did a great set. Gaz Coleman the lead singer is a really good front man, albeit he does look pretty scary with that make-up on, a cross between Beetlejuice and The Joker (and maybe a little bit of Marilyn Manson). The audience I have to say was a bit of strange one too, loads of guys in their late 40's and early 50's by the looks of it, some goths of course and even some guys wearing leather jackets dancing away as if they were listening to ska (or something else!). Overall though it was easily one of the best gigs I've seen this year, Killing Joke were excellent.

Oh and guess what? Yes I shall be doing MORE acting classes, starting on Monday I'll be doing a new set with one of our previous tutors Iain McAleese, who has been very good to work with so I think it will be a case of bringing our own suggested scenes to the group (Iain will provide some too should we need them, which I might!). However the Patter Merchants group is proving a bit more difficult this time round, mainly because we have to choose our own scenes too and it is a bit tricky trying to find something suitable. We will all have to do our own little bit to pitch in to help Scott with organising certain things which is fine as it will help take some pressure off the organising for him. Anyway the next Patter Merchants peformances will be in late November so I'm hoping it will go as well as the last set did. Depending on how this one goes I doubt there will be another one until next year anyway (and if there is another after this one I will definitely take a break I think for some breathing space). But its all infront of us for now, so we'll see how it goes.

The second round of the Patter Merchants started (rather the classes for them did) there on Sunday and Bill again will be directing and tutoring us so it was an entertaining first class which featured clown work, running around like a well... clown trying to entertain the rest of the group. Later on we sat in a group circle (in chairs no less!) and brought to the group table what scenes we would like to do, I brought in a couple, one being a scene from Hedda Gabler, which I read through with Wilma and the other was a scene from Closer (by Patrick Marber) which was more adult and had some rather dirty language in it. I'm a bit concerned about the language factor (i.e. for the audience) so I'm considering not doing the Closer scene, so I will inspect for other scenes to bring. Of course plenty of the other scenes brought to the group had loads of swearing in them!

Oh and finally I was chuffed to see the release at last of Wipeout HD for the PS3 and I'm pleased to say its really good, with lovely new graphics, some really good race tracks, and the only thing that let's it down are some of the piss poor music tracks, they could have selected them a bit better. But its great that you can purchase and download new games for PS3 as it does save on time and to an extent your wallet too (Wipeout HD only costs £11.99). Its already the most addictive game I've played in a while, so if you own a PS3 (and a decent broadband service) you should buy it.

Right enough for now, back to work.... :((