"Improve Your World"

British Gas has had a number of marketing slogans. Among them: "Don't you Love Being in Control?"
Hmmnnph!

Their current mantra: "Improve Your World!"

I await the arrival of British ("Doing the Right Thing") Gas to install a meter-key for the electricity in my friend's apartment. They say they will arrive between 8am and 2pm.

Yeah, right!

Already, between us, my friend and I have squandered fifteen hours and forty-six minutes waiting for British ("Saving You Money!") Gas.

The installation was supposed to happen three weeks ago but they just didn't show. So they rescheduled for yesterday. The noddy driving the van pulled up outside the apartment, called my pal, phone went to voicemail and so off he went on his merry way.

Numbskull Noddy didn't think to ring the doorbell.

Hence my current shift.

Don't they have a cheek though?

"You just wait there for six hours - we could come at any time. Don't go to work. Don't pee. Don't call us. We certainly won't call you. Don't put your phone down for a second. Above all, DO NOT continue with your life!

Oh, and IF we grace you with our presence, YOU will pay for the parking and the privilege."

Will British Gas ("Energy, Efficiency, Advice") give me back these precious hours as I lie, expiring, on my deathbed?

Will they feck?

Sigh....

British Gas - Pissing. Me. Off!

Vivien, Lady Olivier

The Prince Charles Cinema is the only gig in town.

I go there often, usually to catch up on films I missed when they were mainstream, and films I wouldn't dream of forking out the full-blown London price for, but kind of half want to see.

If you are a lifetime member, as I am, you get a discount on the (already discounted) ticket prices.

More importantly, they show older movies that you rarely get a chance to see on the big screen. Recently I had the pleasure of introducing a friend to the Elia Kazan classic A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Of course Brando, as Stanley Kowalski, gives a fearsome, mind-blowing perfomance and wow...that body... but for me it is Vivien Leigh, thinly masking her delusions of grandeur and alcoholism, who shines brightest. In Blanche Dubois she gives a truly frightening masterclass in acting.

I know it's cliched and queer, but I relate to Blanche's heroic but desperate search for a place to call her own, to her battle for independence and security in a wolf's world and, at the same time, to her neurotic need for a protector in the face of devastating personal circumstances. All of this resonates in my mind with the triumphs and tragedies of Leigh's own life. Most notably her two Best Actress Oscars (Gone With the Wind & Streetcar,) the relentless grip of her manic depression and her premature demise, aged 54, from tuberculosis.

An actor's life is what it is. There is "success" and "failure" on every rung of the ladder. Elia Kazan said of Vivien that " she'd have crawled over broken glass if she thought it would help her performance."

So would I.

It Shoulda Been Me

I went to see Jude Law the other night in Hamlet. As a "resting" actor myself, I think it was quite evolved of me to go and see this hugely successful, stupidly handsome and wealthy man playing the ultimate role. To play The Dane , after all, is every actors dream. Myself included. I was willing Jude to be dreadful and for a short while he obliged, at least in my mind. He started off being very sulky with his mum. She kept trying to attract his attention in their opening scene, but he kept turning away from her, melodramatically. "Poor frail woman," I thought. "Cut her some slack, Jude."
La Law came at the part like a Juggernaut. Sometimes splashing in puddles of emotion and occasionally channelling Kenneth Brannagh, with painfully elongated vowels, I initially thought he sawed the air too much with his hands, thus.
"Stop that, Jude. You've got a whole two hours ahead and a big speech on the nature of performance, so take it easy, fella!"
By about the third or fourth scene I was actually paying attention to the other actors. Polonius was the best I have ever seen (not that I have seen many.) He came across as a man doing his best, as a caring father and so on, but, unfortunately....an imbecile. Before long I am forgetting that Jude Law is Jude Law. Forgetting my resentment. Forgetting how much better I would be playing the part. Forgetting I am in the theatre. The production and the story takes over and Jude gets better and better (as do his ensemble.) Even a saccharine Ophelia eventually redeems herself when she faultlessly plays dead.
The production is stunning and Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech floats and falls like snowflakes over us, his rapt groundlings. Hats off to the guy.
Jude nailed it...the fecker. Completely unforgivable. It shoulda been ME!

In a few days time, I leave for Bulgaria to say five (count 'em) lines in my first speaking role in a movie. Two scenes as the camp make-up artist of a lookalikes agency. The movie is an adaption of a popular Bulgarian novel, and will most likely be successful there, and at some select festivals. It has a remote chance of making an impression on the international film market but I am assured it is a step in the right direction. We live and hope! Who knows, maybe one day I too will channel The Dane.