Posts tagged ‘leonardian players’

Oh, goodbye Urinetown. Never again will I throw a briefcase at Emile and shout at him. Never again will I spit in Jackson’s face. Never again will I be Kate’s father. Never again will I share a musical love sting with Rik.

Well, alright, all these are possible but unlikely. Looking at our lovely cast photo the other day, I was struck for the first time with sadness. This may overcome the delight at having an actual evening free to actually do stuff I want to do. But not yet. Soon, I imagine.

The end of the show has coincided with my first full-time job beginning, in the Human Resources department at AMES. Which means that I’m finally starting to repay my HECS debt. This is both nice (less debt) and irritating (less money). But the people are nice and I have my own desk. Ooooh. In fact, I have my own cubicle! Oooooooooh. Now comes the difficult task of interior decoration; I have no pictures of children or nephews so my task is more difficult than most.

Oh, and I’ve started a myspace page. Yes, I’m as ashamed of myself as you are scornful. I’m in the process of trying to pimp it up, atypicalreview style, as it’s somewhat embarassing having a page that looks as gross as a myspace one does by default. I shall then lose interest in the whole business.

Ye gods, I am tired. And behind on reviews. And behind on sleep.

There are traces of glue under my nose. It’s not a good look. The next time I see someone with what appears to be a horrid skin condition caused by excessive nose-blowing, I shall give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it instead to be the residue of a giant moustache.

For I have been running around all evening in a bright red suit with a big italian moustache. And yet; I am not Mario. I know, because I tried to smash some bricks with my head.

The Leonardian Players’ production of Urinetown is on this week. I encourage everyone and anyone to see it. It’s a post-modern, highly silly piece of comedy with a sprinkle of social commentary. And bunnies.

Oh, and I have a new job. At the same old place, but in a different department. I’m now in Human Resources and wondering how long I have to leave it before I steal the “this time it’s personnel” gag.

Firstly — go see Pan’s Labyrinth. If my review hasn’t convinced you then I have failed, but don’t make my failure yours as well.

Woah. I’ve been tagged! By a meme. For those who don’t read many blogs, getting tagged by a meme is like receiving those irritating emails that ask you to answer a bunch of questions and pass it on. Except memes are better. Bloggier. Usually. This one isn’t bad.

But before I get to it, some quick, incidental news; there’s now one handy feed for all updates at atypicalreview.com. Reviews, blog posts and notables, all included. For the 3 people who actually subscribe to the feed, I’m sure this will be helpful.

Now, let us proceed to five things you don’t know about me. Luckily I haven’t been blogging as much as reviewing recently so this should be easy.

1. Part time work at AMES isn’t as boring as it used to be. There’s new people about and a slightly happier attitude. In short, it’s starting to shake off that “we’ll be shut down by the end of the year” feel. Having said that, of course, I assume we’ll be shut down by the end of the year.

2. I’m playing one of the lead roles — Caldwell B. Cladwell in a production of Urinetown. Some people do know this but it’s already becoming apparent that I’ll be stretching to get five things.

3. I used to have dreadful night terrors about near-infinite tasks. Not actually infinite, mind — the scary thing (somehow) was that I knew I could do it but that it’d take, say, a few years non-stop work. The most public example was when I woke up at school camp convinced I was going to have to wash billions of dishes, and consequently looked like a big whimp.

4. I have never watched any of the Terminator films, and until recently had never seen any of the Alien films. I’m probably the first person to watch Alien and think “Gosh, this looks so much like ‘The Impossible Planet’ rather than the other way round.

5. I hate seafood, but I ate a baby octopus at a yum cha the other day and it wasn’t bad. Until I ate the legs. They were gross. In conclusion, seafood has some redeeming features, but ultimately still stinks.

It’s traditional to tag more people to do the meme now. Luckily (coz I really don’t know that many bloggers) this here’s a group blog, so I don’t have to look far. I tag Jackson, Andy, Andrew and Sam.

Bit quiet around here, eh? Don’t worry, we’ll get back on top of things soon. There’s plenty of stuff to review, but we’re just busy. There’s a revue being put on by the Leonardian Players so we’re taking a bit of a break. Andy isn’t in it but he’s waiting for us to fill in the gaps in the Battlestar reviews. The idea is that we’re taking turns — the further idea is that Jackson will be one of the “we” in this case. This would make it a crazy 9 reviews for him on ATR which I’m not sure the universe is ready for.

Some quick summaries since I can’t quite review them yet — Children of Men is awesome. The Departed is good but not quite that good. I won’t say any more lest I run out of things to say in any reviews which may or may not get written.

While I’m here, may I voice my concerns over Premier Bracks’ desire for new weapons for police? Clearly what our boys in blue need is more weapons. They’ve been doing such a bang-up job with the ones they’ve got. And in general, I dislike grandstanding over big manly words like “tasers” and “semi-automatic” when you know perfectly well that you don’t get to choose how your funding will be spent.

This is irritating because I’m normally a bit of a labor voter (after Greens of course, my responsibility as a young idealist). But I’m vaguely tempted by Ballieu this time around, in part because he sounds like a library but probably mostly because I just like changing stuff around. It’s lucky I’m not in charge.

… oh, and by the way, the details of the Revue:

The Off-Broadway Lounge

Friday 17th November & Saturday 18th November

8:00pm

TC Woolhouse Theatre
St Leonard’s College
163 South Road East Brighton

Tickets $15 at the door

The title for this entry should be read in a Strong Bad kind of voice.

So, City of Angels is finally over. I shall miss it a lot. It’s been absolutely fantastic, and I can only imagine that the number of white suits I get to wear in future will dive dramatically.

It also fuelled my new interest in noir, alongside modern re-interpretations like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Veronica Mars. Here’s hoping Doctor Who (April 15, by the way) does a noir episode some day.

You should see a lot more content here soon — now that I can’t avoid my lack of job-finding through musicals, Grapefruit will have to take the brunt of it.

The musical, City of Angels, is going brilliantly. Well, pretty good. We’re a little less than two weeks out and everything feels like it’s coming together. Good cast, good atmosphere, and most importantly quite a few of us seem talented too. Especially the orchestra who played with us for the first time last night. Last musical, we didn’t have drums — the difference is painfully obvious.

All this rehearsal is really cutting into my gaming and Battlestar-watching time. I’m only about 30% through Fahrenheit, and my insistence on only playing it at night is causing a slow progression. It’s worth it though — the game is more an interactive movie, and quite moody. Nothing cuts through the atmosphere quite like your mother asking you to do the dishes, and the spookier scenes are enhanced greatly by the slight paranoia that creeps into one’s head when you’re sitting in a dark room with huge windows by yourself at midnight.

It’d be a game worth trying the Alexia treatment with, but I’d feel so derivative. Should I, Andy?

The last Battlestar I watched was Black Market, which I felt was perhaps the most poor episode ever. Obviously, I’ve been spoiled, but having a poorer episode lingering in my mind is eroding my adoration for the show. I’m reliably informed we’re back to awesomeness again very soon. Given that only one episode earlier, it was tremendously awesome, it’s not really even worth complaining. But look, I have.

Jackson and I are in a musical currently, for those that don’t know. Hopefully Shannon has noticed as she’s the director. It plays for four days at the end of the month — I’ll put the actual details and booking information and such up here very soon.

Anyhow, while Jackson is the main character, with a boodle of scenes (actually, not that many, the cast is pretty big), I’m a 1940s crooner who gets eight lines. The point of the story is that we got to rehearse the scenes where I have lines last night, finally, and it was great fun. I’m absolutely spewing that I wasn’t more involved in these things at school. Of course, I doubt I really could have been. Curse my teenage awkwardness!

Meanwhile, Battlestar Galactica still rocks. I’ve just finished watching an awesome trilogy of stories — episodes 210, 211 and 212 — and the show has not disappointed yet. Yes, I’m aware I’ve only reviewed up to 203. I’ll get busy very soon. Aren’t you paying attention? I’m a busy actor!

Finally, I’m trying to think of some more random website names. I’ve decided relevance is not nearly as important as pithalit… pithical… pithiness? Anyhow, random is the order of the day. Just not fruit or vegetables.

Everything’s a bit quiet around here at Christmas time. I’m busy, of course, buying presents, and relaxing, and watching The X-Files, and gleefully anticipating Doctor Who‘s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. But I thought I’d just blog about a few random things to keep things ticking over here.

• There’s a bit of a TARDIS invasion going on in the ‘Recent Weblogs’ section. Can no one save us?
• Talkback callers continue to whinge about Christmas not being as Christmassy as it usually is. I haven’t actually noticed anything different, but if there is I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a reaction against the commercialisation of Christmas.
• But then, Southland has been insanely busy all week, so that’s not likely.
• I’m rubbish at watching proper television now. I need to get an EyeTV, or a DVD recorder, or something. I have only the vaguest of awareness of what day it is at the best of times.
• I’m in the next St Leonards Old Collegians Association musical, in the chorus, but I have one scene as a crazy spiritual therapist called Dr Mandril. And I’m supposed to do it in an American accent. If Jess or Sara are reading this they’re probably cringing already.
• Speaking of, where’s the Harry Potter review, Jess? Don’t give me that “I’ve got a full time job and a life and it’s Christmas and I’m busy” excuse. Do you know how often I hear that?
• Finally, Andy and Matt have gone to Perth for the holidays to be with their families. This slightly reduces the number of gaming systems Andy has access to, and it’s my fervent hope that he might write something for Grapefruit again.

Merry Christmas, everyone!