Much stuff

Had a meeting in London last week, a panel for funding for a short film. For all the experience and history, sat in front of a panel trying to pitch a short film is still a terrifying thing. and, to answer your question, I have no idea.
I also went into a university yesterday to discuss running a one morning a week animation course. I got on very well with the tutor and came away with a jar of the honey that she cultivates, but I suspect red tape and budgets might be an obstacle. I couldn’t recognise the university – the changes are enormous.
A few shows. The Garrick have done When the Rain Stops Falling this weeks – a marvellous, complex play that begins, or perhaps ends, with a fish falling out of an Australian sky and links four generations of family drama. An effectively spartan production with great performances and staging, and of course with it not being an Agatha Christie, or a TV sitcom, or an Ayckbourn, our audience have been very tentative. Go on, give it a chance. Then I went to Wuthering heights at the exchange, and perhaps the novel is just so twisted and bizarre and epic that it can’t be put on stage. This certainly did not work for me. I’m all for theatrical staging, but this show couldn’t make up its’ mind as to whether it was literal or abstract. It had Playschool typ blocks of green but sprouting grass, and then a realistic tree but with a neon sky. A mess I’m afraid, and sorry, but Cathy and Heathcliff just came across as noisily irritating. Everyone has their vision of Heathcliff and any actor is thus doomed, but tall, skinny and cockney is certainly a novel approach. And too much ‘movement’ going on. I’ve resisted mentioning our production of Bronte but we were consistent with our conventions and managed to be both the epic moors and the intimate Parsonage – and heck we were moving, so moving, and no heavy rock music. Music does not have to be period music of course, but screaming rock music and a gyrating but earnest lady guitar player was pretty awful.
And then there was The Invisible Man – I saw no mention of HGWells, but at least the central character was called Griffin. It was certainly an exciting film with lots of twists and turns, may one twist too many. I always liked the idea that to be invisible meant being naked and vulnerable, but here a suit was involved so that in one of the twists, someone else could wear it. Not quite the same as wells had in mind.
And tonight, a chum dancing Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake.
And soon New Zealand. My sister and her husband arrived safely today. I can breathe again.