Shameless

Would you give this man a job?

Thrift and style

So I've gone for the brown Hugo Boss modish suit (half-price Moss Bros 2002) which was purchased for the first night of The Glee Club at the Duchess. A memorable night for some. I was wearing a Glee Club baseball cap in the Two Bridges a few months ago and Simon Stokes and Doug Lucie were at the next table, we exchanged greetings as you do and Doug Lucie who I don't know personally said to me "Is that an 'I survived the Glee Club first night party' hat?"! Word gets round.......... I do remember vitally neglecting to open a plate glass door from The Crypt before trying to exit. J had sensibly left a good bit earlier not wanting to witness the full horror. I have to keep to myself the doings of others for fear of backlash but they know who they are if not where they were.

The brown Bally shoes (half-price Heathrow Airport 2000) and the white shirt with the button down collar (which I know some people regard as an abomination but they rather suit me). Luckily I have just had my hair cut (free for subscribers to Time Out at the new Japanese-style place at platform one Euston Station - not bad actually).

All this for a commercial casting tomorrow at 12.40pm. A successful outcome would involve plenty dosh and a trip to S.Africa.

Vain tart?.....Moi?.....That's cruel.

I think I'm trying to highlight the idea that thrift and style need not neccessarily be strange bedfellows. If you see something that's quality, it suits you and it's a bargain, grab it. You never know when you may need it and it's tax deductable.

A Toast To Actors!

For all you birders out there, yes of course what I'm seeing in my garden is a pair of Long Tailed Tits. Juveniles actually so without the pink blush. They are tiny packets of life and noise and they just make you feel good.

Something long overdue in This Acting Lark is a paean of praise to the actor:

What a piece of work is he or she. What a co-operator, what a masterer of skills, what a suspicious, two-faced love-junkie. A mis-fit, a fitter-in, an inside outsider. A burning passion within to interpret and represent the work of great writers, have sex and drink too much.

Accused of being a mercenary tart
(it takes one to know one)
Accused of being thick
(by those with gormless bodies)
Watch out! They can read your mind
(they can also clean your windows, fix your car, educate your children and ruin your marriage)

They are united by triumph and disappointment, by their vanity and generosity, their rage and laughter. They have chosen a bigger life and paid the price. Thank you, just a drop of the Barolo please. Brindisi!


Saw Capote on Friday and it truly is an impressive performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener as Harper Lee is stunning. I have to say that Bob Balaban is great as Capote's agent after having slagged off his direction of The Exonerated in a previous post.

Misc.

The Miniaturists night went very well I think. I was happy with my Carl the ageing, gay, hippy Cambridge graduate in 'The Troubador'. We got to do it twice which was a relief because the first time in public my heart was doing about 180 bpm and I was having to make a big effort to keep my body under control and look relaxed. I had to dance in a - shall we say - free way to 'See Emily Play' by Pink Floyd which was a real mixture of pleasure tempered by embarrasment as it flew me straight back to my teenage years.

The whole evening of five plays twice was extremely well organised by Stephen Sharkey. Ellen Hughes did a great job of directing our piece and made some quite excellent soup. Couldn't have had better actors than Tim Morand and Dominic Colenso to do it with. Trouble is it all happened so quickly, a bit like an accident - one wonders whether it really happened at all.

I discover that my cousin Andrew in Australia has started a blog called Lying On The Couch which may give you a clue to his profession.

In response to lack of pipeline action in my professional life I have put up a bird feeder in the garden. We have a pair of tit-like cuties in our ceonothus. Can't figure out what they are from the books. I'll try and get a picture and post it. Also I have been sitting at the keyboard and very laboriously trying to pick my way through a grade 1 Mozart minuet. I am determined to nail it.