Eagles & albatrosses! Butterflies & bandages! David Hockney & Derek Jarman! Andy Warhol & Oscar Wilde! Marc Bolan & Marc Almond! Lionel Bart & Leonard Rossiter! Transit vans & Tibetan Buddhism! Oh, and plenty of David Bowie too. Join me in Cranleigh on 15th May. Tickets here: tinyurl.com/45w2x75b
Eagles & albatrosses! Butterflies & bandages! David Hockney & Derek Jarman! Andy Warhol & Oscar Wilde! Marc Bolan & Marc Almond! Lionel Bart & Leonard Rossiter! Transit vans & Tibetan Buddhism! Oh, and plenty of David Bowie too. Join me in Cranleigh on 15th May. Tickets here: tinyurl.com/45w2x75b
“I intend to adumbrate two typical instances from separate epistopic interfaces of the spectrum.”
(Refusians II.xvii)
Raising a glass to the mighty Angela Pleasence. So many fine performances, of which my personal favourite is her audaciously laid-back turn as Lady Bertram - indolent, negligent, reprehensible, darkly hilarious - in the BBC’s never-bettered 1983 dramatisation of Mansfield Park. One of the greats.
Delighted and honoured to be a part of this year’s Cranleigh Arts BookFest in Surrey. I’m giving a talk and Q&A on 15th May about David Bowie, Lindsay Kemp and the birth of Ziggy Stardust. Click here to book tickets: cranleigharts.org/event/david-bowie-lindsay-kemp-and-the-birth-of-ziggy-stardust
Delighted and honoured to be a part of this year’s Cranleigh Arts BookFest in Surrey. I’m giving a talk and Q&A on 15th May about David Bowie, Lindsay Kemp and the birth of Ziggy Stardust. Click here to book tickets: cranleigharts.org/event/david-bowie-lindsay-kemp-and-the-birth-of-ziggy-stardust
In the garden today: this week it’s all about the tulips.
Great title for a sitcom.
In the garden today: at this time of year, a pot of tulips is hard to beat.
Sad to hear we have lost Paul Seed, whose seething turn as the unhinged Graff Vynda K gave 1970s Doctor Who one of its most delicious villains. As a director, he gave us the breathtakingly brilliant House of Cards and its sequel To Play the King. A kind, funny, clever man, much loved in the biz.
In the garden today: Pulsatilla Vulgaris, also known as the Easter flower, the pasque flower and the meadow anemone, was once believed to spring from the blood of Viking warriors slain in battle. I’m fairly sure nothing of that sort has happened around here lately, but it’s not out of the question.
In the garden today: tulips for Easter.
Happy Easter, and happy memories of Suchard’s 1982 Doctor Who Easter Egg whose packaging designers didn’t quite think it through.
Popped into the National Gallery to have a look at some old favourites today. I always forget how gobsmacking Titian's Bacchus & Ariadne is. Painted in 1520-3, it captures love at first sight better than any other work of art. Everything is silenced & arrested for that instant when god sees mortal.
Oh my giddy Christ. Her face when he says it. Then his own face just after he says it, as polite laughter snaps to deafening silence. And then his desperate attempt to style it out. Even by his standards, this is a shocker.
I’ve yet to see either of the films in question, but it doesn’t feel great, for all sorts of reasons, that the media reaction to the Best Actor Oscar appears to be a tsunami of column inches about why one actor didn’t win it, and at best a passing nod in the direction of the actor who did win it.
Oh, how wonderful. The Exeter show has long been regarded as one of the best of that tour. Sadly I didn’t see that particular gig - just a few months later we moved to our current domicile about ten minutes’ drive from the venue, but back then we were still in London, so it was Wembley for me.
They were the best Bowie shows I ever saw. What a set list, what a mission, and what a sound. He and the band were absolutely incandescent.
Morrissey, alas, was wretched. Cards on the table, I was never a fan, but I had at least assumed that he’d put on a decent show. I assumed in error.
My thoughts exactly!
Heaven knows I’m no Morrissey expert, but this makes for fascinating reading. Apparently he has cancelled more than 400 gigs during his career. I saw him live twice in 1995 when he was supporting Bowie. Unfortunately he didn’t cancel either of those, but he did flounce off the tour a few days later.
How I arrived on Bluesky
Yes, I understand music licensing can be tricky for amateur panto companies, which does feel a bit harsh. Mind you, even in professional productions, some songbooks are pretty much no-go as either the costs are prohibitive or they just say no. Disney, ABBA and the Beatles are classic examples.
And even more finally, the glorious closing number We Go Together. A lovely song and another triumph of choreography, giving each member of the gang a final moment, like a sweet panto walkdown curtain call. In fact, I used this song in a Peter Pan that I directed many years ago. Worked like a dream.
And finally to the graduation funfair scene, and the strangest song in the film. You’re The One That I Want was Grease’s first big hit, and it’s so familiar that its oddness tends to be overlooked. A late addition, it sounds neither 50s nor 70s… a pop song out of time. But a total, brilliant banger.
Sure, it’s a bit of a fairytale… but they both change themselves. Sandy going all spandex slapper gets all the attention, but Danny has already renounced his leather greaser persona and gone square for Sandy. I’m okay with that.
And so on to the Thunder Road showdown, where the fragile masculinity of our heroes is affectionately mocked - Danny isn’t that cool after all - yet when the score picks up the strains of Greased Lightning during the race, it’s a ridiculously rousing punch-the-air moment. I love this film.
Rare moment of mild negativity: if there’s one song that Grease wouldn’t be much worse off without, it’s Sandy. Perfectly good song, but it’s just Danny doing his version of Hopelessly Devoted To You, over an hour later. (Yes, I know Hopelessly Devoted was written later, but it’s a better song.)
Just reaching the dance-off scene. An amazing sequence of choreography / comedy / drama happening all at once. Travolta on fire on the dance floor, first with Olivia Newton-John and then with the criminally under-appreciated Annette Charles as Cha-Cha. This is Grease’s Saturday Night Fever moment.
Travolta gets the whole sports montage sequence in which the running joke is that he is a complete dick. Throughout the film he is awkward and gauche and less cool than Sandy. She rocks!
Hardly an original observation, but I haven’t said it yet and it can’t be said enough: the gold medal goes to Stockard Channing. From those malevolent eyes at Travolta in the car park, to Sandra Dee, to that terrific song There Are Worse Things I Could Do, she gives the film its grit and its heart.