Don't take my word for it...
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: The good ship Lollipop...
Here's Kate Copstick's review from the Scotsman, 24 August...

Bare torsos, naked talent

KATE COPSTICK


FAMOUS SPIEGELTENT (Venue 87)

THE Spiegeltent is as glorious as ever, as if some old-time Laurence Llewellyn Bowen had made over the circus. This show, a sort of creatively carnal kaleidoscope of physicality, fits it like Dean Martin fitted a bar-room. It is the place where circus meets Vaudeville and it has never been, could never be, sexier.

La Clique is the most perfectly honed erotica since Michelangelo carved David. All the women have fabulous curves and all the guys have torsos that are perfect triangles. Fleefly starts the show outside, swirling high above George Square gardens on two scarlet ribbons. Ursula Martinez takes the genre of comedy magic and makes it entirely her own, incontrovertibly proving that it's not what you do, it's the way that you it.

She also demonstrates that there is always a place for a lady to keep her kerchief, even when she is naked. Yulia Pikhtina turns hula hooping into erotica and Miss Behave - who swallows - does all the wrong things with scissors.

This is clever, creative stuff - flirtation with amazing gymnastic skills. It is the kind of sexy with which most of us are never lucky enough to get into the same room, let alone the same bath. I think I was making whimpering noises.

And then there are The Caesar Twins. Identical twins. To believe that there is one creature of such physical perfection in the world is difficult. To find Poland has produced two pushes back the very bounds of possibility. They are awesomely, breathstoppingly skilled, and have what seems to be superhuman strength. Were you to see their balances and lifts on a screen you would assume they were a special effect, and what they do in a goldfish bowl will leave you entirely unsatisfied with your guppies. Do whatever it takes to get a front-row seat.

La Clique - A Sideshow Burlesque
Mood:  amorous
Now Playing: Bolero from Moulin Rouge
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe ended last night, and I was there, at the most FABULOUS show I've seen in a very long time.

The Spiegeltent was the coolest thing at last year's fringe, home of many a night of debauchery, drunkenness and good ole times, and this year was no different- apart from their late show, La Clique. It was the hottest ticket on the fringe, and thank GOD I got one for last night. It was just fantastic.

It was a burlesque variety show with trapeze artists, comedy, acrobats and singers, all with a very saucy bent. Things started with an female acrobat outside the tent performing on silks to 'Where the Wild Roses Grow' by Nick Cave and Kylie, and then we moved inside, where the wonderful Camille O'Sullivan got things going with a crazy song about ferris wheels. Next came the Caesar Twins, two insanely beautiful and immensely talented acrobats who happen to be identical. I'm sorry, but there's definitely something more than a 'twin thing' between them....

They performed throughout the show, took their shirts off, did a cool number about Castor and Pollux, and ended in a fishbowl like in Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity.

There was a hilarious female sword-swallower, Miss Behanve, who can do fabulous things with her tongue and a rose, and a Ukrainian gymnast with eyes as beautiful as sin who performed with hula hoops.

Camille sang 'Falling in Love Again' in German acappella, and broke every heart in the place. The acrobat from the start came back on and performed trapeze, and we had hilarious puppets from Cirque Decadence from Montreal. And a bo-peep style young lady who spun tassels from her boobs and pulled lollipops from various orifices.

But the two best parts of the show were the boy in the bath and Ursula Martinez. Senora Martinez is a stripper/stand-up comedian, and the most supremely self-confident person I've ever seen. For her first number she performed a striptease/magic act, wherein she continually made a red hankie disappear. The finale was watching her pull it out of her muff. Tada!! She reappeared later and sang a song about Croydon.

But the boy in that bath. What can I say? The hottest, sexiest gymnastic entertainment you will EVER see. If the Spiegeltent (and/or La Clique) come anywhere near you, kill for a ticket.



;-)

LOVE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE
Now Playing: A New Day Has Come - Celine
I met Sylvester by accident on the path last night and he was wondering where I'd been and what I was doing. Typical that having totally ignored me for most of the year he wants to chat NOW that I'm on the point of leaving. I was like "Child, I do NOT need to talk to you. Why you all up in my bidness no how? Love DO NOT live here anymore. M'ahf*cka!"

But what I actually said was "I'm leaving. Goodbye. I can wish you no greater joy in your life than the happiness a year as your flatmate has brought me."

Thankfully he didn't ask about his "book," which he lent me in about October. I never read the damn thing - dull as f*ck - but could never be bothered giving it back as that would have necessitated talking to him. Ugh. So I put it in a brown envelope with his name on it and left it beside his pigeonhole. It was the most contemptuous thing I could come up with other than that awful Groucho Marx line "I enjoyed your book. I laughed from beginning to end. Someday I intend reading it."

Let's just pray he never gets elected to the office he so desperately craves...

It's over. I'm outta here. Bus is leaving in 40 minutes. There's nothing left to say.

Finally
Now Playing: Hallelujah Chorus/Finally Bootleg Remix (In my head...)
So the dissertation is rebound, resubitted, and REally gone. Hurrah!!!!

And I've checked out of my room and started to pack.

In ten hours I'll be outta here. Hurrah!

Blonde Geography
One blonde asks another: "Which is further, London or the Moon?" The other replies: "Well HELLOOOOO....., can you see London?????!!!!

Mercury Retrograde
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: Why Does it Always Rain on Me?
I'm sorry. Mercury Retrograde is a BITCH.

So much for submitting my dissertation. HA!

I showed the finished product (spare copy!) to Charlotte on the bus to London on Saturday afternoon, and ON THE FIRST PAGE SHE OPENED she found a reference that I'd forgotten to include in the bibliography. ONE BLOODY REFERENCE. Strike One.

Then, some of the Japanese girls were flicking through it (amid cries of 'Ah! So Difficurt!") and read three tiny mistakes in the appendix, which are hilariously obvious to any Japanese-literate reader. Strike Two.

And then, to complicate matters, I realise that a) I've sent my computer home with my parents, and b) I've ALSO sent home the cd with the entire dissertation backup on it. And the font in which I printed the blessed thing. STRIKE THREE, and it would seem that I'm out.

But no...

Thank god, I'd saved both of the offending documents on my computer account in college, and the PCs here have this week been upgraded, so that I can re-print the re-corrected things.

Let's just PRAY that my supervisors haven't collected the thesis from the drama office - I'm going to be there at 9am pleading to be allowed to take 'em away, re-do them and re-submit. And then get my haircut...

GAH!!!

Globalisation
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: Natalie's FABULOUS minidisc
INTERNATIONAL THINKING AT ITS BEST!
Question: What is the truest definition of Globalization?
Answer: Princess Diana's death.
Question: How come?
Answer: An English princess
with an Egyptian boyfriend
crashes in a French tunnel,
driving a German car
with a Dutch engine,
driven by a Belgian who was drunk
on Scottish whisky, (check the bottle before you change the spelling)
followed closely by Italian Paparazzi,
on Japanese motorcycles;
treated by an American doctor,
using Brazilian medicines.
This is sent to you by an American,
using Bill Gates's technology,
and you're probably reading this on your computer,
that use Taiwanese chips,
and a Korean monitor,
assembled by Bangladeshi workers
in a Singapore plant,
transported by Indian lorry-drivers,
hijacked by Indonesians,
unloaded by Sicilian longshoremen,
and trucked to you by Mexican illegals.....
That, my friends, is Globalization

Prospero's "True Preservers"
Mood:  loud
Now Playing: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better...
I'm sorry. I waited for Arthur Horowitz's book "Prospero's True Preservers" for like, ten months, and it arrived in the library last Wednesday. Two days before I handed in my dissertation. I have now gone through the entire thing, and I am not impressed.

He admits he knows no Japanese (and demonstrates little knowledge of Japanese theatre) and his chapter on Ninagawa (the reason I was reading his parvum opus in the first place) was singularly unimpressive. Totally not worth the wait.

While I'm still unsure whether I want to do a PhD, I really want to write a book about Ninagawa, especially since yet ANOTHER book has been published with inappropriate comments written by someone who really doesn't understand what they're talking about. Case in point - Horowitz describes early Ninagawa productions with titles like "Hearty but Flippant" and "Fickle, Frivolous and Sincere", and mentions 'another' productions where 'the actors entered the auditorium dressed as riot police. The audience was convinced that the police had come to arrest them, and, as the curtain came down, they attacked the actors'. What Horowitz doesn't realise is that these three points are all about the same play, usually translated as 'Hearty but Flippant' or 'Sincere Frivolity'. Which ended as he described. Duh...

And while we're on the subject, why the hell didn't David Bradby TELL me he had written a chapter on Ninagawa's 'Waiting for Godot' in his production history of the play? Would it have hurt him so much to BRAG about the fact that he'd written on it? I'm so tempted to send him a list of corrections for his article, and to fill in the numerous gaps in his information. But that would be bad karma...

Off the the British Museum tomorrow morning. Tons of fun.

:-D

Twelfth Night, beti...
Now Playing: Bole Chudiyan...
I saw "Twelfth Night" this afternoon in London. What a wonderful idea to transpose Shakespeare's England to contemporary India. An idea I had two years ago but didn't execute (since I didn't have Indian actors...) and instead I directed 'The Bacchae'.

The production is still in previews, so I can't say too much yet - leave it to the reviews, which should appear next week. Some of the acting is very good, none of it is very bad. The set is extremely simple, but very pretty.

I think I'm disappointed because I had hyped it up SOOO much in my head, but anyway... Hopefully the pace will pick up when they get better audiences, though. The ending is particularly interesting - the darkest, most thought-provoking way I think I've ever seen it done. Neha Dubey (Monsoon Wedding) really shines as an Olivia with a conscience.

Lost in Translation
Mood:  blue
Hilarious. My Japanese students had their closing ceremony this afternoon, and they gave us all bunches of flowers. Attached was a very pretty card, which read "In loving memory". I haven't laughed so much in a very long time! But I didn't have the heart to explain what I was laughing at...