scaryblog

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews... Good : NT Live (Odyssey) Something slightly different this time - it's one of those "see a play at the cinema" things.  I've watched a couple at home and quite liked them, but it certainly doesn't give you anything like a theatrical experience from the sofa, so I was intrigued what it would be like in the cinema.   And I'd nearly gone and seen this play last year, so it seemed like a good choice to head along to The Odyssey in St Albans (our local!) with the lovely Mrs Reed to see a) what the play was like and b) what watching the play in the cinema was like. So first, the play - the curtain goes up (and it does in both locations) to reveal a surprisingly small room with three people in it.  And that's the way it stays - most of the cast stay on stage for the entire time and there are limited changes to the set.  At various points in time doors open in the walls (sometimes to surprising effect) but t...

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts. 14/03/10 :  A Curious Thing -  Amy McDonald Amy's another one of those random female single/songwriters that popped up a lot around this time (see also Eliza Doolittle, Pixie Lott, Diana Vickers) - I don't think she's an X Factor escapee, but couldn't be sure.  Additionally, I don't think I minded her, but my complete lack of memory of any of her songs suggests I could be wrong. I can't say any of it jogged my memory - but I didn't mind it at all.  It's a bit like a cross between KT Tunstall and later era Big Country - Del Amitri also sprung to mind in places or Thea Gilmore if you are aware her.  It's kinda bouncy singalong pop-rock and she's got a nice voice - the lovely Mrs Reed may well like it.  However, absolutely none of it stuck in my brain - but I'd be quite happy to listen to it again. We're at #4 with a new entry this week on the start of a fifteen week run - it then took t...

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts. 21/03/10 :  Lungs -  Florence + The Machine I didn't strictly "own" this album but I certainly listened to it plenty of times - I remember liking it a lot, but I've not visited it in many a long year so it should be nice heading back to it. Oooh - yeah, this is a FINE album.  "Dog Days Are Over" is certainly a strong opener - there's good use of variation throughout, which is even truer for "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" so this is a strong opening pair indeed.  I also particularly like "Kiss With A Fist" (not about domestic violence apparently, which I'd always assumed it was), "Girl With One Eye" and "You've Got The Love" but, for me, there isn't really a weak track on there.  Florence has such a distinctive voice that I sometimes think people forget how good a job The Machine do in supporting her but there are some great backing bits on this.  As y...

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews... For Black Boys... :  Apollo Theatre Or, as you probably know it - For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy.  Which sounds like a giggle, doesn't it?  This did a run at the New Diorama Theatre (never heard of it) last year which was generally well received (except by The Guardian, it seems), then it transferred to the Royal Court Theatre (which I have heard of, but couldn't tell you where it is) and now it's transferred here.  And it sounded like a proper play, so I thought I'd have some of that. And, well, the Apollo looks different tonight from last time  I was here - checking back, I see this is the fourth time I've been here in a year!  The audience also looks very different from they usually do and I'll give you, oooh three seconds, to consider why that might be - we'll come back to that later. The curtain comes up to reveal a darkened set on which an unknown number o...

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts. 28/03/10 :  Head First -  Goldfrapp I have, in my time, enjoyed a bit of Goldfrapp - although I preferred their earlier stuff.  And whilst that sounds like a pretentious muso thing to say (mostly because it is), here it's more acceptable than most because Felt Mountain, their debut album was a kind of ambient chill kinda thang but after that on Black Cherry, they glammed things up a bit - it was still fine, but not so much my sorta thing.  I lost touch with them after that though, so I'm happy to give this a go - it's more than possible she/they have taken another swerve into uncharted territory. It's more BC than FM, but not quite as glam - it didn't quite grab me on first listen, although I did quite like "Hunt".  It might be a grower, but it doesn't feel like it - she's got a nice voice and it's pleasant enough to have on in the background but I struggle to imagine too many actively seek...

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts. 04/04/10 :  My World -  Justin Bieber After our third visit with Boyzone, we now have our third visit with Bieber - lucky us, eh?  This is early days Bieber, which is, I believe, when he was at his most annoying - so you can just imagine how much I'm looking forward to it. Well, some good news is that it's only 37 minutes long - and we're really struggling to find any other good news.  The songs aren't absolutely dreadful, but they're really not great (and VERY repetitive) - they're mostly about how much he's in love with his special girl and she's so much better than all his other girls or how he needs to find his special girl because he's heartbroken.  But he sounds like he's ten - he's one step away from Alvin and The Chipmunks (and I suspect a similar amount of auto-tuning has happened here).  It just set my teeth on edge - so it was a very long 37 minutes.  The absolutely best news w...

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts. 11/04/10 :  Brother -  Boyzone Our third visit with Boyzone - both of the last ones were from '96 and it's fair to say I wasn't overly impressed with them, but particularly not by the singing.  I'm imagining that either the lads had learned to sing in the intervening years or the engineers had worked out how to use autotune, but I'm still not expecting to like it though... And no, I don't like it - but all the rough edges have mostly definitely been smoothed away.  Some might suggest to the point of dullness, but I'd say it's more just not very exciting.  It has some decent enough harmonies in places, but I'd struggle to say any of particularly stuck in my mind - with the bizarre exception of the introduction to "Let Your Wall Fall Down" which sounds surprisingly Screamadelica-esque for about 15 seconds and then reverts to the expected ballady smoothness.  All of which seems like an odd...