Sit Down Madam

 

As people know I’m a big Theatre fan. I’m also very clear in my mind how people should act and behave in the theatre. ie there should be a mutual respect for their fellow audience and for the performers on stage.

At the end of lockdown I remember posting about being in the audience of the musical Far From Away where I experienced , what I can only describe as a small touch of mass hysteria .where the house erupted with a spontaneous cheer and standing applause after the very first song.  

There was a hunger for that large scale experience 

A hunger and a need for it.

Recently we are hearing of episodes of bad behaviour in musical theatre productions where mainly drunken women in the audience have stopped the performances by singing along with the leads.

Now, whilst I deplore behaviour like this ( and believe me I’m not shy at saying so) I do have a degree of sympathy for the women involved who , like us all have returned to live theatre in order to have a good joint experience. 

Often the productions are led by popular songs, and at the finale they actively encourage the audience for a joined singalong of best bits so to speak .

Mamma Mia started this trick to leave people happy but the trick has rebounded somewhat, fuelled by alcohol, high ticket prices ( I’ve paid for this ticket and I’m going to have a fucking good time) and a post covid hysteria , the sort I mentioned at the start of the post.

Theatres are to blame a bit too…..to recoup their covid costs many bigger theatres are putting on crowd pleasers which will prey on those wanting a toe tapping , dancing in the aisles evening of fun .

In The Bodyguard a working bar appears on set and is used in the interval to serve the punters in the stalls.

The worst audiences I have experienced in the theatre and cinema have been in,  I’m afraid, the United States, but their British counterparts are catching up, which is a sad fact.

I’m happy to being a bit of a snob where join in pantomime productions are concerned. These are morphing into comedy gigs and concerts which are interactive to an extent and for many are becoming the norm……not in my house they’re not! 

I’m going to see two productions this week. Too Much World At Once at Theatre Clwyd and the Lawrence Olivier Award winning Pride and Prejudice* sort of  at the Storyhouse  and I shall sit there sans toffees and mobile phone and I will listen quietly and with respect.

from Going Gently https://ift.tt/vsod7Hq

Revisiting

 For this offering, I wanted to resurrect a blogpost that I had created on April 10th in a previous year. As it happens and by pure chance, it appears that I have rarely blogged on this date before but I found the following post from April 10th, 2012.  At that time and with my tongue firmly in my cheek, I was in the middle of an extended  blogging fantasy which involved the creation of a faraway tropical sanctuary  for escaped bloggers. We were creating a brand new country known as Blogland and a lot of my posts were intended to support the myth.  Several other bloggers came on board and enjoyed the ride. I suppose the idea  began with this post from  November 13th 2011 and ended with this post from  July 3rd 2012 . If interested, you can easily look back upon the Blogland journey by checking out posts from between those dates but I should warn you that the Blogland story is interspersed with more typical blogging fayre.

Blogland

Perhaps it's only when you are about to leave something, somewhere or someone that you start to appreciate what is about to be part of your past. Yorkshire - my Yorkshire. Shall I never see your rolling wolds again, your quiet rivers moving perpetually to the vast silted mouth of The Humber - a word that in ancient English simply meant "river". Shall I never see your ancient villages with their medieval stone churches beneath towering sycamore and beech where rooks caw to greet the day? Oh Yorkshire, when I am gone please think of me some times, my sweet, sweet motherland. Home to Captain Cook and Emily Bronte, J.B.Priestley and Ted Hughes, David Hockney and Arthur Scargill, Saint John of Beverley, William Wilberforce, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Brearley and Paul Daniels. Though I am gone you shall liveth for evermore in my mortal heart.

And I shall miss our weather, our unpredictable weather with blue and grey skies, sunshine and snow, that Forrest Gump chocolate box quality. And I shall miss steak pies from Sean's, "Eastenders", fish and chip specials from "Three Steps" and long walks in The Peak District with camera in hand and the banter in our local and visits to Hull to watch my beloved Tigers. Vegetables growing in our garden. There is plenty that I shall miss.

However, there's plenty I shall be glad to leave behind. The careerism of professional politicians with their weasel words. Reality TV shows and "talent shows" and Simon Cowell and Jordan (aka Katie Price) and "The Sun" newspaper and people rushing their lives away and tattoos. And I won't miss our monstrous supermarkets and our crowded motorways or graffiti or litter or clusters of people standing outside public buildings like lepers under clouds of blue grey tobacco smoke. Nor shall I miss taxi drivers or potholes in the road, drivers on mobile phones, dog dirt on verges or unsolicited calls from money hungry call centres. No I won't miss any of that.

Please don't think I'm having second thoughts. Just pensive that's all. We are the new pilgrims aboard a metaphorical "Mayflower" - bound for a new life in a new world - Blogland - where all of our dreams will surely come true and we can live in peace like our new national anthem says - "far far away from the mad rushing crowd."

I might not get to blog again until I reach Blogland though there may be some spare time when several of us are in transit at Dubai Airport - one of the world's great new crossroads. All human life passes through there. I trust that all emigrants are ready to go and that private arrangements have been made to get you to your previously nominated international airport. As I said before - tickets will be available at the main information desk. All you need is your passport and luggage. I'm so looking forward to meeting everybody on Thursday when we'll assemble round the social club pool for nibbles, informal drinks and the very start of our new life together in Blogland. Afterwards, there's the arm wrestling tournament which should be a load of fun.

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/31ZlKbc