Lewis lacks the X-Factor?

I thought I was alone in not giving a flying one about Lewis Hamilton's Formula One world title victory, but reading an article in The Times today it explored the lack of response from his home-town of Stevenage. No flags, no bunting, no open-topped celebration:

It's not like he's won X-Factor or something..." says Jo, a Stevenage-raised mum of two. "But really. If he had they'd have had a massive party here. It seems a bit low key.

Despite his media handlers and corporate sponsors seizing the opportunity, I wonder how ready the British public are ready fully to embrace UK Tax exile Lewis Hamilton as their next sporting hero?

The 11th Doctor - Who?

No sooner had David Tennant allowed his intention to quit Doctor Who to slip from his mouth to gasps from the NTA audience at the Royal Albert Hall, than the rumour mills started the fevered speculation who his successor might be.

Amongst the runners and riders, apparently, are:

David Morrisey is favourite with the bookies currently at 3-1. The 44-year old actor is set appear in this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special - whilst some are seizing on the episode's title The Next Doctor as a clue, surely the DW production team have not abandoned all subtlety!







Paterson Joseph - another 44-year old actor. Could he be the first black actor to take on the role? He's doing well with the bookmakers










James Nesbitt - also is much rumoured for the role, especially as the Northern Irish actor has starred in Jekyll, a series made by Stephen Moffat, the new helmer of Doctor Who









Billie Piper - did David Tennant have his tongue firmly in his cheek when he suggested that the actress who played Rose Tyler in the series could somehow be the first woman to play the role?


Well nothing like a prediction to come back and haunt me...but I don't think it'll be any of them. I don't think they will mess with gender of the Time Lord so that rules out Dame Billie. I also don't think it will be any of the chaps being touted - it's a Saturday early evening show, aimed squarely at a family audience and if it is going to keep the kiddies on board, they are going to want a Doctor they can relate to.....and that means YOUNG!
Look at Merlin, and Robin Hood - both have noticably young leads!
And a younger actor will be able to keep up with a heavy production schedule.....so watch this space (and time)

Will America make the right choice?

To the outside world, the choice couldn't be simpler or more obvious: it has to Obama....hasn't it?

Except that the news coverage today suggests that McCain has narrowed the lead in the polls. Doesn't that send shivers? Should we brace ourselves for a replay of 2000 when the Democrats, confidently thinking they had it in the bag, sleepwalked to defeat.

Can you imagine the future under a McCain - Palin presidency. How many gaffes do we have to hear - the agreement/disagreement over 'racist Pennsylvania', calling a rally 'my fellow prisoners', wanting to fire the Chairman of an independent agency, thinking that Iraq borders Pakistan, and on - before it is fair to question if a 72-year old candidate may not be up to the stresses and strains of the Oval Office?

And consider his biggest mistake, the terrifying and unethical Sarah Palin, just a hearbeat away from leading the most powerful country in the world - someone who thinks that the theory of evolution is an opinion and thinks it should be put on a par with creationism, denies the evidence of global warming, and doesn't know if abortion clinic bombers are terrorists. Absolutely terrifiying!!!

But what worries me is watching British coverage of the US elections, when various vox pops ask the public why they are supporting their favoured candidate, followers of Obama articulate a variety of reasons. When it came to why people were supporting McCain, their answers were muddled, poorly expressed and had all the depth of bumper stickers. One scary bloke was queried why he was backing McCain, to which he chillingly uttered "Security" - the effort to venture those four syllables was visible as was his resentment to the fact that he had to provide a reason for his choice.

And that's the worrying bit. The victor will not be one which surely all reason dictates should win - it is up to an electorate many of whom will make a choice based on instinct and faith without recourse for thought.

Of course that it true for the UK electorate, but at least we pretty much only screw up our own country's future when we get it wrong - when America gets it wrong, we ALL pay!

Yazoo Reunion: And all I ever knew...

And they say you should never go back....but "they" didn't miss Yazoo the first time round!

Today, the announcement was made that Alison M and Vince C were getting together for a Yazoo tour in June this year. That incredible fusion of the head/electro/cold with the heart/vocals/warmth was the sound that woke me up to music.

And the unlikeliness of their pairing spoke volumes to a teenager who increasingly felt he couldn't follow the life-blueprint expected of him.

And their awkwardness, the lack of finesse mirrored the isolation of growing up feeling 'different', an outsider, uncertain of a place in the world.

And yet, their songs were prickly and sad and moving and ripe with imagery and meaning that spoke volumes to an awakening soul.

Like a lot of others, I listened to the recordings of the Peel Sessions, the Dominion concert - I had my first and frankly only moment of piss-weak teenager rebellion, when Yazoo played Rooftops in Glasgow (an over-18 nightclub) and my parents wouldn't allow me (a 14-year old) to go by myself. The huff I pulled....

Yazoo was the starting point of exploring music: of course, the fascination with Alison's unique voice endured. But it was a moment in time that had just narrowly slipped out of my grasp - it was music that was always past-tense. Whilst I knew others had experienced Yazoo, I had only listened. In my room.

The Yazoo Reconnected tour is like a gift. The missing piece of a jigsaw, once believed to be always lost down the side of life's sofa. It is a precious thing to be given this chance.
Good Times indeed!

West End Wonders - October 2007

As a card-carrying West End Wendy, my blog would seem incomplete without casting a gimlet eye across some of the best (and worst) theatrical activity across the London theatre scene currently.

Must See: Lord of The Rings, Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Pet Shop Boys - review

With their lifeless 2002 album Release and their subsequent soundtrack to the 1925 film Battleship Potemkin, you could be given for thinking that the Pet Shop Boys were glad to be grey and preparing to be pensioned off into the nearest nursing home for ironic pop stars. Thankfully their ninth studio is a great argument against the “Pet Shop Bores” label that was hovering over them.

Fundamental is a perfect title. Teaming up again with Trevor Horn, one of their former producers, provides a return to the fundamental Pet Shop Boys sound – deadpan lyrics that are talk-sung over a dramatic background of synths and orchestras. In fact, many of the songs are reminiscent of their hugely successful 1988 Introspective album.

However the title doesn’t only refer to this back-to-basics approach. It boldly states the subject of the Pet Shop Boys’ agenda on this album; namely political and social Fundamentalism. Like previous PSB songs with a message (‘Opportunities (Lets Make Lots of Money’), ‘Kings Cross’, ‘Rent’), this album is a caustic look at contemporary society.

The first single from the album, 'I'm With Stupid', establishes an overt polemical agenda. The Pet Shop Boys muse over Tony Blair’s inexplicable relationship with Dubya, mockingly presented as a misguided love affair. Blair voices, “I thought like everybody did / You Were Just a Moron,” before wondering, “Have you made a fool of me / Are you not Mr Right?” The PSB gift is that they take this witty political commentary and set it, as they once put it, “to a disco beat”.

Similarly American Imperialism is targeted in ‘Luna Park’. US militarism is satirised as an amusement park, visualised with a disturbing foreboding. “Electric storms”, “the shooting range”, “hear the screams” all contribute to a nightmarish picture. There is a sophistication in Tennant and Lowe’s writing that elevates it way beyond clumsy attempts like George Michael’s ‘Wag The Dog’.

Pleasingly it is not just the United States government that is the subject of the barbs.

‘Integral’ is a furious attack on New Labour’s legislation for ID cards in the UK. Set against an oppressive dance track backing, there is a relentless beat that is as impossible to resist as the controversial proposals. As Neil chimes off a litany of justifications, the dehumanisation behind ID cards is realised not only in lyrics but also in musical form.

Asylum seekers are not generally the stuff of pop songs and only the PSB would have the courage to tackle such difficult subject matter. ‘Indefinite Leave To Remain’ is delivered in the voice of an asylum seeker as a love song to the UK, but expressed in the official speak of the Department of Immigration. It is a beautiful ballad, not unlike much of their work in the Closer To Heaven musical.

Not content with the micro-politics of the US and UK, the duo amazingly tackle the fall of communism and the effects of global capitalism without sounding ridiculous. ‘20th Century’ observes “Everyone came / To destroy what was rotten / But they killed off what was good as well” and delivers the polemic “Sometimes the solution is worse than the problem”. That is the most apropos comment on the Iraq war in a song this year. To deliver such a thought, without weighing down the music in a wave of pretentiousness or depression, is intelligent music-making at its finest.

Surveying a society-wide landscape of uncertainty and fear, ‘Psychological’ has a very minimal and creepy electro-sound to mirror the unidentifiable paranoia listed in the song. “Is it a cry for help / Or a call to arms”, “Something in the attic / And it smells so bad”, “Who’s that knocking / On the cellar door” all conjure up a world of ill-defined and yet palpable sense of contemporary threat.

The pared back instrumentation is in stark contrast to the familiar Trevor Horn everything-including-the-kitchen-sink production on ‘The Sodom and Gomorrah Show’. Hedonism is dissected, reality television is parodied as Horn builds the backing up to an apocalyptic scale the likes of which we haven’t heard since Frankie’s ‘Two Tribes’.

The personal impact of these contemporary pressures, the impulse to shut out the pain and madness of society for a while in a soothing personal numbness, is explored in ‘Numb’, an unlikely alliance between the ironic British duo and the Queen of the Californian power ballad, Diane Warren. From a huge, sweeping orchestrated introduction, this remarkably beautiful song adds warmth and humanity to Tennant’s disembodied vocals while the Pet Shop Boys strip Warren’s music of the bombast, revealing the emotional honesty at its core. A future classic in the PSB without a doubt.

Curiously, for an album that it is bold in its political agenda, it is surprising that the record company should choose a pointedly uncontroversial track, ‘Minimal’, as their next single. It’s a great dance track about art and the beauty of less. It perhaps could be taken to represent a yearning for a simpler way of life. The grand irony is that this paean to minimalism is conducted over some of the busiest production on the album.

Not unlike Madonna, the Pet Shop Boys have the rare ability to present thought-provoking ideas in the most immediate format of popular music without diluting either.

Fundamental would be described as a bricks-and-mortar Pet Shop Boys album, were they not so busy throwing the bricks at the political Establishment. After 20 years in the business, the Pet Shop Boys have delivered an album of style and seriousness, of maturity and relevance. Never mind Fundamental; this is the Definitive album from the Pet Shop Boys.

Originally published 5th June 2006

Although I thorough enjoyed reviewing for Rainbow Network/Gaydarnation, my work on Moyet sites increasingly took up more of my time so this was my last formal review.
Looking at critics recently, especially those who have clearly paid no attention to the work they were given to comment on, I'm glad that even where I could find little of worth in an album that I still respected the artistic endeavours to the extent that I was specific in my negative feedback and always tried to correctly spell the name of the turn.

Smaller - review

After a successful 6 week regional tour which apparently sold out every performance, Smaller has finally arrived in London with its larger than life stars, Dawn French and Alison Moyet.

Increasingly rare for the commercial West End, awash with revivals, movie re-workings and musical warhorses, Smaller is a piece of new writing by debut playwright Carmel Morgan, whose credits have been scripting television dramas such as Coronation Street and Shameless.

The play centres on the fractured Clulow family. Bernice (French) and Cath (Moyet) are very different sisters. Bernice is the daughter who stayed behind to look after their widowed, disabled mother – a task which has become a duty and a millstone over the past twenty years. Cath, in contrast, had a talent for singing so flew the nest with dreams of stardom but has ended up humiliated, performing karaoke hits to drunken hen parties on the “Costa Chlamydia”.

Maureen (June Watson), their mother, may have become physically disabled but her mind is still very active. Confined to her Oxford bungalow, reliant on her daughter to lift and lay her between bed, chair and toilet, she craves stimulation and interaction.

Compulsively watching through the net curtains for the latest instalment of suburbia beyond her window, Maureen’s day is timed according to the start and finish of TV programmes like Murder She Wrote and Quincy. She absorbs every minutiae of her daughters’ lives from Bernice’s tales of “biscuit wars” in the school staffroom to Cath’s postcards about binning the latest “twat with a plat”.

Maureen’s conversations flow like Joycean monologues - streams of consciousness that spray the dramatis personae of her life like tickertape. Morgan skilfully depicts the relentlessness of Maureen and Bernice’s situation like Becket’s two tramps in Godot. They have long gone beyond the point of listening to each other and are waiting for a resolution to be provided. The idea of Mother going into a home is mooted but is dismissed and Morgan deftly shows how the behaviour of carer and the cared soon become habitualised.

Although there are brilliant one-liners and many laugh-out-loud moments, these are interwoven with realistic and upsetting scenes of home care. The epiphanic question posed by Bernice, “Shall I push your piles back in now?” captures the delicate balancing act which combines dark humour with the pathos of what’s happening.

As the frustration and the claustrophobia slowly rise in long extended scenes between French and Watson, the only respite is provided by snapshot scenes of Moyet abroad.

Unusual but effective, Cath reveals her character through songs (impressive and moving original material penned by Moyet herself and songwriting partner Pete Glenister) which are interpolated throughout the play. Maureen refers to her daughter as “a breath of fresh air” and this is how Cath’s appearances are received by the audiences.

All three parts are written to play to the performers’ strength, but they also challenge them to leave their comfort zones. June Watson has swathes of dialogue, as befits a seasoned stage performer, but she has to make Maureen Clulow neither a monster nor a victim. Alison Moyet has tremendous stage presence as a singer but in her first serious dramatic role, she is required to hold her own and deliver authentic soul-searching as Cath. Dawn French has many moments of comedic aplomb but in an exacting role, she has to alienate the audience’s sympathy with Bernice’s querulousness. It would be hard to find a stronger trio on a West End stage.

Whilst covering a small slice of life, Carmel Morgan’s script poses some big questions. Who is trapped – the housebound mother, the home-tied carer or the daughter who followed failed dreams? What is the nature of mothering? Maureen is proud of both her daughters (“You are both Golden Bollocks”) yet is insensitive in the even-handed dispensing of her love; Bernice mothers Maureen but the inescapability of her duty she has imposed on herself has turned familiarity to contempt; as Cath casts a maternal eye over her sister, worrying how she will face the future after her Mum’s death, how much is this out of guilt from years of absence?

The unflinching subject matter will not please everyone. It tackles some of society’s darkest fears which many would rather occur behind the curtains of suburbia, out of sight and mind. There are no simple answers offered.

In Smaller, there are no heroes or villains - only human beings struggling through the daily life choices we all must make. That Kathy Burke’s detailed, entertaining and compassionate production makes us face those themes is a small triumph for the West End.

Originally published 11th April 2006