More random thoughts from Wednesday (deliberately omitted the first time around): When we stopped for drinks on the way down, Mum was humming "Secret Smile" as we headed into Costa (£2.15 for about a pint of hot chocolate - not bad for a service station) - two minutes later, the next tune to come over the speakers was... but, you've guessed. Spooky. (Had another similarly spooky moment later on, although I didn't realise it at the time. No I'm not going to tell you what).
Why on earth is the traffic at around 3pm in Hastings so bad? The drive across from the chapel to the crematorium was a total nightmare, but I was glad to see such consideration from other drivers towards the obvious funeral cortege (yes, I'm being sarcastic there). The drive back was just as bad, although we weren't trying to stay in convoy this time. Dad just about managed to restrain his glee at having beaten his brother back - as Mum said, "I wasn't aware that it was a race". Of course, much to his chagrin, we got inside to find both my sister and his already there.
Reading needs better signposting of its carparks - finding the station was easy enough, but tracking down the short-stay parking was a little more tricky. Finding somewere to eat was less difficult - we quickly found a Wetherspoon's (why isn't there one of these in Oxford - we have every other kind of chain pub - they do decent food and - I'm told by those who drink it - decent real ale). Judging by the costumes of may of the pub's denziens, there was obviously a 60s night at a club somewhere nearby. Hmmm....
Dusted off the old tuxedo and went to see the latest Bond movie, Die Another Day on Thursday night. Some interesting new ideas, although to compensate, there was a fairly continual parade of homages to the earlier films in the series, and most of the ingredients of the Bond formula were in their usual places. Madonna's theme tune is far and away the worst piece of Bond music of all time, despite their being some justification in my fellow cinemagoers' claim that the discordant mess worked in the context of the visuals.
As usual, there are some cracking set pieces - especially the swordplay and the battle of the Bondmobiles (although the second surfing sequence had painfully bad EFX), and the usual selection of funky gadgets (although I'd say that the cloaking device is just a bit too far off the plausibility scale - as Bond says, "You've got to be kidding!"). The usual nice pair of bond girls (continuing in the kick-ass tradition of recent Bonds) - and I wouldn't say no to the rumoured Jinx spin-off movie.
Again, there's more development of the secondary characters - while Bernard Lee's 'M' rarely had more to do than give Bond his briefing at the start of the movie, Judi Dench is being put to excellent use, this time showing us some new depth to the character. Moneypenny gets more exposure than usual with an amusing scene towards the end of the film. John Cleese gets a fairly standard gadget-introduction scene as he starts to fill the shoes of the late lamented Desmond Llewelyn - in a nice touch, AFAIR he is never actually referred to as 'Q'.
On Saturday night, it was time for The Rocky Horror Show - always a fun night out. I went as Riff-Raff this time, so no stockings for me. Immediate minus points to the Apollo - the first the we see as we head in is notices telling us that there's no standing or dancing on the balcony - arrg! They also failed to serve ice cream during the interval.
On to the show itself: The cast were all pretty good - plenty of comebacks to the audience participation and other improv. Sets and costumes were fine, but nothing special. A few gripes - there were a couple of scenes that were definitely over-acted in a bad way, and Dr. Scott's Helium-balloon voice was intensely annoying. Oh, and having to do the timewarp sitting down kinda spoils the fun :-(
The real show-stealers, however, were Christine Hamilton, joined after the interval by her un-billed husband. Needless to say, they were prime fodder for audience participation, but they took it all in good spirit, and Christine in particular frequently got even bigger laughs with her comeback lines. Oh the downside, the image of Neil having a disturbing amount of fun in the full stockings etc outfit at the end was an image I could have done without.
To conclude, not the best production I've seen, but definitely worth going to.
November 25 2002, 01:14:42 UTC 18 years ago
November 25 2002, 05:43:36 UTC 18 years ago
November 25 2002, 06:31:12 UTC 18 years ago
RHPS = The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the film based on RHS
HTH HAND