After meeting an old friend at Forest Cafe for a catch-up, C was my first port of call for the ASBO Fairy Tales – a Bristol Grammar school production giving us such stories as Snow White and the Seven Dads (going on a King Jeremy Kyle-type show), Jack stealing the hen that lays tobacco after climbing a giant weed plant, and Mouldylocks and the Three Bears, where some faux-hippies squat in the house of the bears. I enjoyed the inventive use of title sequences. Thanks also to mic for leaving a comment on my blog; I stuck my head round the curtain to say hi after the performance 🙂
Philip Talbot had left a comment about his show on 62% Actor (so named as 62% of actors earn under £10k a year). He gave a very interesting talk about his life in the theatre, regaling us with tales of how and why he became an actor (partly due to being expelled from school for writing a poem in a maths exam!), about his strict Plymouth Brethren parents coming to see him (they had never been to the theatre before in their lives), or when he understudied at the National, comparing the beer-drinking actors of yesteryear to the more sober ones (at least pre-performance) of today (with a nice Bob Monkhouse anecdote).
My next event was going to be the Garden at Belushi’s, but it didn’t appear to be happening (and I can’t remember who I was hoping to see there), so instead I crossed town to the Gilded Balloon for Baba Brinkman’s rap guide to human nature. I had of course already seen Baba in Rapconteur, so knew what to expect, and was not disappointed by this look at evolutionary psychology, for example how lapdancers get 30% more tips if they’re ovulating, with phat beats provided by his resident producer.
Crossing town again (all this exercise must be good for me) took me to St Mark’s artSpace for Polymnia’s Choral Chillout. They took a short while to get going, but by their section on US traditional songs were well into the swing of things, and I particularly enjoyed Down in the River to Pray. Later songs included Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit and Piazzolla’s Tango – Verano Porteño, both of which I very much enjoyed.
Lastly, I headed over to the Stand for Jo Caulfield. Jo told some very entertaining stories; of mistaken identity, which ended with her being invited to the wedding of someone she didn’t know at all (I think you should go, Jo) and paying for their dinner, or a story for children to teach them about the coming disappointments in life (not in any way autobiographical). Near the end, she told us how she’d been asked to write a column about losing your virginity for an American magazine (because, according to them, the British are the best at romance), and so asked members of the audience where they lost their virginity so she could compile a map. After some normal answers, including Leeds and Luxembourg, one couple both answered London and confessed it was with each other. Jo thought this was sweet, but then noticed two girls sat further down the same row looking rather embarrassed, and correctly inferred that these were their children, who had sat away from their parents so as not to be embarrassed by them. In this, they had certainly failed! A similar thing happened when another man said he’d lost his virginity in a hotel – Jo wondered aloud why someone would get a hotel especially for losing their virginity and he replied: it had been his honeymoon…
In all, a very random but entertaining day. Tomorrow, I’m moving house, so we’ll have to see what we can fit in.