In an attempt to get myself posting again.
Jul. 6th, 2007 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamjarSo, as you may have heard, I went to see Cabaret at the lyric theatre with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
burntcopper, megolas and snowballjane. Really good show and a really good example of why, even if you love the film version of something, it's often worth seeing it on stage. burntcopper and megolas have posted on it, but my not-entirely-coherent thoughts are below.
Firstly, the cast was uniformly great. It's so different from the film version, and it works really well as it is. Even though I missed Max and I think that the film version of "Tomorrow Belongs To me" is one of the most powerful and *frightening* moments in a musical ever, I didn't miss the film itself. Honor Blackman and Francis Matthews as Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz were lovely in love, and then broke your heart at the end. Kim Medcalfe as Sally was loud and blowsy and off her head some of the time. Not fragile the way Liza Minelli was, but probably more believable because she's not as pretty, not as good a singer.
The thing about the film is that at the end of it, you can tell yourself that some of the people survived. You know they probably didn't, but you can give yourself that hope. In this one, you really can't. And not only the people that end up in the camps. Even Sally... well, Liza Minelli's Sally is self-deluding, vulnerable, fragile, but she's not physically self-destructive the way Kim Medcalfe's Sally is. This version of Sally will end up dying of something -drink, drugs, the wrong man, STD, bad abortion, something. When she sings Cabaret, it's not joyful like it is when Liza Minelli sings it. She's almost crying, almost screaming, and it's powerful and it hurts to hear it.
And then the final scene, when it's clear what's going to happen to so many of the cast, leaves you whimpering.
Also, there's a lot more nudity than I expected. For those interested, I got the tickets cheap off of Discount London Theatre.
Briefly on Doctor Who, kind of late:
As much as I've liked this series, Martha's romantic thing for the Doctor has annoyed me a lot. The finale actually made me like that, because it made it clear that it was never going to happen and that Martha was capable of seeing that and taking steps to get over it. The Doctor can't give her what she wants. Family of Blood showed that as well. Human John Smith can have a relationship, can have that kind of love. The Doctor can love -can even be in love- but he's also alien, he's really able to reciprocate her feelings in the same way. That doesn't make him bad for not being able to give her what she wants, any more than she's bad for wanting things from him he doesn't want/can't give, but it does mean that maybe being together 24/7 isn't a good idea.
She's in love with him, and he's in love with *humanity*, and also cares for her.
On a happy note, I have apparently succeeded in luringpetronelle into QI. This is a good thing, although her experience with the pilot has been slightly traumatising. Don't ask about the tie-pins.
burntcopper, megolas and snowballjane. Really good show and a really good example of why, even if you love the film version of something, it's often worth seeing it on stage. burntcopper and megolas have posted on it, but my not-entirely-coherent thoughts are below.Firstly, the cast was uniformly great. It's so different from the film version, and it works really well as it is. Even though I missed Max and I think that the film version of "Tomorrow Belongs To me" is one of the most powerful and *frightening* moments in a musical ever, I didn't miss the film itself. Honor Blackman and Francis Matthews as Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz were lovely in love, and then broke your heart at the end. Kim Medcalfe as Sally was loud and blowsy and off her head some of the time. Not fragile the way Liza Minelli was, but probably more believable because she's not as pretty, not as good a singer.
The thing about the film is that at the end of it, you can tell yourself that some of the people survived. You know they probably didn't, but you can give yourself that hope. In this one, you really can't. And not only the people that end up in the camps. Even Sally... well, Liza Minelli's Sally is self-deluding, vulnerable, fragile, but she's not physically self-destructive the way Kim Medcalfe's Sally is. This version of Sally will end up dying of something -drink, drugs, the wrong man, STD, bad abortion, something. When she sings Cabaret, it's not joyful like it is when Liza Minelli sings it. She's almost crying, almost screaming, and it's powerful and it hurts to hear it.
And then the final scene, when it's clear what's going to happen to so many of the cast, leaves you whimpering.
Also, there's a lot more nudity than I expected. For those interested, I got the tickets cheap off of Discount London Theatre.
Briefly on Doctor Who, kind of late:
As much as I've liked this series, Martha's romantic thing for the Doctor has annoyed me a lot. The finale actually made me like that, because it made it clear that it was never going to happen and that Martha was capable of seeing that and taking steps to get over it. The Doctor can't give her what she wants. Family of Blood showed that as well. Human John Smith can have a relationship, can have that kind of love. The Doctor can love -can even be in love- but he's also alien, he's really able to reciprocate her feelings in the same way. That doesn't make him bad for not being able to give her what she wants, any more than she's bad for wanting things from him he doesn't want/can't give, but it does mean that maybe being together 24/7 isn't a good idea.
She's in love with him, and he's in love with *humanity*, and also cares for her.
On a happy note, I have apparently succeeded in luring
petronelle into QI. This is a good thing, although her experience with the pilot has been slightly traumatising. Don't ask about the tie-pins.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-07 01:54 pm (UTC)What is QI?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-07 03:52 pm (UTC)QI is possibly the best quiz show ever. The contests are usually comedians and so on, rather than the general public, and it's hosted by Stephen Fry, and people are rewarded for answers that are quite interesting (regardless of whether or not they're relevant) and, more importantly, punished by answers that are obvious and wrong (like saying there are nine planets or that the longest animal in the world is a blue whale). Alan Davies regularly gets scores in the minuses.
It's all random information and people displaying surprising bits of obscure and useless knowledge and Stephen occasionally calling people "dear" or "my darling" in a very long suffering tone of voice.
The episodes are up on youtube and available elsewhere if you look. Episode 1, part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZyMeEXEVaI&mode=related&search=), part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YpqzSIj8gk&mode=related&search=) and part 3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpziX8H400). The outtakes are up there too, including the one where Stephen gets quite emotional about "None works" versus "None work".