Saturday 30 August 2008

Family Life

BBC4 are currently repeating "Outnumbered" a series of six half hour comedies based around the life of a suburban family.

Sounds pretty familiar? Well the subject matter is not earth shatteringly different. What is different is that the real stars are the three children, who are just great. Their acting is tremendous and the script really funny.

The writers Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin built in to the script room for improvisation and it's really hard to see where the improvisation comes in, but if it is the children's parts then they are truly remarkable.

It is a really accurate description of family life, with children having to be bribed, scolded, loved and disciplined! The phone is never where it should be, vegetables don't get eaten, they're always late and on car journeys both children and grand-parents need the loo when you're in a traffic jam" .

Anyway don't take my word for it! Watch it on BBC4 or on the iPlayer.

Saturday 23 August 2008

Calling all the heroes

Just to let you know that my blog is set up for anyone to leave a comment.

Knights of the round table (Camelot Song)

As a teenager in the 70's Monty Python was part of my formative years and the ability to be able to recite various sketches verbatim was essential to be considered "cool" in the playground or at BB. (I was in the Boys Brigade and Python featured heavily!)

It has been a particular joy to me that the humour has transferred a generation and that my two sons enjoy the same sketches now as I did at their age. Matthew used his first Python quote whilst I took him into hospital to meet his new brother for the first time!

The Pythons are probably best known for two films they made "Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian" the latter being regularly quoted in "top ten all time favourite film" lists.

"Holy Grail" was the Python's take on medieval Britain and the King Arthur legend. While the TV series had been a great success, transferring the Python humour to film was a whole new concept and in their autobiography "The Pythons" it is clear that they were unsure for long periods of time over whether it was funny enough. They changed much of it and dropped some things and the end product is nigh on perfect. It's worth remembering that all of them had to mortgage their houses to produce it and had outside funding which included members of both Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

In 2004, one of the Python's Eric Idle, having toured America with a show called "The Greedy Bastard" tour decided his next cashing in ploy would be to put together a musical based on "Holy Grail". "Spamalot" was born!

It opened in New York and quickly transferred to Broadway starring Tim Curry and David Hyde-Pierce (Niles off of Frasier). It won a Tony in 2005 and is now running on Broadway, in London, in Las Vegas and on tour in the USA.

On Monday night the boys and I went to the Palace Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue and saw the UK show.

It was great! A lot more musical than I had expected (duh!) with lots of full on song and dance routines. They were faithful to the film however with the majority of the plot and script being used. In addition they included references to classic Python sketches (beautiful plumage) and they also managed to sing "Always look on the bright side of life" twice!!

I was really impressed with the "Black knight" scene in which they managed to chop off both arms and both his legs live onstage! The only major omissions were the "She's a witch" & "Spanking" scenes, but they weren't really missed. Some of the well known songs (E.G.Knights of the Round Table) were performed as per the film and then extended into full blown Broadway productions. Additional songs were written including "Not dead yet" which took the basis of the "Bring out your dead" sketch and again turned it into a full on song and dance routine. There is also a whole theme running through the show, which takes the mick out of musicals, it starts with new song called "The song that goes like this". This is a big ballad which basically says that in every show at this point there is a big ballad!

The set was excellent and included projection so that many of the animations could be incorporated into the plot. The acting was very good and Sanjeev Bhaskar as King Arthur managed to "ad-lib" some of the Kumars humour in as well! The language was fine with one or two minor swear words but nothing to really offend.

We were sat in the Upper Circle so our view was not the best but the show is designed so that all can see what's going on and apart from the man in the row in front who needed a good haircut we could most of what was going on.

Would I recommend it...yes. Would I go again... yes.

Rumour has it Eric Idle is working on the follow up "He's not the Messiah"

Friday 22 August 2008

Czech Suite

As promised here is my blog on part of our London trip - the bit involving Wembley.

Wembley Stadium is fantastic! Getting in was very straight forward and there are escalators to take you to the top of the stadium where we were sat. The view was excellent, loads of toilets (that's very important to some!) and the atmosphere was great. The last bit being despite it wasn't full, but there were 70,000 there so it wasn't exactly empty either. Plenty of leg room and while the photo may make it look like the pitch was a long way off, it is a trick of the photo as we could clearly see all the "action".

The match itself is best described as "when the Mexico wave started after 60 minutes, it was the high-light of the game!" To be honest it wasn't as bad being there as the press described it. The Czech's are a good team and played some good football on the break. As for England....well they had two Pompey (bottom of the premiership) players in the starting line-up so were always in trouble! The main problem seemed to be the midfield. Lampard - ineffective; Gerrard - played out of position; Barry - got booked early on, not sure why he wasn't substituted in 2nd half; Beckham - delivered good passes and crosses BUT can't run very far and his crosses all sailed over Defoe's head, 'cos Defoe is short and not a target man; Rooney - what does he add to England? Doesn't score goals. runs a lot and either gets injured or booked or both. He was the problem as all play went through him and he tries to pass through defenders, who being human block the pass and play breaks down. It won't happen because he's Wayne Rooney but he needs to be dropped to free up Gerrard to play behind the lone striker. Finally why does Theo not get a run out, when Downing, Jenas and Heskey all get a chance.

The injury time equaliser flattered to deceive, but did make Matt jump around like I've never seen him do at St Mary's! In addition it did make all those who left early look mugs, which is a little added bonus.

Leaving the Stadium was also very easy with wide well divided stairwells and we were outside with no problems. As our hotel was at the end of "Wembley way" we were back in our room before many were even on the Tube home.

Coming next ...."your Mother was a hamster and your Father smelt of elderberries"...we do Spamalot!

Sunday 17 August 2008

The future

This week the boys and I are off to "the smoke" for four days, staying near Wembley Stadium. That's the same Wembley Stadium where on Wednesday night we will watching England play the Czech Republic. We'll be sat "up in the gods" in the block to the right of the big screen.

All of us are really excited as none of us has ever seen our National team play live and Wembley is a fantastic stadium. I've seen it at night from the outside, I expect the inside to be even better.

In addition we plan to try to see Spamalot, visit the Dr Who exhibition at the O2 Arena, take in a museum or two and see Nelson's column (a particular request from Matt!!!). Train up and back so no congestion charges either.

Blog and photo's to follow.

Thursday 14 August 2008

Gold

So the Beijing Olympics are in full swing and the four-yearly assault on the BBC schedules means that I'm finding doing anything in the morning a real challenge.

I'm on two weeks holiday at the moment and have my boys staying with me as well, but they are just as hooked as I am.

Over recent mornings we have watched Swimming, Canoeing, Kayaking, Archery, Boxing, Judo, Rowing, Women's Hockey, Beach volleyball (women) and Diving (synchronised)! Oh and Cycling, Tennis, Badminton, Sailing, Gymnastics, Equestrian and football!

I will probably not watch most of them again until London 2012 but who cares it's great.

It certainly has moved on from 1968 when I used to get up early to watch the Mexico games on my parent's black and white TV. Now it's all "red buttons" and websites and even games for the Xbox and Wii.

And the athletics hasn't even started yet!

Saturday 9 August 2008

Killer

A year ago my first blog was about my disappointment that the football season had started and all my hopes about the season ahead had been shattered by two games both of which the Saints had lost.

Today was the first game of this season and we lost 2-1 at Cardiff to a last minute goal so somethings don't change!

While I'm still disappointed, today my hope remains intact as all the reports say we played well, should have got a point and I do believe that we are a work in progress and it will take time for us bed in the younger players. Many teams will go to Cardiff this season and come away well beaten with fans no where near as happy as ours seem to be after this afternoon.

One of the main reasons for my hope is that this season at the heart of our defence we have Michael "Killer" Svensson, who hasn't played football for three years through a knee injury. Last season we Saints fans accepted that his career had effectively been finished by the injury as each "come-back" ended with more treatment/surgery. At the start of pre-season training, however, he rejoined the squad after the latest series of treatment had restored his knee to being able to at least train and start to play again. The last few weeks have been a journey that we have all watched with amazement has Killer has returned to playing as we all hoped but never really believed he would.

His injury was one of the main reasons why we were relegated as with Claus Lundekvam he formed a solid central partnership that was at the heart of our Premiership success. Svensson was the organiser of the defence and without him we were never the same team and relegation followed.

Now he's back! Assuming he can stay fit (and the signs so far are good) he will give the centre of our defence a real Premiership quality player who will instill confidence in those around him, the main thing that our defence lacked last season.

There will be a lot of Championship centre forwards this season who will find that Killer is back and may well find out how he earned his nickname.

Saturday 2 August 2008

Dreaming

Last night I went to St Mary's and watched Saints draw 2-2 with West Ham in our penultimate pre-season friendly. There that's the facts out of the way.

What I saw was, however, a team playing free-flowing, passing football in a manner that I had hoped our new coaching team would produce. As a Saints fan, though, I'm ready to be disappointed but this time my hopes may be fulfilled.

This season we will put our faith in youth and last night that faith seemed well placed. Nine of the team were under 23 and we had pace, desire to win the ball and frankly many of last seasons "regulars" will struggle to get in the team. Morgan Schneiderlin looked a really classy midfield player and together with Adam Gillett, kept three Premiership midfield players chasing shadows for most of the first half.

Lee Holmes on the left wing looked good too and Lloyd James at right back looked the matching pair for Gareth Bale. His cross for the first Saints goal was inch perfect and how we didn't use him last season is beyond me. He can't have got that good during pre-season!

Now I thought that it was just me but tonight's Echo has lots of comments which reflect all I have said.

Maybe just maybe we are at the start of a season that will reaffirm lots of fans belief in the mighty Saints.

Beautiful country

 David Batt (no relation to Mike!) is better known as the artist David Sylvian. I use that description deliberately as besides being a singe...