Olivier Awards 2019 - entirely self-indulgent blog-post

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN, the time for me to get salty with my opinions on the nonsense that the Society of London Theatre want to feed us in the name of awarding theatre. And yeah, there'll be SALT.

EDIT: I prepared this blogpost on the day the nominations came out with the intention of filling it in on the day of the awards (today), and I haven't looked at it since then, so I'm really curious to get in there and find out just what I was so angry about back on nominations day...

Olivier Awards 2018 - entirely self-indulgent blog-post

I've got a BUSY DAY of cinema-going ahead of me (Pacific Rim Uprising, Love Simon, and an as-yet-undecided horror movie (fingers crossed my sister chooses Ghost Stories! good news we're seeing Ghost Stories!), so aiming for a super-quick run-down of Olivier opinions.

THEATRES: TALK TO EACH OTHER

Historically, June has been my most financially ruinous month. It sees the birthdays of both of my parents, Father's Day, and extensive outdoor amdram which leads to a LOT of takeaway food and emergency runs to Sainsbury's for safety pins and false eyelashes. So if you think about it, it's actually almost kind of the theatre world to come together to ensure that July 2017 is far worse for my finances than June 2017 could ever DREAM of being. Not too squeamish to talk money? Click the "Read more >>" and let's itemise this nonsense. Please note: I work hard to keep my costs down by booking the cheapest tickets, but even that wasn't enough to keep me from feeling physically sick before I'd even got halfway through this post.

Olivier Awards 2017 - entirely self-indulgent blog-post

Tonight: the Olivier awards. This afternoon: sitting in my sunny garden on my shiny new deckchair with a selection of books and cold cider. Right now: eating lunch, watching Supergirl, and rambling about the nominations.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - reviewing the reviews

I'm sure it won't have escaped your notice that the reviews for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child have started appearing now that the embargo has been lifted. It's quite heartening how good the various reviewers have been about not giving things away, but although the reviews are by and large safe, some of them may give away a little more than a person who has yet to see the plays may want to hear. So I have gone through the reviews and assessed them all for spoilers for you YEAH I EVEN WENT TO THE DAILY MAIL WEBSITE SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO (and, obviously, I CANNOT recommend it). No judgement on the reviewers here (except Quentin Letts), and no spoilers in this post, just a round-up with spoiler warnings!

I have assessed the reviews on eight particular aspects, which I will list for you now and explain using an entirely non-Harry Potter example, that absolutely stunning example of mid-'90s action movies... *drum-roll* ... Con Air!

Title - it's called Con Air.
Loose premise - convicts on an aeroplane.
Premise - when a prison transport plane is hijacked by its passengers, America's most hardened criminals, it's up to former prisoner and Army Ranger Cameron Poe - on the plane on his way home to his family - to save the day.
Surprises - there's a bit where a car hilariously falls out of the sky! "On any other day, that might seem strange"!
Obvious characters - as Cameron Poe, Nicolas Cage really commits to his character choices. (He is obvious because he is on the poster.)
Less obvious characters - as Johnny 23, Danny Trejo is arguably the creepiest crim on the whole plane. (He is less obvious because you probably don't know he's in the film until he turns up.)
Production values - David Tattersall's cinematography is very good, and Mark Mancina's score very appropriate.
Homework - if you'd like to watch the film with deeper understanding, you could do some reading up on the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System before you start.

Obviously every single review mentions the title (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child!) and the loose premise (a continuation of the story starting from the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) but they vary wildly with regards to the other six aspects. So... click "Read more >>" for the list of reviews? Tweet at me if any other reviews appear that I should add, or if you disagree with any of my safety assessments so I can make the necessary alterations. Also if you are SUPER spoilerphobic, then consider not reading any reviews AT ALL.

(Also also if you're a Con Air fan too, lemme know what crime you think it is Baby-O got locked up for.)

Olivier Awards 2016 - entirely self-indulgent blog-post

The 2016 Olivier Awards ceremony is tonight. I know this because there is literally nothing else happening on Twitter right now apart from some weary head-shaking because sexism. So because I have some free time and I don't want to run out of Brooklyn Nine-Nine too soon, I'm doing an entirely self-indulgent blog-post on the various nominees. Warning: it's going to get a little bit "stream of consciousness"y, and hopefully a wee bit snarky too. (Update: no change to the words, I'ma just marking the winners in red.)

Judge not lest ye be judged - the Hamlet edition

I'm not enjoying the snide tone that journalists and internet commenters alike are currently employing to talk derisively about fans of Benedict Cumberbatch, as though to feign a loftiness above such a base thing as ~*~FANDOM~*~ is to make one a more worthwhile human being. It's pointless and it's nasty, so I have broken away from my usual format of "blog as little as possible while still recording all the shows I see" to write a response.