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grondficIn the midst of a dark world and subsequent high-anxiety mindset, I have to take my Wonders where I can find them.
So - hidden within a plethora of minor Christmas tv miracles (the final His Dark Materials series, Count Magnus in Gatiss' M R James slot, Ghosts special on Christmas Day) I find - at the very tag-end of the festive season on Wednesday 4 January ....
OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH at LAST, on BBC2 at 10.00pm. So now I can FINALLY see what the excitement and slash-fic was all about. There IS a god of Freeview-only, after all. However ..
Many strikes are happening around here; we're a deeply uneasy, upset, angry society at the moment. So I should hasten to say that I respect Mick Lynch and his merry band of pickets and wish them well in their efforts against an intransigent and possibly dishonest press and government. BUT ...
... their regularly orchestrated, monthly strikes have played havoc with our theatregoing for the last 6 months. We daren't book more than a fortnight in advance (thus missing out on the chances of ... ooh ... Saoirse Ronan's Lady Macbeth, and Paul Mescal as Stanley in Streetcar Named Desire, to name but two). Which leads me quite naturally on to ....
Theatres, or rather, the squashing of our theatre-visits into one frantic week, so as to avoid next week's cleverly-constructed week of strategically-placed 48-hour strikes.
So -
+ Tuesday evening we take two trains (and a short rush on foot from Waterloo-East to Waterloo) to Richmond Orange Tree Theatre to see Arms and the Man. And very good value fun it was too!
+ Wednesday afternoon we slot-in a visit to a new venue - Marylebone Theatre - to see A Sherlock Carol. This was a joyous mashup of Dickens and Doyle, wherein Holmes is called in to investigate the possibly-suspicious death of one, Ebeneezer Scrooge, a local benefactor.
+ Thursday, we cheated twice - by (a) avoiding the railways altogether in favour of our local cinema where we attended (b) the Royal Opera House's livestream of The Nutcracker, as is traditional for us. It was its usual sumptuous self, but there were a few livestream-glitches which were disturbingly reminiscent of Eastenders catchups on our own ancient, hiccuppy desktop computer.
And now - the other stuff, that comes under the heading ....
.... of Miscellania (which, by the way, is NOT in this instance, an island kingdom in the Lunar Sea in ORS; but rather a plethora of miscellaneousnesses)?
Well, we're cheating again next Wednesday and going to the Fairfield Halls by bus to see a panto - The Further Adventures of Peter Pan – The Return of Captain Hook, starring Ricky Champ (yup, that's Psycho Stu out of Eastenders).
Then there's the World Cup (which we really oughtn't to be watching this time for Reasons, but which we have somehow become drawn into. Will England prevail tonight? They're already one goal down ...
Apart from that, it's just Christmas, looming along with its own freight of anxieties. Will all the post get through, given that there's an intermittent postal strike going on in the sorting offices? And what about the TURKEY? Will guinea fowl do if there's a shortage? And how do I use Amazon to send to my cousin within the EU, and avoid her having to pay tariffs approximately to the value of her present to ransom it from Customs?
In fact it's not very Merry this year. At All. I shall just have to resort to telly-watching ... I hear there may be Wonders this Yule season!
So - hidden within a plethora of minor Christmas tv miracles (the final His Dark Materials series, Count Magnus in Gatiss' M R James slot, Ghosts special on Christmas Day) I find - at the very tag-end of the festive season on Wednesday 4 January ....
Many strikes are happening around here; we're a deeply uneasy, upset, angry society at the moment. So I should hasten to say that I respect Mick Lynch and his merry band of pickets and wish them well in their efforts against an intransigent and possibly dishonest press and government. BUT ...
... their regularly orchestrated, monthly strikes have played havoc with our theatregoing for the last 6 months. We daren't book more than a fortnight in advance (thus missing out on the chances of ... ooh ... Saoirse Ronan's Lady Macbeth, and Paul Mescal as Stanley in Streetcar Named Desire, to name but two). Which leads me quite naturally on to ....
Theatres, or rather, the squashing of our theatre-visits into one frantic week, so as to avoid next week's cleverly-constructed week of strategically-placed 48-hour strikes.
So -
+ Tuesday evening we take two trains (and a short rush on foot from Waterloo-East to Waterloo) to Richmond Orange Tree Theatre to see Arms and the Man. And very good value fun it was too!
+ Wednesday afternoon we slot-in a visit to a new venue - Marylebone Theatre - to see A Sherlock Carol. This was a joyous mashup of Dickens and Doyle, wherein Holmes is called in to investigate the possibly-suspicious death of one, Ebeneezer Scrooge, a local benefactor.
+ Thursday, we cheated twice - by (a) avoiding the railways altogether in favour of our local cinema where we attended (b) the Royal Opera House's livestream of The Nutcracker, as is traditional for us. It was its usual sumptuous self, but there were a few livestream-glitches which were disturbingly reminiscent of Eastenders catchups on our own ancient, hiccuppy desktop computer.
And now - the other stuff, that comes under the heading ....
.... of Miscellania (which, by the way, is NOT in this instance, an island kingdom in the Lunar Sea in ORS; but rather a plethora of miscellaneousnesses)?
Well, we're cheating again next Wednesday and going to the Fairfield Halls by bus to see a panto - The Further Adventures of Peter Pan – The Return of Captain Hook, starring Ricky Champ (yup, that's Psycho Stu out of Eastenders).
Then there's the World Cup (which we really oughtn't to be watching this time for Reasons, but which we have somehow become drawn into. Will England prevail tonight? They're already one goal down ...
Apart from that, it's just Christmas, looming along with its own freight of anxieties. Will all the post get through, given that there's an intermittent postal strike going on in the sorting offices? And what about the TURKEY? Will guinea fowl do if there's a shortage? And how do I use Amazon to send to my cousin within the EU, and avoid her having to pay tariffs approximately to the value of her present to ransom it from Customs?
In fact it's not very Merry this year. At All. I shall just have to resort to telly-watching ... I hear there may be Wonders this Yule season!
