Thursday 5 March 2009

let's play the Philosopher, kids

The Philosopher has started a blog. I should say, has started ANOTHER blog as he's reasoned that everyone should have two blogs: one to write beautifully constructed, lugubrious essays on philosophy and other 'lofty' topics, and one to write prattle, as his handy topic cloud thing so conveniently points out on blog 2's homepage. You think you know someone, until they start going on about how much they love Antony Gormley and techno music! Not only that, but it's really annoying when they beat you at blogging on a shared experience.

No matter. He may have gotten to writing about it first, but I'll undoubtedly do it better (apologies to everyone else for the smug tone of this post - it's primarily directed toward The Philosopher). Last night we - after I bagged us the tickets - went to see a recording of the Radio 4 comedy Old Harry's Game. To be fair and give credit where credit is due, it was indeed The Philosopher who turned me onto OHG during a particularly competitive tennis match when we were discussing our favourite comedy radio shows.

The scripted shows were hilarious, but the most entertaining thing was the ridiculous banter between the actors when not recording. This was a rescheduled recording as February's snow days meant that not all of the actors could make it to set. Evidently even though not all of the actors made it into London, a man from the Isle of Sheppey, dubbed 'the guy from the Isle of Sheppey', was hailed as a hero for making it into London to watch the recording despite the snow chaos. Most of the actors took it in turn to call out, 'where's the guy from the Isle of Sheppey?' and then make the audience give him another round of applause.

Despite the annoyance of having to queue for 20 minutes to get in and then 20 more in the cafe to get in the theatre, it was still an absolute laugh - and you really can't beat good, clean, free fun.

Random tangent: This is Gareth Hoskins Architects' competition-winning cinema and music venue in Lerwick, Shetland which is finally about to start being built, almost three years after GHA won the competition. It's cool. I like it. I'd almost go all the way up to Shetland just to see it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Can I just say that this bitterness of yours, which floweth over, is rank and insidious. No one knew that during your Lenten abstemiousness you might still spill this much bile. I'm sure the 'kids' playing the 'Philosopher' will find that kind, positive, encouraging words go much further than snide comments ever did. Which reminds me: are we still on for the standing ovation at the Royal Opera House?