Monday 16 December 2013

Mighty Fin - Important

Sorry this has been even more boring than usual for a while. Many things are afoot. I have nearly written a short novel, for instance.

If you are coming the Mighty Fin Christmas Show - and I hope you are - then the lovely Network Theatre is incredibly convenient for Waterloo. However, it is a little tricky to find. You head out the side door near the Jubilee Line escalators and turn right towards the Old Vic. Almost immediately, there is an unpromising looking access road on your right called Lower Road. You head down this, into the bowels of the station, past bins and a security gate where you may have to present your e-ticket.

DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED.

Keep your eye out for the small door to the theatre on your left. There is a map and also a video here.

I hope you enjoy it,

Robbie

Friday 6 December 2013

(mighty fin ticket news)

Tickets for the Monday 16th December open dress rehearsal of Christmas Carol II: Boxing Day are going to be available from Friday lunchtime. If you missed out when the tickets went on sale last month, this is your big chance.

assassins

Maybe everyone else knows about Richard Paul Pavlick. I hadn't heard of him till last week's Slate Political Gabfest.

He was a retired postman who decided to suicide-bomb JFK when JFK was President-elect. He pulled up outside JFK's house. He had a car full of dynamite. But JFK's wife and children came out with him that day so Pavlick decided to wait until he got a clearer chance. Because he had been sending ranty postcards, and because the police finally caught up with him a few days later, Pavlick didn't succeed.

Gosh. I kind of place my trust in Stephen Sondheim for all information regarding assassins and would-be assassins. It's incredible that this guy missed the cut.

Nelson Mandela: when I was growing up, I lived in Conservative heartland south of England. Moreover, remember the IRA and the lived reality of regular domestic terrorism, which people seem unable to. Mandela was easy to paint as a terrorist. When I was a student, I studied South Africa quite deeply. Under those circumstances, you end up focusing on the equivocations and the feet-of-clay of traditionally Great Men. You get used to the excuses they make for morally dubious decisions like using violence.

This was the background to my reading A Long Walk to Freedom. I came away from it thinking that Mandela was amazing.