Wednesday 15 April 2015

Do you want to see Damsel in Distress but are scared of Chichester?

Tricky, because Chichester is where it's on, and its whizzo cast has now been announced. Richard Fleeshman, Summer Strallen, Desmond Barrit, Isla Blair, Nicholas Farrell and Sally Ann Triplett are just the start of it.

If you are scared of Chichester and want to learn something about it but without the brilliant actors, great songs and inspiring choreography, or the lights, costume and other complex aspects of design, you can hear me talk about writing the script at the lovely Haymarket Hotel on Weds 20th May. The evening - with wine and nibbles - is hosted by Alfriston's Much Ado Books, which is my official equal favourite UK bookshop with West End Lane Books. (My favourite non-UK bookshop is in Kalk Bay on Cape Point, you will be riveted to learn. It was jammed with things I wanted to buy when I went there last month.)

What is the worst movie ever made? IMDB's algorithms think it is probably Paris Hilton's The Hottie and the Nottie. But another movie has a lower IMDB score. Which one and why?

That will have to do for now.

Wednesday 1 April 2015

this and that

Been a while. I am partly editing some scripts. I am partly preparing for A Damsel in Distress (come see me talk about it at the Haymarket Hotel, May 20th, details will follow when they are finalised). Various things to clear from my tabs.

I love what this guy is doing with his lottery win.

The not very recent Radiolab podcast about wrestling and Don Quixote was the most interesting story about storytelling I've heard in ages. I am for obvious reasons very interested in the nature of sport as a narrative form; the differences between sport and returning drama; and so on. Wrestling and the meta-negotiations taking place between its construction and reception are some of the most complicated in any narrative, even more than highly constructed reality TV where the outcomes aren't  quite so fixed. And the Don Quixote stuff is also very good.


This Rolling Stone piece on whistleblowers and why there haven't been bank prosecutions has been an open tab for about three months until I finally read it. 1. It's excellent. 2. It slightly leaves out how hard it is for the government to fight law cases with people who are much richer and more personally motivated than the government. 3. I repeat my ancient thing: putting law-breaking bankers in jail would work. Putting thieves in jail might not deter them, because it's part of the cost-benefit analysis of a very different life, but putting bankers in jail would definitely, definitely affect the behaviour of other bankers.