David Tennant's Hamlet (includes Epic Theatre Etiquette Rant)

Unless you abjectly refuse to interact with any form of news or affairs, you will probably know that David Tennant, of Doctor Who fame, has taken on the formidable role of Hamlet, the run at the RSC's Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon having begun during the last week of July (although I would like to point out that, being a member of the RSC and getting all the literature in the mail, I got the Summer program listing him as Hamlet and blogged it before any crummy newspaper even got wind of it *plug*). I can happily report with the play fresh in my mind that it was an absolutely brilliant production - well directed, a number of exceptional performances, and barely any weak links in the cast. Tennant, after a couple of weeks of performances, has matured well into the role, nailing the madness and using every part of his body (which is quite refreshing - no straight-faced stiff-backed speech delivery here), and his comic timing (yes, they wrung the so-called tragedy for every possible laugh) is exquisite. During the three and a half hour play, my mind didn't wander in the slightest - not a second of boredom. Even if you like Shakespeare, that's not common.



I was sitting right next to the one of the entrances to the thrust stage, so every time he entered from one side of the theatre (stage-left? stage-right? it's always confused me) he would rush past, and despite my best efforts I couldn't help but feel excited that Doctor Who had passed within a metre of me. You could tell the audience collectively held their breath as he walked into his first scene, or was left for his first soliloquy, and even though I tried not to see him as the gallivanting Timelord, you couldn't help but recognize some his mannerisms, or the slightly manic look that's present in both roles (although it didn't help that Russel T Davies, ex-executive producer and ex-chief writer of Doctor Who was sitting on the other side of the theatre and walked right past me in the lobby).

But that's just the thing that I'm going to rant about (and you thought I was never going to get there...)! Tennant is a serious actor, not just Doctor Who. His RSC credits include As You Like It, Comedy of Errors and Romeo and Juliet, as well as the most recent Hamlet and Love's Labour's Lost, and in the past has been nominated for an Olivier. The RSC actually had to ban people coming to the stage-door to get Doctor Who (and Star Trek - Patrick Stewart a.k.a. Captain Jean-Luc Picard was also in the cast) merchandise signed. Do people not know how to behave at theatres? You might have seen this picture in the paper, but seriously, do people think he wants Doctor Who to follow him everywhere? Obviously he knows that when he takes as massive a role as the Doctor, it's going to affect his image, but even so, when he's actually a serious actor as well as everyone's favourite alien (apart from E.T. - no one beats E.T.) you'd think people would be more considerate.



And since I'm on the topic, behaviour in the theatres also needs a kick in the guts. I went to the Lee Mead production of Joseph at the Adelphi (which wasn't bad - Lee Mead has a great voice and the production was ok, but he can't act for toffee and to be brutally honest, someone needed to re-cast almost everybody else) in London, and I spent the whole evening just moaning about the etiquette in the theatre (because I'm that cool). The worst thing, was food. You don't have food in a theatre! It's just a fact, a rule! But of course, it's broken as easily as an iPod when the theatre owners realize they can charge massive prices for drinks and make a killing. But, say, a glass of wine in the foyer before going in, I can live with. Heck, I'll forgive you for a bottle of water to take in and sip quietly if you have a coughing fit and start to die. But as soon as you let people take food in, the rustling of sweet packets and the crunching of biscuits is suddenly louder than anything on stage. But I'm afraid the Adelphi just crossed the line with popcorn. When someone says popcorn, I think "with a large soft drink and nachos for a special discount!". Popcorn = something you eat at the cinema. Fact. Not at the theatre. Believe me, I'm all for opening up the theatre to people who wouldn't otherwise do anything cultural in their lives, but (and here tact can sod off), if they start ruining the performance for those of us who aren't there just to see "Lee Mead's cute butt" which was on TV, then I'm afraid they can bugger off home.

BUUUUUUUURN. But yeah, Hamlet was awesome, so I'd advise trying to get tickets for the month-long London run starting December 9th.

And while I'm here, Heroes seasons 1 and 2 are now out on DVD boxset for £50, and with series 3 starting with a 3-hour episode on 22nd September, and being aired soon after in the UK on BBC2, it's definitely worth a buy.

Peace out!

Ich bin ein Berliner!

A wet morning in March. Drizzling politely, not pouring. Skies overcast and temperature low. Fairly British I'd say. Cars rolled into the Quad at Tonbridge School and one by one the trippers stepped out into the rain, unflinchingly splashing through puddles onto the coach. An hour and a bit later, we were at Heathrow. Sitting in Costa Coffee. A habit which would become second nature to some of us over the course of the coming Sunday-through-Sunday school trip to Germany's capital Berlin.

First thing I'd advise you to do when going to Berlin is to check the weather. During the course of the trip, it snowed twice (on one occasion settling to about 3 cm deep), rained with intensity ranging from drizzle to downpour and the temperature outside was below freezing on a number of occasions. Tip: take a coat. And a thermal vest. Thermal vests are good.

Another thing I reckon I ought to mention: it's illegal to do a Hitler salute in Germany. Like, at all. Which is perfectly understandable, and I haven't got a problem with the law itself. But practically, it's quite inconvenient. I mean, how often do you want to raise your arm to eye level or above every day? Maybe if you're pointing to something, or raising your hand in accordance to something. And high-fives: we're pretty frequent high-fivers and so as not to look like we were paying tribute to Hitler every time we did something awesome, we had to resort to low-fives, an alteration of the classic celebration that almost drew blood when someone held out their hand for one over a plate with a fork on it. Fortunately, no one got arrested, but I can think of several near misses for myself, just pointing to something.

For four of the days we were out there, we had lessons at the BWS Germanlingua Centre, an excellent language school in the centre of Berlin. Lessons were interesting and the amount I learnt was incredible. I'm fairly on top of the grammar I have to know at this stage already, so I didn't learn much on that front. But it was the fluency and vocab that I achieved after four days speaking it constantly with an actual German person, rather than "speaking" it for 30 minutes every other day in a classroom. Plus, when lessons finished for the day, you were still surrounded 24/7 by the language, whether you were ordering food, going round museums, or just eavesdropping on random people you see in the street. Oh, and they sort out German host-families for you to stay with. Result: Deutsch-flavoured gut-ness.

On the subject of flavour, the trip made me realize (through no fault of its location or program, but simply by the nature in which I had lots of freedom and lots of free time) how much I bloody love fast food. Now when I say fast food, I'm including the healthier joints like Subway (hmmmm, meatball sub), the niches like Häagen-Dazs (hmmmm, cookies and cream), the coffee houses like Starbucks (it costs WHAT!?!?) and the poisonous yet heavenly grounds of places like McDonalds (that's right, you heard me, twenty chicken McNuggets please). Basically, we spent a great amount of time in these places. Don't get me wrong, the dinners our host families provided were superb (with the exception of a disgusting piece of cake I paid my partner € 5.47 to eat for me)! But, even though we were fairly good at the language and keen to learn, the conversation round the dinner table was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. I swear to God they were using long words on purpose just to show us up... What was worse is that there were two other students staying with the same family, both of whom were considerably more fluent than us. Consequently, we only ate dinner at home twice. All other meals (other than breakfast and a couple of lunches at the bakery near the language school) were at one of the aforementioned gourmet halls. To be honest, if I wanted to have an itinerary to remember the trip by, I could simply get a blood test and then track what we did each day by the number of physical symptoms acquired.

One of many things that Germany does incredibly well is the transport system. You know how in England, catching a train requires detailed study of the few-and-far-between maps, an in-depth understanding of the ticket system, a great sense of timing, an enormous amount of patience, and lastly a lot of money? (Yes I know I'm exaggerating). Well in Germany, the trains (that includes the S-Bahn(train), U-Bahn(tube/underground), Straßenbahn(tram)) are frequent, on time, cheap, easy to understand, and clean. What's more, I'd say the lines themselves enable you to get from anywhere to anywhere else in Berlin with only two trains, three maximum. And they actually work! In England you have to find the train station (in Berlin, wherever you look you'll probably see the big "S" or "U" signifying a station), buy a ticket if you don't have a travel card (in Berlin you can get passes for 7 days, for a month, for a year) and find and get on the train after sticking your card through a stupid machine (in Berlin you can waltz into the station and be on the train in 30 seconds - provided you carry your ticket with you in case you're checked, you can go wherever you want, as many times as you want). In fact we loved the transport system and being able to use it easily so much that sometimes, if we had free time, we went train-hopping. Completely pointless. You get on a random train for a couple of stops, get out when you feel like it and get on the train immediately across the platform without even looking at where it's headed. Great fun. Once we did this for about 80 minutes (although this was the day I realized how much I'd missed listening to music, and so had found my iPod and spent the day being very anti-social), then when we decided to get back to where we needed to be for the evening's activity, we were back where we started within 10 minutes. Cool, huh? Oh, and the drivers of the double-decker trains (that's right, double-decker trains exist for long-distance journeys) have a secondary job description: DJs. Every time they made an announcement over the intercom, a little two-part polyphonic tune played. Sounds silly, but it gave us all considerable amusement during the journey.

Having got back to the house at whatever hour after a busy day's German-learning and sight-seeing, most of what remained of the evening, the oncoming night and often several hours of the early morning were spent chatting or playing with one of the countless packs of souvenir playing cards I like to buy (so much more practical than postcards). This meant firstly that myself and my partner got to know each other considerably better, and secondly that we both obtained serious skill in the game of Rummy. Neither of which is a bad thing. Both being incredible wits, we were usually rolling in laughter over something amusing that had happened that day, and that we had then expanded like the comedy genii that we are. So much so that my partner, who usually shuffled, kept losing, though I insisted he had a subconscious masochistic streak which was forcing him to fix the cards while shuffling and thus deal himself a bad hand.

The week's activities other than lessons ranged from playing football on an astro used by many German politicians after a long day politic-ing, right through visiting churches, going to the opera and touring museums to bowling. The choice of museums in Berlin is fantastic, being such a historical place an' all. We visited the Checkpoint Charlie museum (all about the Berlin wall and various attempts to get over/under it), the Reichstag (not actually a museum - they built the German parliament with a glass roof so you can go above it and look down into the going ons of politics), the Pergamon Museum (the German equivalent of the British Museum - basically stuff from ancient civilizations they've nicked in the past) and the Jewish Museum (fantastic architecture and an amusing gift shop - more on that later). To be honestly, museums aren't my favourite thing in the world. But I found a lot of the ones we visited (especially the Jewish museum) really fascinating, and there are enough museums in Berlin to keep any tourist happy for several blue moons. Heck, there's even an island named "Museum Island"!

Now, I mentioned the amusing gift shop in the Jewish Museum. Amusing in that it stocked a Moses action figure. Not just a Moses Action Figure though - a Moses Action Figure with detachable Staff and 10 Commandments. And on the back it had all sorts of fun facts. For example, his age, job and achievements were given with extensive detail, and it even had the 10 Commandments and the Plagues. My partner bought one (he assures me as a collectible) and we got some great material from it: 1) The First Born Son in every family dies - "YES, I get my brother's room!" and 2) 3 days of Darkness - "Couldn't you just turn the CD Player off?"



So in conclusion, Berlin rocks. I'd definitely go back there - one week was nowhere near enough to see everything in the city. But even if you're not a massive sight-seeing maniac, Berlin is a great city just to be in, just to walk around completely freely and enjoy. It's beautiful, it's filled with great places to be, shops to shop in and establishments to eat in, and I'm told that it has a fantastic night life.

That's all for now. Over an' out.

Grumble 1: Odeon Cinemas

About a week ago, myself and two of my "internet mates" (i.e. people I've communicated with on the internet for a long while, and now meet in real life occasionally - which happens to be the opposite way most of my relationships work, but hey) decided we would go up to London today and see "I Am Legend". Being internet nerds, we are of course obsessed with zombies, and one of us has a weird crush on Will Smith, so it was the perfect choice. It was a bit of a spontaneous thing, what with restrictive parents and all, but we organized it quite efficiently, and we were all looking forward to it. One of us even went to the heights of the word "stoked" to describe his excitement.

So we all managed to get up to London without mishap (which is saying something since one of us has a habit of walking along motorways when he can't find the train station) and, after we had sandwiched and cookied at Subway and Millie's Cookies (veritable delicacies, I assure you) we went into the Odeon.

Now, in Leicester Square, Odeon have decided to buy every other building and write their name in big letters above it. So of course, we're not sure which one to go in. We choose a random one, and sure enough there's a Box Office in it. So we queued up, perfectly civilly, without hiding the one of us who is particularly short, and in perfect view bought three tickets to I Am Legend, a 15. We then queued up, again, all of us in perfect view, and bought popcorn etc... We then asked for directions from an usher (again in plain view), who directed us to the building next door. We popped next door quite cheerfully, and went passed the two people are the door, who checked each of our tickets individually (i.e. each of us had our own ticket, so the shortest of us was allowed in) and let us pass quite happily. We then asked directions again, and then finally got shown to our seats by the usher. We sat there quite happily for five minutes, and it was only THEN that the manager comes and speaks to the shortest of us:

"How old are you?"

"15"

"You don't look 15, you can't see this movie."

No arguments; no dates of birth; no nothing. Now sure, he's not 15. Just. But there's another guy in our party who's just not 15. But the manager didn't even look twice at the other guy. Just the short guy. Which I guess is logical. But of course, we weren't due home for another 3 hours, so that left us sitting in Costa Coffee for just under two hours. So I'm (understandably) bitter.

What are their reasons for kicking us out? Well, the movie is a fifteen, so legally they're not allowed to let us in. So how did we get in then? It's not like we were smuggling him in in a backpack (although we did contemplate a giant stuffed dog from the fairground outside)! And to be fair, unless there happened to be an inspector calling that day, they wouldn't get in any trouble: we weren't exactly going to complain, being the ones who were there "illegally". So to be honest, all they were doing was rob themselves of custom.

Of course, if they had let us in, I would be here typing out the exact same story, just laughing at how stupid they were to let us in. They gave us a refund and we had fun anyway. But I just thought it might make a good story. I can now see it hasn't. But I've spent about 20 minutes typing it out, so I might as well hit submit now. >_<

Doctor Who is religiously "inappropriate", apparently

We'll have the Doctor back on our screens this Christmas Day, in The Voyage of the Damned, set on the Titanic. However, it's being criticized before it's even aired. Christian groups have, quote from The Times, "expressed concern that the imagery employed was inappropriate for a BBC One Christmas evening show." Apparently at one point, he ascends through the ship's decks, carried by a pair of robotic angels. Russel T. Davies, writer and executive producer said "The series lends itself to religious iconography because the Doctor is a proper saviour", yet Stephen Green of the evangelical group Christian Voice said that "The Doctor would have to do a lot more than the usual prancing around to be a messiah. He has to save people from their sins."

So basically, these people think that a science-fiction TV shows might mislead people on issues concerning the messiah and Christianity... Do they just sit at home thinking up things to complain about? Seriously, don't they have anything better to do? There is no way that Doctor Who could ever possibly mislead kids about religion - they might well get the reference, but it doesn't mean they'll start worshiping the BBC as a religion...

Voyage of the Damned is on BBC One on Christmas Day. If you didn't know already. Which is unlikely.

The Golden Compass

I saw the Golden Compass today, and I'm glad to say I quite enjoyed it. His Dark Materials are one of my favourite series of books, and I read them over and over again - I simply adore them. They're so clever, and so well written, and such a wonderful world(s) to be set in, wonderful characters... it's just brilliant. But could the films really live up to the books?

Well, the answer is no. But do we want them to? The first book even on it's own has hundreds of pages, thousands of characters, millions of thoughts and emotions... the film is 113 minutes long. But film is a completely different medium for it to be expressed in. And it was pretty damn good!

Firstly - it is accurate to the book. Nothing important at all is missed out, and it was all done in relatively the right order. The right characters in the right places, just the right amount of things giving that nod to people who have read the books, and right amount of time spent on each element of a film (characters, action (Iorek kicks more ass then ANYONE), fantasy world, could have had a little more on the relationships between characters I guess). What adaption was done was done well.

One thing they did change was the ending. SPOILER START, HIGHLIGHT TO READ They ended the movie after Lyra sets off with Roger to go to Lord Asriel and bring him the Alethiometer. But at some point, she delivered the line "I'll bring him exactly what he needs" (i.e. Roger), suggesting they will turn the other two books into films - which I think is no bad thing. Also, on the video game there is an unlockable clip they filmed that goes a little bit further into the first book - up to when they arrive at the house and Asriel shouts "I didn't send for you! Anyone but you!" Clip [here] if you want it. SPOILER END.

The actors were pretty awesome. Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman appeared superbly as Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, with Ian McKellen (who ALWAYS sounds like he's eating a McVities Digestive) voicing Iorek (who happens to be more kickass than ANYONE). Derek Jacobi and Christopher Lee popped up briefly for great performances. And Dakota Blue Richards, the pretty new comer playing Lyra, gave a wonderful performance - with the exception of a couple of accent things, she delivered the character perfectly.



All in all, I really enjoyed the film. Not too long, it was pretty faithful to the books, good acting, nothing cringeworthy, and the added bonus of having THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER. Namely, Iorek the Armoured Bear. He kicks so much ass it's unbelievable.

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The Golden Compass is out in cinemas now! But first, buy His Dark Materials (1. Northern Lights, 2. The Subtle Knife, 3. The Amber Spyglass) and read them - they're AWESOME!

WH Smiths Vouchers Officially Suck

Christmas shopping trip today. It was fun. Saw a movie, had fun with my mates.

But WH Smiths fobbed me out of £91. That's right: nine - one. Ninety one. £91.

You know how relatives insist on giving vouchers for certain shops instead of cash? So you end up with a backlog of book vouchers and WH Smith gift cards that you never spend and just end up going out of date? Also, my old school used WH Smith vouchers as the rewards on prize day (because obviously you can't give money to an 8 year-old: they might go and buy drugs *shock horror*).

Well I had a lot of those. I was quite good at spending them on books and stuff, but I still ended up with millions of them. So I thought I'd do something really useful. I took [i]all[/i] the vouchers I had left to the WH Smith in my town, and got them all put on one [i]new[/i] card. I got a receipt with it (very careful about that one), and they said that I could use it anywhere, quite happily, it would all be there, perfectly safe.

So I went to the shopping centre with my mates to do our Christmas shopping. Went round all the shops, being a little easier with my cash than I normally would be, knowing that I could buy all my presents from WH Smith with the £91 voucher (CDs, books, cards, calendars, the lot). I'd only bought 1 game (£20), and I had about £30 left in cash.

So I get all my stuff - 4 CDs for various relatives, loads of cards, a couple of books for various people, two calendars, and a DVD. I'd worked it out - it fitted into £91 - just.

I got to the till (after a fairly long wait - I mean, at least they could employ people intelligent enough to use a Goddamn till - IT'S NOT HARD), and handed the stuff over. It fitted in my £91 budget, and I handed the card over.


"Oh, I'm sorry, we can't accept those today?" (I'm translating a bit here from whatever corrupt dialect of English he was speaking).
"What do you mean you can't accept it?
"Well, if you come in tomorrow, you'll be fine. We're just not accepting them instore today."
"Why?"
"Hang on, I'll check *goes off to check with manager or whoever* Nope, sorry, not today. Tomorrow will be fine."


WELL I'M NOT FRICKING THERE TOMORROW!!!! I'M THERE TODAY!!! And I'll tell you why it was SO annoying. Because in order to buy just 2 of the things I was wanting to buy (which I wouldn't be able to buy anywhere else), I had to use up my remaining £30 cash. Which meant I had no money for lunch, cinema or getting home. Which left me leeching off my friends for the rest of the day. Not fantastic.




ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR. OK, I haven't had a moan for a while. But I just needed to rant it out. Grrrrr... Ever happened to you?

We Will Never Forget - Will we?

Last week was Remembrance Week, and we remembered the victims of both world wars, and of any conflict up to and including the present day. 52 years after the end of the Second World War, planet Earth hasn't yet experienced warfare on the same scale. At least, we haven't had World War 3 yet. We've had the Cold War, the Vietnam War and now the Iraq War, and hostilities not directly involving England are always going on. But nothing has been recognized as a "World War", so to speak. Which is probably fair enough.

While sitting in chapel last Sunday, listening to the names of countless old masters and boys being read off the school's honour boards, hearing the Last Post played on the trumpet, singing stirring battle hymns, I had a look around the chapel and noticed something. Everyone was old. No jokes, the average age (bearing in mind there were about 300 boarding 13-18 year olds in there) was about three-hundred odd. And that got me thinking. I had a couple of long sermons to do the maths, and this is what I worked out:

Assuming the youngest you could get in the army is 18, to have lived through the last year of WW2, you would have to be 81. Not impossible, I admit. But in 5 years time, they'll be 86. Still quite possible for them to be alive, but give it 10 years and they're 91. An ample portion of war veterans will be dead by then. So who will "Remember them?" Well, their children I suppose.

But take it back a little further - the First World War. To have lived through that, you would have to be 107. Unlikely. Even your children would be getting on nowadays.



Now I really don't want to belittle the occasion, I honestly don't. It's noble, and honest, and respectful. It would be appalling if we didn't remember them. But that's my point - give it 20 years there will be basically no war veterans left. Only their children will be left to remember them. But the remaining generations have no experience of war. We didn't know them before they were sent to war. We never lived through a blitz, through air raids, through our loved ones and family being annihilated by people we had never met - will we remember them? Sure, the occasion will still be observed, that's only natural. But I have a sad feeling that the enthusiasm for the event will dwindle in coming years.

I'll finish with the beautiful piece of poetry that I find really makes the occasion:

For the Fallen

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Laurence Binyon

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Video Games Live: London 2007

The day after the London MCM Expo, I was off to another geeky event. However, this time it wasn't a social gathering. It was more of a concert. The video gamer's equivalent of Glastonbury. Taking place at the Royal Festival Hall, Video Games Live came to London, performing in England for the second time ever.

VGL was co-founded by Tommy Tallarico (Composer (Spider-Man, Metroid Prime, Mortal Combat, Timecrisis, Earthworm Jim, Advent Rising)) and Jack Wall (Composer/Conductor (Myst III & IV, Jade Empire, splinter cell)) and is now touring the world. Tallarico presents the show complete with cutting edge video-screen visuals, state-of-the-art lighting and lasers, while Wall conducts whatever fantastic orchestra is at his disposable in real time with whatever activities are going on on-stage or on-screen. The music performed changes every concert, thanks to about 25 constantly changing segments.

Basically, it's a concert of video game music. Hardcore, isn't it?



On this particular occasion, segments included music from:

-Bioshock (fantastically creepy with the on-screen video)
-Metal Gear Solid music (some of the best music there)
-A medley of classic arcade games (wonderful comedic imitations of the "bleeps" and "bloops" as -Tallarico liked to call them)
-Liberi Fatali (Final Fantasy 8), One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy 7), Simple and Clean (Kingdom Hearts) (sadly, Square didn't allow VGL to use footage from their games, so we were stuck with Disney animation for Kingdom Hearts (wonderful, but not quite the same mood as the game) and a blank screen for Final Fantasy)
-Starcraft 2
-World of Warcraft
-Tron
-Harry Potter 5
-Civilization IV
-Sonic (great music for some great clips)
-Mario and Zelda (Koji Kondo's masterpieces performed at top quality by a symphony orchestra really were awe-inspiring)
-Halo (I doubt they've ever done a concert without this segment)

There were plenty of special guests, including:

-Martin Leung (The Video Game/Blindfolded Pianist - he started out as a video on YouTube, now he's touring the world with some of the biggest names in video game music and their massive concert - he played his brilliant Final Fantasy medley, the Tetris theme(very fast) and Super Mario World)
-Martin O'Donnell (Halo composer - he gave away a little too much about how to find one of the skulls using his music)
-James Hannigan (Harry Potter Video Games composer - he was greeted with a few boos actually... come on England! when did we stop being proud of Harry Potter?!)


Thanks to Microsoft's generous sponsoring (this announcement was greeted by more than a few boos!), there were twenty or so Xboxes in one of the Exhibition rooms. Halo 3 was quickly swamped by the über-nerds, but Ace Combat 6, Viva Piñata: Party Animals, a couple of racers, and Spiderman: Friend or Foe were all demoed there. There was a Guitar Hero competition as well, with Microsoft related prizes.

While we were queuing up for Xboxes and drinks there was some decent cosplay going on. Not as much as at the Expo the previous day (thank God), but still enough for a nice line-up before the concert. Purple Tentacle (from Day of the Tentacle) won, with Samus, some guy dressed in an awesome Wolf Link costume, and Midna as runners up.

Quite worryingly, I recognized several people from the Expo the day before... But then again, I was probably just reading too much into the categories of geek myself and my friend thought up (old geek, wannabe geek, fat geek, geek with geek girlfriend, geek with cute girlfriend wondering what she's doing there, Japanese geek, geek trying to look cool, etc...)

During the concert, there were two opportunities for members of the audience to get up on stage and play some games for prizes. One guy (wearing a "ninj4" T-shirt) had to wear a T-shirt with the space invaders ship on the back (he initially tied it round his head in a bandanna), then had to hop left and right on the stage, as they tracked his movement on screen, pressing a button he had been given to fire. Another two were called up to play Frogger. The prizes give to each winner were an Xbox 360, a copy of Halo 3, and some random animé/manga tat... Just for playing a game! In fact, the guy who played Space Invaders lost, and the Xbox 360 was a consolation prize. Don't get that much free stuff at normal concerts, do you?


From the beginning poem (Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF) to the finale aided by the geek equivalent of waving cigarette lighters in the air - waving phones, DSes, PSPs, even laptops in the air ("hang on, hang on, the PSPs are still booting up"), VGL managed to create a fantastic atmosphere for such fantastic music. Next time it's in England, I'm definitely going! An interesting fact. VGL was the first sold out concert for the Royal Festival Hall, one of the biggest and best concert halls in England, since it's refurbishment 4 or 5 months ago. That tells you all you need to know!

London MCM Expo 2007

After a half hour train journey, fifteen minutes on a jam packed tube and a short ride on the DLR, myself and my friend Jack arrived, equipped with our savings and a video camera, at the sheer enormity that is the ExCel center. Upon entering, my eyes were first drawn to the World Fruit and Veg Showcase on one side of the gigantic hangar, and then to the Pie shops and Costa Coffees scattered in various strategic places everywhere. Fortunately, they weren't what I was there for, and my attention shortly turned to the queues in one of the halls off the main hangar.

First impressions... well, I was quite pleased. Having spent most of our school lives thinking we were incredibly geeky, it was nice to know that compared to most people in that massive hall, we were probably the most normal. I got some good film of some people in cosplay (I'd say more than 50% were in cosplay) and a lot of random leaflets people were handing out.

Thanks to our Fast Track tickets (they were cheap as well: £10 for fast track entry to the entire day) we were shortly being marched out of the hall and back down the main hall, past the pie shop, past the World of Warcraft convention, and into...

It's massive. An amalgamation of the senses... Colour and noise overwhelms you... and then you realize that you're staring at a massive hangar full of Japanese tat and cosplayers who should not be cosplaying.

The walls were lined with such a ridiculous quantity of animé plushies, key rings and necklaces. Photo and poster stands were everywhere, and weapons and wallscrolls were being oggled at, but only bought by those with a lot of money. Moving towards the center, there were racks of manga and masses of animé DVDs being sold cheaply (and probably illegally). Food stores (selling pocky and super sour sweets) and cosplay weapon checks were bustling, while Warner Bros. HD previews and (dubbed *growl*) animé clips played on big plasma screens. A generous number of Xboxes and the occasional Wii or PS3 made up the gaming section, with plenty of pre-releases for us to play. Legions of nerds sat playing Star Wars and Halo trading card games and Magic:The Gathering, while the more athletic sportsmen/women played Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero while it was projected onto the wall so everyone could see your success or epic, epic failure.

The special guests this year were immense. There was Ed Quinn, Erica Cerra and Jordan Hinson from A Town Called Eureka, Jacqueline McKenzie, Richard Kahan, Billy Campbell and Jeff Combs from The 4400, Jimmy Jean-Louis and Nora Zehetner from Heroes, and Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi in Star Trek). Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin were there plugging Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel (which is awesome by the way), while Johnny Yong Bosch, Laura Bailey and Colleen Clinkenbeard (animé voice actors) and Tony Lee, Billy Tucci, Mark Sparacio, Lee Townsend, Ian Sharman, Rich Johnston and Dan Boultwood (all comic artists) were all present as well. There were opportunities to get your picture taken with the stars, as well as lots of Q&A sessions.

Then there was the cosplay contest. I got a lot of it on film, and will upload and edit later (when I figure out how to connect my camera to the computer), but for now a description will have to do: Oh the horror... Like all Expos, there was a healthy mix of teenage girls dressed as boys doing Yaoi, bearded men dressed as 14 year old girls, and fat women pretending they're thin enough to fit into lycra. It was truly frightening, yet ridiculously fulfilling and amusing. You just didn't want to stop them embarrassing themselves, probably because they all did it with smiles on their faces - they were truly enjoying it!

The cosplayers combined with the numerous "Free Hugs" and "Free Glomps" signs created a strong (if frightening) friendly atmosphere, provided you didn't have a paranoia about being bear hugged by a complete stranger.



7 hours after entering, I had bought my fair share of Kingdom Hearts manga, had almost every leaflet under the sun forced upon me, met at least 6 of my friends from the forums, seen two (male) FMA characters experiment in various sexual poses in a massive crowd of people, watched Naruto give Sasuke a lapdance to the tune of "Girlfriend", and avoided so many free hugs and glomps I was breathless...

Successful Expo, I'd say. See you there next year?

Tonbridge School Arts Festival

Last Sunday heralded the beginning of Tonbridge School's Art Festival: Festival Evensong in the Tonbridge School Chapel, including an external vocal group, the chapel choir, and the majestic Marcussen organ (pictured below, click for larger images). The evening was a soaring success, with "Steal Away" and the jazz trio setting of Nunc Dimitis coming off superbly.

The Commitments had performed on the Friday and Saturday before, both times to rapturous applause and praise. On the same day as the Festival Evensong was an Art workshop, "Picture This", a production of Cinderella by "Unpacked" and a screening of "The Last King of Scotland".

On the following Tuesday, there was a Lunchtime Concert in Tonbridge Parish Church, to the delight of the community, and Brian Patten (one of the Liverpool poets, of The Mersey Sound fame) gave a superb reading of his poetry in the E.M.Forster theatre. The next day, there was a Rock Band Workshop in Big School, revolutions dance company gave a Dance-Theatre showcase, and the arts week Writers in Residence (Peter and Ann Sansom, both well known and respected poets) gave readings in the Cawthorne Lecture Theatre. On Thursday, Funkstylerz presents Life of a b-boy in the E.M.Forster theatre.

On Friday, Marcus Brigstocke gave two stand up fantastic comedy shows to rapturous applause, and on Saturday, Mark Forkgen, the school's own director of music, conducted The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (the British orchestra based in London, often referred to as the national orchestra of Britain) in a stunning concert of Mozart, Wagner and Beethoven.



The Arts Festival has always been successful, and is certainly worth checking out each year. For a school, the immense range of activities and performances on offer truly are tremendous.