Waterloo

Yes, he’s been quiet again. What are the excuses? Busyness, mainly. I’ve had a great deal of stuff to write over the past few weeks and it’s been fairly non-stop, broken up only by a couple of days in a recording studio, I’ve said too much already, popping into the Big Finish office to record a couple of podcasts – I have never sounded more hesitant, which is odd because normally talking about myself and my writing is one of my favourite subjects – and nipping down to Tunbridge Wells to guest at a Doctor Who convention, Big Blue Box, alongside Simon Guerrier and John Dorney.

Whilst at the convention, I saw Simon’s short film, Cleaning Up, which is terrific, I praise the writing, acting and direction equally lavishly, and Louise Jameson’s play (written by Helen Goldwyn, who has occasionally turned up in things I wrote in thankless parts) Pulling Faces which was also rather extraordinary, a real showcase for Louise’s versatility and range.

But the real reason why I’m putting finger to keyboard is that this week saw the release of my latest original Doctor Who audio adventure, The Curse Of Davros. I say original because, of course, my last one was an adaptation of a storyline by Philip Hinchcliffe (and he phoned the Big Finish office to tell them how much he’d enjoyed it! Can you believe that? I can’t.).

The Curse Of Davros features Colin Baker and Terry Molloy as the sixth Doctor and Davros, and introduces – or rather, re-introduces – Lisa Greenwood as new companion Philippa ‘Flip’ Jackson, and also stars Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Daleks (he also directed it). It starts off in present-day Thamesmead and then leaps back to the Battle of Waterloo, which as I’m sure you know took place in Belgium on the 18th June 1815. As such, it features appearances by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke Of Wellington, Marshal Ney plus myriad other French and English soldiers. It’s intended to be a big, bold, ‘season opener’ type story, an action-packed blockbuster with incident, comedy, scary bits and mad ideas. And if you like, there’s even a little bit of moral stuff in there about the nature of evil.

It was an absurd, overwhelming honour to be asked to write for Davros and the Daleks – I remember when Joe Lidster was writing Terra Firma sitting in our front room searching the internet for songs that were out of copyright to use in a party scene – and I pulled out all the stops and put in all the late nights I could in writing it. I even visited the Napoleon museum in Paris for research (as well as reading a couple of books on Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo). To give you some idea of how much effort I was putting in, the first draft of the final episode came to 9,500 words (the optimum length of an audio episode being 5,000 words). So all those scenes on St Helena with the two Napoleons had to go, alas, along with innumerable scenes of French people being blown up.

I may talk about some aspects of the story later – if I can remember – as it’s already thrown up a couple of interesting discussions in various fora. But for now suffice it to say I think it’s the best thing I’ve done (so far), the performances are incredible, the direction and sound design are spot on, the cover artwork is stunning, and I couldn’t be happier with it*. If I had to choose only one Doctor Who audio I’ve written as an example of my work, this would be the one.

It can be ordered here.



* Though I wanted the theme tune to part four to start with the Marseillais a la All You Need Is Love. Oh well, you can’t have everything!

Bound In A Nutshell

Last night went to see Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead at the Haymarket theatre. What follows is almost a review.

In terms of a production, I couldn’t really fault it. The two lead actors were terrific – I’d seen Jamie Parker in the Henry IVs at the Globe last year, he's going to either become a massively famous film star or play a detective on ITV. All the characters from Hamlet were also excellent and sparkly. The only character I wasn’t totally convinced by was the guy playing The Player; I think the part has a bit more pathos and humour to be found in it, and I found he overplayed some lines in expectation of a laugh, directing them out at the audience rather than addressing the other characters. The staging, lighting and costume were also magnificent.

My favourite thing about it, I’d say, were the scenes were the characters from Hamlet appeared or disappeared, which had a wonderful, sinister, dreamlike quality, like the Queen of Hearts' appearances in Alice In Wonderland.

In terms of the play itself, though, I found it easy to admire but less easy to enjoy. If one wanted to be cruel one could dismiss it as Beckett fan-fiction, its debt to Waiting For Godot is so blatant. But I don’t think Stoppard managed to capture the same rhythms of speech; I think some of his transitions were abrupt, his dialogue clunky, and it would help if the actors didn’t have to stick to a script so rigidly, because I think the dialogue is supposed to sound naturalistic, which requires a degree of flexibility in the performance. I also found some of the ‘clowning’ dreadfully weak. What I did like about it was the great sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, of the characters' discovery that they are fictional entities with no life, no destiny beyond that which has been ascribed to them. I think a lot more could have been made of that.

What marks it out as an early work is that pretty much the whole play, every line, from beginning to end, is asking the same question. The same question being, ‘Did you see what I did there?’ I’d say it’s one of the traps first-time writers fall into, along with naming characters after their mates and listing their favourite pop groups; showing off their learning, trying too hard to be clever-clever, trying to create ‘literature’. I mean, I admire it for going for the ‘Did you see what I did there?’ so boldly, so utterly and uncompromisingly – if you’re going to do it, go for it hook-line-and-sinker – but it comes across as a play written so that it can be studied at A-level. So you have ‘jokes’ about the characters pointing out the plot holes in Hamlet, which is fun but actually pretty cheap and easy; I have made many of the same jokes myself. I mean, Ophelia’s death is just ludicrously camp, isn’t it? And so, in trying to show us how well-read he is, the writer ends up showing us he has nothing original to say. Aah.

Plus he gives way the twist ending in the title. Fool.

Blood, Tears And Gold

On Monday evening the wife & I went to The King’s Head Theatre to see The Coronation Of Poppea, by Claudio Monteverdi, with new words in English by Mark Ravenhill and a bonus tune by Michael Nyman. I’d been convinced to go partly through its author plugging it, and partly because we’d had such fun seeing Troy Boy we thought this might be in a similar vein.

And it was, in the sense that it was another opera in the back room of a pub, what they call an intimate venue, where one has to keep one’s legs under the seat to avoid accidentally tripping up the performers. And it was a small cast, with minimal staging and accompaniment. In this case, the accompaniment was a jazz trio, with Monteverdi’s chords expressed on bass, sax and piano.

The performers were all very strong, and the direction and dialogue wrung as much sex and drama out of the situations as possible. The first scene was a little worrying, as there was a bit of the ‘I am about to go!’, ‘Please don’t go!’, ‘But I must go!’, ‘Then go!’, 'I shall go but first I shall stay!' stuff that always makes opera seem so baffling whenever they have it on television with subtitles. But after that it gained more momentum, and the lyrics carried more meaningful drama, particularly in the second act when the conspiracy kicks in. Of course, as I know Poppea survives to become Nero’s wife in the Doctor Who story The Romans, there wasn’t as much suspense for me as they might have been.

I think it’s a tribute to the performers that the initial strangeness of Nero being played by a woman faded away very quickly; I don’t think one goes into an opera expecting total realism in the first place. I’d say the highlights were the death of Seneca, in a literal blood-bath, and the closing duet between Nero and Poppea, Pur Ti Miro. This was pretty much the only piece in the opera that featured vocal harmonies; being an extremely early opera, the rest is all sung singularly, or what the internet tells me is call homophonic.

I’m tempted to go and see a full-on opera house production next, but I’d recommend these King’s Head productions as a much less expensive, and much more informal way of getting to hear these tunes. And sung in English too, which I think makes a huge amount of difference in terms of making opera accessible; those television subtitles are always so clunkily-translated, and are always half a minute out of synch with the action so you never know who they refer to.

Ooh La La

Last two theatrical trips...

Toby Hadoke’s Now I Know My BBC. A preview of his Edinburgh show, and as it’s a work-in-progress, it feels premature to review it. But I think it’ll do well, and it's an extremely timely show, given that the BBC is becoming ever more endangered due to a combination of politically-motivated vandalism, its management capitulating to attacks from commercial rivals, and some profligate building projects. I mean, I support the BBC, and everything it stands for, but it’s a worrying indictment of its recent past that when people on Twitter are listing their favourite BBC programmes as a reason for supporting it, they tend to list shows from over ten years ago; the BBC of Dennis Potter plays, of Grange Hill, of Top Of The Pops and The Two Ronnies. And sadly not so much the current BBC, despite the fact that with shows like Miranda, That Mitchell & Webb Look, Mongrels, The Old Guys and Rev it’s enjoying a bit of a comedy renaissance. (Anyway, I've digressed, it'll be a great show, if you loved Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf you'll love this too, check it out.)

Speaking of comedy and French words, the other theatrical trip was to the Brockley Jack Theatre to see a couple of Feydeau plays, Madame’s Late Mother and A House Bath. Feydeau is, as I’m sure you don’t need telling, best known for intricately-plotted farces, and I’ll just get the obligatory mention of Fawlty Towers out of the way here, but yes, like that but more so. The two plays are one-act affairs, simplistic by Feydeau standards, both effectively one-off sitcom episodes – a married couple are disturbed in the night by a messenger informing them of the death of the wife’s mother, and a married couple have a bath drawn and then turn off the lights.

Of the two, the second was stronger – more energy, more movement – even though the first was the strongest script. The performances were decent, but hampered by an inexplicable decision to play some parts with French accents, which rather got in the way of the characters, the situation and the dialogue. Plus the translation was bumpy in places, a bit Google Translate, with some lines stilted and formal. It would work so much better if every ‘Ooh la la!’ was a ‘Bloody hell!’ Still, it was a treat to see these two plays, and I’ll be interested to see more from Echange or Exchange theatre and if they will ever decide how to spell their own name.

Second Time Around

To redress my big whinge from last month, a quick review of The Globe’s new production of Henry IV. Saw Part 1 last month, saw one of the first nights of Henry IV Part 2 earlier this week.

In terms of what’s on paper, Part 1 should be the better play. It ends with a battle, for a start, and has a more interesting character journey for Hal. But in performance, Part 2 is much better. Much less actually happens, and the battles are anticlimactically resolved by political subterfuge (which could either be Shakespeare’s masterful use of dramatic anticlimax as a device, or is simply a case of him sticking to the historical facts). There are whole scenes which are just there for Falstaff to be funny; Falstaff vs Mistress Quickly, Falstaff vs Doll Tearsheet, Falstaff vs local magistrates and, in some brilliantly funny scenes, Falstaff vs Justice Shallow and Falstaff recruiting soldiers (in a scene which I’d previously thought was in Part 1, it could almost be a ‘deleted scene’ from the first play).

If I had to quibble, I’d say the addition of some ‘story so far’ rustic business at the beginning was superfluous, but on the other hand it meant they put a second stage in the middle of the ground area for me to lean on, so I’m glad it was there. It’s the best place to stand, get there if you can. And maybe it was because it was an early night, or because it was following up a production of Part One, but the audience were, for once, respectful and enthusiastic. Everyone there was there to see and enjoy the play, rather than the usual bunch of non-English-speaking tourists and people who don’t know how to behave in the theatre, they think it’s like telly where you can talk during the dull bits.

So it was a magical evening, an incredibly good production of a play which has risen even higher in my estimation. It seems a shame to overlook all the great performances, but William Gaunt stole every scene he was in, which is no mean feat given he was up against Roger Allam as Falstaff, in an assured and precisely-judged performance that some critics are already describing as the best Falstaff for twenty years (which may well be true, or may just be critics’ way of saying ‘I’ve been to lots more productions of Henry IV than you.’)

Globe Alone

Congratulations – and thank you for volunteering to be a steward at the Globe Theatre. We hope you will find it a rewarding experience, and greatly appreciate you giving your time to help us make the theatre a success.

Before we begin, a few guidelines on what is required from you as a Globe Theatre steward. As you might expect, our patrons come to the theatre expecting an enjoyable night out at the theatre free from distractions and interruptions.

And, as a Globe Theatre steward, it is your responsibility to do absolutely BUGGER ALL about this.

We can’t stress this too strongly. No matter what may happen during the course of the evening, your role is simply to stand there, watching the show for free.

Please remember the following rules:

If you notice people are talking constantly and loudly throughout the show, you should do absolutely BUGGER ALL about this.

(Similarly, if someone else draws your attention to people who are talking constantly and loudly throughout the show, you should still do absolutely BUGGER ALL).

It’s a long-standing tradition that people go to the Globe with the most massive, view-obscuring back-packs possible with which to inflict injuries upon other patrons by ‘accidentally’ whacking them into other people’s faces when turning around. As a steward, it is your responsibility to do absolutely BUGGER ALL about this.

It is expressly forbidden for people to record or take photographs during a show, so if someone is clearly doing this, which is of course very distracting for everyone else and extremely disrespectful to the actors, you should do absolutely BUGGER ALL about this.

And finally, you’ll probably find that during the course of the show several people’s mobile phones will ring. Some will, after three or four minutes, notice this and rummage around in their massive, view-obscuring back-pack for the offending item before switching it off. Many will simply let it ring out obliviously. And quite a few will answer it during the show. ‘Hi, yeah, I’m at the Globe Theatre, no it’s okay to talk, it’s just some fucker in tights chatting to a skull.’

It should go without saying that you should do absolutely BUGGER ALL about this.

Let those be your watch-words. No matter what happens – heated arguments, fights breaking out, the actors on stage losing their place during the boring bit of Act IV of Macbeth – you should just stand there and do nothing. You are there, remember, simply to watch the show for free and FOR NO OTHER REASON.

Or, if you like, you can chat away to your fellow stewards, take photos and talk on the phone. Why not? Everyone else does it.

And if any of the poor mugs who have paid for a ticket dare to complain – take personal offence, and remind them that, as a steward, it is not your job to assist members of the public. It’s – yes, that’s right, you’ve got it – to do absolutely BUGGER ALL.

I'm On An Island

A couple of days after finishing the novel, we went to see the production of Nation at the National Theatre, as adapted by Mark Ravenhill. It was a preview, so the finished play may be slightly better, but as it was, it was absolutely superb. One of the main reasons I’d wanted to go was reading the book, thinking, ‘Well, they’d never be able to do that on stage’ – not just shipwrecks, underwater tussles, and exotic wildlife, but basic practicalities like fact that the first few chapters of the book concern a character on his own with nobody to talk to.

Have to say, the production confounded my expectations and founds way of turning each of these problems into a highlight, through the use of ingenious staging, lighting, back projection and puppetry. The tidal wave is terrifying. The parrot is hilarious. The grandfather birds are sinister (a little Dark Crystal). And the songs are catchy (though I’m not sure why Twinkle Twinkle Little Star required a new melody).

I was surprised by how faithful it was. Each time I thought, ‘Oh, well, they’ll have to cut that bit... no, they’re doing that bit too’. It was extremely fast-paced and packed an emotional punch. The only significant difference from the novel was in the ordering of events, shifting the order of scenes to be more chronological, so we see stuff that happens to characters which is only related after-the-fact in the novel. The villain also has more complex motivation. Oh, and a character who is largely silent in the novel is given some lines. The only omission I really missed was the message written by the axe in the tree; ‘men help other men’, which kind of sets up the themes of the whole story. I’d stick that back in.

But I loved it. Blog readers, rush out and buy tickets now.

I Started A Joke

Last Friday went to see a live sketch show thing called The Works. I had a sketch in it, so by-way-of-payment, I got to get in free. It’s the second event there’s been – I had a sketch in the first show but it got cut for time.

The performers were – hang on, I’ve got to look this up – David Armand, who many years ago was in some sketches of mine in Swinging, Isabel Fay, who co-organised the event with him, Matt Baynton, Katherine Jakeways, Renton Skinner (who has a knack of stealing every sketch, he’s exceptional and will go far, though you wouldn’t know it from his appearances on Shooting Stars), Isy Suttie and Rosalyn Wright.

My sketch went down okay. It got laughs. The performers had rewritten it quite a bit, which on the one hand I’m entirely okay with – they’re the ones who have to stand up on stage, after all, and I’m all for actors loosening up and naturalizing my dialogue – but on the other hand, I would’ve preferred it to have been left as written, because I am an egomaniac.

It wasn’t the funniest thing I’ve ever written, I don’t think it was the funniest thing I even submitted to the show (but in my experience, what the writer thinks is their funniest thing and what the producer thinks is their funniest thing very rarely coincide) and it was by no means the funniest sketch in the show – the standard was very high, far too high for my liking, terrific writing, excellent performances, and even the ‘mis-fires’ were still more original and interesting than a lot of stuff that gets through to radio and TV.

Richard Herrings also reviewed the show on his blog. I agree with him about the TV types in the audience.

Cassandra

Went to see Troilus & Cressida at the Globe last night.

Quick moan. People who talk at the theatre. Oh, drop dead. And, in particular, drop dead when you take mock offence when somebody asks you to be quiet. If you’re bored, leave. If you desire to discuss the play, it can wait, no, really, it can. And if you need someone to explain the play to you as you go along, you’re in the wrong theatre.

Oh, and if you’re a 'Globe Steward' – your job is to stop people from talking. Not to stand there watching the play. Not to chat away yourself.

I’m afraid the moan came first because the ceaseless moronic muttering was my main memory of the evening. But – happy place, happy place – what was the actual play like?

Well, it’s not one of Shakespeare’s best; the plot is both all over the place and frequently nowhere to be seen. The characters are thin and develop illogically, the beginning is dull and talky and the ending’s inconclusive and anticlimactic. And, no matter how clever Shakespeare was, these are not good things. He was not trying to write a bad play; his genius was that he succeeded without trying.

So any production is about trying to compensate for its shortcomings. I’d say, on balance, this production doesn’t. Matthew Kelly was superb as Pandarus, and most of the cast did a reasonable job – though a couple of them were so wooden I had flashbacks of my own turn in a Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m not saying I could do better; I’m saying I could do equally badly. I’m not sure it’s the actors’ fault, I think the director may have led them down a bad path. But I couldn’t make out a single word Cassandra was saying.

Hey Hey Helen

This evening went to the Globe to see Helen, a new play by an up-and-coming playwright called Euripides, as translated by Frank McGuiness. Helen’s played by Penny Downie, and her husband Menelaus is played by Paul McGann.

Enjoyed it immensely. Not familiar with Euripides’ other work, but it’s a strong, simple story, with big emotions flying about the place and lots of references to a pointless war which has an inevitable frisson of topicality. Hence also the Globe’s other production of Troilus And Cressida (and the inspiration for my own dead-in-the-water sitcom about the Trojan war. Ho well.).

The play is pretty much carried by Helen and Menelaus, with most of the other characters merely acting as exposition bunnies – the only other character of note is Theoclymenes, played in roaring Brian Blessed mode by Rawiri Paratene. What I found most impressive about his, and the other lead performances, is that they were pitched perfectly; the plot is absurd enough to be a pantomime, whilst the dialogue is modern and naturalistic. So it’s kind of like Shakespeare in that the job is to find the emotional reality in an unrealistic, or theatrically magnified, situation.

The storytelling was very linear, and the re-iteration of plot points was at first useful but eventually wearing. My only real quibble, though, is with the incidental music, which didn’t add very much and occasionally drowned out the dialogue. If the tension and emotion is already there in the performance, the clarinet player should bloody shut up.

The ending was, of course, a deus ex machina, though interestingly it’s not quite a ‘cop-out’ (which is what some people seem to think the term means) as it's clearly established and foreshadowed that the play’s events are the result of the intervention and complex interaction of cosmic deities.

There's No Business Like Show Business

I’ve described my hate-hate relationship with pantomimes in the past, but I do have something of a fascination with the posters They have a strange alluring quality - a state of timelessness, as fashions wax and wane with the seasons, pantomime posters still look exactly as they did thirty years ago. If Keeley Hawes woke up after a road accident, and she saw a poster for Stu ‘Crush A Grape’ Francis in Mother Goose at the Theatre Royal, she’d have absolutely no idea which decade she was in.


The rules are simple. The title of the panto in swirly lettering, as close to the Disney font as you can manage. Around it, head-shots of the cast floating in vague order of recognisability. Ideally they’ll be depicted in costume, but half the time they’re just whatever 8 x 10 their agent had to hand. And any remaining space on the poster should be filled with stars and galaxies.


What’s fascinating is the way actors are billed. If you’re properly famous to be recognisable by face and name alone, it’ll just be your face and name; ‘John Barrowman’


If you’re not quite properly famous, your face and name will be preceded or followed by the TV show you were in; ‘’Hi-De-Hi’’s Su Pollard’.


If that’s still not enough for Joe Public to have the faintest clue who you are, your face and name will be accompanied with the name of the character you played in the TV show, or, if you’re a comedian, your catchphrase; ‘Chrissie’ from ‘Hollyoaks’ or ‘Duncan ‘Chase Me’ Norvelle’.


And if you’re a complete non-entity, they’ll just give the name of the character you play.


And then there’ll be something insanely inappropriate in the corner. ‘Featuring SOOTY’. ‘Featuring THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE and FRIENDS’. ‘Featuring CARTESIAN GEOMETRY.’

Moths

Went to see the one-man show Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf by Toby Hadoke last night (other bloggists in attendance were Alex and Simon). He’s only been touring it around the world for about four years so I thought it was finally about time I checked it out. Thoughts.

It’s slightly unnerving to watch a show which so closely corresponds to your own personal experiences. I’m a similar age to Toby, we had similar childhoods, similar formative girlfriend encounters and we certainly watched a great many of the same television programmes during the 1970’s. It could’ve been me up there but I wouldn’t have been anywhere nearly as entertaining.

As an example; at one point in the show Toby launches into the familiar fan rant that the character’s name is the Doctor, and not Doctor Who. To Doctor Who fans, calling the character Doctor Who is like going up to a Star Trek fan and saying that your favourite character is Doctor Spock. It's that wrong. And yet, as Toby delivered this rant, I couldn’t help thinking, ‘ah, but in episode two of The War Machines several characters refer to the Doctor as Doctor Who...’

My mental pedantry was interrupted as Toby said, ‘Except in episode two of The War Machines where several characters refer to the Doctor as Doctor Who...’

That’s how exactly the show mirrored my own thought processes.

It was brilliantly funny, and when I wasn’t laughing I was grinning, until the end when Toby’s story became unexpectedly moving. I didn’t cry, just as I didn’t cry at the end of School Reunion either, oh no.

My only criticism is that the show wasn’t long enough. I want to hear more stories. I want more background detail. I think there might be a book in it.

History Repeating

Went to see Arcadia by Tom Stoppard at the Duke Of York’s last night. Thoughts.

The play’s very self-consciously ‘intellectual’, wearing its learning and thematic complexity on its sleeve. It’s about chaos theory, romanticism, trivia-obsessed literary historians and gardening. Which is all very fascinating. Less fascinating is that it’s also about some people in the early eighteenth century talking about all this and another group of people in the twentieth century talking about all this. So obsessed is it with its own ingenuity there’s very little actual drama, giving the actors very little to do except attempt to make lectures on the second law of Thermodynamics sound spontaneous.

The multitude of themes don’t really mesh together – they’re explored intelligently, but you’d expect comparisons and contrasts to be drawn, you’d hope each idea would be used to reflect light onto the others. Instead, you’re left thinking that all that Lord Byron has to do with iterative algorithms is that Tom Stoppard decided to put them in the same play. It’s a jigsaw puzzle – but one which only adds to the sum of the parts and which ends up looking like a dozen different jigsaws glued together.

Most of the actors did a fine job, if lacking in confidence, though one or two had clearly read the blurb about the play being a ‘comedy’ and were treating it as such, even though, for me, the comedic lines were just another element thrown into the mix for the sake of clever-cleverness. The science bits were also frustrating, from a Maths perspective, as they were all Entry-Level – not inaccurate, but only remotely impressive to people who don’t know all this stuff already.

Still, Jonny goes to an opening night! Tom Stoppard was there! In the bar, some critics were giving it two weeks.

Attention To Me

Hands up, everybody here who hates audience participation?

I can’t stand it. It chills me to the core. Whenever I hear those fateful words, ‘Let’s have the house lights up’, or where the comedian on stage starts asking people in the front row what they do and where they come from, my heart sinks with dread. I get sweaty palms and a pounding heartbeat. ‘Oh dear God,’ I pray – which, as an atheist, gives you some idea of the degree of my discomfort – ‘Oh dear God, please don’t let the person on stage pick me.’

I don’t want my theatrical or comedy experiences to be interactive. I want to sit there, eat my Maltesers, laugh at the funny bits, clap at the end, then go home without having had to engage in spontenaous banter with someone who is deliberately mis-hearing what I say for ‘comic’ effect. I didn’t pay my ten quid or whatever to be publically humiliated, I paid my ten quid or whatever to be entertained. In as passive a way as possible.

It’s why you would have to attach electrodes to my nipples to get me to go to a pantomime. And once you’d got me there, you’d have to stick 1000 volts through those electrodes to get me to enjoy it. I mean, I have friends who write and perform in pantos, I’m sure they’re excellent, but they’re not for me. I’m willing, at a push, to clap in time to something, but that’s as far as I’ll go.

But if the people on stage start talking to the audience – then you should talk back at them. Heckle them mercilessly. Take the piss out of their clothes and haircut. Ask them what they do and where they came from. Because they started the bloody conversation.