back down to earth
I'm back in the Uk after nearly a month in France, of which the latter half (in Toulouse) was superior to the former (Strasbourg). I'm presently sitting in a hotel room in Birmingham, rather a curious nostalgic experience for me, as my bedroom window directly overlooks the Alexandra Theatre, where I spent rather more than a year as Chief Electrician.
As anyone in this country will be aware, it's rather wet for this time of year. I'm pleased to report that this phenomenon extended as far as the south of France, where my three days of doing nothing were characterised by a continual downpour. This did encourage me to do some proper writing, as I had no internet access either, and the close proximity of two artisan boulangeries and a nice wine shop made it easy to stay in. Three days of rain turned the Garronne river into a foaming torrent, the colour of milky coffee, no mean feat when you consider it is about 500m wide.
The technicians at La Garronne were constantly muttering darkly about 'how the weather must make us feel at home,' as we had had a very dry and warm spring, this didn't quite ring true. My banana plant survived the trip, and is now merrily growing in the Nottingham correspondents garden, even the offset has grown a new leaf. I made a very swift trip to London yesterday, as I needed documents to tax my car, and the bananas are doing well there too. I think we may have had enough rain now, though.
Returning to the Kopi Lewak coffee story, for a moment, Radio 4's irritating consumer affairs programme, 'You and yours', did a feature on said coffee, with what I consider to be a typically sloppy report. For a start they used a correspondent in Australia, when they didn't need to go any further than Lincoln, and they seemed confused about what form of animal the Kopi Lewak is, referring to it as a cat on several occasions. I've known cats that drink coffee, but not many that voluntarily contemplate a vegetarian diet. The Kopi Lewak is a civet, which is often confusingly called a civet cat, but is an arboreal mammal with a penchant for coffee. The prevailing opinion from their vox pops was that it was rather insipid, the Australian coffee merchant who is selling it for some vast ill-reported sum, referred to it as subtle, so perhaps it's one of those rarified flavours that can only be appreciated by a cognoscenti sitting in a darkened room with a tea towel over his/her head, in which case you'll have to include me out. A moment spent googling might have been profitably spent, I fear.
If you want to hear it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/items/03/2007_22_wed.shtml
buy the coffee:
http://www.imperialteas.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=35_36
or find out what the damn thing looks like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civet
More disjointed thoughts later...
I hope that you, gentle reader, have appreciated the adroitness with which I've avoided using the words; lemur, shit and coffee in this blog. Oh, bugger...
Strasblog part deux: C’est une banane…
I suppose now that I am no longer there I can contemplate Strasbourg with a little detachment, my very first experience of touring to a foreign theatre was about 15 years ago to another theatre in Strasbourg called TJP (Theatre Jeune Publique), I had an overwhelmingly pleasant and positive experience, and obviously I was hoping that this visit would be the same.
After ten days, the crew at the National Theatre (of Strasbourg) were still very lovely, and by French crew standards extremely friendly and outgoing. They remained, however, slower than a very slow thing. In the event of a fire, a snail that had worked out it would be next on the menu would probably have beaten them to the exit. Especially if it came anywhere close to one of their meal breaks. The evening crew were scheduled to come in at 4.00 to prepare for the evening show, their break was scheduled between 6.00 and 7.00 with an 8.00 show. In practise they would only be available until about 4.30, and certainly not to do any actual work, as the time after that was dedicated to the production of the evening meal. The crew room, occasionally visible past its special little curtain, was fully equipped with an oven, four ring hob and a fridge. Delicious smells would begin to permeate the back stage corridor from about 5.00 and as 6.00 approached, the sound of corks being pulled could be heard. Around about 7.30, someone would amble out to see that we were happy (this was the time I always did my lighting board notes), and some time later they would declare the house open.
We were blessed with a very efficient (if bossy) translator (responsible for surtitling), who was as frustrated with the situation as I was, indeed at one point she got so pissed off that she started rigging lights herself, and was a damn sight quicker and better at it than most of the crew. Where we parted company, however, was over the issue of the tower used to access the lighting for focussing. In common with most French theatres, this was a genie tower, a sort of vertical bucket ladder, that has to be manoeuvred into position, and safety interlocks engaged before the techy can push the button and ascend. What was special about this particular genie tower (apart from its generic slowness), was that, once aloft, the lampy in the bucket could wind a gay little silver handle, and the bucket would then winch out sideyways for a little bit. I thought this was unbelievably camp, as it served almost no useful purpose, other than to slow things down a little more. Somehow, I couldn’t get our translator’s head around the concept of camp, this despite her having lived in Britain for ten years; sometimes the channel is a bigger divide than we realise.
They were mostly very competent, with the dishonourable exception of the Lighting crew, who exhibited that very common French failing of not being able to carry out more than the most basic lighting board operation, or to be able to read a lighting plan. For the future, I think if the company seriously considers taking more shows to France, then they will have to do what everyone else does, and tour a lighting desk.
During my spare time in Strasbourg, when I wasn’t being dragged (mostly willingly) into bars by my colleague, I was able to explore the town, the cathedral is spectacular by anyone’s standard, although the massive frontage disguises a slightly less impressive back end. Inside there is a vast astronomical clock, which apparently has a display of moving apostles once every day. It costs a Euro to watch, and whilst I don’t begrudge them the money, I used to enjoy Trumpton, and don’t imagine the effect would be so very different, albeit more ecclesiastical. There is also a vast photorealist tableau of Christ on the mount of olives, carved from several gigantic blocks of stone somewhere in the 17th century, and featuring what I am quite certain would be recognisable local personalities among the supporting cast of soldiers and citizenry. The soldiers, incidentally, are kitted out in very obviously contemporary armour and weaponry. The cathedral also suffers rather badly from piped plainchant, although the stained glass is spectacular and inspirational, especially to a lighting designer.
There is also a botanic garden, part of the university, and in the literature this looked to be something akin to Kew, with glass houses and rare tropical plants. I was somewhat disappointed to discover a selection of things in pots with labels, rather like an exclusive garden centre, the greenhouses were mostly locked, and the main tropical house felt dingy and neglected, with cracked and dirty glazing, although it did have some very good specimens of relatively common plants. I suppose as an academic environment it was adequate, but seemed to be sadly lacking in imagination. The best thing there, in my opinion, was the outdoor lily pond, not because it was very spectacular, but because it was absolutely alive with frogs, and as it had just been raining they were very active. I had never fully appreciated how accurate Aristophanes’ onomatopoeia was until I heard a pond full of horny frogs giving it their best shot. The minor disturbance that an approaching human caused wasn’t enough to curb their desperate urge to procreate for very long; a moments silence, a couple of sploshes and then the whole reverberating cacophony would start up again, I could still hear them calling to each other as I walked away, back into town.
A couple of nights previously, on my way back from a bar, I had seen a banana leaf sticking out of a bin next to the hotel, a little investigation revealed that this was a very battered specimen of Musa Sikkimensis (a variety with red and green stripy leaves). I retrieved said plant, trimmed off the worst of the damage and now, some ten days later, and having survived the set falling on it in the back of the truck; it has a new leaf and is sitting on my balcony, enjoying the sunshine here in Toulouse, it also has an offset, so if anybody wants one, let me know
Another thing that caught my eye in Strasbourg was a rich variety of spray art, the common factor, if there was one, was a tendency for the images to be quite small and carefully positioned. There was one image of a sort of pink jellyfish that was all over town, otherwise it was apparent that the artists had carefully chosen their sites, and by and large hadn’t interfered with each other’s work. All the images are on my ‘phone, so I’ll have to post them up when I get back to the UK.
a announcement
Just so as it doesn't come as an awful shock to some people, 'Way out West' is moving; to somewhere 'Way up North', not quite as far as 'The Deep North', and further on beyond the North Wind. I don't propose to change the name, but, when I get back from my current tour, the Nottingham correspondent and I are going to move to the country, and somewhere in the North-East of Scotland.
Much panicking and careful thought is going on in the two households, no doubt all will be well in time.
the discreet charm of the strasbourgoisie?
Every time we come to France I realise that I have completely forgotten about French Theatre technicians. We are playing the National Theatre of Strasbourg, and while the technicians couldn't be more plentiful or pleasant, they all seem to have taken a slowness pill. A show that normally takes about six hours to put in with a couple of technicians, took the best part of fourteen with eight. We have also discovered that the reason that most shows tour their own lighting desks in France, is that few technicians know how to operate the in-house desks effectively. There was a lot of shrugging, head scratching and consultation of the manual going on last night. Still, we managed to put the show on eventually.
