Tag: Colin McPhillamy

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Acting

Broadway Is Back (and this blog)

After more than a year of this sort of activity …

… it has to be said that New York City is a bit of an assault on the senses. The decibels are way up. Take a taxi, a Lyft or and Uber and the state of the roads combined with the combat-driving technique that obtains in NYC and you get a thrill-ride, that shakes your corpuscles.

The late great Spike Milligan, the man who gave us The Goons, once wrote a satirical piece about traveling on the London Underground in the days when you could smoke cigarettes on busses, in cinemas, on planes and of course on tube trains “… and then to add to the commuters’ relief great clouds of stale cigarette smoke are pumped into the carriages…”

You know you’re in midtown Manhattan because of the distinctive sickly-sweet aroma of strong cannabis. Perhaps we’re all mildly stoned these days because of second hand smoke, and given the news maybe that’s a good thing. Aside from that, the improvised lean-to outdoor dining venues add exotic lights and have put 9th Avenue (where we are staying) into party mode.

Mainly though, it is excellent to be able to report that …

Among other shows To Kill A Mockingbird re-opened a couple of weeks ago at the Shubert Theatre on West 44th Street in New York City. And among other actors, that amazing Broadway veteran Patricia Conolly (full disclosure, she is known to me personally), seen here at the stage door about to go to work, resumes her role as Mrs Dubose.

I was at the dress rehearsal. It was a poignant occasion, 1700 people all in face masks, applauding nearly every entrance and giving the show an enthusiastic standing ovation.

And the show itself? One of the great classics of American literature seems more relevant now than ever.

Categories
Acting

What to Watch?

The burgeoning quantity of online content continues. Social media bursts at the seams. YouTube creaks under a thousand new webinars, and a hundred new podcasts just hit the airwaves in the time it took to read this paragraph.

In this fragmented entertainment environment who could ever possibly watch it all? Time was when theatre in London meant the West End and that was it. A generation of actors-who-couldn’t-wait-any-longer has turned every back room in every pub north and south of the Thames into a black box space, and now every public park and many private back gardens will host solo performances when the spring comes.

Why then, does this blog bring you yet more content?

Because my admiration for those entrepreneurial self-starters of stage and screen is without limit. One such dynamo of energy and invention is Nikki Coble ( ← that’s her website) Out of whole cloth she created – by which I mean she wrote, directed, produced and acted in … yes a web-series called ‘Awkwardly’. And even though this was shot pre-pandemic I mention it here because …

… It’s a brilliant piece of work.

The episodes are in bite-sized nuggets. Each one illuminates a mildly excruciating, awkward encounter from which, one of the principal characters then appears in the next episode where they hand on the story baton to a different character. The process repeats through 20 episodes. A sort of snap-comic ‘La Ronde’. Enjoy them singly or binge the lot..

Episode One: Here

And this is Nikki telling me stuff from behind-the-scenes:

You can find this splendid series in several places: that website again www.nikkicoble.com where, among quite a few other things Ms Coble also offers a niche long-form interview series with screen creatives called Scribble and Point.

From ensemble to solo, now follows a notice of coming attractions; Mick Millamphy (he has appeared previously in these pages), is, to my knowledge an actor of superior storytelling skills. I saw his solo, “The Cure” directed by the equally gifted Tim Ruddy – we were all in The Seafarer at The Irish Rep. “The Cure” opens with a man experiencing not for the first time in his life, a hangover of biblical intensity.

And if you are a dialect connoisseur: Mick is a native of Cork.

These lads, Mick and Tim, are exactly the sort of boys you want on stage with you in a show. I speak from experience. In The Seafarer there was a line which for some reason or other I frequently forgot to say – it was a senior-moment-preview type experience. Mick who was sat next to me in the scene and who had the next line, was a total gentleman about it. He would leave a fractional extra pause unnoticeable to anyone in the audience just in case memory prevailed. If it didn’t he’d cover with his next line. That’s the guy you want in the foxhole of live performance.

If, as, and when we ever return to what we used to think of as normal, Mick will be bringing us another of his excellent storytelling pieces – watch this space…!

Oh and while we’re at it, just a few more suggestions for content curiosity to pique the pandemic palette:

  1. A niche daily blog from the Upper West Side NYC. Richard Hester, by the way the man who in a professional capacity, knows more about the show Jersey Boys than anyone alive, has been blogging for an impressive 282 days consecutively riffing wittily on life in the current situation. As I told him, he’s knocked out more words than in one of Tolstoy’s more loquacious tomes. His latest post here
  2. Well this item, although produced in the mainstream and therefore not technically eligible for a niche curation like this, should in my opinion, be required viewing for us all. Sir David Attenborough has made what he calls a ‘Witness Statement’ – A Life on our Planet. The fact that I was once paid handsomely to do an impression of the great man at a corporate breakfast for marketing executives is not the only reason I recommend it.
  3. And this is a poem by D H Lawrence called Song of a Man Who Has Come Through. I associate it with the astronomical event that takes place today.

Click here to listen to me reading it.

The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn at zero degrees Aquarius. We can all watch that for free. It is the first bright star to appear shortly after sunset in the western sky, exact for a day or two 21st December 2020.

If you’re interested in the astrology of it take a look here.

Happy Solstice! Merry Christmas!

Categories
Acting

And in other News

If you’ll take a look at the Video page you’ll see an interview with me by Margaret Ledford who helmed the Engage@GableStage project, which has commissioned a series of projects. The short 15 minute film we’re talking about will be premiered exclusively at GableStage.org on Friday September 18th.

So… the focus of this blog… was acting and allied subjects… hmm… the issue, as I’m sure you understand, is that live theatre depends upon lots of paying customers in close proximity to each other and within breathing space of the stage…

No sign of that returning just yet.

In which case what shall we talk about? While you’re here please sign up for the blog so as to find out!

 

 

 

 

Categories
Acting

The Bard Off-Planet

I will be guest speaker on Tuesday June 30th 2:30 pm Eastern USA/7:30 pm UK at:

Aquarius Rising: West of Scotland Astrological Association

My topic is:

Shakespeare was an astrologer

(Or if he wasn’t, he knew people who were)

Courtesy of The Birmingham Museums Trust, UK

Here is the blurb:

This talk is an astrological exploration looking at the chart of the Bard and his work. For example, it’s well known that the seven ages of man speech in As You Like It takes us from the Moon through to Saturn in order of orbital period. But did you know that there is a Jupiter signature in The Tempest, or a Saturn one in Romeo and Juliet, or that Sonnet 15 echoes the Duke’s speech at the top of act 3 in Measure for Measure? Mars figures in all the history plays, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream is as lunar as it gets. Shakespeare was at home in the solar system and he wrote the plays to prove it! 

If you’d like to attend as a guest (no need to join the group although you are welcome if astrology is an interest), here is the zoom link and the date again is, June 30th 2:30 pm Eastern USA/7:30 pm UK https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82665096141

They do ask for a donation of five quid!

See you there!

Categories
Acting

Just On The Off-Chance…

It’s May 1st 2020. The first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, and the Celtic festival of Beltane. Sadly there won’t be much dancing around the maypole this year.

Meanwhile what is to be done during this indoor time?

I have turned to the unread books on my shelves, attempting to turn them into books that have actually been read. Stop me if I’ve quoted this before but it is á propos:

“The sight of a lot of books fills me with the desire to read them, which sometimes turns into the belief that I already have.” Kenneth Clarke

One such volume is a collection of interviews with writers from Dorothy Parker to Earnest Hemingway, all first published in the Paris Review, under the cunning title The Paris Review Interviews. It includes an encounter with Kurt Vonnegut. The transcript was collated and edited by Vonnegut himself from four separate interviews conducted over a decade. It is actually Vonnegut interviewing Vonnegut.

No one has approached me for an interview at this point and I’m not expecting anyone to do so. But in these changing times maybe it would be a good idea to prepare something … just on the off-chance?

So I have decided to follow Vonnegut’s example. He is a writer I admire very  much. His story, Report on the Barnhouse Effect (published in his collection, Welcome to the Monkey House) is a thrilling anti-war piece. And Who Am I This Time?, gives the inside scoop on the psychology of actors.

Here is a brief excerpt of the auto-interrogative to which I refer any hacks who may be desperate for content:

INTERVIEWER

Colin McPhillamy welcome and thank you for taking to us today.

McPHILLAMY

That’s my great pleasure.

INTERVIEWER

What are you doing with yourself at the moment? Take us through a day.

McPHILLAMY

Ah! The easy questions first eh? … Well it’s hard to say.

INTERVIEWER

Please try. There may well be as many as one or two people (give or take) out there waiting for an answer that makes sense.

McPHILLAMY

Sense!?! At a time like this? Good luck with that.

INTERVIEWER

Talking of time, those of us under lockdown have more of it on our hands than usual at the moment.

McPHILLAMY

Yes, but it’s always NOW. You’ve read your Ram Dass*, right?

INTERVIEWER

Indeed. What would we do without the eternal verities? But, let me ask, have you, for example, considered starting a podcast?

McPHILLAMY

Oh yes, definitely. My constant thought.

INTERVIEWER

I see. Commendable.

McPHILLAMY

Along with learning Tibetan, re-reading Quantum Physics for Dummies (I only got to page four last time), and starting a community composting initiative. Haven’t actually… you know…

INTERVIEWER

But it’s on the list?

MCPHILLAMY

Well … the truth is … that might be pitching it a bit strong.

INTERVIEWER (changing tack)

Do you watch the news?

McPHILLAMY

I ration my intake … the trouble is…  if I watch more than three minutes at any one time I start to develop psycho-somatic symptoms.

INTERVIEWER

But it’s important to keep up with what our leaders are saying and doing, don’t you agree?

McPHILLAMY

I plead the fifth …

INTERVIEWER

That’s the sort of answer a right merchant banker** might make… isn’t it?

(N pages deleted here: editor)

INTERVIEWER

It’s been a lot of fun talking to you.

McPHILLAMY

Speak for yourself.

Ram Dass*: the late spiritual teacher, known in some circles as a cross between Gurdjieff and Woody Allen. Born Richard Alpert, sometime colleague and psychedelic experimenter with Timothy Leary. Wrote the 1970s best-seller Be Here Now.

Merchant banker**: obscure reference to cockney rhyming slang.