fatspicblog

There are these things about doing shows on tour that still for me are completely un-explicable. Yes, when the end of the tour is coming you start to relax, well is better to say that you start to stop working. Your level of concentration starts to decrees because we are tired. We have been doing the show for three weeks and being on the road for three weeks and now our energy is running out. We have fun but it is also a considerably big amount of work.

For example Joss came on Friday and he saw the show. We went for dinner and then we worked from ten until the show started in the show. Today we did the same thing we got notes at ten o’clock and if you ask me, I am fucked now. I am really tired.

We have done a little bit of a sloppy show this evening. It was not bad but it was not as tight as we like to be all the time.

Toby and Petra seemed to be upset at the end of the show. I could also see how Toby was pushing forward in order to regain his concentration but that it really has a completely different effect. He suddenly does not listen.

Petra is very volatile at the moment. She gets really excited about things or really upset. I am sure everything is because she is really looking forward to have a big success with Moby Dick.

I am really looking forward to have a big success with Moby Dick and I will work as hard as I can to make it happen.

The Choir from Southampton did their last appearance with us. They have been a really good choir and they have been and become a really good group of people to have around. They have been very good humorous and they have done their job fantastically.

To see them enjoying the show so much makes me wonder if we are asking far too much from ourselves and we really do have a good show. Before someone else will tell us that it was a good show and then we will believe it now it is just we.

We do have a good show.

At the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth

Published Date:

24 February 2010

By James George

The sheer variety of what Theatre-With-A-Capital-T produces never fails to amaze.

The joy that the brief visit of Spymonkey’s multimedia version of Moby Dick clearly brought to last night’s New Theatre Royal audience was apparent. It certainly left me with a face, aching through having laughed so much.

Humour is a personal thing, but here we run the comedy gamut from A to Z and back again; there must surely be a comedic style included here to appeal to everyone.

The principally circus-trained cast of four career through the story from Ishmael’s arrival in New Bedford to the sinking of the Pequod and the death of Ahab, and what a cast they are.

As Ishmael, our hero, Aitor Basauri shamelessly prostitutes the comic-effect of his native Spanish accent. Basauri also plays the eponymous whale in white body-stocking and goggles. Truly a sight to behold.

As Ahab, Toby Park plays a very clever game. From moments of the broadest humour he brings the scale right down to a truly human portrayal of a man obsessed. At times you forget this is a comedy you’re watching – but not for long. Top, top theatre.

Joss is here. He has come from Paris to see the show, give notes, and work with us for a little while.

Good all Joss, he is like elf, a mercurial creature that lives with the Gods. He will always be interesting to have around because like a small puppy he is smelling, playing and sending himself in after big adventures with a ball or with a piece of clothe or anything that will tickle his vast and never ending imagination.

I do love him. He is very warm and very aprochable and he knows a lot.

For me the only thing is that I am an idiot and he does not understand as well as Cal the world of the idiots. So when he comes he writes for Toby. That is very good because we always need help in that department being the three of the four of us idiots.

He saw the show last night and he liked it. We talked to him and we told him all the things that we thought needed work. So he is going to be doing work with us during the whole day and then he will see the show again and he will give us more notes.

I am never sure of what is to please a director. For many years the audience has been our lord. The audiences have been telling us what do we have to do and it has also told us what is right and what is wrong by laughing. If they laughed it was right and if they did not laugh then it was wrong.

So he bring us a new approach that is a little bit different and we just have to be aware of not loosing the audience and at the same time following what he tells us.

Thanks Joss.

It took us less than an hour to drive to Winchester. The meeting was schedule at 10:30 so we did not want to be late. It was the foreigners in the van and we had to be there on time so our reputation will not suffer more.

So when we arrived our surprise was huge because we learnt that the English were going to be late.
They were almost an hour late.

Petra, Toby and Judith were coming from Brighton and there was lots of traffic so they could not make it on time here.

We have spent the whole day talking about Spymonkey and the people that do Spymonkey, ourselves.

The funny thing is that it was quite interesting to say that in a very instinctive manner we were doing the things quite well.

But there are so many things that we know that we are not doing well that we need to do this meeting or seminar to learn how can we make all the thing being better.

Judith is going to help us to do that but it is not easy. The thing is that it does never seems to be enough money and enough time. We work more we are in many more places and we keep doing things that fell right for us but the people that should also be thinking what is the right things for us do not seem to be doing anything.

After wards I went to my dig. This time I a staying with Alex and old friend from the time when I did “Life on Mars”. Yes, it is many years ago and that is what we were doing all the time while we were having dinner. Alex is a great guy. It is great that we have not seen each others very often and I am move that he has given me shelter for these three days.

It was 16 years ago when we worked together. We worked for the most horrible people we both have ever worked and that has been a very good source of laughs every time we have met since.

Thanks Alex.

We are playing at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth. This is a very old theatre. I know that is not much of a statement about anything but I am going to search it in wikipedia and I will be able to tell you more things in no time.

n the 1840s a building called the Landport Hall was converted from a racquets court attached to the Swan Tavern. In 1854, Henry Rutley, a circus proprietor, took over the tavern and applied for a licence to convert the hall into a theatre, which opened in Sept 1856. Rutley died in 1874, and Boughton, who acquired the theatre in 1882, purchased adjoining land, commissioning C J Phipps to build a larger theatre. This had three balconies, and three boxes, one at each level, on either side as well as two boxes at the rear of the first tier. Continuing to buy up land, Boughton decided to enlarge the auditorium and improve the stage facilities, engaging Frank Matcham, with whom he had worked at the Princes Theatre. Phipps’s restrained but handsome pedimented classical façe of 1884 survived this reconstruction.

The proscenium is flanked by niches, originally with statues. Surmounting the opening is a large flared painted panel with trumpeting Tritons in plasterwork at its base. The whole is held together by a scheme of extremely detailed plasterwork with a predominently nautical theme. The first tier panels are decorated with naval symbols – mermaids, dolphins, anchors and shells.

The stage was destroyed by fire in 1972 (children playing with fireworks; fortunately the fire brigade lowered the iron curtain) and the building was closed. Further vandalism of the interior followed. Following this members of the Theatre Royal Society worked at weekends to protect the building from decay and vandalism. The New Theatre Royal Trustees (Portsmouth) Ltd was formed and in 1980 sufficient funds were raised to buy the freehold. Despite the Trust’s worthy efforts, the recovery of this superb theatre has been proceeding at an agonizingly slow pace.

Yes, it is a real pity that the whole theatre is not rebuild. Everybody works really hard and they are nice and attentive and they deserve that someone with lots of money comes along a pays for the theatre to be put in its original condition. Save the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth.

Last night while we were doing our show Moby Dick in Portsmouth our guitar got stolen.

I know there is nothing special about that. Things get stolen all the time and we know for a fact people who do it.

The particular thing about this incident is that we were doing the show and the guitar suddenly was not there when needing it. Can you imagine? For a moment we thought that Stephan could not see it but then we realized that it had gone. Well, we did not realize anything; we thought that probably we have put the guitar somewhere and we did not know where.

At the end of the show we looked everywhere to try to find it and we could not find it anywhere and that was the slow realization that someone must have picked up the guitar during the show.

I cannot really tell exactly when but we can say how. He or she came in the theatre either as a punter or as a technician and saw the guitar and thought this is going to be for me.

I would not like to say bad things about Portsmouth but I am going to have to because someone stole our guitar but I am going to. It is not just the guitar is that it does not stop raining and someone stole our guitar and also the people are not extremely friendly and someone stole our guitar and then I do not really like my digs and someone stole our guitar.

In any case the audiences have been very nice.

And a little bit more complaining, yes the audiences have been very nice but very small and that is really frustrating. We need to get big audiences so we can test the show to its full.

I cannot wait to leave but first I will have to teach some workshops. And I have to say that the people of the theatre have been great and very nice and very helpful. The twins Dona and Hazel and Ben the technician etc and Liz the education representative have been very welcoming, nice and helpful but I have not seen a side of Portsmouth that I like.

We saw the video of the show based in Airswiming that Jenny and Lena did during the summer. It was not good. It was not completely bad because it had many nice things that make them look really pretty and fun.

They may hate me when they read this.
I was nervous watching it because I had worked with them for a week in the summer and they started to be good. They really did make a big effort to put up the show. And let me tell you that to put a show it is never an easy task. It is not just the money factor it is the amount of work and endurance. It is also the amount of optimism and energy and hope that you have to use to get everything done.

So watching on the video the two girls fighting with a difficult play in a difficult theatre they made me fell really proud.

The show was bad. The show was very bad but they had great moments of lightness and complicity.

The best thing were the movies in the back ground. There is this friend of theirs who does movies that help them with them and they did them in Switzerland and honestly they are really nice and very evocative.

The rest of the things were not great. They need more experience on the stage. They have the talent but they do not have the experience.

Also there are things that some of these actors do that are not right. I think it is the fact that because they have pleasure everybody that is watching them have pleasure too but you have to be able to have the right pleasure and also you have to be able to show that pleasure to the audience.

The play I do not like it. I know Charlotte is a great writer but I think the play is full of issues and that makes it boring. Sorry but that is the way I fell and that is what I told them the first time we talk about working together.

The past always comes back to us. You think that once is done is done forever and then if anything it will be just a very distant and small memory. And in a way it is true. When I think about the way I have behave in the past or things I have done that are not very nice they are still there and I know they are there.

So I took the bus 253 to Finsbury Park from Hackney Central. I have probably not taken that bus since 1996. I know it is crazy. For some time I took that bus all the time. Miren and me were living at Manor House and that was the most convenient bus to take whenever we wanted to go to central London. We could also walk to the tube station but it was better to go to Finsbury Park or further all the way to town.

So going through those streets was like a big and long memory lane trip. Those times I cannot say were the good time because they really were not. I had fun and I have very fun memories of the time but in reality we were poor and we were living just with the minimum and learning or better trying to learn how to be independent and at the same time have lots of fun.

Now I have come here because people like we were then are living here and they wanted to meet to discuss some work for the future.

They live exactly like we did when we were living there. I do not know if it says anything nice about this part of the city if only people like us live there all the time since then?

In any case I have been touristing the whole day in the city. I visited the South bank and the New Tate Modern and I walked to London Bridge where I was so tired that I had to sit in a pub and not move for a while. The good thing is that I managed to drink some pints of ale with Mariela y Jose Luis.

They are very nice and funny.
When people come to London and I go out with them I miss having my own place here so I could be the proper host. The only way I could ever have to chance is by wining the lottery and I do not think that is going to happen soon.

I went to see the Peter Brook show again tonight to see it with Antonio Gil Martinez. I am writing his full name so when someone Google his name my blog will appear next to him. He is very good in the show and I think the show was really great the other day. I had seen the first preview but now the show has grown a lot and I could see how all the actors have developed a lot and were very comfortable.

I think I like that kind of theatre but I would like a little bit more of flashy staff. I am more into entertaining but I will give my hand to work with Peter Brook and I am sure there are thousands of people out there who have worked with him but for me “The Empty Space” it is a fantastic book. It is a fantastic book and a beautiful lesson of theatre.

So the show it is a little bit like that, a fantastic show and a great lesson in theatre.

I particularly liked the set a lot. It was very simple but very evocative.

I loved seeing Antonio play. He has lots of talent and he is very good. Because we did a play together many years ago I think I know a little bit of what he does and it is fantastic. You see his commitment his game, the way he plays and … well is always great.

After the whole day around London I think I over did them. Well, sorry I went out with Miren’s sister and her husband Jose Luis. They were visiting London and I offered myself to show them other parts of London that they may have not seen before.
But early in the morning we have been walking for such a long time that by the time we arrived to the pub they were pretty tired and ready to have something to eat or better something to drink.

I like showing the other London to my friends. It is very good fun and also I end up showing them the London I really like.

One of the most interesting and more exciting places in London is a pub I know in Hampstead. Apparently it is very famous or at leas well known. What I really like is that you can eat wonderful food and you can stay outside or inside in one of its lovely rooms. Anyway I am not going to tell you where it is but I am going to tell you its name. I do not want everybody to go there but anyway not many people read this so, there it goes the Holly Bush.

Published Date:

18 February 2010

By Robin Duke

Spymonkey’s Moby Dick

Blackpool Grand Theatre

If you don’t know your Pequod from your Peleg and still think Ishmael was just a Blackpool coffee company whereas Starbuck is a global one, don’t worry – Spymonkey won’t think any less of you.

Just as it wasn’t required to pass a GCSE in Emily Bronte to appreciate the Lip Service Emily Bronte spoof Withering Heights or know the bard back to front to find the fun in the Reduced Shakespeare Company, so you don’t need to have pored over Herman Melville’s novel to laugh in all the right places at this irreverent rendition of Moby Dick.

Whether Meville ever expected his seminal work to now have a soundtrack including The Carpenters Close To You and Mike Batt’s Bright Eyes is unlikely but he’d have probably been impressed by a Spanish Ishmael with an impenetrable accent and a German Queequeg who can’t stand up for falling down.

Performed under the guise of the Compagnie Tony Parks (a thinly disguised Spymonkey co-founder Toby Park) it’s a riotously funny romp performed by Tony/Toby, Aitor Basauri, Petra Massey and Stephan Kreiss with perfect comic timing and delightfully risqué moments.

Ps: Pequod is the whaling ship pursuing the elusive Moby Dick, Peleg is a retired Quaker whaler, Ishmael is the narrator and junior crew member, Starbuck is a global coffee brand (sorry, also first mate of the Pequod).

Catch it again tonight.