Photo finish!

Having taken lots of PR photos for Newport Playgoers' production of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' it was nice to see them used in the South Wales Argus. Even nicer was the fact that one of my photos was used on the cover of the paper's weekly Guide supplement.

Thanks very much to the Guide's editor Andy Howells - and I recommend you visit his amazing website where he writes about everything from 'Dad's Army' to Doctor Who:
http://andysretrospace.blogspot.co.uk/

Victor Mature versus the Mau Mau

Barely able to move I lay on the settee today and watched 'Safari' starring Victor Immature and the lovely Janet Leigh (a few years before Hitchcock had her stabbed by a psycho in the shower).

Amazing film on many counts, not least because the African bearers, despite having a rich musical heritage of their very own, chose to sing a Jamaican calypso as they bounced across the plain on top of a truck. 

The lyrics mentioned every African animal and just by chance they all went past when their name came up. Also featured a rhino charging mercilessly at a shop window dummy and tossing it in the air. Those rhinos, eh.

Vic was bent on revenge as the Mau Mau had killed his (very annoying) son. All that was left was the toy tank Vic had given him. Needless to say, Vic took that tank on safari with him.

Janet Leigh went down the river in a bright yellow dinghy for a lark and was menaced by dozens of crocodiles before going over a waterfall. She survived that only to be menaced by a dozen more crocodiles. We've all had days like that.

Making "ghosts" for 'Blithe Spirit'

Recently I had the pleasant job of photographing members of the cast of Newport Playgoers' production of Noel Coward's supernatural comedy 'Blithe Spirit'.

The play is about a man who, for a dinner party amusement, arranges for a medium to come and hold a seance - which conjures up the ghost of his first, mischievous wife, Elvira. Only he can see and communicate with her - much to to the consternation of his present wife.

In the play, Charles Condomine (David Constant) 

accidentally summons up the spirit of 

his dead first wife, Elvira (Eloise Rossiter) 

much to the annoyance of his second 

wife Ruth (Rosamund Jones-Griffiths)

I thought it would be good to use Photoshop to actually create a ghostly image of Elvira and these are the results, achieved by taking two photographs and overlap them using layers, then adjusting the opacity and adding a slightly green filter to give a spooky effect.

These are the results. Next project is to make a video trailer for YouTube in which a see-through Elvira talks about the play - and hopefully entices people to come along and see what promises to be a truly haunting production. Noel Coward’s sophisticated comedy ‘Blithe Spirit’ is at the Dolman Theatre from Wednesday 12^th – Saturday 15^th September at 7.15 pm, with an extra matinee performance on the Saturday at 2.30 pm. To book tickets call 01633 263670 or visit www.dolmantheatre.co.uk. More information is available online at www.newportplaygoers.wordpress.com. New members are always welcome to become involved both onstage and behind the scenes!

The beauty of Scrivener

After using it for a trial period, I’ve taken the plunge and purchased Scrivener – a great tool for writers that makes Word seem a redundant way of creating everything from novels and academic dissertations to plays and scripts.

I first used it to write a stage play and quickly discovered there are a number of different templates depending on what sort of writing you’re doing. 

When you start a new project the menu offers a variety of formats for stage, film and radio plays as well as novels and short stories. It’s easy to create your own templates too so you write exactly the way you want to write. 

Like other script-writing software, Scrivener remembers your characters’ names so you don’t have to type them in each time. Simple keyboard shortcuts enable you to go into capitals or change where you type on the page depending on whether you’re adding stage directions, action, characters or dialogue.

Fair enough. But where Scrivener scores top marks is in its ability to store everything you need for the project you’re working on in one place and put it all just a mouse click away. I found the enormous benefits of this when I recently re-discovered a book I was writing about my childhood in the back streets of Birmingham. I had abandoned the project because I had tons of information – photos, records, artwork, scraps of unfinished writing - scattered everywhere and it was proving more than a little unmanageable.

Everything can be added to reference folders.
Here's some of my artwork that I may include in the finished book.

Using Scrivener I am able to bring it all together and organise everything to make it totally accessible. Scrivener has two main panes – a binder on the left containing folders and text files and the main writing screen which doubles as a corkboard to show you the contents of each folder.  You can also add an information window on the right for keeping notes.

The corkboard  provides a useful overview of chapters,
characters, settings and scenes

It was easy importing my draft chapters and putting them into a folder. Then it was just a case of creating folders for all my research material – photos, maps, screengrabs images and webpages could just be dragged and dropped where I needed them.

 I was able to view each folder as an index card in corkboard mode – so draft chapters could be moved around into the order I wanted. This is also useful when planning plotlines for a novel or script, or creating characters or settings.

Photos and other images can be viewed in groups or individually. 

By splitting the screen I am able to view my research material as I write. So I can look at mind maps I have created around various topics and expand on these to create new sections of the book. The beauty of it is I am able to write as many documents as I like, then re-arrange them to make a chapter.

Scrivener also backs up my work automatically so I don’t have to worry about losing anything. There’s a snapshot feature too which keeps a copy of a draft that I can refer back to if things go haywire and I need a quick look at an earlier version.

When I finally finish my book – and it won’t be anytime soon, I can tell you because memories spark more memories – I can export my finished work to Word, or better still use the Compile feature which enables me to use one of the templates for exporting to eBook or Kindle.

Scrivener has loads more features – and it’s available for Mac or Windows as a 30 day free trial. Just click on the link below. I should add that I am in no way associated with the makers of Scrivener – just a keen fan of their product. It's a writing tool designed by writers for writers.

Download free trial of Scrivener here: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

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Creating 'The Hypochondriac' poster

In an age when you can download anything from the internet, copyright of images is always a problem. So when I designed the posters for Newport Playgoers' 88th Season (2011/12) I decided to create a series of posters that had a corporate look, each one featuring an original piece of artwork.

For some weird reason I actually designed the posters chronologically working my way through from the first to the last in the season. So the final one I did, with a sigh of relief, was for 'The Hypochondriac'. This was great fun to do - and not just because it was the last of nine posters. The play is a hilarious re-working by legendary Liverpool poet Roger McGough of Moliere's classic comedy. I knew it needed a caricature face - an anxious man suffering from 'le malade imaginaire' (that's your actual French).

I spent a long time drawing various pen and ink versions of the face until coming up with one that I was happy with, complete with worried expression and nightcap. After scanning it into my PC, I set about adding colour using a marvellous (free) program called Artweaver. Much like Photoshop, it enables you to work in layers and employ various brushes to get different styles.

Once the hypochondriac himself was finished I set about drawing various medicine and pill bottles - the shape of which I researched on the internet. Again these were scanned in and coloured. Finally I put all the artwork together using Adobe InDesign, jigging the ingredients around until I had the poster below.

For more information about 'The Hypochondriac' visit http://newportplaygoers.wordpress.com
If you want to try out Artweaver you can download it here: http://www.artweaver.de/

'Poor Yorick' Rides Again

Really looking forward to reprising my play 'Poor Yorick' at Blackwood Little Theatre as part of the Gwent Festival of One Act Plays. It proved successful when it was premièred at the No Holds Bard festival at the Dolman Theatre in mid-March.

Since then I have revised the play and re-cast two of the parts - my wife Caroline takes over from Clare Drewett as Yorick's lady friend Bess and David Eynon-Williams steps into the ghostly shoes of Hamlet's late father.

'Poor Yorick' tells how Hamlet’s jester tries to pioneer stand-up comedy but fails and is forced to return to Elsinore to get his old job back, only to become embroiled in Hamlet’s plans for revenge. Complete with busty tavern wenches, domineering mothers, ghosts and the invention of the exploding whoopee cushion, it promises to be a laughter-packed production.

Bruce Campbell, Sue Morgan, Chris Powell and Will Smith-Haddon
in the No Holds Bard production of 'Poor Yorick'

It was one of four one act plays that won a competition organised by Newport Playgoers as their contribution to the nationwide Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages project. One of the plays that was a runner-up in the competition, 'In The Spirit Of Things' by Steven Quantick is being staged by Playgoers New Generation at Blackwood, while Dolman Youth Theatre present another Shakespeare-inspired play, 'Bottom's Dream'. Both of these are also being produced at the Studio Theatre at the Dolman from 12th - 14th April.

Tickets are available online at http://gwentdrama.weebly.com/ or  http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/blt. Alternatively, customers can phone 01495 223485.

Countdown begins to No Holds Bard!

So we’re a mere 13 days away from the opening of the No Holds Bard festival, which features my one act play ‘Poor Yorick’ – and panic has begun to set in as we’ve yet to run the play all the way through..

Yorick (Will Smith-Haddon) makes himself at
home in Hamlet's (Chris Powell) room
at Elsinore

 Focusing on Hamlet’s story as seen through the eyes of his court jester who has gone on tour pioneering stand-up comedy, the play is at least getting plenty of laughs from the cast during rehearsals.

It’s quite a cast too! Will Smith-Haddon is great as Yorick, the clown who’s ahead of his time with his observational humour – “What is it with the Black Death? That's a bit depressing isn't it?” 

Yorick (Will Smith-Haddon) and Bess
(Clare Drewett) may not have much but at least
they have each other

Clare Drewett plays his bawdy wench girlfriend Bess who specialises in knocking back ale and making rat stew. Chris Powell excels as a whinging Hamlet who is fed up of his moaning mother, Gertrude – played to perfection by Sue Morgan in a glittering gown, tiara and Marigold gloves. Bruce Campbell makes a brief appearance as a surprisingly chirpy ghost of Hamlet’s father, offering words of advice such as "Don't drink the wine".

Yorick and Hamlet discuss vacancies for court jester
while Queen Gertrude (Sue Morgan) attempts to
clean the room

The festival is Newport Playgoers’ contribution to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages project which aims to reunite the worlds of amateur and professional theatre. With four plays offering a mixture of slapstick, bloody sword fights and romantic mix-ups it promises to be an evening of lively entertainment that gives a thoroughly modern take on Shakespeare and turns his plots into plays for today. For more information check out http://newportplaygoers.wordpress.com/

We're all really excited that our local newspaper, the South Wales Argus, is sponsoring the festival.  Please come along and support us from 15 – 17 March at the Dolman Theatre, Newport. Tickets, which are just £5 and £7, can be booked by phoning the box office on 01633 263670 or visiting www.dolmantheatre.co.uk.

Flickering images from the past

The past is a very surreal country. Just going through old cine film taken at Handsworth Grammar School in 1967. It's so grainy and black and white that lunch hour in the quad looks more like newsreel footage of recreation time in a POW camp. 

School quad or POW camp?

Suddenly there's me in the back streets of Brum wearing a houndstooth jacket, a fez and looking at the world through a tennis racket.There's Lew firing a fishing net from a bow. Scenes of a schoolmate being ambushed and beaten up, the masters versus the boys football match - referee 'Bing' Crosby. Bing again secretly filmed teaching us, and behind him on the blackboard what looks like Arabic but is some weird equation.

Looking at the world through a tennis racket

A passing parade of other masters - 'Winky' Watson, Froggy Knight, Mary Barber, Browning,  World Cup Willy Watton, Ken Doney, 'Gobby' Gilbert - all of them on their way home after a hard day's teaching. An old-fashioned number 70 bus floats down Grove Lane followed by a white-haired old man on a bicycle, me zooming past on the back of Lawrence's scooter, Jimmy Hinks silhouetted in the door of the butcher's shop, and all those young, familar faces: 'Eggy' Eggington, Billy Jackson, Gary Mills, Alan 'Gilligan's Island' Griffiths, Grant, the only black face to be seen. 

The number 70 bus floats down Grove Lane

And spliced into all this are scenes from 'Rodan', a Japanese monster film featuring a giant flying lizard. Thousands of fleeing Japanese and me, 40 years younger and none the wiser. It makes you think.

Rodan, star of Japanese B-movies

Revenge of the Three Stooges

People have always tended to look down their nose at the Three Stooges. Larry, Curly and Moe were never exactly subtle and their comedy was pure slapstick which revolved around poking each other in the eye and handing out a good slap in the face.

Moe, Curly and Larry in typical slapstick action

I’ve always had a soft spot for them, mainly because of an afternoon spent in a cartoon cinema in London with my mate Dancin’ Jones and a fellow film student called Scouse Annie. After spending lunchtime in a pub downing a few pints of Fuller’s London Pride we were up for a good time and found it  in the rolling programme of cartoons and short films.  

As always, we found the RoadRunner  particularly funny but were in hysterics when the Three Stooges flickered onscreen in a grainy old black and white movie called ‘Fifi Blows Her Top’.  I can’t remember a thing about the film except laughing until the tears rolled down my face.

All of this was brought to mind when reading Denis Norden’s book ‘Clips from a Life’ in which he recalls that at an American auction in November 1993 a signed group photo of Larry, Curly and Moe went for $1,820 while a signed group photo of Presidents  Nixon, Ford and Carter fetched $275. Quite right too. The Stooges churned out 200 films - 190 of them shorts - during their prolific career and probably brought more fun and laughter into the world than any President.

Who writes this stuff?

There are several things I find annoying about daytime TV and they’re all to do with the commercials. There are too many of them and often they’re just plonked willy-nilly into the programmes without any thought whatsoever – sometimes in the middle of a scene.

But my other gripe concerns the sponsors of these programmes whose mini-movies pop up at the beginning and end of each over-long commercial break. There's a company called Furniture Village who sponsor a load of recycled TV on channels like ITV10 and their strapline is 'You're in safe hands'. What the hell has that got to do with selling furniture? They’re not offering healthcare or insurance. They sell armchairs. Why shouldn't you be in safe hands when buying a beige sofa? Unless you're buying it in downtown Kabul. 

Why shouldn't you be safe buying a coffee table?

 Another ridiculous strapline comes courtesy of Wickes, the DIY outlet, who proudly proclaim  'It's got our name on it'. Not ‘Great tools for every job’ or ‘We can help you fix that shelf’ – but ‘It’s got our name on it’. What's so reassuring about that? This must be a dependable high-powered chainsaw  – it’s got Wickes written on it.

As for Simply Health with ‘We can be bothered’ well I should hope so. If you couldn’t be bothered I wouldn’t get my health insurance from you. 

Valentine's Night

Having been in agony for 10 days with sciatica I am unable to do very little - even sleep. However, when I did manage to drift off last night - thanks to the pain killers kicking in- I had a very weird dream.


I was walking down the street when I bumped into 1950s heart throb singing star Dickie Valentine. I immediately asked for his autograph on behalf of my old mate Dancin' Jones whom I knew would appreciate such a keepsake.

Dickie Valentine wearing the same coat as
in my dream

Dickie seemed a bit put out at my request and became even more impatient when  I spent ages searching my rubbish-filled pockets for a pen and paper. Eventually, I dug out a really tatty bit of paper and a leaky biro and Dickie duly signed his name. The weirdest thing is, when I awoke I found a scrappy piece of paper on my duvet and on it was scrawled "To Dancin' with best wishes from Dickie". No, not really. That would be ridiculous. This isn't The Twilight Zone, you know.
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Welcome to the Palace Flophouse Grill

John Steinbeck

Finally watched the BBC4 programme on one of my favourite authors, John Steinbeck. It was good despite Melvyn Bragg who insisted on quoting from 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'Cannery Row'. Big mistake. He sounded nothing like Henry Fonda - he was all nasal and South Bank Show.

Back in our carefree student days, my mate Dancin' Jones and I had several ambitions - including writing a hit musical about the plumbers of Balham - but chief among them was going to live with Mack and the Boys at their doss-house shack which they called the Palace Flophouse Grill. Nothing to do all day but laze around in the California sun, drinking cheap whisky and scavenging food from Lee Chong's grocery store. It's all in 'Cannery Row'. Here's the beginning:

Mack and the Boys

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore-houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop-houses."

Now we need a decent documentary about Ernie Hemingway. He was once challenged to write a novel in 6 words and came up with "Baby shoes for sale. Never used."  So much for his tough, grizzled old git image. Of course writing all those Mills & Boon romances didn't help him any either.

Did either Stenibeck or Hemingway write the Great American Novel? Possibly. Melville's 'Moby Dick' is supposed to be up there as a contender but I must confess I've never read it. I only know the first line ("Pardon me, boy, is that the Chatanooga choo-choo?" Later a hit song for Glenn Miller not to mention his orchestra.) According to Seinfeld, the second time you read 'Moby Dick'  Ahab and the whale become great friends.

Art Pickles and his whistling yo-yo

Who today remembers world yo-yo champion Art Pickles who endorsed and recommended a breakthrough in yo-yo technnology - the first whistling yo-yo? I do for a kick-off, thanks to one of the best Christmas presents I received this year -  the best of the Eagle comic in the 1950s.

The book features an amazing array of adverts from the '50s including the unique whistling yo-yo (reduced from 3/- to 1/6d and personally autographed by Art) which was available when you bought Outspan oranges - although the connection between oranges and yo-yos escapes me. There was a coupon so maybe, in order to receive your whistling yo-yo, you had to send that in with some orange peel.

You could also buy Dan Dare raincoats (Dan was the pilot of the future for those of you who didn't know). These guaranteed that you would "look smart and keep warm all year round". One thing puzzles me. If Dan Dare was zooming around outer space why did he need a "Cravanette-proofed" gaberdine raincoat? Does it rain on Mars?

Dedicated followers of fashion could complement their raincoat with a Dan Dare tie. In one of the comic strips featuring the Pilot of the Future  it was predicted that by 1996 cricket would feature wickets with four stumps. Nice try, Dan but no cigar.

It all brought back memories of a rubber Dan Dare glove puppet which I had when I were a lad (hours of fun for everyone) It would probably be worth thousands now on the open market - the sort of thing that they clamour for on the Antiques Roadshow. Alas, it was chucked out along with all my Superman and Victor comics not to mention those Beano and Film Fun annuals. Mothers have a lot to answer for...

Talking bloody heads



Pete and Dud in action - pity the Heroes of Comedy programme didn't show more of them


Just watched a Heroes of Comedy TV programme about two of my favourite funny men, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Really infuriating.

All these so-called comedians I've never even heard of coming out with the most inane tripe. One of them said, "With 'Beyond the Fringe' people began to think, hey, comedy can be funny." What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Then four of these so-called "experts on comedy" were shown all repeating the famous line - "I've got nothing against your right leg" etc - from the One Leg Too Few sketch. Just saying it! The only intelligent person was Neil Innes who said "What do I know? I don't wear corduroy trousers and have a sociology degree."

And all the time you just wanted to see more than two seconds of Pete and Dud in action. Fat chance of that. I switched off in disgust. These talking head programmes really annoy me - cheap television at its most crass. They almost ruined the programme about Victoria Wood's TV career. Almost, but not quite. At least you had people who knew and had worked with her - plus lots of good, funny clips that had me laughing all over again.

Is Cheetah the Chimp Dead?



Nice family snapshot of the Tarzans at home

 Apparently the chimp who played Cheetah in the old black and white Tarzan films died last month in an animal sanctuary in Florida.

He was said to be aged 80 which caused one expert to say it couldn't possibly be Cheetah the movie monkey as "living into your 70s is pushing the limits of chimp biology".

The woman who runs the sanctuary claims Johnny Weismuller, the ex-Olympic swimmer who played the first Tarzan, left the chimp to her in his will and that the the monkey "was soothed by Christian music and also enjoyed finger painting and watching football, though she was unsure if he had any favorite teams". 

Mia Farrow, whose mother Maureen O'Sullivan, played the definitive and by far the prettiest and sexiest Jane, spread the word about the chimp's death on her Twitter account. Apparently her mother always referred to Cheetah as "that bastard". Nice.