It’s now twenty to one in the morning and I don’t know what I’m running on. I got home from tech. rehearsal around midnight (almost five hours), after a full day at uni starting at 8.30am. I also didn’t get much sleep last night due to a mammoth headache. I kept waking up and in my psuedo-sleep, associating my pain with the dream or something. It wasn’t until I actually got out of bed this morning at around 6.30 and went down stairs did I find that I had little balance and was nauseous. A hang over without the alcohol.

I almost wasn’t going to trek into uni for my tutorial in the morning (which would have given me another four hours at home), but as I looked up what I would be missing I discovered that the head tutor was actually a friend of mine from the theatre, someone whom I’ve worked with many times since my early days. I loaded up on Panadol and hiked in. I was told of a bit of a stomach bug going round between those who went to a surprise birthday dinner on Saturday (myself included). I felt fine, but it would have been no more than three hours later when I found myself in desperate need of a bathroom. The uni bathrooms aren’t the place for a picnic, but I did have to rehearse evacuation procedures several times throughout the day until my last class finished at 4.30, at which point I was extremely tired and a little dry inside.

Otherwise, things haven’t been too bad today. I’ve got another proposed show that I’m attached to as musical director for next year (tallying four shows total - at least *one* has to be selected for production, surely!).

I also received a wonderful email tonight informing me that my recent post about Neighbours’ minimalist staging of the dramatic faux-death scene has reached several of the show’s crew members. I was also informed that the character’s name is Steiger. For bonus points, can anyone name the early nineties Australian sitcom the actor Joe Clements starred in as the best friend (if I rememeber correctly), alongside another Neighbours alumni? If you google-cheat, don’t comment the answer.

And now, at almost one am, I’m truly ready for bed and spending tomorrow on the couch with some dvds, tea and toasted cheese sandwiches.

If you’re looking for a British 1960s spy thriller film, check out “The Ipcress File” if you haven’t already. Michael Caine, a nice story that doesn’t bore, superb photography throughout made me more than once think of Hitchcock, and a very Goldfinger-esque score from 007 regular John Barry. In fact, it was produced by Bond regular Harry Saltzman, and the sequel, Funeral in Berlin, was directed by Guy Hamilton (director of Goldfinger amongst others). For the record, Goldfinger was 1964, The Ipcress File was 1965.

If you’re in Australia it has been released on DVD on the Rank Classics label, meaning you’ll pay no more than $15 for it.

I’m not much of a television watcher. I casually catch the odd program, but I don’t live my life by the TV guide. Occassionally though, in this world where one (or two) men can prescribe the misery and death of millions of people because of their utterly twisted “morals”, we need something to take our minds off where it is we live (or rather who we live there with).

This is where the Australian soap “Neighbours” comes in. Today I sat down to catch up on Tuesday night’s episode where Paul Robinson was to meet his latest much-hyped non-death. I had been laughing several times throughout the episode already due to the absurdist nature of the whole thing, but there was one moment at which my jaw dropped, I gripped onto the couch and yelled (for no one else to hear) “DID I JUST SEE WHAT I THOUGHT I SAW (B1)?”

I hit the rewind button quickly, and apparently I did. I watched it over and over. It was marvelous. A real high point for Neighbours. Here it is (click to view larger):

Is it any wonder there is so much crime in Ramsay Street when they have a police force of two, this man and Stuart, and their firearms are less than threatening?

With just over a week now until curtain up for Little Shop, I have been thinking about the experience of revisiting a role I played when I was younger (it was about 5 years ago).

First and foremost, I feel a lot more tired. More than anything, after each run I feel vocally exhausted. It could be due to several reasons. Firstly, my singing in general is a lot more demanding now, and I’m no doubt making a lot more noise than I was five years ago (for better or for worse). Secondly, I’m also singing (almost!) everything in its original key and octave, most of which sits uncomfortably high, particularly for someone who has always sung in the Bass section of the choir. The hardest moment of the show is during my interlude section in The Meek Shall Inherit, which is extraordinarily uncomfortable for me. My favourite would be the beginning of Suddenly Seymour where I sing much more gently and concentrate on attempting a nicer sound. The whole tired thing could be that we’ve left in two songs that were cut from the previous production and I am involved in both of those. All up I think I counted around 10 numbers I sing in (give or take one), and I’m on stage for a great deal of the show.

Comparing my performances between this production and the last is very hard because I have little memory of what I did for the last production (and I’m far too frightened to watch the video floating around somewhere). I’d like to think I’d be much more comfortable watching this performance later on down the track. In this production I have given more thought not just to characterisation, but also to an overall character ‘arc’ throughout the play. In general terms, I start out presenting a pretty straight forward, almost cartoonish character which becomes deeper throughout the show. I’ve pinpointed a time in the show at which I think Seymour should be his most honest, or most real. It is when Seymour asks Audrey if she’d still love him without the plant. There is a very similar moment in the first act (when Seymour asks if Audrey would go clothes shopping with him - it’s a very similar notion)which I play more for the audience’s superficial sympathy. In the second act I try to make it very honest and (hopefully) capture the audience and make them forget just for a moment that the story is actually about a man-eating plant, hopefully providing that very hollow feeling at the end of the play when things turn out like they do.

I have little idea how successful my efforts are, and this could all be in vain. I also entirely understand that I’m a nobody playing a character in a community theatre production, and I don’t think I’m a great actor, but if I’m going to be on stage doing this in front of 100+ people each performance, I might as well put some consideration into it.

Can you believe we have only three more rehearsals (i think)?

I thought I’d take advantage of the last official day of my holidays, so I sat down to watch some movies. The first was Toys with Robin Williams, but my home-made hard disk recorder crapped itself half way though and I was watching it on a delay of about 15 minutes so I missed the second half. I was enjoying it though, but it felt slow when Robin Williams or the delightfully touching Joan Cusack weren’t on screen.

I then made the mistake of watching Jason X, the tenth Friday the 13th, which entirely stank of a fan film effort. A true B-Grade effort, the nerds behind the script and direction filled it with awful, cliched jokes and terrible Star Wars/Star Trek references. The basic premise is that Jason is accidently cryogenically reanimated… in the future… in space… on an isolated spaceship… with a class of kids who enjoy premarital sex.

And there is a man in love with a beheaded android, who suddenly looks very similar to Lara Croft.

Oh - and there is a professor who likes to dress up as a woman and get his nipples tweaked with medical instruments. And he wants to sell Jason Vorhees as a freak show. And he’s doing his best Paul Rieser in Aliens impersonation.

I wish I was making this up - I really do. The only thing funnier than the movie is the ‘Making Of’ documentary where the actors describe how terrifying the film is, and where the various members of the production team alternate between describing their shoe-string budget and their expansive, franchise budget.

I felt okay watching such cheap trash because I just overindulged and bought myself a whole bunch of DVDs. Of course, I got them on outrageous sale! I picked up the two Universal Hitchcock DVD collections for only around $50 each (saving around $100 each!). For a marginal amount more than the shipping it would have cost me for just those packs, I qualified for free courier delivery by adding Sunset Boulevard and the two-disc edition of the stunning film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (the Brando version, of course). Those were both on sale too, with Sunset Boulevard at $7, and Streetcar at only $15. If you want to score the same bargains, the sale is on at EzyDVD (I get nothing from that, so buy away).