Tonight I went to work to see Martin Scorsese's Stones film Shine a Light. My 17 year old took me after much cajoling so I was able to have a glass of rose in the Intermission. Half way through he said he didn't know a single song! And at the end he only recognised Satisfaction which casts a poor light on his musical education. He also described Mick as a geriatric turkey which I thought was fair comment. In fact I think I would have preferred the Stones without Mick and just let Keef and Ronnie do their thing. Mick is just looking a tiny bit silly these days and how the hell does he stay so thin and how the hell does Keef stay alive??
It was brilliantly filmed though and I really enjoyed it and even the son grudgingly said the film was good at the end.

( Because I'm a sheep... )

Last night at work we had The Blues Band playing. In between working I snuck on the side of the stage and took some pix and a vid:



The lead singer is Paul Jones and the guitarist Tom McGuinness who were in Manfred Mann back in the Sixties. I don't know if they ever made it in the States but they were huge over here with hits like 5-4-3-2-1, Do Wah Diddy and Pretty Flamingo.
They played a pure blues set but went down very well.
Here's my Flickr Slideshow
Whilst we were clearing up at the end of the night I spotted some lasagne in the kitchen and was looking at it hungrily when my boss passed by and said there were a load of sandwiches left in the dressing room backstage if I wanted some. I beetled off expecting an empty room but found Paul Jones in there stuffing his face with sandwiches so stood and had a chat with him and the promoter's wife. We were wondering where the last forty years had gone when I told him I'd got his autograph in 1967!! He seemed a nice guy and and remakably trim for sixty-six!

Tonight I went to see a new play The Quiz by Richard Crane at The Mill which is an intimate little five row studio next to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford.
A one act, one man play lasting about 70 minutes it starred David Bradley (Argus Filch from the Harry Potter films)


It's the story of an actor who has spent twenty years playing Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor. He wanders on to stage more than a little worse for wear from "a glass of sherry" lights the candles on the sparse set and tells us that his prompt/assistant and general dogsbody has left him and he must act alone. In between acting out the Inquisitor and forgetting his lines he regales us of his life family and desire to die on stage like Kean, Irving and...Tommy Cooper.

A wonderful, funny performance by Bradley who often reminded me of the late great Leonard Rossiter mixed in with a bit of Albert Steptoe!

So before I went off to Eastleigh on Saturday evening I'd had an earlier cultural experience nearer home. Look out for the enigmatic Lise near the beginning!



Why can't you reduce the size of the screen on YouTube anymore?? It's bloody annoying as the picture quality was good originally.

( So what does the normal person do when they find that the photos they took of their favourite actor all, (bar two) for reasons of poor light, bad position and general ineptitude, turn out to be utter crap? )

Tags: alan rickman, photos

( Lise and I invested a well-spent tenner on tix to the Reading Room in Eastleigh on Saturday night )

Tags: alan rickman, photos, review

This one made me smile.