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Tuesday 22 October 2013

QQ reviews...The Daily Fail


*Disclaimer: Yes, my brother was in this play as a member of the ensemble. No, I didn’t get free tickets, a free drink, or anything else to influence my review!
Another trip to theatre-land for QQ this weekend, following my youngest brother as he makes his London stage debut.
The Daily Fail: The Musical was performed at Waterloo East Theatre from 15th – 20th October. A new production from The Untold Theatre Company, the musical is based on the recent hacking scandal and Leveson Inquiry, and tells the story of two Essex girls who want to become rich and famous even though they have no discernible talents.


The play has a strong cast, with standout performances from Charlotte Mitchell and Samuel Haughton. Mitchell brings a vulnerability and sweetness to Dim Trashtrashian so that you end up caring about the character, rather than simply laughing at her stupidity. She also displays excellent comic timing and her disastrous attempt to make a sex tape was, for this reviewer, the funniest scene in the play. As “fairy godmother” Rupert Murdoch, Haughton steals every scene, and cleverly suggests the true streak of malevolence and self-interest lurking below the character’s fake smiles and high-camp façade.
Mitchell and Haughton were also two of the strongest singers in a talented cast. Kate Hume was another standout singer, performing as Dim’s best friend London Clinton. The two lead actresses complemented each other well and showcased some impressive harmonies in their duets. Performing without mics, the entire cast projected their voices very well, although occasionally the backing track was simply too loud and it was difficult to hear some of the solos (this was particularly true during Stephanie Hockley’s first solo as junior writer Anna Prentice. Hockley has a sweet, appealing voice, and the lyrics in this piece [or what I could hear of them] were some of the sharpest and smartest in the play, but it was very difficult to hear her over the backing track).
Special mention has to go to Rachel Kelly’s superb choreography. This was complex, clever, and brilliantly delivered by all the cast members. The opening number – Extra, Extra – was a high point, with the cast executing with aplomb a challenging routine in a limited space.
As the character names above no doubt suggest, subtlety isn’t this play’s strong point. Characters are drawn with broad brushstrokes and generally don’t develop (the dumb blonde London Clinton, the idealistic and naïve journalist Anna Prentice, her evil, power-mad editor Rebekah Brooks [sorry, I mean “Anna Fender”], and her morally dubious colleagues Gail Force and Holly Wood).
The plot and writing starts strongly with a great opening number neatly problematising the cult of celebrity and its effects on the general public. London and Dim’s early scenes and songs also showcase writer Fiona O’Malley’s talent for lampooning the current celebrity age, when becoming famous simply for being famous appears to be a legitimate “ambition” for many people and mass-produced reality TV shows offer a fast-track route to “celebrity” status. O’Malley uses the first act to highlight the hidden dangers of the fame game, particularly in Anna Prentice’s first song, in which the lyrics deftly highlight the virgin/whore rhetoric that so often characterises that mass media’s depiction of women in general, whether famous or not. 
In the second half, the plot loses its way somewhat and it’s difficult to know what message O’Malley is trying to get across. As the media turns on the manipulated London and Dim, there is an odd scene in the Daily Fail offices in which Rupert Murdoch appears to regret the part he has played in the girls’ current plight, while Anna Fender admonishes him for being weak, berating him for being afraid of his true character. What are we to make of this scene? It’s particularly confusing given the inconsistency in characterization: the Rupert Murdoch character has his name unchanged but is transformed into a magical “fairy godmother”, while Anna Fender is simply Rebekah Brooks with a different name, her character following the media’s depiction of Brooks as a hard-nosed, power-hungry media player.
Further confusion is caused by the abrupt ending. From the somewhat incoherent scene described above, we move to London receiving a visit from Anna Prentice, who tells her that Dim didn’t sell stories about London to the press, the truth was that her phone had been hacked by unscrupulous journalists. The best friends are reunited and, together with Anna Prentice, they decide to write a play about the hacking scandal. They’ll call it The Daily Fail. Cue the final number.
Now, I’m all for leaving things open-ended and letting the audience come to their own conclusions, but this takes it a little too far. What does O’Malley want to say about the press, about celebrity culture, about our role as consumers of mass media? She touches on all of these themes in the play and it would be great to see her develop them further.

Quirk-o-meter rating: ***
The Quirk-o-meter:
***** = Quintessentially Quirky
****= Really rather wonderfully quirky
*** = Quite quirky
** = Brief moments of quirkiness
* = Not very quirky at all

Tuesday 1 October 2013

Lauren vs. Nature


Oh September. I was so looking forward to this month. Why? Well, September meant my first proper holiday this year. Two sunshine-filled weeks in Brazil consisting of a few days in Sao Paulo and then onto the famous beaches of Rio. Bliss.

And, my plan was to look as awesome as possible on said beaches (having convinced myself that all Brazilian women look like Gisele). To help with this, I had upped my gym sessions, I was attending yoga regularly and I had even joined a running club.

Now, I had my reservations about this whole running outside malarkey from the outset (see this post for more info) but I’d been giving running club my best shot. I’d even been doing my homework practice runs outside, rather than merrily trundling along on the treadmill at the gym.

Until running club week five.

At week five’s club I came up against a formidable opponent. I was prepared for bad weather. I was becoming adept at dodging slow-moving pedestrians and pavement-hogging pram-pushers (you don’t own the path just because you have a baby. Yes, yummy mummies of Hampstead, I’m talking to you).  I was even learning not to panic every time I saw a dog. But I had forgotten about the insects.

At week five’s running club something bit me. Something nasty. A mosquito is the prime suspect. Below is a dramatic reconstruction of the incident (note: have opted not to wear running gear for dramatic reconstruction).   





(Also note: obviously, the mosquito isn’t actual size. The one that attacked me was considerably larger.)

I wasn’t all that bothered about the bite at first. Bugs love me. Every time I go on holiday I end up covered in bug bites no matter how much repellent I put on.

I came home. I cleaned the bite. I carried on as normal.

The same thing the next day.

And the day after that. (Oh, and just to heighten the drama and sense of impending disaster let’s note that on this day my boyfriend toddled off to Brazil. Off he went to his conference. I would join him just a few days later).

The next day the bite itched and as the day went on, it started to swell.

By the end of the day my foot was twice its normal size and very painful. That evening I was planning to meet my boyfriend’s mum and show her around our new house.

Instead we took a trip to A&E, where a trainee doctor took a quick look at my puffed-up foot, declared it to be an allergic reaction and sent me home with some penicillin to take ‘just in case’ (she didn’t really make clear just what this was in case of).

We trundled home. The next day I got up, hobbled into work and starting taking the penicillin ‘just in case.’

It made no difference. If anything, my foot got worse.

The next day, my boyfriend’s mum (who was now stuck in London, looking after me as I couldn’t actually walk) and I went back to A&E. A nurse looked at my foot. I told her I was supposed to be flying to Brazil in two days. She laughed. Then she got a doctor.

Cellulitis. *

The fully qualified, non-trainee doctor took one look at my foot, declared it to be a bad case of cellulitis and promptly started me on IV antibiotics.

Oh, and I wasn’t flying anywhere.

I tried really hard to live up to my credentials as a mind, body, spirit editor. I tried to be Zen. I tried to accept the universe’s great cosmic plan. I tried to simply ‘be in the moment’ and accept the present as it was.

Hmmmmmm.

Sod ‘being in the moment.’
There was no Zen.
And why did the universe have an issue with me going to Brazil?

But there was nothing I could do. No walking. No running. And no Brazil.

Fortunately, after three days of IV antibiotics my foot started to show some signs of improving and I was given the okay to fly (even more fortunately, I’d been able to rearrange my flights and travel a week later than planned).

My week in Rio was amazing, and I’m sure that relaxing on Ipanema beach did more to heal my foot than the industrial-strength quantities of penicillin I had to take.

So, at this point, I guess it would be totally understandable if I just gave up on the whole outdoor running thing. After all, I’ve been proved right (and I love it when I’m right!): running outdoors really is bad for your health. And yet, this week, after a three-week break, I found myself lacing up my trainers and joining my running group for week eight’s session.

Yes, I was slow. Yes, I was paranoid that I was going to be bitten again. Yes, I may have been the first person to run around north London while covered in tropical strength insect repellent. But I was there. And I was running.

There are only two weeks of running group left. After that, our fabulous instructor Laura is setting up an intermediate group that will take us from 5k to 10k…and I’m seriously considering joining.

It sounds as if the running bug may also have left its mark on me!



*I had never heard of this (and it’s just a wee bit different to ‘cellulite,’ which is what I thought the doctor said at first). It’s an infection of the skin’s deeper layers and underlying tissue, usually caused by bacteria that get in following a small cut, scratch or, in this case, a bug bite.