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 15^th – 20^th 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

A friend in need...

I’ve been in London for four and a half months. It feels like no time at all (and I guess in the big scheme of things, it really is no time at all). It looks like the old cliché is true and time really does fly when you’re having fun, moving house, getting to grips with a new job and settling in to a new(-ish) city.

And things are going well. There’s just one teeny tiny blip. And it’s a hard one to admit. But I’m going to put it out there because I’ve a feeling that it might be one of those things that happens a lot but often isn’t mentioned because, well, it’s a bit embarrassing. The truth is, after four months in London, I haven’t made any new friends.* Not one. Nobody.

Why?

Okay, so let’s just get this possibility out of the way first. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m some sort of social pariah, incapable of making friends.  But, I’m reassuring myself that this can’t be true because I already have a truly awesome group of friends: friends from school, friends from uni, friends from my year abroad, friends from Cambridge, all sorts of wonderful friends.

Now, admittedly, I’m never going to win a prize for being the most outgoing, talkative person in the room. I’m quite shy and fairly introverted, especially when I meet new people. When you’re shy, sometimes people just dismiss you as being aloof and passive so I’m really not making things easy for myself.

So, if the problem isn’t (totally) me, then why don’t I already have a whole set of new London friends? Well, as it turns out, it’s tricky finding friends when you’re 29 and working full-time in a super-busy city. The simple days of primary school friendships (‘oh, hey, we’re sitting next to each other, you’re my best friend now!) are long gone. I’m even getting slightly nostalgic for my time as a first-year undergrad when everything was geared around meeting new people (Fresher’s Week, Fresher’s Fair, Fresher’s Ball…there are few more intense friendship periods than that first term at uni. By the second term, of course, you’ve realized that most of your flatmates are, in fact, mad and you wonder what on earth you wrote on your application form to put you in the same flat as them!).

Partly, it’s a question of time. I leave for work at 8 in the morning and get home again around 7ish. Some nights I go to the gym or to yoga, so then I’m not home till 9ish. Now, maybe I just have bad time management but getting in at 9 doesn’t leave me with a huge amount of ‘friend-meeting’ time. So, being an industrious sort of woman, I decided to multi-task. Why not turn the hobbies that I already have into opportunities to meet new people? Good plan. And so…

Will you be my friend lovely zen-yoga ladies?

The yogis would be my friends. Right? That’s the whole spirit of yoga, isn’t it? Peace, love and zen-friendship. And I’m in Hampstead, pretty much yoga-central (seriously, if you’re not toting a yoga-mat around the streets of Hampstead you look out of place). I found a lovely class with a great teacher. But…hmmm…it’s sort of tricky to start a conversation in a yoga class. I mean, there’s a friendly-looking girl in front of you and another friendly-looking girl behind you. But you’re all in down dog and so you feel a bit weird talking to the girl in front cause now you’re looking at her butt, and you feel a bit weird talking to the girl behind because she’s looking at your butt (and you’re worrying that your old leggings might be a bit see-through…or maybe that’s just me!).

And, if you do manage a quick hello it’s normally followed by an even quicker “ssshhh…I’m trying to be in the moment,” from some impossibly zen yogi.

The end of class is no good either as everyone else bounds off to pick up Ethel, Mildred and George (their children, not their grandparents! Turns out this year’s big naming craze is ‘pick an Edwardian name, any Edwardian name. Sure, she’ll grow into it by the time she’s seventy!’). Yep, making friends in Hampstead would be a lot easier if I was part of the yummy mummy brigade but that seems like a pretty extreme solution to the friend problem so let’s not go there (plus, the Hampstead yummy mummies scare the life out of me – so toned, so stylish, so bitchy – actually, they probably warrant their own post! That’s one friendship group I don’t want to join!).

Hmmm. If yoga’s no good, what about the gym? So many group classes, so many potential new friends. You name it, I tried it. Boxfit. Aerobiking. Funky Bums and Tums (yes, really). Pilates. Zumba. And many more. In terms of potential friends, the classes were great. Almost all the classes were filled with women just like me: late 20s/early 30s, all very friendly and smiley. But…problem 1: Have you ever tried striking up a conversation in the middle of an aerobics class when you’re mostly knackered and almost out-of-breath? It ain’t easy. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible!

The classes also threw up another problem. Yes, there were lots of potential friends, but often they were attending the class with friends they already had. Sometimes, there just wasn’t room in the group for me. One day, I was having a really nice chat with two other girls who had arrived early for a class. They were lovely. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself but I’d mentioned that I was new to the area and I did think that maybe, just maybe, I could get over my innate shyness and suggest that we meet for coffee. Then, their other friend turned up. She was basically the Hampstead version of me. The sarky pessimist role was already filled in that little group. No vacancies. The three of them set off to zumba and I decided it was a lost cause and went to the gym instead.

Okay, so the whole fitness-friends thing wasn’t working. Maybe it was time to try a different tack. Welcome to the weird world of ‘friendship-dating.’ It’s basically like online dating, only for friends. You sign up to a website (such as citysocialising or meetup), key in your location and interests and up pops a range of socials that you can attend. So, I tried a few, and I went along with an open-mind.

Well. It turns out that the ‘friend-dating’ websites aren’t just sort of like standard dating websites; they basically are dating websites masquerading under the guise of ‘just friends.’ Online dating for people who don’t want to admit they’re online dating (‘Me? A dating website? Noooo. Never. I’m just looking for friends.’). Harumph. I had a few evenings listening to sad middle-aged divorcees droning on and on about ‘that bitch’ before they segued none-to-subtly into trying to find wife number 2. Urgh. So I’ve given up on the whole ‘online-friendship-dating’ thing.

And that’s it for the moment. This turned out to be a strange little post. There’s no happy ending yet. But I love London so I’ll keep trying. Somewhere in this fabulous city there has to be a lovely group wondering how on earth they’re going to fill that sweet but sarky Northern Irish vacancy.

Right?

*Non-work friends, obviously, I have awesome – and friendly - colleagues but I don’t think I can really give myself any credit for meeting them – they’re sort of stuck with me for 8 hours a day!

Excess Baggage

Handbag. Clutch. Purse. Satchel. Tote.

Most women carry at least one of these items around with them on a daily basis.

And usually I’m one of them. Heck, usually I cart around two – a cute little satchel with a shoulder strap and a bigger cloth bag for all the bits and pieces that don’t fit into the satchel.

At the moment, however, I’m going through a bag-free period.

This is more out of necessity than design as I’ve managed to completely mess up my left shoulder.

It’s been playing up for years and I’ve simply been ignoring it.

Except now I can’t ignore it as it’s really really painful and the messed up muscles are causing a fairly nasty and permanent tension headache at the base of my skull.

But I really don’t deserve any sympathy, as this is all self-inflicted!

Recently, as I complained – again – about my poor, painful shoulder, I asked my boyfriend how I could fix the problem. Now, I didn’t really want him to give me solutions. I just wanted sympathy, and possibly some chocolate. But, being both a practical science-type, and a man, the boy sagely pointed in the direction of my bags.

“It would help a lot if you didn’t cart so much stuff around with you every day. If you really need all that stuff then you should think about getting a rucksack that you can carry on both shoulders.”

What?!

What is this crazy talk?!

Stuff. Stuff. It’s not stuff. These are absolute essentials that I must have with me at all times.

And a rucksack. Seriously? Have we wandered back to my high school years by mistake?

Annoyed, and lacking chocolate, I hefted both bags upstairs with me, determined to prove to the boy that I simply couldn’t give up my essential kit.

Now, in my defense, the satchel did contain some must-have items for the busy woman-about-London-town:

Oyster card

Debit cards

House keys

i-phone and headphones

Cash

However, it also contained the following:

-3 small tubes of cold sore cream (yes, cold sores are annoying, but one tube would probably do!)

-3 small tubes of mouth ulcer gel (again, probably overkill to have 3)

-2 empty packets of throat lozenges (useful)

-receipts. Lots and lots of receipts just stuffed into various pockets. Now, I’m a bit pedantic about keeping receipts but really, what use is the receipt for a sandwich I bought two months ago??

-4 different lip-balms. 2 of these were completely empty. 1 is too sticky to be used (it leads to the oh-so-attractive hair-stuck-to-lips look). 1 I actually like and use every day.

-handcream

-a selection of mismatched earrings (nope, I’ve no idea why)

-hankies. Many, many hankies. I’d like to say they were all clean and unused but that would be a lie.

-the remnants of a granola bar that was definitely several weeks old (yuk!)

-e-reader that hadn’t been charged in weeks and wouldn’t actually open

The bigger cloth bag contained an even more random selection of bits and pieces:

-lots of sports gear in various states of cleanliness (mainly tending toward the ‘wash-me-please’ end of the spectrum)

- a pair of legwarmers (for those moments when you just have to get your 80s vibe on and re-enact Fame, obviously)

- a mini make-up counter(foundation, powders, concealers, lipsticks, mascara). I can’t actually remember the last time I could be bothered to go and touch up my make-up at work, and I never wear lipstick so I’m not sure why I decided to cart around 3 different shades.

-A very beaten-up and dog-eared book that I finished reading ages ago

-Two hairbrushes and a variety of baubles, hair grips and hairbands. All a bit pointless given that 99% of the time, I wear my hair down.

And so I decided to conduct a little experiment. Could I go bag-free for a week? Could I pare down all of the above bits and pieces to the bare necessities?

Fortunately, it’s still pretty darn wintery here in the UK and so I’m still wearing my giant quilt-like coat of many pockets. On a cold and overcast February morning, I set off to the tube station without any bags. In one pocket I had my credit cards, Oyster card and keys. In another pocket I had my phone and headphones, and in a third pocket I stashed a solitary hanky and the lipbalm that I actually use every day.

I had made some advance preparations the day before and there is now a little make-up bag on my desk at work, filled with bits and bobs such as a mini-hairbrush, concealer (for those days when my insomnia makes me look like a zombie), spare pair of tights etc...

The first day was odd. I constantly felt as if something was missing, as if someone had snatched my bag. I also felt weirdly light and realized that my bags were much heavier that I had previously thought.

Not having any bags also makes you really aware of the fact that they are everywhere. Most people – women and men – are carrying some sort of bag. And yes, women are definitely more laden with bags, with most carrying at least two (and often carting around a few more plastic bags crammed with shopping just for good measure).

One week on and I’m wondering if I’ll ever be able to go back to my bag-full ways! It’s lovely to be able to walk around without excess weight dragging on my shoulder. There’s a very nice sense of freedom that comes with getting rid of excess stuff that I didn’t really ever use. And, although my shoulder isn’t fixed (I didn’t think it would be – I have many years of bag-abuse to make up for!), the nasty tension headache has almost vanished. Yes, maybe it has simply went away of its own accord, but I do think it’s been helped along by the fact that my back and shoulder are free of excess baggage and I’m no longer holding one side of my body rigid to make sure my bag straps don’t slip off!

No, it’s not for everyone. I realize I’m in a lucky position as I can get through my day with a pretty small amount of stuff. For example, if you need to take regular medication then a bag is probably necessary (fortunately, this doesn’t apply to me). And if you have a baby or small child then again a bag – or two – is likely to be a necessity (and again, fortunately, this doesn’t apply to me!). And, of course, if the UK actually has a summer this year, it will be tricky to get away without a small bag, as most of my summer jackets are pocket-free zones! So I might need to look into that rucksack idea after all!

 

A Quirky Update!

February. What, already? Okay, so my New Year’s resolution to update my blog on a weekly basis hasn’t really worked out so far! But, in my defence, January was one of the most manic months I’ve ever experienced.

Having just survived my first ever Christmas-hosting experience (really not in a hurry to do that again!), I then finished at my old job on 8^th January and, after an incredibly restorative break of, um, one whole day, I started my new job in London*. Oh, and my boyfriend and I moved house from Cambridge to London on 5^th January. All in all, it was a hectic start to 2013.

So, after a month in London and almost a month in the new job, how are things shaping up? [Warning: the next sentence contains very un-Lauren-like levels of positivity!]

London is fabulous and the new job…well, it’s pretty great too! Apologies if this is all a bit smug but large chunks of 2012 were pretty rubbish for me both personally and professionally, so a happy start to 2013 is a welcome change.

So, how did this all start anyway? Well, it was a case of a perfect storm. First of all, in the middle of last year, my boyfriend was offered a wonderful job opportunity in London. He would start in October 2012. And this wasn’t just any job. This was a stunning promotion, a proper ‘excuse me, while I just leap up the career ladder’ moment. We had only recently got back together after a difficult few months and his amazing new opportunity threw into sharp relief the fact that I really was dragging my heels on the job front.

I think I was in a really common situation. I didn’t hate my job. I didn’t hate my colleagues. I had been there for over three years and I knew how things worked. It was a comfy position to be in. But isn’t being comfortable sometimes just a euphemism for stagnating? In my case, yes, it was. I was pretty sure that I was in the right industry (publishing), but was I really in the right area (academic)? As 2012 ticked on, various bits and pieces happened that made me feel that no, this really wasn’t the ideal job for me. But change is hard and I could always come up with plenty of excuses not to start applying for something new:

-“We’re in a recession. There aren’t any jobs. It would be madness to give up an established career.”

-“I only know how to work in academic publishing. They won’t want to hire me to work for a trade house. They’ll think I can only work with academics on textbooks. There’s no point in even applying.”

-“I’ve just been asked to cover a period of maternity leave. I can’t leave now – people would just be left in the lurch.”

However, as some fabulous friends pointed out, these weren’t actually very good excuses:

-“Actually, there are jobs out there. Not a lot of jobs, but a few publishing gigs are definitely available. There’ll be a lot of competition but if you don’t apply, you definitely have no chance.”

-“Maybe. Maybe all the trade-publishing houses won’t want you. Maybe some of them won’t want to employ you. Maybe one of them will – and you really only need one! But if you don’t apply, you definitely have no chance.”

-“There will never be a perfect time to leave your current job. If you’re not covering maternity leave, you’ll be working on a super-important project, or preparing to travel to a busy conference. There will always be an excuse to stay put.”

And so, slowly, I started sending out applications. Evenings were spent putting together cover letters and updating my CV. I developed a minor fixation with checking the Guardian jobs website, and a slightly more serious obsession with the jobs section of the Bookseller.

As any other job-hunters will know, most of my applications received absolutely no response. Nothing. Nada. Not even a ‘thanks for sending in your application’ or ‘thanks but no thanks.’ So even though you know perfectly well that you’ve been unsuccessful, the lack of response gives you just that teeny tiny spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, you might get an interview.

With pretty much a total lack of response, I think I was permanently disheartened for several months. October 2012 rolled around and my boyfriend started his new job, commuting back and forth to London everyday. There were a few weeks when the job hunt slowed, when there didn’t seem to be any new openings.

And then.

A tiny advert in the Bookseller. A small publisher. Looking for a commissioning editor to work on their mind, body and spirit list. Ho hum. Mind, body and spirit. This was definitely my area. Out came the cover letter and out went the usual standard phrases about my academic background, my academic publishing experience. In went the fact that I love yoga, that I’m fascinated by astrology, that I own a scary amount of self-help books.

Click send.

The next day I was invited for an interview.

My interviewers were really friendly. We talked about different yoga styles. We talked about astrology. We discussed cranio-sacral therapy and hypnotherapy. My academic background wasn’t mentioned at all. 

They asked me what I knew about trade publishing. I said not a lot.

They asked me if I had experience using any of their design systems. I said no.

Then we talked about yoga again.

Later that day, I got the job.

I’ve been here for just over a month. I work in a lovely open-plan office in central London. I have absolutely loads to learn as very little about my previous job has prepared me for my new role. Fortunately, I have very patient colleagues who are showing me the ropes and bearing with me as I slowly find my feet.

Over the past month, I’ve also found that the little grey cloud of negativity that I’d been trailing around for a large part of 2012 has disappeared. I’m starting to remember that actually, I’m not a negative person. Sarcastic? Yes, definitely. Cynical? Occasionally. But negative? Well, not so much. It’s amazing what a fresh start and doing something that you really love can do!

Which isn’t to say it’s all flowers and rainbows here in London town. I miss my friends in Cambridge loads and I don’t really know anyone in my new area. I miss my 15 minute cycle to work, which has been replaced by almost an hour each way of rush-hour on the tube (which, by the way, is my least favorite thing about London at the moment, and probably will get its own post on here at some point!).

So that’s a little update on all things QQ at the moment!

Yep, change is daunting. Yep, it’s very odd to go from knowing all the ins and outs of your job to knowing very little and being the new girl. But overall, taking a bit of a leap in the dark and changing direction is turning out to be a very good decision!

And I promise that the next post will be a return to your regularly scheduled dose of snarkiness (maybe!).

*No, this really wasn’t the plan and obviously a longer break between jobs would have been fantastic, however a combination of two month’s notice plus no annual leave added up to a stupidly stressful turnaround!