2:22 A Ghost Story in Oxford. Shout out to Natalie Casey getting the show back on track after a hilarious interruption from an audience member caused everyone to get the giggles 😃
Theatre #7 The Battle (Birmingham Rep)
Fun, sweary telling of the battle for #1 between Blur and Oasis, with a very funny punchline that it could have got to a bit quicker
I mean... I have seen all these skaters skate live and I've never seen anything quite like that from Kagiyama and Malinin (or Shaidorov really, fair play to him!). Insane amount of pressure.
That was completely bonkers. Shaidarov was fab, everyone else lost the plot! Ive never seen the top two do that, so much pressure on them
Terrific skaters, tad controversial (also see the Netflix doc released this week). Ice dance is all about the drama this year…
The physics answers. Plus it always sounds weird to me without the skating noises… My favourite ridiculous thing about the music is they don’t require the use of radio edits, so sometimes you get some v explicit language at what I would consider to be a family friendly event 😂
I hadn't actually realised Malinin and Kagiyama had scores that close for the short! Rooting for team GBR to have a great Olympic experience as we're not quite at that level... Also, fingers crossed for good Kevin, I was at Euros 😬🫠😭
A London hotel I stayed at recently had to email all booked guests as we all got WhatsApp scam messages…
Coming at it from an early career perspective, I see it as part of a toolkit to help you discover how you do some of those things. A lot of early teaching is trial and error as you develop, might as well try some approaches that work for other people in case they work for you.
At work, I often threaten to have tattooed on my forehead:
1. What are you trying to achieve?
2. What are the implications of that?
3. What resources do you have to make that happen?
This piece makes me feel like that applies at all levels of operation!
Had a great time at #EuroFigure this week - brilliant to see a bronze medal for the Brits and huge support from a packed arena
Really interesting on the successes of enabling communities to make the changes they want to see themselves
They're checking all flags on entry so some people might not have bothered (although there are lots of British ones about!). Also, to the credit of the organisers, plenty of people here who've not been to a competition before
I kind of appreciate the full boy band vibe, but I thought they might tweak it more...
New post just out:
"Troubleshooters"
How fixing the many small frustrations - that make up most of our interactions with the state - can give people faith in goverment's ability to make things work.
And help create a different Whitehall culture.
(£/free trial)
open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...
Theatre #5. Incredible performance of All My Sons. Just wow.
Went to a shop today! Had to go into an alternative to the one I was planning owing to my intended destination apparently now being a coffee shop...
On the list for this year!
Theatre #4 courtesy of NT Live, one of my favourite innovations. Great performances by Martin Freeman and Jack Lowden, and you get a great view for £20 from the comfort of your local cinema
Oh no! Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery
Theatre #3
Some much needed new year humour from Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. Mischief theatre are just brilliant!
The Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Theatre #2 - The minimalist staging of The Forsyte Saga at the RSC allows the story (and acting) to shine. Loved both parts of this (had managed to miss all previous TV adaptations, so the story was genuinely new to me).
Oh wow how incredible to have seen both of those!
Also ploughed through Red Eye - absolute binge watch nonsense showcasing terrible professional decision making and even worse storylines (unforgivable these days to hinge a plot on an inability to share a video file!). If you like your TV mindless, this is for you.
Already finished 2 TV series. V much enjoyed the Stranger Things finale - agree that the epilogue was disproportionately lengthy, but I was crying 😢 by the end. Satisfying ending imo.
The set for Fiddler on the Roof at Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham
Starting this year's support/ enjoyment of the arts with an awesome performance of Fiddler on the Roof, a musical I have actually managed not to see before now (no, not even the film). High quality all round.
Honestly, think it's brilliant that you've become boring middle aged cooking Dad!
Dad got one - very pleased he is with it too!
This one is interesting...
