A night out at the theatre

It's been a crazy three days for me with meetings in Manchester and London, but Sue and I took a bit of time out last night and went to see the Producers at Derby Theatre. It was a production by one of the many talented local amateur groups in Derby (in this case DOC) and it was absolutely fantastic!

Anyone who knows me is already well aware that my knowledge of musicals is surprisingly lacking, so there'll be no amazement at all that I had never heard of the Producers and knew nothing about it at all. When my work colleague Joe commented that the highkicking stormtrooper sequence was great fun, I thought that he was pulling my leg. But no, there they were goose stepping with gay abandon.

If you know nothing about the show and want to see it, my first recommendation would be to get along to Derby Theatre quickly and enjoy their high octane romp. If you can't manage that, I found this DVD version on Amazon




I've watched films by Mel Brooks and always found them funny, but hadn't realised that this talent extended to the stage like this. Almost all of the songs feel like you know them when they start. And the delivery from the guys in DOC was brilliant. With the most risque cliches imaginable and plenty of humour that you feel slightly naughty for enjoying quite as much as you do, the show was fun from start to end.

For us it was a really welcome break from a crazy couple of weeks at work. Go on, give it a go!

Dr Who June 4th - Episode 7

What is the world coming to? You have one week away on holiday, come back to 384 emails at work and then discover that after just 7 episodes the current series of Dr Who is over and we have to wait until the Autumn to find out more.

Was it a great episode? No I didn't think it was really. It had what appears to be the current series climax aproach of bringing back a range of aliens that we've seen and this time around they were all working with the Dr to fight the humans. We also had the warrior human from the Gamma Forest who had met the Dr; I'm guessing that must be in the Dr's future as I don't remember the gamma forest - should I? She was nice, but died.

And the great unveiling at the end where we discover that River Song is in fact Melody Pond, daughter of Amy and Rory (the obviously fully functioning robot) with a bit of time matrix thrown in for good measure. And so much better looking than either of her parents (which means that there is hope for Dan yet!).

So the Dr has zipped off somewhere again to find where baby Melody is and he's left everyone else behind on a space ship that's a long way away from anywhere with a bunch of dead headless monks, but that's ok because River can take them home again.

I commented after last week's episode that I needed to watch it again to work out what had gone on. This week I think that I need to watch the whole series so far again to work out what has gone on. And the sad thing is that I don't know if I am really interested enough to bother with it.

Has the gloss gone from Dr Who?

All these unanswered questions this time around?

Is the Dr dead, or was that a flesh version?
Who was inside the alien spacesuit?
Where is the gamma forest?
And why have they decided that the Dr is a warrior not a healer?

Beats me.

May 28th episode 6

It's amazing really how much I missed being able to access the internet last week after we had watched Dr Who. Sue says it's a sign of how sad I am in wanting to be able to sit and play on the computer rather than talk to her - but since my elder brother and his wife appear to communicate mainly through facebook, I'm not going to worry too much!

Just in case you hadn't twigged we had a great week away for half term in Horning and, although there was zero mobile connectivity, there was a TV so we did get to watch the episode (although I do feel that I need to watch it again to work out some of the subtleties).

I liked the flesh as aliens go and thought it was good to see the developing relationships and approaches of the different gangers and originals. I thought that the pile of dying flesh to persuade Rory was a good touch, although I was disappointed at how easily he was persuaded against the Doctor - maybe there's some sort of conflict there?

The final scene in the Tardis as the Dr revealed that Amy wasn't Amy but was in fact an Amy ganger who was still linked with Amy (at least I think that was what they said) was great fun. Let's go rescue her...

(I really do need to watch this episode again!)