Aw, I Love Acting!

A thank you to Charles Hutchinson (yes, the same chap that brutally panned Mother Courage) for reserving a few little lines for me in his Evening Press review of the Studio production I recently did:

"Allotments ... unearths a comic talent of the future in James Swanton. Watch him blossom. It's all in the voice..."

Yeah... There's probably a slightly higher gauge of being laughed at than laughing with. And that lugubrious voice that's doomed me to character parts (or alternately crumbs) is NOT MY FAULT, by crimmeny! At least the Theatre Royal didn't supply them an image of me in costume. I mean, which one to pick? The swishy pinstripe suit (good!), the circus clown gear with the six foot shoes, rainbow wig and squeaking horn accessory (bad...), the two drag outfits (ugly, ugly, and most ugliest ugly) or the old man getup (predictable... and ugly)? But yes... it's nice to be acknowledged now and then.

Allotments was an odd play though. It had no storyline, for one thing. There was choral speaking aplenty (shudder), but, funnily enough, it didn't sound like total crap. Some female madman supplied me with fifteen jars of real jam to carry onstage (a dreadful waste - and it all went off on the last night). We were forced to listen to The Rat Pack pounding away in the background as we made costume changes. It was fun, in that slightly sick, twisted way, but not a very satisfying production and it left every little room to think. Nevermind that it came just before the mock exams.

Yet, fun it remained! You can't afford to have any dignity about drama at this age, which offers great freedom! No use getting all hoity-toity until you've built up a worthwhile reputation, which is rather difficult unless you're a talentless pudding of drug-induced hatred and happen to be called Daniel Radcliffe. I will take every single script that comes my way and enjoy it thoroughly! 'Cause at the end of the day, acting is simply an acceptable form of showing off. And that's why it appeals to so many people. You get to keep your soul and reputation (until you're forced into drag... twice), and get rid of all the egotistical, pompous, arrogant vibes onstage. Huzzah!

Also: Boris Karloff is the greatest actor of all time and I will KILL all who defy me.

The Fully Revised and Expanded... HATE LIST!

Ta-daa! We're back! As the past few months have drifted by, my hackles have been raised by a veritable plethora of idiotic human behaviour. So I decided to squeeze my anger into a bitter little ball and release it as a convenient public explosion. Enjoy! Apologies if your name isn't on here. I'm sure you'll understand.

1. Pre-exam intimidation. Common practices include relaying a long list of complex facts you haven't learnt, informing people how long you've been revising for, or prodding them with a sharpened pencil.
2. Post-exam intimidation. Common practices include stating just how easy the test was, going into mass detail about the answer you gave to a particular question, and the sharpening of further pencils.
3. Atheists celebrating Christmas. C'mon people - hop on the Methodist bandwagon!
4. The metric system. Still.
5. Oh, God, yes. How I hate it.
6. Stealing souls. It happens.
7. Lickspittling... Is that a word? I know that spittle is, and as for the lick, I... Oh, well.
8. Tainted holy water.
9. Comparing poetry. 'Nuff said.
10. The LRC's flimsy regulatory system.
11. People who are endlessly critical and negative without being the least bit stylish or amusing, dammit.
12. The people who didn't set up the Stephen Fry Appreciation Club. How dare they!
13. People smearing the handle to the boy's toilets with urine and excrement as they leave. I have been forced to invent a token electrised hooking device to prise the battered piece of wood away from the threshold. If it breaks, I'm trapped forever.
14. Baked bean skins.
15. The slackers who presented that cut price DVD edition of Dracula (1931). You can see evidence of ghosting and print artefacts at 48:13:39! I sleep with the lights on now.
16. Clocks with minute hands.
17. Football on every contemptible, oozing level.
18. People who pretend to like football to "get in on the crowd." In fact, people who conform to mainstream society out of sheer laziness and fear. It is sickening.
19. People who rant on about the evils of mainstream society. The only ones who have a right to comment on mainstream society are those taht belong to it, but they never seem to put aside the time to do it with any precision, depth or credibility. Tells you something right there.
20. You getting any of this?
21. Self-awareness. Or, rather being aware of self-awareness. We can all smell it. like truffle hounds. Minus the truffle. As it were.
22. Ikea plates and shoes and socks and pans and chairs and tables and microwaves and aboriginal slave children and pencil holders and staplers and carpeting and toupees and...
23. Hair extensions. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
24. Going into the Product Design workshop. Look, there's no oxygen and everything smells like sawdust. Happy?
25. Ignorance in the face of overwhelming geekery.
26. ... and marzipan and webcams and eraser pens and rubber stamps and postage stamps and boot polish and commemorative plates and space probes and...
27. People who take it Art 'cause they think it's easy. Then they retreat to the Apple computers when they realise they have to hold a pencial the correct way up.
28. Those that use the Apple computers who aren't ME. Back off, pal! They're MINE.
29. A lack of talent!
30. David Attenborough's insulting remarks about the head shapes of Alaskan Timbre Wolves (or whatever the hell they were called).
31. Swearing out of context. It's laziness, I tell you, pure fucking laziness!
32. People who replace a random word in a sentence with the word "pants."
33. Having to get up every single morning to adjust my pants.
34. Feeling the need to work a joke into every single line of a pointless list.
35. Why am I writing this?
36. Oh, Lord, I have no life!
37. I guess I just got sick of lengthy philosophical diatribes.
38. Yeah, I agree with you.
39. Who the hell asked you? Back off, loser!
40. Schizophrenia. Now, back to the conversation.
41. You don't accept me because of my club foot. I'm leaving, Harold!
42. Oh, Luanne, I fell in love with you for the sake of you! Not your repulsive club foot!
43. You're just making it worse for yourself. That's all it is these days - sex-sex-sex, career-career-career.
44. American sitcoms. Do they work on any level? Methinks not. they embody all that is wrong with our culture.
45. Whiny, pathetic cry-babies who trade off on their physical appearance as a means of drawing attention and popularity.
46. Pop-u-lar. Yer gonna be pop-u-lar. You'll hang with the right cohorts, you'll be good at sports, learn the slang you've got to kno-oo-oo-oow.... Yep. That song.
47. Grease. Don't get me started.
48. The day that Lauren met Kelly Clarkson. And bonded, never to separate.
49. James Davis. Yeah, I said Davis...
50. (I really meant Davies. Principally, the hair, and the birdhouse imprisoned within the hair).