14 Aug 2012

The Blue Dot Cafe

The latest development in my reluctant engagement with technology

I set up this blogsite thing almost two years ago. In my first post, I said something to the effect that I wasn’t entirely sure I belonged in the blogosphere (is that where we are? In fact, I do quite like it here), and that I didn’t anticipate becoming a regular blogger. Well, on that point, I can only wish there were more areas of life in which I could be proved so outstandingly right!

Having succeeded beyond my wildest dreams at becoming a barely contributing blogger, I think it’s time to take the next step, and become an equally rare podcaster.

I wasn’t actually looking for a reason to enter this field; there are quite enough of the things to be going on with, I’d have thought. But I’ve been daydreaming recently about the sort of place I’d like to hang out (and the sort of people I’d like to hang out with) if it existed, and the idea grew from there. Until it somehow formed itself as an occasional arts-themed audio podcast.

So, I’ve spent the last few days making a pilot - not for wide circulation on podhosting sites (imagine me even knowing a term like that!), but to sit calmly here in the hope you’ll listen to it and – most importantly – tell me what you think.

Here it is:

Blue Dot Cafe Pilot

Please click and listen.

(maybe open it in a new window so you can continue reading the rest of this page)

What do you think?

Do you like the idea? How do you think it might develop from here? Is my technical quality acceptable? I had a few issues with it, some of which I can overcome next time, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard worse than this. Or, maybe my crisp master copy will deteriorate when it gets transferred here? I know you can hear quite a lot of the edits (or is that just me hearing where I know they are?), but it’s my first project and I have faith that I’ll improve with experience – the last time I edited audio was with a block and a razor blade. It was quicker.

Younger readers may need to research this reference.

Are you involved with, or an admirer of, the arts? What do you think should be included in later editions? Is there anything you’d like to contribute? Don’t hold back!

Are you a podcaster? What important consideration have I naively overlooked?

PLEASE let me know what you think, either by commenting on this post, or by emailing me at bluedotcafe@london.com

And, if you think it’s any good, do invite others to come here and give it a listen too, if you think they might enjoy it. The more the merrier.

Many, many thanks to all who assisted me with this ( I think you’ve all been tagged in this post). And particular thanks to Ann Druyan, President of the Carl Sagan Foundation (www.carlsagan.com). My spirits have been uplifted by the positive response I’ve had from everyone I approached. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that every response I’ve had has been positive; two or three people haven’t replied to my messages yet, but I’m hopeful they will, before I go ‘live’ with this thing (if I go ‘live’ with this thing).

A couple of things you might also like to know:

My guest, Ben Mars, has appeared in numerous British TV productions. American visitors may also have seen him as the guy fishing strange things out of a river in the Mike’s Hard Lemonade TV ads.

The bands you heard are both on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/deadamble?ref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Jellybean-Rebellion/135869124262

The Jellybean Rebellion’s single A Little Bit Indie / Hold On can be downloaded from:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/a-little-bit-indie/id531394345?i=531395080&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

There. A new blog post AND a podcast in embryo, What could be more 21^st Century than that?

Posted in Acting, Being Alive, Blue Dot Cafe, Comedy, Podcast and tagged A Little Bit Indie, Acting, Actors, Ann Druyan, Arts Podcast, Audition, Barry Castagnola, Ben Mars, Blue Dot Cafe, Carl Sagan, David Hardcastle, Dead Amble, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Festival 2012, Free Festival, Free Fringe, Holly Burn, Mark Simmons, Pale Blue Dot, Pilot, Podcast, Podcasting, Rosalind Adler, Tennessee Honey, The Arts, The Carl Sagan Foundation, The Jellybean Rebellion, Tim Shishodia | Leave a Comment

30 Jun 2012

Happy School Days

So, that’s The History Boys done, then. For now, anyway. There have been enigmatic mutterings… That is all I can say… It is all I know.

The preparation I mentioned in my last post did pay off, I think. The project was intensive and hard work, but enormously rewarding. I had the joy of working with a great cast on a great play. For several of “the boys”, this was their first professional engagement, and it was an honour to share that experience with them. I look forward with excitement to watching their undoubtedly glorious careers blooming from this point forward.

Personally, the thrill was to find that a wish list role was within my ability. There have been a few nice comments in online reviews, which modesty, of course, forbids my posting here. The short but vital experience of this job has left me with new friends and many happy memories. Here are some of them:

Posted in Acting, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

10 Jun 2012

1 Comment

An Actor Prepares and all that

When you find yourself in heated discussions about whether to say “isn’t” or “is not”, when you anguish about whether to stand or sit or walk in a circle, when you take a stand about whether you have or haven’t seen something that’s just happened inches in front of you… you’d better hope you’re in a rehearsal room because if you’re not, you may need a nice lie down.

I’ve spent the last week rehearsing the role of Hector in Alan Bennett’s modern classic, THE HISTORY BOYS, which opens at the Greenwich Theatre a week tomorrow (yikes!). That’s Monday 18th til Sunday 24th June (10 performances in 7 days – more info at www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk ) and I couldn’t be enjoying it more.

It’s a short run with a short rehearsal period, and it’s shaping up really nicely. The cast are great, and the writing… oh, the writing!

Happily, this casting was confirmed a few weeks before rehearsals began, so I was able to spend a bit of time in the sunshine (remember the sunshine?) getting to grips with the lines and learning a bit about the character I’m playing.

If you’ve seen other pages on this blog thing, you’ll know that I’m a lover of poetry. But not a well informed one. Nothing like Hector. The man’s a cultural oracle! He speaks largely in quotes and references, so preparing for this play has been a little like swotting for ‘A’ Levels. But in a good way.

On which point, incidentally, I now realise why I was such a thicky at school all those years ago – no Google! How I wish I could have had the facility to type “Larkin unspent” into a search engine and immediately discover the poem “I Remember, I Remember”. No, I’m not going to reproduce it for you here – go search!

Another reason I underachieved, I think – and I’ve always been resentful of this – is that I had no Hector at my school. Someone who engages his pupils and makes them WANT to learn. I wonder if anyone ever did have as Hector a Hector as Hector, to be honest – and if you’re familiar with the play, you’ll know there’s a darker side to him too, which creates a brilliant theatrical dilemma when deciding how the audience feels about the character.

But back to the research. I have really enjoyed unpicking Mr Bennett’s intricate needlework; I have revisited the works of WH Auden, AE Housman, Larkin, Coleridge, Kipling… read passages from the Bible and dusted off my prized hardback edition of The Wind In The Willows, which my father took a good deal of convincing to pay a whole guinea for when I was 11. That’s £1.05p, kids. The equivalent of more than 4 months pocket money at the time.

I even found myself, on a recent trip to Belgium, sitting in this War Cemetery in Ypres for a reflective hour, reading the poetry of Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and others.

I’d love to tell you that was an exercise in Method Acting or something, but the truth is, I was in Belgium buying cheap fags anyway. Which doesn’t change the fact that I often have a pensive moment somewhere in Flanders whenever I go there.

How much a moment like that affects the performance is difficult to gauge, of course, but it is certainly the sort of thing Hector would do; it provides a useful picture in my head in a particular scene, but perhaps most valuably, I found it personally moving to see those regiments of gravestones, most of which acknowledge merely “A soldier of the Great War” or “A Lance Corporal of the Great war”, with the addition “known unto God”.

I stood at the end of a line of stones and it seemed to stretch forever. I briefly imagined that line as so many young men in their late teens and early twenties, then looked around me, at what was actually a pretty small War Cemetery. Why, there was probably only about a thousand people buried there.

As I wandered among the stones, a very touching thing happened. Three noisy schoolboys were laughing together as they walked home on the other side of the low wall between the cemetery and the street. They saw me and immediately quietened down. They continued their joke as they walked by, but in hushed voices. As a mark of respect, I assume. I don’t want to say that wouldn’t happen in the UK. I don’t want to say that.

Hector’s boys would have done the same, of course. They are lively, funny, bright, clowning kids on the threshold of the rest of their lives, but Hector has also contributed to the development of their sensitivity and humanity.

THE BOYS – clockwise from left: Lawrence Murphy, Adam Lawrence, Shamir Dawood, Alasdair Hankinson, David Ellis, Chris Aukett, Andrew Chase & Joe Morrow

You really should come to see this play if you possibly can. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s thought provoking. And it’s only on for a week – get booking!

Here’s a little trailer the company has put on YouTube. I’m not in it, but it gives a flavour of the hijinks we’ve been enjoying this week.

Posted in Acting and tagged Adam Lawrence, Alan Bennett, Alasdair Hankinson, Andrew Chase, Chris Aukett, David Ellis, Greenwich Theatre, History Boys, Joe Morrow, Lawrence Murphy, Poetry, Shamir Dawood, War Poets, Ypres

13 Jan 2012

Blogging with not much to say

This is not a new year’s resolution

It’s just a coincidence that I’ve returned to this blog in early January, OK? I’m not promising myself a blog a day for 2012 or any of that nonsense. I just got a bit distracted after my last post and haven’t had the time to tell you anything about my fantastically interesting life. I don’t think six months between posts is unreasonable.

The Edinburgh Festival was a blast. I performed and drank and laughed and tired myself out. Then I was in an amazing “immersive theatre” show at the Pleasance, Islington, called OFFICE PARTY. It was my happiest acting job so far. And then it was Christmas.

And here we are. The new year has begun and… er, well, that’s it, really.

It’s not that I haven’t had things to tell you in the last six months. I have. Loads of things.

Four of us got locked inside the flat we were sharing in Edinburgh, for example, and the police had to rescue us at 3am. That was an adventure.

We saw a very serious political discussion on TV late one night and everyone in it was wearing Hawaiian shirts and drinking from coconuts. We never discovered why.

Someone left me a message on my phone saying “I worry about you. Which is nice. Because I could just not give a shit”. It was a wrong number.

So yeah… loads of things happened. But I was too busy living to sit down and write about them. Sorry. And now I do have the time, the only exciting thing I can think of is the afternoon when I found myself playing musical chairs with Libby Purves. But I’m no name dropper, so I’ll leave that one there.

Happy new year, then. I hope it’s going to be a great one for you, even if you do give a damn about the wretched Olympics. I have no idea what the year will bring. I feel great optimism, but that’s pretty much a default setting. My life would be much easier if I could just shake off this bloody optimism.

Hope you like the new look site, and I’ll try to find something interesting to say before the summer.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

31 Jul 2011

1 Comment

Another suitcase in another sprawl

It’s the 31^st July. An occasionally sunny Sunday in Gravesend. Johnny Walker’s Sounds of The 70’s is on Radio Two. Life would be insuperably wonderful but for one thing. I can’t get my suitcase to shut.

It’s the day before I travel to Edinburgh for a month at the festival, and suddenly everything is urgent. And my suitcase won’t close.

In mitigation, most of it is props and performance clothes; I’ll be performing my own solo show and acting in a play in which I seem to have more costume changes than a Cher concert. But I’m pathologically rubbish at travelling light anyway. Tomorrow is going to be a travel nightmare!

The first few days are going to be stressful. Did my posters arrive at the venue? Have we sorted out all the props for the play? Can we get a line-run organised before the technical rehearsal? I thought this road would lead to the road I want to be on, but I’ve been walking uphill on cobbles for an hour and I’m lost… And on and on. Yet, I am SO looking forward to the festival this year. It’ll be the first time I’ve performed there since 2008, when I shared two stand-up shows a day with another act. This will be my first time with a solo show. And my first stage play for rather longer than I’m proud of.

I’m looking forward to seeing comedy pals from around the country, who I don’t get to hang out with on a regular basis. I’m looking forward to performing, both the shows and various spots around town at all times of the day and night. I’m looking forward to being tired and irritable and homesick… and then suddenly not being any more just because someone said something which could only ever be funny to those of us living through the experience that is “a performer’s Edinburgh Fringe”.

I’ve already proved that I’m not much of a blogger, but if I get the chance to report a few stories from the Front, I will do. Otherwise, if you’re going to be in Edinburgh in August, do come to the shows – they’re both free to get into (we can discuss a leaving fee later), and details are on my ‘Forthcoming Gigs’ page. And if you do come, be sure to say hello afterwards, won’t you.

Now… back to that that suitcase…

Posted in Edinburgh Fringe 2011

24 Jul 2011

2 Comments

TwitterQuest Concludes

So long and thanks for all the phish

It had been going quite well recently. I’d incorporated TwitterQuest into the stand-up show I’ve been previewing for the Edinburgh Festival, which had generated quite a few new followers. After just seven months (not eight, as I mistakenly told the world just now… read on; I’ll explain), I had peaked at 2,287 Silent Witnesses. I was looking forward to seeing how many more I might accrue during the festival next month.

After a happy spot at a gig last night, compere Lewis Bryan (@lewisbryan) had kindly, and unasked, told the audience they really ought to find me on Twitter and follow me. They’d see why when they found my profile, he said. When I turned on my computer an hour or so ago, I was thrilled to see a couple of them actually had.

I went to the site and… HORROR!!! I saw this:

David_JosephDavid

@@richardrycroft WHAAAAAAAAATTT??? You only tweeted! The world will surely end today!!!!!!!

I looked at the top of the page and saw the words:

YOUR TWEETS: 1

What?! How could this be? Could I have sent a tweet without realising? Was this the onset of dementia? Perhaps I sleep-tweeted?

No, the answer is simpler and more 21st Century than that. My account has been hacked. Someone today has sent this, in my name, to over 2,000 people:

richardrycroftRichard Rycroft

A Real Diet, that Really Works! http://

Yes, I’ve deleted the address. I’m not giving them another chance to profit from me.

My apologies, of course, to everyone who received it. I suppose there’s an irony that the spam should have been advertising a diet. One person, a couple of months ago, did try to get me to tweet by sending a series of incredibly rude messages about what a “fat, ugly c***” I am, so maybe he’ll see this as a victory.

But I’m rather sad that it should have ended this way. I’ve been publicly quiet, but privately, I’ve enjoyed exchanging messages with a few of the people who signed up to this nonsense and seemed to enjoy the ridiculousness of it as much as I have. One person has regularly checked in to ask how it’s going, and to encourage me to continue doing nothing! Others, such as the brilliant comedian, James Acaster (@JamesAcaster) would occasionally taunt me with:

JamesAcasterJames Acaster

@richardrycroft tweet me back

and

JamesAcasterJames Acaster

@richardrycroft RYCROFT!!! COME ON!!!!

Ah… happy days…

Well, the silence has been broken, so TwitterQuest must end. It took me a few minutes to even work out how to do this, but about 20 minutes after the “spam diet” tweet, I finally sent my first actual one:

richardrycroftRichard Rycroft

Dammit. Not only have I been hacked, I’ve had to find out how to send a tweet. Game’s over. Thanks to everyone for joining in. It was fun x

Even by then, my followers had dropped by about 30, and I absolutely agree with their actions. More have left since then, and I suspect I may now be watching the numbers fall with the same fascination which grabbed me while watching them rise.

I’ve received a wonderful series of messages from other people today, which prompted my next tweet, a two-parter because I haven’t mastered this 40 character thing yet; I’m very new to all this:

richardrycroftRichard Rycroft

Thanks for the suggestions of deleting it – didn’t know you could do that – but it wouldn’t be honest. I peaked at 2,287 after 8 months…

richardrycroftRichard Rycroft

… Many have left since the tweet. I’ll decide this week whether to delete the account
or actually use it for tweeting.

So, thank you for all the support; followers, RT-ers, ff-ers (see how I’ve picked up the lingo!) and others. Particularly those who took the trouble to sign up to Twitter just to follow me! It really was ridiculously enjoyable while it lasted. I can’t explain why, and that was part of its joy. If you want to stop following me now, I’ll completely understand. If you’d like to stay, you’d be more than welcome to do so. I can’t imagine I’ll be using Twitter very much anyway, so it’ll still be a semi-silence.

In the next few days, I’ll either set up a new account and tell everyone what that’s called, or I may just stick with this one and see what happens, so long as I don’t get hacked again, of course.

Just for fun, here’s my “Mentions” page from the time of the spam tweet until just before I posted this up: