Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour

So here are the headlines: I love him. But I don't want to shag him.

It was fab, wasn't it? I was deeply freaked out by the last few seconds of last season's finale, but with hindsight I defy anyone to step into the clothes of a dead David Tennant and say "We're crashing. Geronimo!" in any way convincingly. As it turns out, Matt Smith is brilliant and - hurrah - it looks like the 11th Doctor is going to be deeply, deeply weird. I am taking the fishfingers and custard combo as a very firm statement of intent. Am super-pleased about this: the Doctor is an alien after all, and the 10th incumbent did spend a bit too much time making dreamy speeches about how bloody brilliant humans are (open a newspaper, Doctor. We aint that great.) MS is at his best doing odd doc, which suits his odd looks, and slightly less convincing in what I'd call the DT scenes ie sudden moments of soulful introspection.

And how do I love thee, new Tardis. So many whistles and bells! Actual whistles and bells! And that typewriter! And the concierge bell! Did I mention bell? Yes, the Tardis has been reborn as a Heath Robinson collage of weirdness reflecting the inside of its owner's mind. There's been mention of a library and a swimming pool, and this is just a personal thing, but all through the RTD era I have been desperate to see more of the Tardis's interior beyond the console room and I am very, very excited to think that I might finally get my wish. I might not. But I might. Meanwhile the Tardis has a proper personality, a very sexy personality as the Doc himself said. I might fancy the Tardis more than I fancy the Doctor.

Speaking of fanciability, I doubt very much that many of the men (or lesbians) watching will have been disappointed by new companion, kissogram (ahem) Amy Pond. Start with a looker and then put her into a fake policewoman uniform complete with micro-mini and seamed stockings. I hope my brother was watching (were you, Bro?) I am proud of myself for having spotted that that radio was plastic, duh. I was possibly less distracted than some might have been by other aforementioned aspects of aforementioned outfit.

New New Who also impressed by casting people who could actually act in all the supporting roles - as well as Karen Gillan, who is totally convincing and pleasingly bonkers as Amy, there's junior Amy Pond (a child who can act! I predict great things for Caitlin Blackwood, who apparently got the part on the strength of being Gillan's cousin), Amy's slightly wet boyfriend Rory the nurse (way more convincing than Metal Mickey), some old lady, some bloke called Jeff, I mean this is exciting stuff! All this and a minor role for Olivia Coleman. Truly my cup (Doctor Who-branded official Tardis-shaped cup) overfloweth.

Hated the theme tune. Moving on.

The plot was... fine. Functional, better than functional, but not a classic. Who cares? There was a lot of introducing to do. I did like the slight Time Traveller's Wifeyness of the Doc appearing and disappearing in Amy's life. Moffat is clearly a fan of the Time Traveller's Wife, judging by the, shall we say, homage of Girl in the Fireplace (which is itself referenced in Niffenegger's follow-up novel, so we can assume all is forgiven.) Amy dumping her wedding to take off across the stars with the Doc was also a nice move. What do we think, people? Was she marrying Rory, or Jeff? Looking forward to returning to that storyline. Also, at some point next season there's bound to be a two docs episode, and I wonder if the libidinous Doctor 10 will be rather jealous of Doctor 11's pulchritudinous companion. Ooh. Some 10 and Pond flirting. And 11 getting jealous. I like the thought of that.

So a bucketload of squee from the Talk Too Much jury and very much looking forward to the rest of the series.

Placeholder Post

So, new Doctor Who: I absolutely...

...have to go away from my computer for a few days. Full report on Who when I get back. Expect at least an entire paragraph just about the new-look Tardis.

Meanwhile, Happy Easter. Don't do that thing of eating chocolate just before you go to bed so that when you brush your teeth the spit is brown. Just me? Oh.

Marie, why aren't you blogging that much these days?

Because my second novel is bleeding my creativity dry. In a nice way. Like a friendly vampire.

But also because I've been moonlighting. You can find me guest posting over at Facegoop, the internet's newest and best makeup and products website in which we can eavesdrop as two fabulous women, one of whom is aka the splendide Belgian Waffling, talk to each other about smearing Chilean snail slime on their faces (actual example). My post was about Nuxe lip balm and I will soon be updating as I try the brand new Rouge Charismatic colour and discover that it has literally doubled my charisma with one application.

You should be reading Facegoop every day even if you don't wear make-up. You really should.

Music Monday

Woke up this morning feeling as if I had barely slept, after a particularly egregious "I have to do my A levels again" dream, which I am now having a couple of times a week. Every time it is exhausting as I explain that I've already done my A levels and have been to university twice, so surely I don't actually have to do them again, and this is just like that dream where I have to do my A levels again. A brief stand back from my life reveals that it is in fact an awful lot like having to do my A levels over and over (second novel syndrome anyone?) so I suppose it isn't that surprising. More surprising was the friend who recently revealed that she too has the dream about having to do her A levels again, only she never actually did A levels.

On the theme of revisiting childhood, this week's Music Monday is Shirley Ellis performing The Clapping Song with some fabulous 1960s Breton top-wearing backing dancers. Shirley's dancing is slightly less enthusiastic...

Music Monday

Did you think I had forgotten? I had not forgotten. I did, however, spend this morning looking after my four-year-old nephew, who, while behaving angelically, is nevertheless a four year old nephew, therefore finding time to breathe started to look like a stretch. But I am here now.

I have spent the last few days pruning my iTunes and have noticed a few things. Things like:

- thanks to (the fabulous) Songlines Magazine I have a gigantic World Music collection that I mostly uploaded onto my iTunes without listening to first. I have now listened to it all. I adore most of it. I really, really don't adore some of it. Some of it sounds like people tuning their instruments, doing the washing up, and wailing from toothache all at the same time. But I love most of the African, the South American, the Caribbean, the folk and the klezmer (I seem to have more klezmer music than someone who's only slightly Jewish, and the wrong kind of Jewish at that, could ever require.) I do not like the sitar music and anything with that loud reedy wind thing in it (Turkish?) Much World Music rap makes my ears bleed. The extra free CD of South African music from a year or two ago is brilliant. The extra free CD of Danish music is not. Sorry, Denmark.

- I don't 80s funk any more.

- Ditto Acid Jazz.

- I still feel bad about buying the substandard Kristen Hirsch solo CD I've been trying to like for fifteen years. And the rubbish Beck album which managed to be the only one I own - and all the others are good. And that Jimi Tenor one I got because my boyfriend liked it. I didn't. £10 that I spent in the year 2000 and still it haunts me.

Not all Jimi Tenor is bad though. Here's 'Sugardaddy'. No video. Just listen to it through your headphones. It is as good as an autobiographical song about being a Finnish male prostitute can be.

The Little Dog Laughed - but did I?

Remember when those lovely people at Arthur Leone PR gave me tickets for Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage, and all I had to do in return was pen my thoughts on it for this here blog? And remember how I did pen my thoughts on it for this here blog? Well, they've done it again. Last night I and a distinguished older gentleman who may or may not have been my father (I mean, I know whether or not he was my father, as does he, but I'm keeping him anonymous for the purposes of this review) were the guests of Arthur Leone PR at 'The Little Dog Laughed'. I can only assume one of the following:

- The people at Arthur Leone PR have very short memories;
- The people at Arthur Leone PR never actually read my review of Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story On Stage;
- The people at Arthur Leone PR are very confident about the quality of The Little Dog Laughed;
or
- The people at Arthur Leone PR are of the belief that all publicity is good publicity.

Let's find out, shall we?

Weeeeeeeeell... Oh I can't be bothered to draw out the suspense. It was brilliant.

The Little Dog Laughed is the story of a Hollywood Agent, Diane (Tamsin Grieg) who wants to score a lead role for her client, Mitchell (Rupert Friend) in the film adaptation of a hot new Broadway play. The only catch is that the role is of a gay man... and Mitchell is gay. Doesn't sound like a problem? In Hollywood it is. "If a perceived straight actor portrays a gay role in a feature film, it’s noble. It’s a stretch. It’s the pretty lady putting on the fake nose and winning an Oscar. If an actor with a ’friend’ plays a gay role it’s not acting, it’s bragging." So says Diane, a lesbian herself, who is determined to keep Mitchell firmly in the closet. But things get complicated when Mitchell falls in love with rent boy Alex (Harry Lloyd, channeling a young John Barrowman in this performance). Alex isn't gay - he's got a girlfriend to prove it (Gemma Arterton.) But then Alex finds himself enjoying Mitchell's company more than he expected...

The jewel in the crown of this production is Tamsin Grieg, who despite taking the role of cold, Machiavellian Diane, hams it up with gleeful hilarity, pulling the audience in with her from the very first words. It's almost a pantomime villain role and Grieg is fantastically over the top with it, ensuring that for all the dark twists the story takes, we never lose sight of the fun. Friend, Lloyd and Arterton are less experienced stage performers and suffer a little in comparison - Friend a little hyperactive, Arterton a little difficult to believe in - but they're still solid enough, and all stunning eye candy to look at. We get to look at them an awful lot, and it would be dishonest of me not to mention quite how much I enjoyed the fact that Friend and Lloyd spend much of the play showing off their perfect bodies in very small, tight underpants, and once without even those. I am so glad I went with a distinguished older gentleman who may or may not be my father. (Distinguished gentlemen and lesbians of all ages can enjoy eyeing the beautiful Arterton, and Grieg for that matter, though neither are quite as scantily-clad, so it's equal-opportunities ogling.)

Great performances aside, it's a sharp, funny script by Douglas Carter Beane with plenty of quotable lines ("Give a writer final cut? I'd sooner give firearms to small children"), snappily directed by Jamie Lloyd, and though some reviews have dismissed it as inconsequential, I'd say that the issue of gay actors not being able to come out in Hollywood is important - as with football and the American military, it's wrong when any profession forces people to live a lie. The programme quotes Rupert Everett, one of Hollywood's few openly gay stars, rarely cast in straight roles and lately reduced to a drag part in St Trinians, saying "I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out... the fact of the matter is, and I don't care who disagrees, it doesn't work if you're gay." Or as the play puts it, "Are you British? Do you have a knighthood? Then shut up."

The Little Dog Laughs is not on for long - it closes on April 10th - so if you fancy a joyfully entertaining night out I would advise that you book straight away.

Music Monday

It's a new feature. Completely different from Big Mouth's Song for Sunday. Because it's Monday, innit.

You know this one already, but it's what I had going round my head walking into work this morning. Unusual choice for a Monday morning maybe, but it's a beautiful day and I love my new office and the book is going well, so here it is. I think Tamara Connolly has done a lovely job making a video for it too.

Nina Simone, Feeling Good:

Weeks later...

...and I'm still obsessed with this:



I'm so up to date. In about two months I'll blog about how cool it was that The Hurt Locker swept the board at the Oscars.

Most disingenuous advert ever:

The 8-second demo for Internet 8 where the man says that if you are shopping for an anniversary present for your wife, you can switch to keeping your browser history secret, so she'll never find out.

Yes. That's the web browsing men want to keep secret from their wives. The fact that they're shopping for jewellery for them.

In which it doesn't rain and everything goes back to normal.

I have a guilty secret - well, I have a few guilty secrets, let's not go into them all. The one I am going to reveal today is that pretty much every Sunday night I watch Lark Rise to Candleford.

Lark Rise, for those unacquainted with it, is an Edwardian-era costume drama of such surpassing gentleness that the experience of watching it is like lying in a bath of cotton wool being fed candyfloss by your grandmother. It makes Cranford look like The Wire. If that doesn't sound like a good thing, that's because I am not quite sure it is a good thing. And yet I watch it, every week.

Lark Rise is a show in which nothing happens, set in a sepia-tinted corner of the West Country* in which it never rains. In fact, were it to rain in Lark Rise, that would be an episode's-worth of drama all in itself, as the yokels of Candleford come out of their picturesque hovels to stare in awe at the water coming down, and a mysterious umbrella-seller comes to town and flirts with Dorcas the postmistress to the envy of Miss Pratt, and at the end of the episode it stops raining and the umbrella-seller leaves and everything goes back to normal because everything always goes back to normal at the end of Lark Rise to Candleford.

Think I'm exaggerating? Here is a list of everything that happened - and I use the word "happened" loosely - in last night's episode of Lark Rise.

1. Daniel and Thomas (two adult men) got competitive over a game of conkers.
2. Thomas bought his wife some new wool underwear, but it was itchy.
3. A new seamstress came to town and scandalised the locals by wearing trousers. She then left town again and moved to America.
4. A goose came to town. Sydney (a child) got emotionally attached to the goose. The goose then left town again, possibly to move to America (not specified).
5. Laura and Minnie (two adult women) used numerology to try to figure out how suited they were to their menfolk.
6. Dorcas got a new stove. It didn't work.
7. It didn't rain.
8. Everything went back to normal.

I once heard that looking at penguins is as effective as taking Prozac for warding off depression. In which case looking at Lark Rise to Candleford is like taking Valium. I suspect that I will be watching again next week. Laura's mother is getting a job as a teacher. It won't rain.

*I stand corrected. North Oxfordshire, apparently - thank you, Baroness Black - but if you are guessing from the accents you might think otherwise. Or for that matter "otherwoise".