Just a Short One: Wrasslin' by Anthony Schrag

Anthony Schrag: Wrasslin'

Imagine my surprise when going through one of my wrestling forums I find a thread on an artistic endevour. Wrestling for me is a guilty little pleasure and I have been a fan for years, enjoying the pageantry and blatantly overblown theatrics involved in the psuedo sport, however I was very surprised to read of a Performance Artist who was taking the subect of Wrestling on with his own bare hands. As talked about in the page at the link above Anthony Schrag was going to be available to be wailed upon, stretched, slammed and pinned for one round by anyone who so wished to have a go. He set up his little tent in Margate on the seafront with the aim of allowing people to 'Sweat and Smile' and to explore the level of teamwork and trust between two people who are opponents.

Whats so interesting to me about this? Well its probably the fact that this is a great example of both old school theatre/music hall and old school wrestling. During the summer seasons in many Seaside Towns there was the Wrestling Tent where people would challenge the wrestlers for a money prize. So to do it in Margate brings a real sense of irony for me. Lets hope he didn't get too hurt, after all Wrestling... its all fake isn't it?

To see more of Anthony Schrag's work please go to this website.

Xtofer

Eastenders LIVE: The Murderer of Archie Mitchell is Revealed A REVIEW

As everyone living in the UK knows Archie Mitchell, who died on Christmas Day in the Queen Vic, was a cad who deserved everything that happened to him. He finally got his comeuppence and that led to two months of speculation as to who killed him. Early indication was that it was his daughter Ronnie, whose child he hid from her and who was sexually assualted by her father as a child, who in true Lady Macbeth style went slightly mad over the past two months. Other suspects included Phil Mitchell, Ian Beale, Peggy Mitchell, Jack Branning and Bradley Branning. However as with all great Soap storylines, things are never so simple and last night things got very complicated as for the first time ever Eastenders had a live broadcast.

Now a live Television broadcast of a drama is huge news, and a huge ask nowadays. Its been nearly 50 years since live tv performance was the rule instead of the exception and so there was a huge chance that things could go drastically wrong.

As LibraryGirl and myself sat down to watch this new experience we already felt really tense. As a performer myself I can appreciate the nerves these guys must have been feeling at going live, then factor in the fact that this is the blowoff to one of the biggest storylines ever to grace the square and then the idea that there could be nearly 12 million viewers watching you and waiting for you to screw up. I would say that under that pressure I would be really feeling anxious. LibraryGirl was geared up for the story and wanted to see how good the actors were in a live setting.

As we started watching we were incredibly surprised at the seemingly breakneck speed that everything seemed to be going and then we saw our first mistake. Scott Maslen the heart throb Jack Branning had what he later described as a 'Matrix Moment' as he fluffed his lines and had that thing all actors dread where their brain goes 'where am I in the script... um whats the next line' but it sort of helped build my suspicions that Jack was the murderer. Did Maslen screw up the show? No not at all because he carried on and the acting by Charlie Clements who plays Bradley, Jake Wood as Max and Lacey Turner as Stacey kept that scene going along and the quick angle change on Stacey's face helped build the tension up.

We then moved onto other suspects as Bradley and Stacey started their doomed escape. Janine Butcher, played by Charlie Brooks, was still rushing around trying to make sure she didn't get arrested again and looking for the person who planted the missing engagement ring in her flat. Brooks was brilliant as Janine, it looked as if her parts had been pre taped in that she herself was flawless, her character came through perfectly and she didn't fluff any lines, her only problem was she tripped over her step on the way into her doorway. This was not a big deal, after all it just added to the frantic panic the character was feeling.

Other performers who fluffed up included Barbara Windsor who ran a couple of words together, a very easy thing to do when you only have a very short amount of time to shoot and its one take, she didn't react to it she just kept on going in her scene with Charlie Brooks. Samantha Womack apparently entered the corner shop in Albert Square to get paint thinner, picked it up and during her argument with Rita Simons who plays her sister Roxi left without paying for it, despite walking straight past the shop staff. There were a few snafus with the camera angles including under the arches between Stacey and Bradley. However the Sun Newspaper decided that the one they should mention in their coverage of the live show was that Jake Wood, who is brilliant as Max, was seen putting his fingers down his throat to make himself retch. Now I have to call the Sun on that one mainly due to the fact that it is barely noticeable because when it happens Jake makes the sound of retching and covers his mouth in a way that his fingers went in his mouth, he just wanted it to be more realistic and its not his fault that the camera caught him. Plus I am pretty sure not more than 2 seconds later, as people are leaving the Queen Vic there is a crew member in shot who looks round then touches what looks to be headphones, hidden under a hat of course, before we carry on with the show. Not to mention the awful pause before the stuntman leapt off of the Pub. It just seemed unfair to me for them to criticise Jake Wood.

Now onto what I thought of the episode. The show was fantastic it just was a tense laden show with some phenomenal acting. As such I am going to declare my top 5 MVPs (Most valuable Performers) from last nights live episode.

5. Steve McFadden

Phils story was he was paranoid his girlfriend, Shirley, was going to rat him out and that Ian had evidence that could be used to frame him for Archies Murder. This led to him tracking down Ian and attacking him and trashing his home looking for what he thought Ian had. McFadden much like Brooks was brilliant in that he was totally natural when it came to being angry Phil, thats what you get for really knowing your character.

4. Adam Woodyatt

Ian had gone home with Dot to talk to her about how she felt and he ended up showing her the video tape of all the then young cast members from 25 years ago. Then as mentioned above Phil came thundering in and Woodyatt is brilliant at being a snivelling coward. His work was great to watch as he and McFadden got physical but it was obviously well rehearsed and these two actors have great chemistry as enemies. You could also tell that he was having fun with it, not in a distracting way but you could just tell.

3. Charlie Brooks

Janine as I said before was rushing around trying to find out who framed her. She was just Miss One Take all night and was brilliant at her character work. This storyline has, whilst making us want to all give Janine a slap for being so evil, in many ways shone a slightly sympathetic light on the Janine Butcher character something that perhaps she needed to keep her fresh.

2. Lacey Turner

This was a really hard choice as it is very close between her and Charlie Clements as to who was better but for me she comes second. Stacey Branning was trying to escape the square with her husband Bradley thanks to the betrayal of her best friend Becca. She ran around and revealed all to Bradley who tried to help her get away but in the end she admitted all to Max... she killed Archie. A really strong performance and Lacey Turner has shown herself to be a very powerful young actress who I hope when she leaves Eastenders, eventually, gets some good dramatic roles.

1. Charlie Clements

Yes Bradley passed away last night trying to escape the Police. When he fell from the top of the Queen Vic there couldn't have been many dry eyes in the millions of homes tuned in to the show. Clements work really helped this storyline move along, his slow disintegration since his return was a truly beautiful piece of acting and his abililty to just pick that up last night and truly put the ending to his story with a great piece of performance was great. The last line he uttered was perfectly pitched and a wonderful note to go out on. The show will sadly miss the gravitas and cheekiness the the Bradley character and Charlie Clements brings to it.

So what was having a live soap like? It was excellent, the excitement of the story was amped up to 11 just because of the unpredictable nature of the performance. Would I do it again? Yes I would, but with some modifications. The main modification I would make is to have it only involve a couple of characters and perhaps 2 or 3 sets. It was wonderful seeing the crew and cast pull off this mammoth task with such great results but there was a feeling of chaos at times. Lets take June Browns solo episode, now that could have easily been shown live and as long as the storyline is strong enough viewers will still tune in. Make it a 1 or 2 room show and then do a live, it will be cheaper and easier to pull off. Also there are certain things that need to be edited for future broadcast, I know we will see clips of Bradleys death and the ending of this episode for years to come but they need to do an edit to make it flow better from the last Bradley line to his fall. I would call this a success and think its a brilliant experience for the actors and is something they should be given the chance to do. Eastenders has done a great job in the lead up to this episode and I hope the fallout is just as good.

Live Eastenders was a truly brilliant event that showed that Soap actors aren't just pretty faces for TV and that a lot of them can do the job when needed. Catch it on Catch up if you haven't seen it or look at it on iPlayer because it is well worth the watch.

Now if only more TV shows had this dangerous event like feel.

Xtofer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders

arthurlloyd.co.uk a wonderful site on Theatre and Music Hall

arthurlloyd.co.uk is a website that I have been using more frequently in recent months as I have been researching various venues across the nation. It is a wonderful website full of magnificent information with over 2000 pages of information and 5000 images of Music Halls and Theatres from years past. Created by a descendant of Arthur Lloyd, a Music Hall Entertainer who wrote songs such as 'Married to a Mermaid', this site is part biographical evidence of Arthur Lloyds life and career and part information of theatres and music halls from all around the country. It is a fantastic resource with plenty of information to keep you glued to the site for hours on end. This is the type of rare resource that helps us all keep in touch with our theatrical heritage and remind us of the unfortuanate losses the theatre world has had in the past 50s as well as chronicling of its glorious past. I would highly reccomend anyone this site and its helpful forum.

So please go to:

http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/

and enjoy!

Xtofer

Curtains!!! Or A New Life for Old Theatres: Chatham Theatre Royal

Curtains!!! Or A New Life for Old Theatres: Chatham Theatre Royal

Before I start on my post regarding the sad story of The Theatre Royal Chatham let me give you a bit of background on what inspired this piece.

A few months ago LibraryGirl and I were spending time with her parents and we were discussing things we enjoyed about theatre and what I could write about on here. We had spent the day walking round London looking at the many different historical sites that you can find just turning a corner in that magical city and we hit upon the fact that there could be dark theatres in London which would make for an interesting subject to talk about, study and perhaps walk around. After all if a theatre cannot survive in Theatre Land then what luck does any theatre in the provinces have? We looked into the subject and came across the website of the Theatres Trust which is a fantastic resource, it led onto us finding out about Urban Exploration and rare photos of dark and abandoned theatres (and pretty much any other kind of building you care to mention) then today we were in Badger Books in Worthing and we found a book that seemed to be perfect for this little project of ours 'Curtains!!! Or A New Life For Old Theatres' a book about endangered theatres in the UK.

Curtains!!! an organisation underneath the banner of SAVE Britains Heritage was formed in the late 1970s to combat the awful statistic that of the 1000 Theatre Royals, Grands, ALhambras and Empires that had been so prevelant in the UK between 1900 and 1914 85 percent had been destroyed or badly damaged as they had been altered for other uses. It also claims that in 1982 only a tenth of the remaining 150 or so were still in use as theatres. Now inside the book it lists all sorts of fascinating information with a listing of 70 at risk theatres in which it eplains some of the history and architectual changes of the theatres along with giving their addresses and original architects information.

I googled Curtains!!! and found nothing, it seems the organisation has ceased to exist which is a real shame as another part of their organisation was a travelling exhibition that gave lectures about the situation and had many bits of history on the many venues that they wanted to save. I would assume that with the increased prominence of the Theatres Trust they either were amalgamated into the TT or were seen as surplus to requirement.

So going from the book I will be looking at what has happened in the past 30 years since it was published to the 70 endangered venues listed. So we start with the Chatham Theatre Royal.

The Chatham Theatre Royal was built in 1899 and was designed by the architect G.E. Bond who also designed many other buildings in the area including the former Chatham Town Hall, St Andrews Church, The Century Cinema in Dartford and the River Medway Conservancy Board Offices.

The Theatre Royal in Chatham could seat approximately 3000 audience members and was by all accounts a lush and luxuriant venue, something that is obvious even when you look at the highly (and upsettingly) degraded interior of this neglected venue.

Chatham Theatre Royal was a venue that had all the stars pass through it at some point, Rex Harrison, Ken Dodd, Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, Norman Wisdom and Gracie Fields all graced its stage with their acts. The Theatre was so big and popular that according to local reports they had to build a brand new road just to accomodate the traffic approaching the venue. Unluckily the fact was that the Theatre Royal could not sustain its box office success and by the 1950s attendance figures had dropped to the point that they finally pulled the plug on it being a performance venue in 1955. It was then turned into several little shops on its bottom level including as a furniture shop which included displays on the stage. Then in 1960 a fire ravaged much of the stage and stalls area. In the 1980s there was a movement out to try and protect the building and revamp it as a better venue for Chatham than the considerably smaller and less grand Central Hall.

The fight to restore The Theatre Royal raged for 20 years but Curtains!!! prediction came true

'However the Theatre Royal is probably too far gone to make restoration economically feasible'

In 2002 the Theatre Royal Chatham Trust had to withdraw its support of the venue as the building was too rotten to feasibly be saved, a travesty considering the fact that it was a Grade II building. These types of building should be saved not left to rot.

There happened to be various bodies and people trying to save this once beautiful venue since the 60s before the Trust came into being in the 80s but they couldn't stop progress it seems. A beautiful old building with a heritage linked to the local area was allowed to rot so that its land could be sold off for Housing Association redevelopment in 2002. In March 2009 they demolished the theatre a sad day but unfortuanately it was necessary as it was really just a shell of former glory, a testament to past magic and variety.

The saddest part of this story for me though is the fact I have heard it so many times over and over again. Last month I spoke about my disgust at the situation regarding Farnham Rep and how wrong it was that local authorities can just say no to people who want to use purpose built venues. When a venue has a trust behind it trying to raise the money, raise its profile for the sake of saving a usable building so it can be appreciated and used by future generations and the local authority decides to ignore that fact until that building has to be knocked down, Government Protection or not, so it can sell the land on for housing developments I think its stupid. Why bother allowing a building to die slowly, why not just pull the plug? Chatham Theatre Royal was allowed to mould and fester before it was finally pulled down and that is not the way these buildings should be remembered.

It is however ironic that Chathams alternative venue with Jazz Lessons, Community Theatre and smaller scale productions is the Old Town Hall designed by Bond, his work still influences theatre in the area. At least that venue is safe.

However on the old address of the once grand theatre 102 High Street you will today find Cutting Crew Hairdresser. I think that just says it all.

Anyone who feels the same as I do should visit the Theatres Trust Website and find out how they can help save local theatres.

Pictures of the inside of the Theatre Royal were sourced from http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/ and http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/ headtheatre.blogspot.com does not condone or encourage the illegal entry of derelict or private property. It is potentially life threatening and illegal.