Laugh! I nearly died . . .

Posted on May 18, 2017 by John

Looking for some light-hearted fun, I pushed Jan into going to see The Play That Goes Wrong at the Sydney Theatre Company. We both thought it might be a bit too silly, but it was very, very good.

Here’s the blurb: Playing to packed houses in the West End and Broadway, the Olivier Award-winning The Play That Goes Wrong follows a group of amateur actors performing a murder mystery, but as the title suggests, everything that can go wrong does! The accident-prone thespians battle on against all the odds to get to their final curtain call with hilarious consequences! 

It wasn’t just slapstick, pratfalls and collapsing scenery, it was a very well-written and well-acted play. The comic timing was spot-on and the “accidents” were not always obvious. It also looked really dangerous for the actors as they were apparently knocked out, dragged around and smacked by opening doors.

A must-see for anyone who has done any amateur dramatics (that’s us!) and forgotten their lines (that’s me!) and had to do a last-minute stand-in reading the lines from the script while dressed in harem pants with gold-painted nipples (that’s me!) (don’t ask!)

Did we laugh? Yes we did! It was very funny indeed.

We had some tapas by the water at Walsh Bay before the play, very pleasant. The evening was topped off by an easy drive home – just 25 minutes, not bad for Sydney’s usually congested roads.

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Showtime for gliding

Posted on May 9, 2017 by John

On Sunday Jan and I drove down to Wollongong for the Wings Over Illawarra air show. We arrived early – 9am – because we were helping at the glider exhibit. My gliding club – Southern Cross – had taken a DG-1000 two-seat glider there to put on display to help encourage more people into the sport. 

The airshow was big – more than 30,000 people went. We both spent lots of time helping kids climb in and out of the glider and telling them about gliding. There were also quite a few potential glider pilots who seemed very keen. The club had some good leaflets to hand out and some new banners.

We also took a Pawnee tow plane down to the airport to launch an aerobatic glider flown by Nigel Arnot, a former national aerobatic champion I knew well from my years competing with my Pitts Special. We had a chat with him and with Paul Goard, another aviation person who we knew well years back. He was just a kid back then, now he’s got an international business building light aircraft – and his own aerobatic team.

Jan at work during the Wings over Illawarra air show.

There were some amazing displays of aerobatics from all types of aircraft, including a rare 1944-

The Focke-Wulf

built Focke-Wulf FW190 which had been recently restored. That was an impressive – and scary – beast. The glider aerobatics were also impressive. 

Airshow food has improved over the years – we had gozleme for lunch and some half-decent coffee. Having done our duty we left just before the show ended to beat the usual traffic jam. We made it home in an hour-and-a-half, not bad for a Sunday drive.

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That Mozart, such a joker!

Posted on May 9, 2017 by John

For Jan’s birthday treat we went to see the play Amadeus. It was a National Theatre Live production and we saw a lunchtime screening at the Dendy Cinema at Opera Quays down near the Opera House.

We went by train, arrived early and had a stroll along by the harbour wall towards the Opera House. It was a lovely warm autumn day and the tourists were loving it.

Amadeus is an excellent play by Peter Shaffer, albeit a little long and wordy in parts. Also the actor portraying Mozart was a bit over the top, leaping and capering all over the place!

Here’s the blurb: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a rowdy young prodigy, arrives determined to make a splash. Awestruck by his genius, court composer Antonio Salieri has the power to promote his talent or destroy it. Seized by obsessive jealousy he begins a war with Mozart, with music and, ultimately, with God.

Salieri was played by Lucian Msamati, a familiar acting face – he played the pirate Salladhor Saan in Game of Thrones. He was also big in The TV Series No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. He was great.

Afterwards we wandered towards restaurant Mercado in Ash Street for dinner. We were early so stopped off at The Republic Hotel for a drink at Taylor’s rooftop bar. The restaurant was good – a lovely old bank building interior with cast iron columns. We had tapas-style shared dishes which were excellent and not too pricey!

 

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Rasputin – always good for a laugh

Posted on April 19, 2017 by John

Our friends Lynne and Norman Arnott had a couple of tickets to the play The Rasputin Affair  but couldn’t go. They kindly donated them to us. Last night we went by train to the Ensemble Theatre in Kirribilli, a place we hadn’t visited for very many years. 

The Ensemble is a small, intimate theatre built in an old boatshed. We arrived in plenty of time, so had a drink in the bar which has great views across Sydney Harbour. As the rest of the audience arrived, we realised that this was a place popular with the elderly – we were among the youngest people there!

We had very good seats (Thanks!) The front row seats were right next to the actors – too close for comfort. We were three rows back,  just right.

The Rasputin Affair

The play, a comedy, concerned the killing of Rasputin by Russian nobles who persuade him to eat a poisoned cupcake. The play was good, but there was some wildly over-the-top acting and bizarre stage antics that didn’t fit very well. It became more farcical as it went along. There were lots of entrances and exits through a back wall covered in portraits of Russian royals that opened up to reveal mini-scenes. That was good.

Overall, an enjoyable night but I would not recommend this particular production. With better direction and different performances, I think it might have worked well.

Jan and I walked back to Milsons Point railway station and sat on a platform seat discussing our criticisms of the play and the direction. When we got onto our train, we were followed by two men who had been standing behind us on the platform. They were the two principal actors! We sat far away from them and tried not to giggle as we hoped they hadn’t been listening to us.

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An up-and-down day

Posted on April 19, 2017 by John

I went gliding on Easter Monday. The soaring forecast was half decent – the best for a while. When I arrived at Camden I found that, unusually, there was no queue of pilots wanting to fly the high-performance two-seat glider so I phoned Jan to see if she wanted to come out for a ride – and she did.

She arrived at Camden early in the afternoon to find I was already in the air. While Jan was driving from home, a woman had turned up to ask about gliding at Camden. She was a power pilot many years back and wanted to come flying again. One of the other members persuaded her to take a flight, and as an Air Experience Flight instructor, it was my job to take her up. She was a bit nervous at first but was a good pilot and we had a pleasant 45 minutes aloft.

The DG1000 at Camden.

Then Jan and I had a lovely flight of just over an hour, ranging south from Camden over Razorback to Picton, looking down at the small towns, hobby farms and big rural homes below. The thermals were a bit weak, but that meant the air was not too bumpy and it made for a comfortable ride. We were called back because there was now a queue for the glider – an instructor and student wanted to use it. The club rule is that you should return after an hour of flying if anyone needs the glider. 

The only problem Jan had was getting in the glider. This particular model – a DG1000 – is quite high off the ground and if your legs are not long (and you’ve had a hip replacement) it’s quite a stretch to get your leg over!

I finished the day by flying the Piper Pawnee tow plane so the rostered tow pilot (also an instructor) could do some glider flying with a trainee. A busy day – one hour 50 minutes gliding and about 45 minutes power flying. Not as busy as my towing shift the previous week where I did 18 tows in a day – a personal record! Good fun. Towing again on Friday, weather permitting.

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