MARCH 10TH IN PRAISE OF KRYPTONITE

Now, since my last rather gloomy post, things have looked up somewhat. Having recently collided with a London Transport bus and walked away leaving it with a shattered windscreen, I reflected on the ambulance-driver’s comment about my perhaps being made of kryptonite, and was thus intrigued to learn that the original Kryptonite Being was about to appear in Walthamstow.

I hastened to Ye Olde Rose and Crown at Hoe St, to take a look at a revival of a 1960s American musical ITS’ A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE…IT’S SUPERMAN! Now to be absolutely frank, the bar for musical theatre in London these days is set pretty high by the West End, and especially the West End transfers from the big subsidised companies like the RSC “Matilda”, and the musicals I’ve seen in pub theatres have been pretty lack-lustre, not say embarrassingly inept, so my expectations weren’t of the highest.

Well, this show is terrific! Neatly directed and tightly choreographed, this has “cult hit” written all over it, so grab a ticket while you can.The script is daft – so was the original comic-strip – but is delivered by the production and its cast with dogged seriousness, without the slightest hint of tongue in any onstage cheek. The songs are delivered with huge, infectious enthusiasm and considerable skill. Both of the leads – Craig Berry as Clark Kent/Superman with Michelle LaFortune as Lois Lane – are strong professional singers, while Craig Berry has a nice line in wry, self-deprecating comedy, and Ms LaFortune’s way with a sexy solo is dynamite. Or do I mean kryptonite?  Don’t delay, it’s only on for a couple more weeks, and the theatre is easily reached from Walthamstow Central on the Victoria Line, or Overground from Liverpool St.

Here’s a link to buying tickets online: http://allstarproductions.ticketsource.co.uk

And so spring comes to London – at least for the time being. Waterside is be-set with daffodils and geese. So far this year I’ve cut the grass twice, which for early March is well, weird. All this unseasonal sunshine is very very welcome, but of course it brings an underlying unease. The floods in the west linger still. Those of us who grew up with John Wyndham’s novels – in particular “The Kraken Wakes”- aren’t surprised by the news that the Thames barrier is having to be checked for wear and tear after its unprecedented degree of recent use. The polar ice-caps really are melting. The day after tomorrow could be morphing into just tomorrow…

But before I set about building an ark in the garage, some more uplifting news. Make a note of this website: www.ceoemail.com Regular readers will know that colour was added to my recent journey to the antipodes by an unscheduled 19-hour stopover in Kiev. What added an unnecessary layer of frustration and annoyance was the attitude of the B.A. ground-staff when eventually I arrived in Singapore. I’d been assured in a phone-call to BA Customer services from Kiev that the fact that the – perfectly understandable and unavoidable – delay meant I had missed an overnight stay at a pre-booked Singapore hotel, plus an important meeting plus the ongoing flight to Wellington via Sydney  – all of this would be fully known by their team at Singapore, who would happily make alternative arrangements.

What actually happened was that the sole BA rep at Singapore appointed to deal with the hundred or so passengers with on-going journey problems, having kept me waiting for well over an hour,  told me that since my tickets were booked through Trailfinders I would have to telephone them in London to sort my on-going flights, that in fact there were no flights on to Sydney or Wellington that night (it was 11.30 p.m. local time) and I would have to go away and find myself a hotel. I shared with her my view that this was far from acceptable – in fact I shared it quite firmly, with a fair amount of breath-support – and that section of the airport went suddenly quiet. With very bad grace she bit her lip, sat down at her computer, and within 20 minutes I was on a plane to Sydney.

When eventually back in London, I was advised by Trailfinders to make a formal written complaint to BA. This I did, but it received no reply, not even an acknowledgement. After 3 weeks someone told me about the above web-site, where I found the contact details for the CEO of British Airways, and e-mailed him a copy of the so-far-ignored letter to his customer services department. There was an immediate response in the form of an assurance that the incident would be investigated. This was on Friday afternoon. First thing Monday morning came an e-mail from the customer services department containing a fulsome apology and a voucher for £200. Which movie was it when the cry was “I just won’t take it anymore!”?  My voucher, however, of course can only be spent on a BA flight….

Anyway, onwards into the springtime. Yesterday was the annual trade fair “Perform!” at Olympia. Despite the glorious weather there was a fair turn-out of young hopefuls investigating options for training, and I was on a panel organised by Matt Barber on the whys and wherefores of applying to UK drama schools, dealing with the perennial question “What exactly do audition panels look for…?” The answer of course being they don’t look for anything, but they tend to know the right mix of talent and character when they see it, so the advice is always “Just be yourself”. The tricky bit of course, is finding out who you are…

The week ahead holds for me events featuring Tom Hiddleston and George Orwell. Here’s your starter for ten. I give my classes for American students at the University of London Senate House beside Russell Square. What link does that building have with Orwell’s “1984”? Or for that matter with the poet John Betjeman and his famous lust for Miss Joan Hunter-Dunn?