Nick's Blog
Beef in Blog Bean Sauce
29/12/2009 @ 23:26
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Most New Years, I visit my friends in Southend who invite Wifey and m'self plus our friends from the West Coun'ry. We've known each other since university and even formed a band in the 1990s...I'll share those rock n' roll stories another time...and we're all still close.
We have a great time, play silly games, reminisce about old times and enjoy some quality booze but there's one thing that gets my eyes twitching and my sense of petty injustice going.
The traditional Chinese take away meal on New Year's Eve.
You see, it goes like this: We all get to choose a couple of items from the restaurant menu and when it arrives we tuck in. But Chinese take away meals involving large groups of people have some kind of ettiquette, a code of conduct that staves off the ravages of anarchy.
At least, it does in my world.
What happens on the night is this: I'll order the lemon chicken and the crispy chilli beef. Someone, and their identity always seems to remain anonymous although I have my suspects, always orders the stewed vegetables and the prawns and cashew nuts...WHICH NOBODY TOUCHES! So the food, in the little plastic and foil boxes, gets laid out on the table and people start to tuck in.
However, before I can get to it, the lemon chicken and crispy chilli beef has all gone, picked clean in seconds, leaving me with the stewed vegetables and prawns... which I'm allergic to anyway.
Now I'm left with a number of dilemmas: I don't want to fall out over this matter, but at the same time I believe that if I order some food, then I'm entitled to at least have a sample of it, even a small sample. After all, you don't buy everyone a round of drinks in a bar and find that by the time you bring them all to the table everyone has had a drink of your lovely exotic Belgian beer leaving you with the empty glass whilst a glass of lemon bitters, which nobody has claimed, is your consolation.
I'm toying with the idea of ordering "buffer food"... two portions of lemon chicken and crispy chilli beef so that the throng can consume one portion whilst I can enjoy the rest. Or I can finally unmask the phantom stewed vegetables and cashew nuts fiend and demand that they never, ever order it again under any circumstances. Or a system where what each person has ordered is placed in front of them and they get to have the first serving of that dish before offering it up to the rest. What I'm dreading is the usual feeding frenzy that sees my lovely, juicy, citrussy chicken ending up in the mouths of those whose idea of a good Chinese nosh up is a liberal serving of cashews and pak choi.
I should stand up and be counted! I should thump the table and demand justice! I'll probably end up skulking and muttering in the corner with my boiled water chestnuts (which gives me diarrorhea).
Blogsy Knoxy
06/12/2009 @ 19:08
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And now a summary of all news coverage of the Meredith Kercher murder trial verdict:
"Today saw the conviction of pretty Amanda Knox and some Italian guy of the murder of slightly less pretty Meredith Kercher.
Knox, dubbed Foxy Knoxy by the press on account of her prettiness, was convicted of killing the whiny and needy Kercher in a drug fuelled sex and violence act, probably instigated by Rafaelle Sollecito and that other bloke from the Ivory Coast, was it? Anyway, it probably wasn't the idea of a pretty girl. No way.
Dour stick-in-the-mud Kercher had refused to submit to a playful and lets-face-it-haven't-we-all-done-a-bit-of-wild-partying-with-drugs-at-some-point orgy with the pretty Knox and her friends, possibly involving something Satanic but if it was then it was probably the idea of those two guys and not Knox although with Christianity on the wane why not dabble in a bit of devil worship I mean let's live and let live except in the case of chickens and possibly goats.
Knox, who like any pretty and lively girl, natually did some cartwheels and sang "ding dong the witch is dead" when first taken into police custody which is in no way suspicious. Italian police then interrogated her and confronted her with evidence and facts which shows just how incompetant and corrupt they are when confronted by all-American prettiness.
Knox, who looks like a cross between post-The Blue Lagoon but pre-Suddenly Susan Brooke Shields with a bit of Nancy Kerrigan and Peekaboo Street thrown in, always showed a plucky spirit when confronted with these facts and denied everything, claiming that it was normal to sleep with every man in Peruggia and write short stories about date rape and murder.
As Knox begins 25 years in prison, journalists and crime writers the world over are no closer to finding out just why murderers can't all look like that Fred West or that Monster woman played by the very pretty indeed Charlize Theron. If Knox ever gets out of prison, chances are she won't be so pretty.
Sarah Palin declined to comment.
More Audition FA Blog
05/12/2009 @ 18:22
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OK, some more of your questions answered:
6. WHERE DID YOU FILM IT?
At the Movieum, which is a film museum located in County Hall in London. We had to put that shot of the London Eye into the film because it was right outside the window of the set. The people who run The Movieum were brilliant and the best people I've ever dealt with when it comes to film locations. Only drawback was the long walk to the coffee machines which meant me walking on polished floors in 3" heels and a tiny skirt down a long, long corridor and past the museum's staff. They were all perfect gentlemen though.
7. THE LOOK OF THE SKETCH IS FANTASTIC, DID YOU HAVE TO USE A LOT OF LIGHTS?
No. In fact, only 2 light sources were used: The sun outside and one spot lamp we used for the end shot of the three of us walking down a corridor. The whole sketch was filmed without using artifical lighting and as a result, it looks very natural without looking dark or obscure.
8. HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT BECOMING "WOMEN"?
With great difficulty. It's so easy to sit there as a trio and write on a bit of paper "and they gradually turn into women" without putting any thought into how that is actually going to happen.
The first step was choosing Linzy to be our director because she turned that script into a concrete plan of action. Nick, Richard and I had very little idea of how we were going to do those later drag scenes but Linzy worked it out. The Day 3 "bad drag" would sort itself out as that was meant to be a parody but Day 4 full drag was going to be more complicated.
She got us to work out what kind of woman we all wanted to end up being. Now there's a question: I doubt if any of us had given that any thought before now but we went off and had a week to come up with ideas of what we wanted to be like.
Nick was playing a Tory boy version of himself so he wanted to go down the Sloane Ranger path and be quite prim and stylish as a woman. He also used his wife for inspiration to develop that character.
Richard was playing a lothario version of himself and so he chose to model his look on Kim Cattral in Sex In The City. In the end this proved to be the easiest shorthand for his character: "What would Carrie do in this situation?"
I had a tough choice. My character was a get and up go director who was always geeing the others on so just who was my female role model going to be? For gung-ho as a male, read "perky" for a girl and suddenly I was going to be the kind of media student girly who is always enthusiastic and bubbly. So early Rachel from "Friends" combined with Fearne Cotton it was.
9. HOW MUCH PRACTICE DID YOU PUT INTO THE ROLES?
Quite a bit. We had about 3 days of rehearsals where we had to develop our characters. Once we knew what female archetypes we were going to play, we worked on mannerisms and voices. There were loads of improvisation excercises we did and Sarah McKendrick and Laura Waddell were there to help out as well. My son was born on the first day of rehearsals.
10. HOW DID YOU CHOSE YOUR "LOOKS"?
After we had chosen our archetypes, we worked with our make up artist, Rodica MacLaine and our wardrobe mistress Flo Chow. We had all found pictures of various women (some famous) who we thought looked like what we wanted to be and we put them into files so that Flo and Rodica could go to work on getting the look right for us.
Richard was the easiest to shop for and create a look for: We went for something tarty but he was adamant that he wasn't going to be a complete slut. His dress was REALLY tight fitting and short and he had to wear a corset and a heavily padded panty girdle under it. Early on, it was planned that he would wear fishnet tights and boots but that got dropped because it would have pushed him into the slut zone (I am aware of that image of a man being pushed into a Slut Zone). We had some spirited conversations about his outfit:
RICH: "I'm not sure, I like the length but it's too tight! Is it too much?"
NICK H: "Remember the script says you're wearing fishnets and boots"
RICH: "Fuck the script!"
With Nick's costume we didn't really get a good idea for it until the day of filming. He had 3 outfits to chose from but it was unanimous that the pastel shade jacket and skirt looked the best. Nick and I were happy with wearing what had been chosen by Flo for us and he was so easy going that we could have put him in a sequined gown a la Strictly Come Dancing and he would have gone along with it.
I was somewhere between Rich's preciseness and Nick's whatever goes attitude. The first thing that Flo chose for me was a grey puffball skirt which came to just above my knees. It didn't really work as puffball skirts rarely do. With my shorter and more "cuddly" frame, it made me less perky and more "pinky". I had good legs though which meant that we could go with a shorter skirt. I was thinking of a denim miniskirt but Flo got the fancy brown one you see in the final film. I think Rich felt I was competition in the leg stakes so he tried to get Flo and Linzy to get my hem to drop to my ankles. Sensing a bit of rivalry, I held out for my legs! Since when did Rachel or Fearne ever do ankle length? The purple sweater was an instant hit and the black tights rounded the outfit off....and looked damned sexy to boot!
Make up and wigs were based around the outfits. Rich had that long brown wig that looked like his own hair. The blonde wig suited me well so I got that. Poor Nick got a shorter brown wig that didn't suit his face and if we did it again we'd probably make his character a blonde or a redhead...not that we are going to do it again!
Our make up was tailored for our characters hence Richard's sultry eyes and my false eyelashes and pink eye shadow. I even had false French polished nails on which made going to the toilet an interesting experience.
Rich had to shave almost his entire body as he is like Esau; a hairy man. It took months for his arm hair to grow back. He also had to wear two pairs of tights at a time to cover up more hair that the razor missed. My black tights covered up a multitude of blemishes.
THE AUDITION: The making of blog...
05/12/2009 @ 16:48
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Well "The Audition" has prompted a big wave of interest in Rhubba; I'd like to say this was the intention all along. Put men into dresses and the viewers will come...apparently.
I've been really pleased with the response from you, the viewers, even though I believe some of you are suffering from various forms of trauma right now. The humour is more slowly paced and it functions more as a funny story than an out and out joke filled sketch but that was intended as well. After all, you've got Nick Jarvie in a wig and make up, who needs one liners?
I've also been asked more questions about how the sketch was made so I'm going to answer some of them here.
1. WHERE DID THE IDEA COME FROM?
When we cast The Embittered Women's Masterclass (go to movies and watch it if you haven't yet...it's one of our biggest successes), Richard Conolly, Kevin Chapman and myself auditioned 70 actresses for the 6 roles. On day one it was exactly like you see in "The Audition": 3 blokes trying to say the female lines and doing it badly. By the end of the week we had somehow absorbed loads of mannerisms from the women we auditioned to the point that we had to go and get a beer and watch football afterwards. From that incident, the sketch wrote itself only we added drag. But what you see in "The Audition" is very close to the truth.
2. HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT WRITING IT?
Nick, Richard and myself had talked about what should go in the sketch almost as soon as the cameras stopped rolling on Embittered Womens'. A year later, we met up and hammered out a story and characters. It was left to me to actually write it up (as I'm the only one who likes doing that kind of thing). We wanted to go from blokes to as being as convincing as women as was possible in stages so stage 1 was manly men, stage 2 was giving in a little (Nick's makeup, my wig, Rich's skirt), stage 3 was bad "Two Ronnies" style drag and stage 4 was being women without cutting our bollocks off.
3. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE ACTRESS CHARACTERS?
Again, that was similar to the real life audition we held. Each actress was an archetype of people you generally see at an audition: The method actor, the meek and timid actor, the stylish one, the one you just get on with as a person, the hard nosed "I'm with Equity so don't screw with me! actor, the one everyone secretly fancies...I made that last one up.
We had about 15 actresses in mind for the 10 roles...The final choice was made by the director, Linzy Attenborough, and myself: Sarah McKendrick, Laura Waddell and Katherine Bower had all worked with us before and were must-haves for their roles. Claire Dodin was Linzy's choice. Tina Waller, Bridie King, Cassie Powney, Achara Kirk had all auditioned for Rhubba in the past but had done really well and we hadn't forgotten them. Caroline Boulton was someone Linzy and I had wanted to work with for ages and fortunately she was available for the shoot (she's a very busy actress). Finally, Judith Jones was a friend of our costume designer, Flo Chow, and stepped in at the last minute to fill the role when our first choice had to drop out. Considering she had practically no rehearsal time, she did a great job.
4. I'M SURE I'VE SEEN ONE OF YOUR CAST IN A BRITISH TV SHOW BEFORE?
That would be Cassie Powney, who was a cast regular on "Hollyoaks" along with her twin sister. We were lucky to get her for The Audition but she jumped at the chance to do a bit of comedy with us. And the camera loves her.
5. YOU DIDN'T DIRECT THIS THEN?
No. This marks the second time I haven't directed a sketch on Rhubba: The first was "Pefectionists Anonymous". Early on, I realised that we needed a woman to direct The Audition because the three of us men had to work hard at our transformations. Our regular sound recordist, Claus Zingler, introduced me to Linzy Attenborough and within 10 minutes of meeting her, she had convinced me that she was the person for the job.
What Linzy did was work on our performances; she is a former actress and has done a bit of modelling so she taught us how to act as women, how to walk and how to not go OTT and totally camp it up. When we did the first rehearsal, we were like a bunch of hysterial drag queens with lots of eyeball rolling, wild hand gestures and "well hel-loooooooos". In the end, we had to tone it right down and Linzy put us through a kind of boot camp...of Fuck-Me-Boots camp.
OK, that's a bit of background to the production, next I'll be answering questions about the shoot and how we turned into women.
