John Cleese — His Life, Times and Current Medical Problems show. Auckland, 10 December review.

This was one of those ‘What’s the show about? Got no idea, but he’s a legend, so let’s go’ ones. Our group warmed up by sampling the tapas at Vivace (the pig’s belly was the big highlight) and walking through the humidity to the theatre. It’s a bizarre transition to step off muggy, dirty old Queen St into the Civic, with the elephants on the walls and intricate detail everywhere you look. From there it was into the theatre itself – FUCK it was hot. I thanked the lord it’s OK now for males to wear sandals almost everywhere, in that long honored Kiwi-male tradition of ‘I just don’t give a fuck what I look like’. Anyway…

Then he came out. The show is loosely autobiographical, touching on his childhood, his relationship with his parents (his mother in particular), the Pythons, Fawlty Towers, and his life now in America. Also in the show is Cleese’s daughter, Camilla, who apparently had a hand writing the show. Brave girl. In all honesty, hers were the weakest bits, like ‘get off the stage, and bring back JC’, and so the audience never really warmed to her, but she suffered from, well, not being John Cleese.

So what we got in between was the life and times of a very funny man, complete with supporting AV material. The Pythons got the once over lightly treatment, with emphasis on the death of Graham Chapman, and how the remaining team still miss him and consider him part of the group. There was much on Fawlty Towers and the hotelier who inspired the Basil character, JC’s pride in the success and universal love for this short lived program was very evident. The best bits were the audience participation section, where we got to have our own personal moment with JC, and the dead parrot sketch re-worked especially for New Zealand audiences. With not a parrot, but a NZ national icon that had ceased to be (not a kiwi!).

As it was the last show of the tour, we got introduced to the other cast members twice, and learned they were his tour manager, PA, and tour secretary in addition to his daughter. While you’ve got to love someone who goes to such lengths to include those near and dear to him, these bits jarred with the rest, and might have been better left out. Still, even from the back of the Civic, you can’t help but feel like you’d been let into JC’s world for an hour or two, and a fascinating and very funny world it was, too.
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shoes 004
Originally uploaded by richirvine73.

Old shoes (on the left)
New shoes (on the right)
No point changing, innit?

Wenesday afternoon
Originally uploaded by richirvine73.

It’s been ages since I’ve had time off – I’d almost forgotten what it’s like. Maybe it’s just me, and a sign of how I haven’t quite evolved since school, but it still feels kind of funny and almost naughty cruising around during work hours. Who ARE all these people, and what is it they do so they can sit around outside cafes and shoot the shit? Shouldn’t they be at work?

If you’re down with the podcasts and all that, or just have broadband, you’ll be interested to know Ricky Gervais of ‘The Office’ is doing a podcast on the Guardian’s website – with Stephen Merchant (co-writer of The Office) and another bloke. If you want to get clever, here’s the .xml feed.
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In June I started keeping a ‘film diary’ of all the movies I’ve seen – and between then and today, I’ve seen 37. Highlights / points of interest include:
– Ratio of cinema going / watching at home is 9 : 28
– Oldest film on the list: 2001 A Space Odyssey
– Newest: Serenity
– Biggest heap of shit: Faaaaaat Albert. The horror.
– Most disappointing: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
– Best to see at the cinema: Sin City and Batman Begins.
– Best re-watch: A three way tie between Colors, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Tremors
– Most likely to be a big, big all-time favourite of mine: Shaun of the Dead.

On the other side of my web empire is my latest effort at a rugby ‘cartoon’. You can see it at my flickr page or at thesilverfern.

No, I don’t know why NZers rarely see the massive potential for humor in our national game, either.
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I want one of these. I watched the making of Dawn Of The Dead last weekend – they had a lot of fun making that alright. I first saw it at about 14, in the prime of my horror watching / violence de-sensitising, and it still holds up pretty well today (except the pie fight?). I watched the remake with me mate that I watched the orginal with way back then – it’s become our little tradition. “You wanna watch a DVD Friday night?” “Yep, what do ya fancy?” “Something with heads coming off?” “Righto”.

You pick up loads of Peter Jackson’s influences watching Romero’s films – more in the Bad Taste era stuff obviously, but if you squint, you can make out a bit of Zombie in the Orcs I reckon.
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Just so you know, Real Groovy is having the best sale at the moment. Here’s the results of my lunchtime stroll (21 degrees today in Auckland BTW).

fIREHOSE – Mr Machinery Operator. A very underrated band from the SST label (eg Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Black Flag, etc etc), I got into these guys after hearing them on an old skateboard video. They feature Mike Watt, who’s probably the best bass player in this kind of band around. Damage: $4

Primal Scream – Screamadelica. With songs produced by Andy Weatherall and The Orb, this is seminal stuff. While I’ll always think of Bobby Gillespie as the one armed drummer from The Jesus and Mary Chain, this will do nicely, been meaning to get it for ages. Damage: $15

Grant Lee Buffalo – Fuzzy. This guy’s got the best voice. See also his cover of ‘We’ve only just begun’ from that Carpenters covers album. Damage: $10

Ride – Carnival of Light. Alright, it’s no Nowhere (I frantically searched through the racks for that one – no dice). Hey, it was $4. Damage: $4

Big Red Letter Day – Buffalo Tom. Hint: the best BT songs aren’t by main singer and guitarist Tom Janovitz, but the quieter, more country-ish ones by bassist Chris Colbourn. Try ‘I’m Not There’ from Let Me Come Over. Damage: $6

Get in there.
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