By the Picking of my Thumbnail

Hello friends/fellow students. As anyone who's subscribed to my YouTube channel might know, I've started a second one. And there, for the past four weeks, I've been reposting videos of me from 2020 tearing through the complete works of Shakespeare in lockdown in case giving Simon Goes Full Shakespeare its own channel made them easier to stumble across. I also added little introductions to the introductions, which I shared on my first channel too, which is why you might know. Here's the opener to the opener.

 

 Apart from these fresh intros, the only new material, if you don't count the compilations, or the date stamps (and you are absolutely welcome to count date stamps as new material, by the way... it's been an unhelpful old year for me so far in terms of the old fight-or-flight) are the new thumbnails. Ideally, your typical YouTube thumbnail contains both the presenter's likeness and some text, and after a series of botched cut and pastes...

 

Bold. But rejected.

 

... I realised the easiest – and also quite pleasingly Dave McKean-iest  –way to achieve this was simply to pause the introductions as they fade into the titles, and take a screenshot.

 

 "Ta-daaa!"

 

 The compiled Julius Caesar went out this weekend, on both channels, meaning that for the second time Season One is now done. But another reason I bothered to give this project its own channel is that, this second time round, I hope to get further into Season Two and beyond on its return. I've time enough anyway, and a room. And I'm still very proud of the whole thing... The only reason I haven't plugged it until now is that, as I learnt in my previous post, apparently it helps the algorithm find you an audience if you don't. But that hasn't thus far worked the same magic it did on The Sitting, maybe because that video's only sixty seconds long. I don't know. It's a learning curve.

 As a fat, four course taster then, here are the compiled introductions. The Two Gentlemen of Verona's features a new attempt to explain what I'm doing, plus archival bonus material of me seeing if it will work if I sing the songs rather than just reading them out, which it didn't so I don't know why I've included it.

 

 

 The compilation of introductions to The Taming of the Shrew features no new introduction, but bonus material of me going off into the kitchen to throw some pans around for some sound effects, which I did use.

 

 

 

 More foley work is included in the collected introductions to The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, where I cry like a baby. Donald Trump was President back in 2020, remember. It was a different time. Ha ha ha.

 

 

 

 And finally – inspired by this bit in an excellent documentary about the old BBC2 cult film strand Moviedrome in which Alex Cox reckons he got the gig because, as the only film director not living in London, he couldn't just film everything in his living room and so his Film Club pieces to camera looked much more dynamic...

 

 

...  I head out of the flat for the final compilation of introductions to Julius Caesar, and attempt to explain what I'll do next beneath the green man of Parkland Walk. (Some thumbnails are better than others. Like I said, it's a curve.)

 

 

 

 Now play them all simultaneously! And if you fancy taking your own tour of the new channel, you can like, share, subscribe, scroll, swipe, dive, run, push, bomb, and pet heavy HERE. I hope you're all doing tremendously.

Themepunk Roundup: The Scratchblood Comeback

 Happy Hallow, as I guess today is! Above is not a picture of Hallowe'en. I have not been working here over Hallowe'en. God knows what's happened to the poor, brave souls who are. The work WhatsApp currently reads like the transcription of a black box. Lois has lost a finger, and I'm writing this on the train to York. I only hope they forgive my abandoning them.

“Why, to the North Po- to Whitechap- to London Bridge, of course! This is the Polar Exp- the Ten Bell- the Star Inn!”

 When my job as a conductor on the Mid-Norfolk Polar Express ended in December, I knew I wanted the New Year to be, above all else, one in which I continued to play people who carry a hurricane lamp. No, I wanted to continue doing improvisation-friendly, site-specific shift work with a regular band of friends as I wrote last post, and the London Bridge Experience was my first themepunk gig of 2024. (I am committed to trying to make "themepunk" a thing. Sorry, it's my blog.) 

 

 

London Bridge! History!

 

 It was a return to Tooley Street, and to reading on the floor between shows, and writing your own script if you wanted to just as the London Dungeon had let you do when it was the rival across the road. It was also a return to painting myself a better jawline and cheekbones.

 Look at this dashing rake! Who needs appetite supressants? Compare the portrait above taken when I started work at the LBE this February, to one below of me posing next to a stuffed tapir in Bedlam at the Dungeons in 2007, and you’ll see full rejuvenation was achieved. The dead don't age (although my phones seem to have got worse).

 

 The LBE used some of the pumped odours too – and you know what that does to a pysche –  and even some of the tunes: ducking out of Fleshmongers, past the giant spiders and through the labyrinth of killer clowns to check on my microwaved Shanghai rice in the green room, I’d hear the same plainsong which used to play on the steps to the boat ride a decade and a half ago…

 There were differences too, of course: old Horror posters on the wall as you enter, which made me feel more at home than ever, real swords and a fake Viking longboat, chainsaws, Romans, a wall of broken dolls, and the fact this place is genuinely underground (I turned my flash on one day, and you don’t get gastropodinous limestone arteries like this in County Hall...)

 Everyone there works their arse off as well, like they grew up through Covid or something. Physically, verbally, chemically, no two actors share a superpower. I think it’s the only job on which I’ve lost my voice – bloody Vikings – which is another reason I've been taking it a bit easier. so, okay, the dead do age. But, readers... work with people who work their arse off. I don't mean losing a finger. I mean, say: okay, between bouts of bursting through a blood-drenched shower curtain, for example, Sam's at his laptop in the green room, putting together something like this beautifully simple, one-shot unnerver below. Enjoy! There’s Jess and Preston in the bushes too. God, I hope they're okay.

 

Staying In My Lane

 Those old explanations of ghosts – echoes of a trauma baked into place – is it only human trauma that has that power? Might parks be crawling with the ghosts of worms? Is this river haunted by fish, fish ghosts targeted by heron, more than a millenia-worth? I'm trying to get into the Hallowe'en spirit now that the weather is proper October.

 

 Unfinished business – that was another explanation. Do only humans get to have that then? Wait, is that all a soul is? Business? Is it? I haven't been busy this year. Maybe. Have I felt like a ghost? A bit. And it hasn't all been unenjoyable, but I watched a youtube essay last week about the films of the Beatles which reminded me that being A CREATIVE FORCE is, you know, an option, and initially may require nothing more than just thinking to yourself "I'm going to be A CREATIVE FORCE" and then seeing what happens, and it's really picked me up. (Here's that video essay.) 

 

 In this case a bit of what happened appears to be me going for a walk and then posting shit phone pictures of it here. Well, good. You'll have to take my word for it that there were joggers. It's odd to me, by the way, that that that's what it's called: "jogging". That's definitely what it looks like, but it's not the aspect you'd think they'd want to advertise. Jogging's normally something you want to avoid, in case you scratch the record or spill your drink. How can I make running forward feel more like running into something? Jog!

 

 Are these pavement demarcations a hangover from the pandemic, or permanent now? And has anyone studied their effect on a pedestrian's mental health? I think I hate them. They just seem like another thing to get on the wrong side of. It's nice to have somewhere to record that though. It's nice to be A CREATIVE FORCE. The next paragraph contains swearing.

 

 I also hate seeing so many people right now take the side of a side, rather than siding with people – to see so many call for an end to Netanyahu's response to the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holoocaust while not also calling - seeing as we're calling for things - for the safe return of Israeli hostages, as though we've finally run out of internet and there was just was no room for the Landaus. Well fuck that and fuck the war and fuck taking sides unless that side is Peace. Fuck Bibi. And fuck Hamas; buoyed by their actions, the Iranian Government announced last week it would be targeting Persian journalists working in Britain like my friend Faren. And, parenthetically (do go on, Simon) coming up to a year after the murder of Mahsa Ahmini by Iranian police for having loose hair I decided to search Xitter for any more news of protests, and found myself enaged in the following fun coversation about... let me check... yes, apartheid. Stick with it.

 

 

 

 I know, "mroe"...

 By the way, you can now find me on blue sky at @slepkane.bsky.social. 

 I really hope you're all okay.

Pink Slip

  Happy first birthday to Pretend Freinds, Chloé Doherty's cavalcade of newly redundant imaginary friends, which went up on youtube a year ago today! Enjoy me yet again snivelling in a bad suit, and enjoy the toy-spangled couture of Anne-Sophie Cochevelou sported by a host of resting Crystal Maze Masters. I already explained why I have cars stuck in my ears back when we shot this in March 2021, so I can't imagine you'll have any further questions.

  Since this film was shot the vaccine rolled out of course, and the Crystal Maze reopened; however, our pay was now cut. But then raised. But then cut again. And when I emailed a strongly worded complaint (hate's a strong word, right?) to our brilliant and stretched Head of Actors I accidentally hit "reply all", the email went to those hated higher-ups, and that was me out of a job as well. Losing a job's horrible, isn't it? I never had imaginary friends as a child. I miss those guys. 

 Also since this film was shot, Anne-Sophie Cochevelou has found something to do with all those old lateral flow tests...

 

 

 

All photos by Anthony Lycett.

"Perfectly Buoyant" - further chronicling of the tosh

willoughbies.jpeg by John Finnemore

 We had tried all manner of things with "The Willoughbies" in previous series of JFSP at both sketch try-outs and live recordings. We'd tried it with John as the Dad, with me as the Dad, as a "runner" – catching buses, or winning points for spotting spelling mistakes in a menu – and as a standalone, but the clan never made it in. Also, I didn't really get them. I am, as should be clear from these posts by now, a lot slower on the uptake than most listeners, and as cold as any stone. Possibly the point was to show a generically happy, Ned-Flanders-type family in a less annoying light, and to let an audience – specifically John's audience – love something more commonly mocked. Or posssibly it was less pointed than that. Sometimes John just enjoys painting portraits. Anyway, I was surprised how doggedly he kept trying to do something with them.

 

 So when he first mooted over Zoom his plans for Series Nine, and for the family formerly known as Willoughby to take centre stage, I immediately considered how out of my depth I might be. This wouldn't be the normal rough trade John gets me to do, I'd need a buoyancy aid. That buoyancy aid turned out to be a fond memory of Jim Broadbent at his most "heigh-ho", augmented with Terry Jones' weak "R", and I clung to that aid for dear life when recording Jerry's first scene, the restaurant scene from Episode Two. As I said on twitter during the tweetalong: 

 "I reckon it might have been this scene that made me consider giving Jerry that voice. I was worried my own voice might sound a little too punching down. Among other things"

 You know. Bullying. 

 I'm making it sound like it was hard, aren't I. It wasn't hard, of course. I had John's writing to play, John and the rest of the cast to play off, Sue's tunes to sing, and Ed to tell me how much Jerry reminded him of his dad. But this was still unlike anything I'd done on the radio before.* Jerry wasn't a character in a sketch. He'd last a whole series, a series in which I'd also be playing quite a few other roles which we'd have distinguish him from. So whatever voice I used in that first recording of that first scene would have to stick. Fortunately, Jim Broadbent is a very versatile actor. 

 Oh, here's something about that restaurant sketch I didn't know:

 

 And this might be my favourite revelation of the week. 

 I've loved Willie Rushton ever since I received a copy of his comic The Gernaium of Flüt as a child, and I wish I could find it now. His son in that is called Toby, I think. His dog might be called Toby as well. I sang his praises here back in 2008. And here he is playing Watson opposite John Cleese's Holmes.

 

 

 

 But he wasn't just the dry, avuncular fantasist of my childhood. Ruhston was there at the beginning of Private Eye and That Was The Week That Was, a stalwart of the sixties' Satire Boom that Jerry fails the audition for in Episode Six. In real life there are people who remind you of people, and I love that Jerry had that too, whether I knew it or not. But what I remind myself most of, listening to Jerry again now, is my childhood friend, Tom of our number. He was big fan of Willie Rushton too.

 HERE is something great that William Shaw wrote about the series' approach to failure. And here, before I go – because, despite what it says at the top of this post, it's actually New Year's Eve tonight – is another thing John told me about the inspiration for Jerry when we first Zoomed:

 

  It goes up to 63, by the way. 

 Series Nine is still being repeated at 11pm on Radio 4, the final episode is tonight, if you have any questions you can post them below, and you can still hear the whole thing any time you like here (I recognise that, despite all this talk about buoyancy aids, I haven't once mentined the lilo scene). Happy New Year, Unattendees!

*(I know I've played Sir Maxwell House over a few series of The Monster Hunters {who also taught crows to do tricks} but Sir Maxwell is a character from a sketch, which might be why the show outgrew him.)

Going Back to the "WELL..."

  Speaking of wars and uncles and secrets and years, I can't imagine that anyone reading this blog hasn't by now listened at least once through to the ninth series of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme. But if you haven't, I would love it if you did, and then you can learn why producer Ed Morrish bought us all these lovely glasses. In fact, you'll learn the reason for that in Episode One, but you'll have to wait until Episode Four to learn the reason for the reason, which is as good a guide for how to listen to Finnemore's Ninth as I can probably give. Here's the link. And here's John's own advice for how to listen to it. 

 When I heard the episodes go out this Summer, week after week, it felt like what finding treasure must feel like, and when John first suggested to me over Zoom what he was planning for the series – given the difficulty of performing sketches in front of a live audience at the beginning of 2021 – I was thrilled giddy by the idea that he might finally, finally, be making something that just wouldn't work AT ALL (like the fairy tale about a giant condemned to carry people across a river until finally he drops one in the water, and everyone stops asking him, and so he's free) but in the end we never got to witness that. John didn't drop a thing. That's my only disappointment regarding this otherwise perfect answer to the question "How do you follow the Heist Episode from series 7?" And I will definitely at some point write more about it from the beach in my mind I'm spending the rest of my life on because I got to be in it.

 

 

*This* is why I wouldn't call it a sketch show though.

A really good day

 An old sketch for a painting of my parents who today received their second, final vaccinations, in a sports hall in Alès two hours' drive away, requiring an Attestation de Déplacement Dérogatoire – or Certificate of Travel Restriction Waiver (for persons residing in departments subject to reinforced measures) – because France is currently under curfew. 

 "A really good day," Mum emailed. "Sun was shining, and the Tramontane Wind of the last few days had lessened" and it wasn't until my sister tweeted her relief that it struck me just how good. 

 I'd been treating this like a census deadline, rather than the granting of immunity to a global pandemic after a year's lockdown, and I hadn't dared give any outcome other than this a second's credit.

 Thank you, Mum and Dad, for staying safe. 

 And thank you to everyone who is staying safe.

Taking My Rightful Place at the Top Left Hand Corner of Fashion

 On the first anniversary of theatres and Crystal Mazes closing, here are some images from Chloé Doherty's Pretend Freinds which I worked on last Thursday. The tie covered in toy cars is by Anne-Sophie Cochevelou, who made all of these costumes. Earrings too. You can see them a bit better here...

 

   When Chloé sent out a group text asking who of us had their ears pierced, I misread it as "ear piece" (each of us in the Maze hygienically had our own, to keep us in touch with "Mumsie") and I throw nothing away. In the end I just stuck them in my ear holes, as you might be able to tell from the look on my face. All ears have holes. I think it might catch on.

 Here's where we shot:

"The origins of chain saws in surgery is debated."

  It's probably for the best you can't make out the faces above as I've no idea what's announceable yet, but he were are again – or aren't –  embarking on a new thing from the brain of Bottom Left. Monday therefore has been exciting. I don't remember how the conversation got onto chainsaws; it was Top Right, I think, who said she had recently discovered they were invented originally as an aid to childbirth, which I looked up immediately, and... Happy International Women's Day, everyone!

 

Before the invention of gasoline motors, osteotomes such as this were powered by Charades.

 The pop shield I was sent didn't reach from the stand, so I tried holding it over my face like a French fan. Could something perhaps be installed to stop me popping permanently – enquired Bottom Right – like a nose bag? 

 We wracked our brains for something that could be worn over the mouth.

 – Whathever man invents the machine that can make Simon quieter– began Bottom Left.

 – Or woman, I interrupted, in celebration of the day.

 – Whatever man invents the machine... or woman... that can make Simon quieter– Bottom Left corrected himself.

 Whatever we finish making should be available in a couple of months, which is exciting, until which time, I think, I get to keep the whole recording caboodle, which is also exciting. Maybe I'll make some rap. I've been relistening to Rob Hubbard's old Commodore 64 sountracks recently: they're stirring, and would make an excellent bed. Don't copy me.

 

 

FLASHBACK - 20181020_153931.jpg

 Last night, I looked through oldish photos that Google had saved without me noticing and, coming across this image taken or uploaded on the twentieth of the tenth Twenty-Eighteen, I felt like I'd found a photograph of Atlantis. Or of Lord Krishna revealing his true, planet-munching self to Prince Arjuna. How had I managed it? Photoshop? Or had I photocopied thousands of people, then cut them out and stuck them on cardboard and pins like the Cottingley Fairies? Was I even aware, in twenty eighteen, that I wasn't taking a photograph of Trafalgar Square at all here, but of a crowd? 

 I couldn't have been. 

 Somehow, this was normal.

 I've been a little worried recently about how many people I've seen out and about. I'm less worried now. 

 Click to enlarge.

Why There Are Now Doodles In the Margins

 A little scrawling had turned up on the south end of Waterloo Bridge yesterday evening. When I was last here, in the hours of darkness, I'd seen some of it go up. As with the south bank further west, the evening I wandered down to Vauxhall, I'd felt that night like the only one out over the age of thirty.

 

 I remembered how much the scene reminded me of eighties' film dystopias, and how much as a child I'd looked forward to actually living in one. So stimulating! I mean, obviously it would be nice to feel society at large wasn't breaking down, but – at the risk of sounding like the People's Poet – I'd favour this over a future that "kept kids off the streets", as we used to say back in the day. I did wonder though, going back to that night, what it was about pre-lockdown London that had kept the kids away. Was it just other people's evenings out? 

 And then yesterday I passed this:

 

 Oh yeah, of course. There had been an area specifically designated for everything I'd seen in the night, but it was now fenced off. That was certainly one explanation. 

 So simple it probably didn't merit a post.

Here's a Waterloo sunset to make up for it.

 

Enlarge for gulls.

Blessed

 I've just rewatched this video to confirm that Richard Herring's interview here with Brian Blessed may be the greatest one-man show I've seen. It's a hell of an act, really – literally death-defying – and, while often threatening to disintegrate into whatever the louder version of waffle is, every unprompted digression ultimately leads to a vista. You might find yourself, like me, crying honest tears of joy several times at the beauty of the view. 

 

 

 "Exploration is not a discovery.... it is a Remembrance!"

 

 These last twelve months have proved something of a procrastinator's paradise, and I know I haven't been alone in approaching the end of the virus with some dread at the idea of being asked once again "So what's next for you?" But Brian Blessed's been training to climb Olympus Mons, which is four times the height of Everest, and on Mars. So maybe what I'll do next is fuck Death up the arse, live forever, and learn to sing like Pavarotti. Thank you, Brian, can't wait.

"Stath Lets Flats" is the British American Office.

I'd forgotten they'd made this!

 

 It was love at first sight between me and Stath Lets Flats, but it's only after my latest accidental binge of both series (having sat down to watch one episode) that I realise just how highly I rate it, and also possibly why: Quite early on in the American version of The Office, the show reaches a point where it understands its characters well enough to trust them with absurdity; the cast's performative muscle memory is strong enough to ground anything written for them. And Stath Lets Flats operates on that level of confidence from Episode One, possibly because – as he explains in this great interview with Rachael Healy – Jamie Demetriou has known so many of its cast for so long. His show is the opposite of "actor-proof"; it's a clown show composed of details, and every detail makes me laugh out loud.

 

 See above.

 

 The similarities extend beyond tone, however. To quote the interview: "Emotional behaviour juxtaposed with masculine bravado, done well, is a treat." Like The Office's Michael Scott (and unlike David Brent), Stath Charalambos is an idealist possessed by a mutant variant of kindness – an incapacitating, all-or-nothing desire not just to be loved, but to be allowed to love, which manifests itself most commonly in acts of unchecked selfishness. Also like The Office's Pam, Sophie Charalambos is a healthier, self-checking, but similarly yearning heart, the show's secret focus, and the real reason we care as much about these people as we do. Originally, I had thought that the last episode broadcast – not counting this bonus lockdown cracker posted above – was the perfect ending, but having rewatched it all, I now want two hundred more, and I'm very glad there's going to be a Series 3. 

 Here's Natasha Demetriou providing excellent company on Adam Buxton's podcast...

 Here's a brilliant interview with Kiell Smith-Bynoe... "I'd like to work in America, not crazy about living there. Tricky, because it seems like a great shout for black actors, not so much for black people. Tricky, mainly because I am both..."

 And here's more Katy Wix...

 

Notebookery: CITY and CITIZENS (1993ish)

 I need new shoes again, so I've been out less, the ground being wet, and in the evenings I've been winding down in front of youtube, sometimes for seven hours or more, so my thoughts are a little unravelled. Don't worry though, good times are being had, I just don't want to post too many youtube recommendations on here because I know some of you have lives to be getting on with. Here's another notebook then. These pages are from my A-level Art project, on a subject of my choosing. I can't tell if London looks different now or not, apart from the crowds; I wish I'd taken more photographs of the south bank, back when it was scrubland to the east of Blackfriars Bridge. I think the project got me a B. No. I know it did. But it hadn't yet been through a housefire, so didn't look nearly as handsome. It was almost definitely that kind of glibness that helped get me a B, now I think of it. 

 You should be able to click to enlarge these.