Theatre Reviews

After Day of Eternal Torture at work, I was taken to see Equus by dodgyhoodoo as the last bit of my birthday present. I was tired and a bit depressed, but was looking very much forward to it all the same. I was very keen to see how Daniel Radcliffe did in a serious role and how he and Richard Griffiths worked together after their work on the Harry Potter series.

Then we got into the theatre and saw a sign that said, "Due to illness, Richard Griffiths is unable to perform this evening". Bum. So we got Colin Haigh for the psychiatrist instead. Haigh generally plays a character who's only in two scenes, but also understudies the psychiatrist. I was more than happy to give this guy a shot, but on the whole, he left me utterly cold. So many fantastic lines, and not a shred of emoting. It was depressing overall, at least in that respect. I will give him props for managing as well as he did lines-wise on only two days' rehearsal (he only fluffed a few), but if he's the understudy ... surely he shouldn't have to have learned the lines in two days - he should have been learning them in rehearsals ... right? I mean, that's what I did when I understudied, and I was in amateur crap. I'm confused.

Daniel Radcliffe can act. The set was beautifully done, even if converting a proscenium arch into a theatre-in-the-round was probably a bad idea due to audience members on the 'jury bench' upstage hanging their arms over the railing and causing a bit of a distraction. On the whole, the play was great. My only complaint was Haigh, whose lack of oomph in line delivery meant that he never held my interest. Everyone stole the show from him - the parents, the magistrate, the love interest, the horses ... and, when he was alone onstage, the set itself had more presence and ability to captivate, even when it was just four square boxes and some shut stable doors.

I could go into my whole theatre studies spiel, but it's late so I won't do that just now. What I will say is that it would have been completely perfect if Richard Griffiths hadn't got sick, or if Colin Haigh hadn't been phoning in his lines. As it was, it was occasionally distracting watching the other actors trying to get Haigh to engage with them as characterisation and script demanded and, on the whole, was a bit of a let-down. Which is a pity, but not really anybody's fault. Except possibly for Haigh's. Git.

Well, They Asked...

I got an email from my recruitment agency today. In it, she asks how I am getting on in the assignment and whether there's anything she needs to know.

My response:

"Well, actually, yes. This is the second time I've been in this fucking sinkhole of a post and both times the fucking hospital has lied through their godsdamned teeth about the actual nature of the role, so that instead of simply clearing a typing backlog, I am doing the senior secretary/PA duties for two consultants as well as clearing a typing backlog, not to mention sorting out the completely disgraceful disaster area the previous temp - who they sacked for being incompetent - left behind her. On the whole, I'd rather be shovelling raw sewage than working in that horrible office with its ergonomically unsound desk chair, constant phone calls from entitlement bitch patients, unholy workload, constant finger-pointing for things that other temps fucked up and the hour and three quarters I have to spend on public transport just to get to the office. They're lying scheming arseholes who, by throwing temps into that cesspit of a role with no warning of the actual workload, are causing undue grief to said temps and cheating both the temp and the agencies involved out of their rightful rates for the work."

Okay, maybe not in quite those words, but I did point out that ChelWest is cheating them and me by consistently misrepresenting the role and suggested that they might want to be careful dealing with that hospital in future. I swear, that fucking place keeps screwing me over - ChelWest, recall, was the hospital that didn't pay me when I was on long-term sick because a receptionist couldn't pass along a fucking message, not even when I provided them with the appropriate doctor's certificates.

Oh, and did I mention that I missed the interview I had to get put in the running for the cushy PA job at the medical research firm because this one patient ranted at me for twenty-five minutes by the clock about things that were the fault of other secretaries? And that I can't commit to another interview until I know that the complete and total nightmare that office got left in is at least marginally under control? And that this basically means that I'm stuck there for eternity because trying to clean up several months worth of temp mess in there is like trying to empty the Atlantic with a sieve?

I will never say that the world owes me a lottery win. However, I don't think I'm wrong in saying that the world owes me a huge bag of sweeties.