La La Land and the Top 5 Musicals of All Time

Ross Keniston - writer, presenter, interviewer...and my partner! - has just launched his brand new venture, Micstand. It starts with weekly podcasts talking about, well, whatever people want to talk about really. For week one he wanted to discuss La La Land and, since he and I saw the film together and disagree on rather a lot of points, he asked me to be his first guest. I hope our discussion is of interest to people and I'd love to hear other people's views on the film. Do you agree with Ross, me or have an entirely different view? Have a listen to the podcast and get in touch with your thoughts.

For the second part, we shared our personal top five favourite musicals of all time. I won't list them here, you'll need to listen to the podcast, but again I'd love to chat to you about your own personal top fives, what you think we missed and what you think we definitely shouldn't have included. Leave a comment or get in touch.

There are plenty of ways you can listen to the podcast. It's on Mixcloud, YouTube and iTunes so there's no excuses - listen now! Oh, and you can follow Micstand on Twitter too!

January Roundup

Here's the shows, a comedy gig and a film that I've seen in January 2017 with links to reviews, podcasts and tweets from me about them:

Mary Poppins, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff (5 January)

Peter Pan, New Theatre, Cardiff (6 January)

Impractical Jokers Santiago Sent Us tour, Manchester Arena (12 January)

La La Land, Vue, Cardiff (16 January)

Sunny Afternoon, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff (17 January)

A Regular Little Houdini, Chapter, Cardiff (27 January)

Theatrical New Year's Resolutions - One Year On

I'd completely forgotten about my blog post from last January, Theatrical New Year's Resolutions, until I just happened upon it. Considering, I haven't done too badly at sticking to it. The gist of it was to see more theatre, particularly Welsh theatre, but theatre in general - as much and as varied as possible.

Let's start with the productions that I've covered for The Reviews Hub. I completed just 7 reviews in 2015 and 18 in 2016...that's definitely seeing more theatre! Here's what I covered:

Play/Silence – The Other Room, Cardiff

Henry VI – Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Sand – The Other Room, Porter’s, Cardiff

Smash It Up – Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

St. Nicholas – The Other Room, Cardiff

Mr. and Mrs. Laughton – Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Cosy – Weston Studio, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Only The Brave – Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Tell Me on a Sunday – New Theatre, Cardiff

Jem & Ella – Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Constellation Street – The Other Room, Porter’s, Cardiff

Mrs Reynolds a’r Cena Bach (Mrs Reynolds and the Ruffian) – Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

The Importance of Being Earnest – The Gate Arts Centre, Cardiff

A Sunny Disposition -The Other Room, Porter’s, Cardiff

Black Stuff – Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Blavatsky’s Tower– Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

Before I Leave – Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Swarm – Bute Town History and Arts Centre, Cardiff

I'm really pleased with the increase in reviews I was able to write last year but I haven't reviewed anything since August! Imagine if I'd kept up that momentum all year! So that's the aim in 2017, keep reviewing all year.

There are plenty of Welsh productions on that list, which is great and something that I'd like to keep up this year. I'm most proud of my first ever review of a Welsh language production, and thanks to one of my fantastic editors, it was published bilingually - a first for The Public Reviews!

Of course I saw plenty of productions that I wasn't reviewing but I'm rather rubbish at remembering what I've seen when so that's another aim for 2017 - keep a record of every processional production that I see.

I had two big theatrical adventures that I intend devoting separate blog posts to. I got my first experience of the Edinburgh Fringe last year thanks to a certain cloth puppet called Fred, and an epic weekend in London involving No Man's Land, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and Lazarus was our holiday.

I'm really lucky that working on Hijinx Unity Festival means that I get to see some fantastic international theatre and call it work. The highlight of the 2016 festival was easily Falling in Love with Frida - spellbinding from start to finish!

There is one that will definitely stick in my mind from last year. I had a very proud dance teacher moment seeing one of my girls dancing in the RCT Theatres pantomime, Dick Whittington!

I also intended blogging more in 2016 and didn't make it past January so let's see if I can do better with that too!

Play/Silence

My first reviewing assignment of 2016 for The Reviews Hub: Play/Silence at The Other Room, Cardiff. Have a read here:

http://www.thereviewshub.com/playsilence-the-other-room-cardiff/

I just wish I'd recorded myself and my friend discussing, comparing and contrasting the plays in the pub afterwards (well if you're going to go to a pub theatre it seems only right to enjoy the pub as well as the theatre). I think our chat would have made quite an interesting blog post...but instead it will have to remain in the pub. Maybe next time!

Theatrical New Year's Resolutions

I know it's rather late in January to be talking about New Year's Resolutions but, as it does this time every year, my involvement in the Wales Theatre Awards has got me all inspired and motivated.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the shortlisting for the awards. I am proud and still a little surprised to have been involved with the Wales Theatre Awards in some way, shape or form since the first ceremony in 2014 (I think). And, as always, sitting around a table with other reviewers listening to them talk about all the fantastic theatre that is out there in Wales, it has inspired me to see more. More of anything and everything. One of the things I love about reviewing is that I get to see things I wouldn't normally go to see.

We have some really great home grown theatre and performance in Wales and no matter how much I see there is always more, always something that I missed that sounds incredible. It would be impossible to see all of it but my resolution is to see as much as I can and as big a variety as I can, not just Welsh theatre but everything.

With my first Cardiff theatre visit of 2016 under my belt already and 3 more planned, the Wales Theatre Awards ceremony looming, and at least two trips to London in the offing, 2016 is shaping up to be a theatrical year for this onion.

Thank You to the Bad Influences

Sparked by a tweet I was tagged in earlier by one of my theatre friends, I'd just like to say thank you to all the bad influences in my life. The people that have met me in all sorts of random places around the country just to see a show. The people that introduced me to day seating, staying in hostels and sniffing out deals on tickets and meals to make seeing that extra show affordable. The people that have encouraged me to get home from London at 3am and still get into work the next morning. The people that have stood at stage door with me in sunshine and showers and laughed at things that nobody else will ever get. The people that don't see anything wrong with living on chicken nuggets for a few days. The people that have walked the streets with me singing show tunes. The people that think seeing a show is the best way to celebrate anything - birthdays, Christmas, New Year, anything. The people that think that theatre is the only topic of conversation. If you are one of these people, thank you for being a bad influence. I hope I'm a bad influence too.

What is the Future of Arts Criticism in Wales?

Today I attended a small part of the biannual Critics' Roundtable event organised by Wales Arts Review and for me the most thought provoking session was on the future of arts criticism in Wales. This panel discussion fired two debates in my head, the first being about maintaining paid income for arts critics.

Traditional models saw newspapers and magazines making money out of sales of hard copies and advertising, but with the shift from the physical to digital - panelist Gary Raymond, editor at Wales Arts Review, actual predicted the death of printed newspapers and magazines within the next ten years - and the huge amount of information, articles and reviews that are available for free at the touch of a button, how is it possible to make enough money to continue to pay critics for their work?

Advertising is the obvious transferable factor from the old model and is a tried and tested way of making money out of online content but it is by no means the magical wonder solution to all the problems surrounding paying critics for their work. In fact, the fight for advertising might even have a negative effect on arts criticism. The publications that can attract the largest number of hits are the ones that will secure the big advertising deals making articles about the mainstream far more attractive to publishers than the new and unusual or more challenging - a piece about a big well known musical will attract more hits than one about an unknown contemporary dance piece, no matter how amazing that work is. It was also mentioned by the panel today that people are more likely to read reviews with very high or very low star ratings rather than those in the middle. Is it cynical to think that reviews may become influenced by the need to gain hits?

The most popular solution with the panel today was to make readers pay for online content in the same way that they would buy a physical newspaper or magazine. Leading me onto the second debate in my head, is charging for online content really the way forward? The thinking was that if the big name publications started doing this then the smaller ones could do the same and actually earn some money. I personally don't think we should be thinking about online content in the same way as print. It's a completely different medium which people interact with in a completely different way - I certainly do anyway. I wouldn't go to a website and read each article in turn like reading a magazine from cover to cover. I'll read an article because I've spotted a link to it somewhere and it's sparked my interest. I don't just read articles from one publication like buying one newspaper, I'll read from a multitude of sources. If I find something interesting I want to be able to share it on my social networks so that people with the same interests as me can read it too - none of this is conducive with paid content. I don't think I'm devaluing the journalists that have written the articles and reviews that I read by interacting with digital content in this way, I firmly believe they should be paid for their work. I'm also not completely discounting paid for content, but this new and booming way of devouring information needs a new approach from the industry, not the same old ones that were applied to print.

I said in a Twitter discussion following today's event that I'm a solutions not problems kind of girl and I haven't offered up a single solution in this post. I do believe some thinking outside the box is needed to secure the future of arts criticism, but hey, these are just the ramblings of an Onion.