Take That Appear at The Band in Cardiff

My theatrical adventures of 2018 started last night with an unplanned visit to see The Band at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff. I'll blog about the show itself in another post but for now I just want to share the bigger adventure that resulted from this last minute visit.

To be honest, I wasn't that interested in seeing the show. I didn't follow the tv programme to find the band that appear in the show and, although I LOVED Take That as a teenager, it just hadn't grabbed me for some reason. But then, the opportunity to acquire a pair of tickets for Tuesday night came my way and I thought why not give it a go. The problem was this ticket opportunity didn't arise until Monday so finding someone to go with proved impossible at such short notice. I very nearly gave it a miss myself but instead I decided to go it alone.

How gutted would I have been had I not grabbed that opportunity, because none other than Take That themselves appeared for the encore! Now, I know they've been doing this at quite a few venues and, looking back at social media now, there were some not so subtle hints that they might turn up in Cardiff, but to me it was a complete surprise. As Mark Owen appeared on that stage my inner teenager freaked out a little bit, and by the time he was joined by Gary Barlow and Howard Donald teenaged Onion was freaking out quite a lot! I'd never seen them live so to have them appear unexpectedly in front of me was quite a moment. To be honest, I can't even tell you what the first song they did was! Luckily I got my brain back together for Never Forget and Shine. Okay, I might not have been screaming the loudest or dancing and waving my arms the most - I was on my own after all - but I was one happy Onion!

So grab those moments, go on the adventures, even if you're on your own. You never know, Take That might appear!

Be A Hashtag Ninja

The hashtag! We've all seen them on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (although they are next to useless on Facebook, but that's another story), but there is much more to using one of these than most people realise and having just witnessed the perfect misuse of one, I thought it was about time I wrote a blog post to share my hashtag tips, dos and don'ts.

The way I see it, there are three main uses of hashtags. I'm going to deal with the easiest two first as most people get these right. Firstly, jumping into conversations and getting your post seen. This is the main use on Instagram and to an extent on Twitter. If you tag your photograph #CatsOfInstagram you are trying to get your picture seen by people looking for pictures of cats, and if you search #CatsOfInstagram you know you're going to see lots of pictures of cats. The world has got the hang of that one.

Secondly, we have the comedy hashtag; using a hashtag for comedy effect, usually in a tweet, that you don't actually expect someone to click on and find a whole conversation around it. When I used the hashtag #TakeAnInanimateObjectForAWalk the other day on Twitter, I didn't actually expect anyone to click on it and find a whole movement around taking tea trolleys on public transport (which is also another story). Regardless of whether they are funny or not, most people mess around with hashtags in this way and that's fine.

Then we come onto the most difficult hashtag, the event or gathering hashtag. Something is happening (be it a one off event, a course that runs for a year or a group that meets every week), you're tweeting about, you're sharing pictures on Instagram, you want other people to do the same, and you want people to be able to see all of these posts and find out what's going on. You need a hashtag, but most importantly you need a unique hashtag...unless you're an organisation who attracts the volume of posts that something like the BBC does - they could probably pick any hashtag they wanted and make it their own! I'll prove to you what I mean about the importance of unique hashtags. I just saw a tweet about participants in #WhateverTheHashtagWas. The hashtag was four letters, I assume initials, and I didn't know what they stood for so I clicked on it to find out more. What appeared was a mix of football and I think medical tweets, and one person announcing they were off to the pool! None of these seemed related to the tweet I'd been reading. The result, I'm none the wiser about what was being participated in, have forgotten what the letters were, and have lost interest in the tweet and am now writing this blog post about hashtags instead! Probably not the desired outcome. The moral of this story, do a few Twitter searches before you claim a hashtag as your own to see how unique it is, choose something that isn't going to attract lots of unrelated noise, and encourage everyone involved to use that hashtag (people using the wrong hashtags just directs people to the wrong places where they might not see the information you want them to see or they might be saying amazing things about you and you'll never know!). Get it right and this use of a hashtag can be a brilliant thing, get it wrong and you lose the attention of people who might want to get involved.

#BeAHashtagNinja

PS This is called Be a Hashtag Ninja because I used it for comedy effect at  the bottom of the post, then did a quick Twitter search for it and realised it's unique, so am claiming it for sharing this post and will see what happens (probably nothing!)

Why I Won't Put a Heart on my Facebook Profile

We've all seen them, the heart and nothing else as a Facebook status, the single colour or word that makes no sense. Then you get the inbox message, post whatever-it-is-this-time to your Facebook profile to raise awareness of whatever-it-is-this-time​.

I admit, when Facebook was new to me I got sucked into these games, but I think it's important to clarify why, if you send me one of those Facebook messages asking me to post something random, I will now ignore it.

Firstly, posting a random word or emoji to your Facebook profile doesn't raise awareness of anything because people don't know what it is. Admittedly, the private message that goes with the heart for breast cancer awareness does contain a reminder to check yourself, which is definitely a good thing, but don't you think posting an article on how to check yourself to your Facebook profile would do more good and raise more awareness? In fact, here's the advice from the NHS website. Go on, share it now!

I've found out from experience that personally written posts get a reaction and get people talking, and that's what you need to really raise awareness. I talk about my dermographia because I think it's important that other people that have it see it as a positive thing and not something to be ashamed of.

I've posted about the amazing treatment I received when a smear test revealed abnormal cells and reminding people how important it is to get tested, in response to an article about the decline in young women going for cervical screening. I've also posted on Facebook in the past about why I won't post a heart to my Facebook profile for breast cancer awareness. All of these posts have received more likes and comments than any heart I've ever seen as someone's status.

Social media can be a wonderful tool and there have been some brilliant awareness raising campaigns. The Ice Bucket Challenge is the obvious success story, but I've just read about Asthma UK's #scarfie campaign, which is a fun way of showing people with asthma how to avoid the cold air trigger in the winter. It's fairly easy to spot which campaigns are productive and which aren't. The Ice Bucket Challenge clearly told everyone it was about ALS/Motor Neurone Disease and asked people to make a donation, and these have helped fund massive advances in research. The #scarfie actually shows people how they can help prevent an asthma attack. A random word posted to Facebook doesn't really have the same impact.

My other reason for not partaking in these games is that the people I know, who's lives have been touched by the terrible illnesses that they claim to raise awareness of, don't agree with them. At best they think they are pointless and at worst they find them insensitive and upsetting. I can't speak for everyone on this, of course, but I do think it's worth remembering that some people feel upset rather than supported by these things.

I guess what I'm trying to say is we need to think about what we're posting. Is it really going to help or could we be doing something more useful? And on that note I'm off to share the advice on checking your breasts from the NHS website to my social media.

(F.E.A.R.)

I'm aiming to get better at posting links to the reviews I write for The Reviews Hub on here, rather than just linking to them in my monthly roundups. So, let's start with my review of Mr and Mrs Clark's (F.E.A.R.) at the Riverfront, Newport this week - a one man show performed by Gareth Clark:
http://www.thereviewshub.com/f-e-a-r-the-riverfront-newport/

Where's the Theatrical Gone?

The observant amongst you will have noticed that the name of this blog has changed. It's a very small change, just one word (and the URL is exactly the same), but Theatrical Adventures of an Onion is now Adventures of an Onion. Don't worry, I'm not dropping the theatrical - those of you who know me are well aware that I could never do that! I just want to open the blog up a bit to discuss film, TV and other popular (or not so popular) culture topics as well as theatre. So, welcome to Adventures of an Onion! I hope you continue to enjoy my adventures and I'd love you to share your own with me and my readers too.

Brief Musings on La Cage Aux Folles

My first theatrical outing of February was to see La Cage Aux Folles at the New Theatre, Cardiff. I probably wouldn't have bothered going, having seen the wonderful version in London years ago starring John Barrowman, but my Dad wanted to as he'd never seen it before and I certainly wasn't going to object to seeing it again. I was a little worried that it wouldn't live up to my previous experience but I actually really enjoyed it. As it's not one of those shows who's soundtrack I play on repeat I'd forgotten how great the music is, and the cast performed it brilliantly. The big chorus numbers were particularly impressive and the cast in full flight all singing together was quite the sound. However, this was a Bill Kenwright production and came with the rough around the edges feel that I've unfortunately come to expect from this production company - costumes not staying done up, dancers not drilled well enough - a shame really as this cast deserves better. Still a good night out though.

February Roundup

I'm rather late posting this, I know, but here's my round up of theatre and films attended in February, complete with links to my reviews, tweets, blog posts, or podcasts that I've guest appeared on relating to them:

La Cage Aux Folles, New Theatre, Cardiff (2 February)

Lego Batman, Vue, Cardiff (5 February)

T2 Trainspotting, Vue, Cardiff (5 February)

Meet Fred, Soar Centre, Penygraig (6 February)

Sinners Club, The Other Room, Cardiff (16 February)

Cinderella, Phoenix Theatre, Ton Pentre (24 February)

The Wedding Singer, New Theatre, Cardiff (27 February)