I’m not purely a theatre-hound, y’know – I like my mindless escapism as much as the next man.

I think this one’s probably my favourite Shakespeare comedy, as The Tempest may well be my favourite more serious piece. I was brought up on the film version with Denzel Washington (one of Keanu’s most lamentable roles. I like the guy, but a Shakespearean he ain’t. Isn’t. Oh, who cares.) and still find the interplay between Benedict and Beatrice the most fabulous, true stuff ever written.

“Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her…”

Gotta love ya, Benedict. Anyhow. This production. For a start I love outdoor theatre, especially if you’re allowed to bring a hamper and sit on the grass. The company numbers five, in colour-co-ordinated outfits that may have come from Gap. The adaptation allows access for the Facebook generation and also those who remember Cliff Richard. It was supreemely funny and very well acted, swinging from high farce (Dogberry & co, anyone?) to deep emotion (Left at the altar by Claudio! Ohnoes!) Children over the age of seven will be able to enjoy this as much as hardened literati.

Oh, and I have one last thing to leave you with. What rhymes with petunia?

…”Baboonier”, of course.

In art: I have been a little slow in doing things, as my normal life has been full of toil and incident, but the artistic will is still there. I’ve got a commission I’m working on sketches for, and an entire sheet of sketches produced in a curry fever-dream. Honestly, I have no idea. They’re called “hoppers” and they look like something Miyazaki left in his slush pile.

Oh, and a nice lady knocked on  my door today and offered to buy my unfinished piece “Her Guardian”  – the one with James in his Feral shape and Angel at his knees under the red sun. Always been fond of that one.

Creatures from El

Badhead-Gadroon

I have very few dragon characters, but KJ I am very fond of and they both did wonderful work. If you have spare money and want lovely pictures, they’re well worth it.

Life is otherwise very busy, with time for sketches only. Someone recently offered to buy my Wish Hound, but I have a feeling the price I quoted may have been too much as they haven’t come back to me yet. I would plead at this point: if you’re ever asking about buying one of my paintings and I quote you a price that you feel you can’t afford, do at least tell me so I can know that the piece is open to offers from other potential buyers. Don’t just decide not to reply.

This is the same rant I have over the death of RSVP in the modern world. No-one seems to know what that means anymore. If I send an invitation and I put RSVP on it, it means I want to know if you can come, as this sort of information helps hugely when buying food and making transport arrangements etc. I don’t just add these four funny letters on for my own personal amusement, my health, or because I want you to look them up to find out what they mean. Sheesh.

Rant over.

I hand draw and paint each one. To buy one or just to see all 3 designs on sale currently, have a look at this page.

Oh yes! and I had a success: J is for Jackalope has found a new home and has been sold, after several interested buyers. Huzzah! Thankyou to the lovely lady buyer and I hope he gives you years of pleasure.

In other news: I took a trip to a nearby Cineworld cinema to see the live broadcast of the National Theatre’s All’s Well That Ends Well. Excellent. Live stage show, no expensive trip to London. And there’s just so many nuances you get with extreme close-up of the actors that you might otherwise miss. This is an advance the internet can be truly proud of, as I understand it was broadcast worldwide. Beautiful staging, too, with some lovely use of fairy-tale shadow-play and sparkly light-up rings. It’s not a Shakespeare I’ve read or seen before, and it’s certainly a little unusual. I couldn’t help feeling that in the end, she didn’t really want the man she’d risked everything to get.

Heh. No. Of course, there I was pre-booking about a month ago and clapping my little hands with excitement. I’ve probably got a very real chance of winning some kind of record for Most Renditions Of Peter Pan Seen In One Year.

Anyhow. Enough mindless blathering, and onto the play. A beautiful day in London, warm sunshine and Kensington Gardens itself looking like Eden (admittedly, if this were true, Eden had a whole lot more pushchairs than the Bible let on about…).

The Neverland Pavillion, custom-built, looms on the horizon like the Taj Mahal. They said the play would be performed in a tent. If this is a tent, I’d hate to see their idea of a camper van. This isn’t a tent. It’s a biodome. It’s amazing inside (I recommend Block B for a really good view of the action) and as the play is performed in the round, the back-projection used for the flight scenes and settings reminds me of visiting the IMAX. It is one of the best-realised “flights over London” I’ve ever seen – even gave me a vertignous lurch to my stomach as the children circled Nelson’s Column.

Yes, the “flying” still requires wires, but it’s more Cirque du Soleil than high camp. Full marks to the grunge punk Tinkerbell, too, she was marvellous. And Peter was so excruitatingly arrogant and thoughtless I wanted to hit him, which is a credit to the acting involved.

And Mr Jonathan Hyde, I love you and your stunning Charles II Hook outfit with red-heeled Cordovan boots (which presumably pinch something awful, if George Macdonald Fraser is to be believed). I love your final moments with the stunningly War Horse-esque crocodile (“Why is that Crocodile the only female who’s ever shown the remotest interest in me?! The only one who’s ever really wanted me?”) And I want a bunch of brawny pirates to carry me on and off stage in my hammock, like you.

If you’ve ever loved Neverland, go and see this before it closes. I promise you won’t regret it.

Chore over, swung by Tate Britain for their Van Dyck exhibition. As anyone who knows me will know, I have a real soft spot for that royal Stuart big hai-moustache-and-lace-collar look, so this was a treat for me.  It made me have to go home and watch Restoration.

The thing I love about Van Dyck is that all his people look like real people.  I’m aware that sounds silly: of course they’re real people. Charles I in particular was very real. It’s hard to chop the head off someone insubstantial.

What I mean is, they all have  unmistakeable personality. It’s not just a soulless rendition: if the sitter is bored, they look it: if they were a little nervous, they look it: if they were amused, they defintely look it. It’s a talent I really wish I could emulate…that and his ability with folds in cloth.

However, art may have to wait for a bit, as I’m concentrating on doing a few little updates to my website (it’s embarrassing, working with the web as I do, that I haven’t updated it more often).

It’s always interesting to look at the audience of these sort of productions and wonder “Do they love Beckett and all his works? Or are they here to see Gandalf and Captain Picard giving it their all in tattered trousers and bowler hats?”

I must admit, I am not a devoted lover of all Beckett’s works. I do like this one, though. I’ve never seen it on stage before, but I read it when I was seventeen and was intrigued by it. It’s a Marmite play: you either think it has something terribly worthwhile and profound to say about life and the human condition, or it makes you want to throw tomatoes while singing “What is this pretentious tripe?!”

I err to the profound while appreciating that it is, of course, famously a play where “Nothing happens. Nobody comes. Nobody goes.” and if you’re yearning to find out what Mr Godot looks like you’ll be sadly disappointed.

This particular production, with its two principals flitting and bouncing gleefully off each other like your two craziest uncles in a pub on a Sunday afternoon, was sheer joy. The humour of the piece was overwhelmingly evident – laughter from the audience from the very beginning – throwing into very sharp relief some of Vladimir’s darkest, most despairing moments. Patrick Stewart’s dedicated intensity to proving his worth and existance was matched only by Sir Ian’s lugubrious, stubborn apathy of memory - most of the biggest laughs being garnered through his perfectly executed silences and beat moments.  The only mid-scene applause, however, went to Ronald Pickup for Lucky’s monologue, delivered with terrifying, relentless speed.

Knowing that Beckett’s dedication to stage direction and set design borders on the anal, does not detract from the beauty of the stage lighting, which moved us from twilight to sun to snow-lit chill, nor the fervour of the performances. A truly satisfying afternoon spent. And having walked past Sir Ian and Simon Callow in the street on their way to the Stage Door, doubly satisfying.

A lesson for all of us, I think – we’re all waiting for Godot – the act of waiting giving us something to do while we wait for our lives to start. In the end, all you can really do is just get on with living.

Look at her gallery and tell me that it isn’t so.

I am an artist, of sorts; I am used to creating things out of nothing using paper, pens and paint. Sara does this too, except she uses fabrics with an almost unearthly skill.

Of course, it’s this particular fella that I wish to praise most. So. Yes. Devout Dolls. Go and have a look and enjoy being in awe.