Category: Mightaswell

For now, I’ll leave this site up as an archive of my five years in Mancland (I keep referring people to blog posts… quite handy!) and then I’ll see what I’ll do with it once I’ve got a fixed address again. Exciting times.

I never realised I actually enjoyed going to the theatre. To be completely honest, I think I watched not more than four or five plays while I was living in Germany, including the two I actually acted in.* And all of a sudden, as soon as I had moved to Manchester, this just rocketed: maybe thanks to the cheap tickets for young people, maybe because I’m getting older, soon too old to classify as a young person anymore. Now that’s what I call a dilemma.

My theatrical excursions began early in 2010 with a trip to the Library Theatre to see Grimm Tales, a performance piece with music and dance, but far from being a musical. I loved the Library Theatre, the fact that you had to go down the stairs just right after the library entrance hall to end up in this subterranean playhouse, the red seats, the tiny little bar, and the ice cream vendors during the interval. Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation was a dark and fascinating interpretation of the Brother Grimm’s tales, the performance was thoroughly enjoyable, and the set design had been crafted with love for detail. Solid.

My next trip was an introduction into the wonderful world of Gilbert & Sullivan, two names I had never heard of before witnessing the beginning of a rehearsal of the University’s G&S society. Lacking chairs in the rehearsal room, one of the members dramatically exclaimed ‘No more chairs! NO more CHAIRS!!’ which prompted an even more dramatical performance from the other actors. I kind of new what to expect then when buying tickets for The Pirates of Penzance: over-the-top singing from a 40 piece choir, dance choreographies, meticulous costumes and an enormously huge set. It was the night of the elections, and it seemed to me that – in preparation for the grim days to come – the troupe was singing for their lives, one last time. Impressive.

Shortly before or after that I saw The Comedy of Errors at the Royal Exchange Theatre, the theatre I seem to visit fairly frequently. My first ever live Shakespeare, and, as expected, I had serious trouble understanding the words – it didn’t help that one of the main characters was Scottish. I get modern day northern accents, and that’s about it. Don’t understand southerners, let alone any kind of old-fashioned English. Fortunately, I was at least vaguely familiar with the story and could follow to an extent that made it not completely unpleasant. Call me uneducated, but I still don’t find Shakespeare’s comedies particularly appealing. Unsurprising.

In June I saw one of my favourite plays – Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, again at the Library Theatre. My non-existing knowledge of English literature borders onto embarrassing, but I had neither read nor seen the play before. I spent the next two hours giggling in my chair, marveling at the costumes, getting excited about every single one of Lady Bracknell’s appearances on stage, and shaking my head at the characters’ stupidity – oh how I loved it! I really enjoyed watching this lovely ‘making of’ Earnest and a review of 60 years of Library Theatre. Marvellous.

It being summer, we engaged in the Great British tradition of outdoors theatre and picnic, as we went to see yet another Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – at Heaton Park. While our rug and M&S nibbles combo seemed satisfying at first, it looked rather pale compared to our neighbours’ picnic table, chairs, cutlery, wine glasses(!) and home made delicacies. You people know how to do a picnic. The weather was surprisingly nice, you could even say mild and sunny, the play was just as, well, mild, spiked with the ever present sexual innuendos, but enjoyable. The audience got involved to some extent, as we had our grapes stolen by an actor, while Puck – played by a young lady in a sequined showgirl-outfit – made herself comfortable on a gentleman’s lap. Summery.

Following a summer break, I went to see my last play of 2010 at the Royal Exchange, something I had been looking forward to for quite a while: Dr Faustus, a play by Christopher Marlowe, based on a German folk tale, which, pretty much exactly 200 years later, had been adapted by the greatest of our writers, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It was great to look at indeed, the devil’s little monsters were pretty scary in all their dancing and fighting, the acrobatic acts impressive, but it just lacked… something. The tragical side of the story seemed somewhat neglected in favour of effects, and I actually think I did a little power nap at some point. Epic.

What was your favourite play last year? Which one is your favourite theatre in Manchester?

* As a servant and a poet if you’re interested. One of the best things I’ve ever done, and I still find it astonishing what human beings are capable of when it comes to learning text. I can’t even remember other people’s names, but I easily memorized a one page monologue and recited it without errors over the course of several weeks.

Spotted near Platt Fields park the other night. Hello electricity bill!

Y’alright tree! Boon army!

This wasn’t always the case, but I DO. LOVE. CHRISTMAS. Massively. Mainly because, since I have moved out from home, it means receiving a parcel with an advent calendar from my mum at the end of November, opening tiny numbered stockings every morning, going home shortly before Christmas, lots of snow, visiting the traditional Christmas markets in my home town, and finally sitting through a 5 hour food and presents marathon that is guaranteed to involve my family shouting (no concept of volume, none of them), me sneakily drinking one “special Christmas edition” beer after another, and the annual discussion “shall we go to church or stay in and have our pudding instead” with my uncle. Pudding always wins. Good Catholics wouldn’t let food go to waste, right?

Living in Manchester has added mince pies (yay), Christmas puddings (ok…), the Manchester Christmas markets (great if you enjoy full-on body contact with strangers and faux “authentic German Gluehwien”) and my flatmate making rather tasty mulled wine with Sainsbury’s own brand red (good Lord).

Thanks to the early snow and the Co-op’s 10 page leaflet with booze offers I was already feeling the “festive spirit”, and so I was delighted to hear about the Christmas tree switch on in West Didsbury*, which was organised by Didsbury Life and the West Didsbury Residents’ Association. I remembered that I had even donated some money for the tree in the form of a raffle ticket at this year’s West Fest!

When we arrived at 7pm, there were, well, us, two of the organisers, and 5 police officers, obviously waiting for ‘the great West Didsbury Christmas riots of 2010′ to kick off. Some fantastically tasty mini mince pies (from the Dish and Spoon cake shop. CAKE. SHOP.) and a cup of hot spiced cider later, a surprisingly large group of people had gathered on the other side of the road opposite the Christmas tree to listen to the carol singers. The fact that the traffic on the road hadn’t been stopped made for a hilarious and mildly bizarre experience – the children singing Christmas carols, with the odd noisy car going past, drowning out the (highly enthusiastic) singers and blocking the view every so often. Being the evil person I am, I had trouble not to die laughing as a double-deck Stagecoach went past.

Then, the great moment had finally arrived: Mr Clint Boon appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the megaphone and shouted his signature “Boon Army!” at the crowd. Through the power of the megaphone, he got the police to – finally – stop the traffic for his speech, which included gems such as

“Manchester is a suburb of West Didsbury” (whooping from the audience)

“…West Didsbury is a proper community…”

“…and our fantastic tree…where is it…ah here, on this side!”

“We’re going to count down from 10 and switch on the light now… where is the switch?”

“Have fun drinking, but don’t get drunk!” (more whooping from the audience)

And then the tree was lit. After seeing a bus driven by Father Christmas and covered in tinsels the other day, the minimalist decoration (lights and… well, that’s it.) of the tree was a tiny bit disappointing – can we all chip in for some shiny baubles and glittery tinsels next year please?

That was fun. Of course, it was a bit chaotic. Of course, you can’t expect to hand a megaphone to Clint Boon and have him deliver a grand speech. And of course, our West Didsbury Christmas tree is more “tree” than “Christmas”. But after the bonfire night at Platt Fields I have come to realise: things just are a little bit different here in Manchester – and everyone involved gets full marks for effort. As odd an event as it was, I loved it!

* YAWN! Another West Didsbury post. Promise, for the next posts I’ll move a little further than 5 steps outside my front door, yes?

[Photo by that hairy dude from Hey! Manchester]

Now this is a story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
I’d like to take a minute flowin fresher than Fiddy*
I’ll tell you how I became the queen of a place called West Diddy

In Southwest Germany, born and raised
on the school bench where I spent most of my days,
doing my homework, mathematics all cool
And all coding some websites outside of the school
When that one massive uni that looked pretty good
Made me an offer I could not refuse
I sent them one little letter and my mum was proud
She said ‘have a great time in Manchester, now get out!’

I whistled for a black cab and left in a hurry
The licenceplate said ‘MCR’ and it smelled of curry
If anything I could say this town was quite gritty
But I thought mightaswell stay here, welcome to West Diddy!

I pulled up to a house that was made from red bricks
And yelled to the cabby ‘I’m sorry, no tips’
Looked at my kingdom and it was rather pretty
So I settled my throne as the queen of West Diddy

I couldn’t resist. It was a particularly long bus journey. People of West Didsbury forgive me. You may now officially declare the end of the blogging world as we know it.

* That’s cool speak for Fifty Cent. Yo.

[Photo by blitzi]