Orson Welles and the NEC (sounds like a terrible story)

Once again its Sunday (funny how this keeps happening) and (once again) I find myself on a train back to Cardiff.

As ever the beginning of the week was uneventful. Wednesday was perhaps the first day of note, as Sam and I spent most of the day at the cinema. It's been a very quiet week at college, but Wednesday was especially quiet as we were only in for 20 minutes and thus needed to be kept occupied for the day. We initially only planned to see 'Grimsby', but ended up seeing 'Hail Caesar' as well. We would have continued with the film viewings but Sam was almost nodding off. Whilst two films may not sound like much, it kept us busy for the best part of the day. They were two very different films, so it is difficult to compare them. 'Grimsby' was laugh out loud funny, and yet surprisingly emotional at times, as it centred around the family of the main characters. Whilst 'Hail Caesar' was a beautifully shot and designed film, but I felt they tried to squeeze too many characters and sub-plots into the film, so I left a little underwhelmed. However Josh Brolin was brilliant thought as Eddie Mannix.

Friday was a rare day of activity at college, as we had to present our lighting projects (although that soon got pretty tedious, let’s just say my emails are all in perfectly ordered folders now). That evening I visited the Sherman theatre. Having wandered past and into the foyer a few times since being in Cardiff, I hadn't actually seen anything. This evening's entertainment was 'Simon Callow: One Man Band'. Having recently finished what I later discovered to be volume three of his biographies of the great Orson Welles, Mr Callow has now embarked on a book tour. He spent the evening telling us of Orson Welles's life and work, but also how he had come across Orson Welles and stories from those who he had interviewed whilst writing the book. It was a fascinating evening, as Mr Callow spoke very passionately and enthusiastically and was able to go into minute detail about Orson Welles; it was incredible. His knowledge, coupled with his acting abilities made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Having gone with little knowledge of Orson Welles, I left having learnt a lot and fascinated by the man. To accompany the talk, there was a post-show book signing of what I now realise is a very substantial volume.

As ever, Saturday saw me wandering off, this week to the NEC (I know, how exotic). This week's event was MCM Birmingham (weren't they imaginative with the name). Birmingham marked Dad's first convention of the year, it was nice to do an event together, having done quite a few on my own now (at the very least I had enough hands to carry everything). This week's guests were William Gaunt, Peter Wyngarde, Louis St Juste, Angela Douglas, Daniel Hoffman-Gill and Liza Goddard. All of whom had plenty of time to talk to me and relay stories of working on Doctor Who. In particular Daniel Hoffman-Gills and Peter Wyngarde had a lot of say which was great to here (here starts the campaign to see Bors as the new companion). The event for me finished with a photo-shoot with Warwick Davis, who was very funny as ever.

From Birmingham we popped home, before dashing up to the Exchange to see 'Husbands and Sons' by DH Lawrence. The play focused around three families in a mining village and the different relationship each family had. It was beautifully staged with each of the houses being created simply through the kitchen furniture, but the actors took great care to mime doors and taking off jackets and hanging them up etc. Afterwards we (inevitably) caught someone at the stage door. This week it was Susan Brown who played Mrs Gascoigne in the show and had been quite wonderful (she also played Bridget Spears in ‘Torchwood: Children of Earth’).

Today (Sunday) has been spent catching up in my sleep (being lazy) and looking at what shows I can see over the Easter break (any suggestions are welcome).