Well, as expected, Wife’s Private View was phenomenal – her work stood head and shoulders above that of the others who were exhibiting in the same gallery (although it is fair to say that “Fat Film” – a series of photographs wherein the iconic stars of modern masterpieces, in their most famous poses are replaced by fat, unattractive amateurs is something that I think I shall never forget…). A number of people have asked for prints of the work (especially a series that she did, called “Variations on Hopper and Hitchcock”, which are really haunting, poignant pictures). It’s running for another month, but lots of our friends were there for the opening, which was nice. When the event closed, we stood outside in the car park (because we are classy) and drank sparkling wine out of plastic cups (see above), and then there was a move to go out for a meal.
I demurred and left at about 10.30pm to get home and relieve Hilarious Babysitter. I’d been up early at the gym, was planning to go the next morning, and had the vain desire not to turn up with vomit on my chin.
And on that note: Wife returned at 2am, having spent a couple of hours drinking more, first in Fulham, then in Chiswick’s High Road House, managing to throw up over the loo in our bathroom and to sleep in her clothes. I daresay the enormous relief of her course being at an end – and of the exhibition going so well – is partially to blame, but more to the point was the fact that one of the people that she was out with was her Drinking Nemesis, who always spells disaster for Wife (and a morning after marked by wailing and complaining) – but hell: if you’ve worked as hard as she has, and achieved such results, I think it would be pretty poor form NOT to drink yourself into a near coma when it’s all over…
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The first time I remember uttering that phrase was (appropriately enough) on stage.
I was in a production of Julian Mitchell’s play “Another Country”, a fictionalised account of the schooldays of the spy, Guy Burgess. In a scene that is pivotal to the play (and mysteriously left out of the execrable film), the schoolboys are visited by a Harold Nicholson-esque aesthete (and screaming queen): Vaughan Cunningham, played in our production by an incredibly gifted actor, (who rejoices in the name Bryan Robson) whose comparative absence from the stage is as shameful a slur on it as the presence of Ray Quinn (late of X Factor) is. In the one scene we shared, the Burgess-esque character “Bennett” wants to leave the illustrious visitor in no doubt that he is absolutely a passenger on the same bus, and is prepared to do rather more than stamp a couple of tickets should the opportunity arise. To this end, in reply to some very innocent comment about the dangers of making an exhibition of oneself (this IS an English Public School, after all), Bennett replies airily but with steely purpose: “I don’t mind making an exhibition of myself” – thus presumably giving the nod to any number of early evening soirees where he might be called upon to adopt Classical poses in the over-heated library of an over-heated interior decorator…
All of which is very much by the by in recording that Wife is about to make an exhibition of herself – or rather of her work. There have been midnight flits to IKEA to purchase the frames, visits to the picture framer to cut the mounts, and any number of hours spent in darkrooms (digital and otherwise) to prepare for the big event, which falls on Thursday.
It goes without saying that I am unbelievably biased in my analysis of my wife’s genius: but I truly do believe that her work would stand comparison with anything in any gallery in the world. There are three sequences that I am particularly enamoured of, very different in their subject and execution (including one for which she has invented a new printing process for), but all of which illustrate her recurring themes of imagination, illusion and solitude.
So: the private view is on Thursday, and no doubt I shall be cluttering up the virtual world with a debrief of (what I know will be) that triumph. But until then, I am enjoying my very private view of Wife’s private view.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bryan Robson, Julian Mitchell, Photography, Wife | Leave a Comment »
So… for the ninth time in nearly three years, I am moving offices.
Normally, there is a specious, meretricious justification for the move. “Planning and Creative need to sit together!”, “Planning needs its own identity!”, “Worldwide should feel like part of London!” (the unintentional hubristic comedy of this point still eludes those people who run the – unsuccessful – London office), “London needs its own identity!” and so on.
The latest reason behind my bad-tempered hurling of books into big blue crates is “We need to design a more creative, energetic environment.” This is such a lame one that I’m not even going to bother to unpack my stuff – it can only be a matter of months before the next one comes along to take its place.
There’s a terrible sense of rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic about the whole thing – not that the network is doing badly, but I think I am fairly justified in saying that the placement of desks in relation to huge, colourful mobiles, tractors, inflatable animals or whatever other symbol of “creativity” has been stumbled upon, is not going to be the key to future growth… Oh well, I shall keep my mouth shut (for once) and let you know what the reason for our reversion back to the old set-up is.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Advertising, Advertising Agency, Moving Office, Planning | Leave a Comment »
It’s here in black and white: Fiona Shaw opens in “Mother Courage and her Children” in a version by Tony Kushner (of “Angels in America” fame), directed by the brilliant Deborah Warner at the National Theatre in September.
The poster image is a pastiche of the “shot” of Tony Blair photographing himself on his camera phone, with a scene of massive atomic destruction behind him – so who knows how modern we’re going to be going… Anyway, as I have written before, I hate not to know where my next fix of Shaw is coming from, and so I shall sleep easier now; even if I have also been haunted by the fact that she really needs to get a wriggle on and play Mary Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey into Night” before too much more time goes by. But I think it’s time for her Cleopatra next, though who might be her Antony is a trickier question: Simon Russell Beale? Antony Sher? Ralph Fiennes? Sean Penn? Only one of those would be right – and he’s the only one who is never, ever going to do it…
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Long Day's Journey into Night", "Mother Courage", Antony Sher, Cleopatra, Deborah Warner, Fiona Shaw, Ralph Fiennes, Sean Penn, Simon Russell Beale | Leave a Comment »
I’ve written previously about the lack of appetite that everyone around me appears to have for their job at the moment. A new entrant into the fray has been Enthusiastic Account Guy, who was telling me during our day trip to China that he also felt that he’d lost his sense of purpose and enthusiasm: but he highlighted a similar cause as had American Diva Planning Friend and Old Friend at Work. We all seem to feel that there aren’t enough people who are inquisitive and excited knocking about. There are too many people, by way of contrast, who are happy to accept poor thinking, conventional approaches and first thoughts as good enough. In fact, they’re more than happy to accept them: they are anxious to build a temple in which to enshrine and then worship them.
And when you’re left staring at these false idols, with your interior monologue screaming “Are you SHITTING ME?” (as it did when Self-Acclaimed Witty Creative Director proposed the following line for a pitch for Mateus Rosé wine: “No Rosé? No Way, José!”), it begins to get a bit depressing – especially when you know that it is more than possible, if we only sat down, treated each other as equals and shared our ideas, that they could be immeasurably better.
No doubt the fact that I am moving office again for the ninth time in less than three years is also getting me down somewhat. God knows what this move has in mind for me, or where I’ll end up after it, but I am beginning to tire somewhat of the entirely cosmetic alterations being made to the agency in the name of creativity, when actually what needs to be done is a bit of tough-talking around the basics of creativity, collaboration, editing and striving for better things.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Advertising, Advertising Agency, Advertising Planning, American Diva Planning Friend, Enthusiastic Account Guy, Old Friend at Work | Leave a Comment »
I went to China last week. For a day.
That’s right: two days (or rather: two sleepless nights) on a ‘plane for a meeting of slightly less than five hours. It was utterly pointless, not least because when I got there (after a night of precisely 28 minutes’ sleep), I was UTTERLY unable to keep my eyes open. The view from our agency is spectacular, though – and well worth seeing – and the hotel was fine.
The strangest thing about the trip was a “modern trade visit” – which means “going to look at a Chinese supermarket”. in point of fact, this was looking at a Carrefour (so a British/French supermarket) and that was about as alien as it felt. The most starling thing wasn’t the differences between this supermarket and one in a totally different culture and country, but the similarities: by and large, the products were the same, the brands were the same, the layout was the same, and the consumer behaviour was the same. It was all rather underwhelming.
Of course, this was an example of the Westernisation of the world: the INTENTION is that everything is standardised, but it was still striking how little variation there is globally, even in something as culturally specific as eating and shopping for the family. Oh well…
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Advertising, Advertising Planning, China, Supermarket | Leave a Comment »
Brilliant New Planner was telling me a story of her unsuccessful days in Account Handling in New York.
Her agency was pitching for a large bit of business: large enough, it would seem, for the CEO to be running the pitch himself, and for his displeasure at his teams apparent lack of “Can do” spirit that he had made an impassioned, and (no doubt) embarrassing speech to rally them around the possibility of a new account win and the very real difference that would make to his bonus.
Brilliant New Planner was relatively junior, and was deputised to make sure that all the operational essentials of the day were in place: the projector primed, the pencils sharpened and lined up just so, the agendas typed and the flower fresh. And then there was another request – unforeseen, but not unusual in a business that believes in “pitch theatre” (a scrotum-shrivelling embarrassment to all that insists that if your company is pitching for a holiday company, then you must ship in sand, and palm trees into the presentation room, and don flip-flops and Villebrequin in which to present, and so on): “We need Munchkins. Get some Munchkins.” said the CEO and left the room.
Well: she did it. With less that 24 hours, she got ten actors in Munchkin make-up and costumes, all ready to be wheeled into the room, presumably to sing a jingle, stand their smiling as they “brought the idea to life” (or to scare the Bejesus out of the audience, more likely) etc. She was in the presentation room early, and when the CEO strode in, he was happy: “Where are the Munchkins?” he asked. When she replied that they were downstairs, she was instructed to go and get them – as they weren’t any good down there when the presentation was upstairs.
So she returned, leading her troupe of made-up midgets into the room for the CEO’s inspection and orders, expecting praise for her quick thinking, can-do approach and flawless execution.
What she wasn’t expecting was to be told that “Munchkins” was a brand of doughnuts – and that all she had actually been asked to do was organise breakfast.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Advertising, Advertising Agency, Munchkins | Leave a Comment »
Being the middle-class parents that we are, Wife and I are very enthusiastic about encouraging certain things (watching National Geographic TV, rather than a drip-feed of Cartoon Network; saying “Please” and “Thank You”, rather than, say, “Fucking Hell”, which was Eldest Son’s latest, entirely innocent offering: as evidenced by his unsettling request: “Could I fucking hell have some Ribena, please Dada?”). One of the things that we ARE keen on is the children learning more about animals, and basically communicating with each other in a way that is more reliant on words than it is on hair-pulling and kicking.
One incarnation of this is a guessing game that Wife invented, called “I am hairy and I am scary…” This title immediately won the two boys over, and it forms the opening phrase for construcing clues around an animals identity. Thus: “I am hairy and I am scary, I am black and I am a kind of monkey and I live in the jungle and I can kill people.” would be “Gorilla”. having played the game relentlessly for, oh I don’t know: 137 years, I would guess, we have broadened the parameters to allow for variations such as “Hairy but NOT scary” (puppy), “Not hairy, but scary” (shark) and even, “Not hairy and not scary” (Cinderella – a favourite clue from Daughter).
And it is Daughter’s two clues that she gave us as we walked to school today that I am going to record in a fit of shameless “Aaaaah!”
“I am lovely, and I am beautiful, and I have a dress.”
“I am lovely, and I am tall, and I go to work.”
The answers were: Mummy, and Daddy.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Daughter, Family, Hairy and Scary, Wife | Leave a Comment »
A while ago (perhaps ten years ago, now) Me As A Protestant and I staged a production of Racine’s “Britannicus” in Islington, London. It was a fascinating experience (him directing, me designing) and was blessed with a few truly excellent performances – and a pretty vital directorial snap, which Racine absolutely needs. I saw the play some time later, with Toby Stephens as the eponymous hero, with Diana Rigg playing his mother, and was struck by how deadly the play became in a large space: declamatory, slow, passionless – like Classical Greek tragedy without the scale.
And so it was that I went to see The National Theatre’s new production of “Phedre”- Racine’s best play to my mind. Nicholas Hytner directing, Helen Mirren starring (alongside Margaret Tyzack and Dominic Cooper) and a translation by Ted Hughes: so what’s not to love?
Well: the set was great, the above-named actors were great, and the direction was very strong. Theseus was astoundingly bad: with all the heroic presence of Jeremy Beadle, he waddled around the stage like a fisherman on shore leave. But Racine doesn’t work in English. I don’t know that it works brilliantly in French. There is too little duologue, too much declamation and not nearly enough character development – and if your theatre tradition is Shakespearean, it is laughably poor by comparison.
So, I can’t imagine it being done better – but I don’t think I want to see any more Racine again for a long time.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Helen Mirren, National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner, Phedre, Racine, Ted Hughes | Leave a Comment »
Oooh… what’s that taste in my mouth?
It’s sweet (indeed, it’s almost honeyed) – and there isn’t even a hint of a bitter aftertaste to it. It’s wholesome, and good and very sustaining. Yes: that’s right – it’s the taste of vindication.
Turns out that one of the regional directors for Very Big Client is less than impressed with the team that Travesty of All Things Gay has lined up to succeed me, and has now asked for me to come back on the business as a consultant. But the best news is the little soundbite he used to describe Travesty of All Things Gay and his coven: “They bring politics, not ideas.”
Oh frabjous day! Calloo Callay!
Anyway: the upshot is that this is going to be communicated direct to my boss (as I have advised that I cannot get involved with the brand again unless it’s sanctioned by someone rather higher up the food chain than Travesty of All Things Gay) by Client: so I have some hope that this juicy, tasty morsel will be repeated again, verbatim. And at last, the world will know…
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Travesty of All Things Gay, Very Big Client, Vindication | Leave a Comment »
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