One of the great things about growing up in the UK is that it has a fantastic history of musical theatre. Although there were less opportunities in Glasgow, some of the travelling musical productions would make their way up to Glasgow or Edinburgh. And of course, you could always pop down to London for a quick trip and catch some musicals or plays while you were down there.
Incidentally, musicals are also one of the things I miss most about the UK since I came to HK. Admittedly, some of the musicals do make their way to HK on occasion. The problem is that tickets generally tend to be prohibitively expensive. For example, when Phantom came to HK, good tickets were priced at well over the HK$1,000 range. Considering the relative price of other things in HK, that's pretty steep for 2 hours worth of entertainment.
All of which made me pretty happy when I noticed that Grease had come to HK and that good tickets "only" cost in the HK$600+ range. Although still expensive, it was a cost I could justify.
The show itself is very well done and really manages to capture the feel and energy of the movie. All the old classics from the movie are here although the songs are spread around the cast instead of being primarily sung by Danny Zuko. Understandable otherwise they may have had trouble finding actors willing to take on those roles.
One of the best things about the show though is how funny it is. You can tell the producers went out of their way to make this a funny show. The producers have also done a great job in realising that most people watching this on stage will have already seen the movie and be very familiar with the songs and stories. To ensure that the show remains interesting throughout, there are a couple of set pieces which play very cleverly on the audiences expectations of what would happen next based on the movie.
All in all, this was a fun show. The only downside was that the theatre they used in Hong Kong wasn't great as the seats were a bit cramped. Still, considering how long since I've seen a musical on stage, it was well worth the slight discomfort.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Doctor Who
Whooo-whooo-whooo.
If I knew how to embed sounds into blog posts then, right now, you would be hearing the sound of a TARDIS dematerialising. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that so instead, you will have to put up with "whooo-whooo-whooo".
The reality is that if you are in anyway familiar with British culture, then you will know what sound I'm referring to. You will also know who the Doctor is and how important Doctor Who is to British Sci-Fi culture (and if you aren't, there is always wikipedia). Being the nerd that I am, would it surprise you to learn that I loved watching this show as a kid?
Quick aside - Peter Davison is, and will always be, my fav Doctor by virtue of the fact that he was the encumbent Doctor when I first started watching.
Anyway, when I heard that the show was being relaunched in 2005, I have to admit that I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to start watching again. Despite that though, I never actually got round to watching the show until recently.
Overall, I have to say that I like the new Doctor Who (although I have to admit that I don't think its as good as old Doctor Who). Granted, this may just be nostalgia talking but the sight of the Doctor tooling around with his sonic screwdriver just sends a tingle down my spine. If you get the chance, and were a fan of the old Doctor Who shows, then I would recommend you take the effort to watch.
Having said that, there are some areas of the show which I'm not particularly enamored with. Most are probably a little nit-picky but the first two I talk about below are issues which I feel really negatively impacted my enjoyment of the show.
For those who haven't watched yet - spoilers!
Romance
My first major dislike of the new show is the introduction of romance into the Doctors life. In the old Doctor Who, the Doctor was an ancient alien with no interest in romance whatsoever. However, the new Doctor seems to run around picking up companions based on how likely he is to get a bit of the 'ol nudge-nudge-wink-wink. What is particularly galling though is that they reintroduced Sarah Jane Smith and retconned her so that she also loved the Doctor. WTF!?!?
Deux ex machina
My other major gripe is the number of plot resolutions which rely on deus ex machina. Not sure if this is something which can be classified as a bad decision or just down to having bad writers but so many episodes seem to rely on a deus ex machina to resolve the crisis instead of relying on the cleverness of the Doctor.
Again, this may be nostalgia, but the overwhelming memory I have of the Doctor is his ability to use his brains to solve a problem.
Target market
The show seems to be primarily targeted at a family audience and this really shows in the dialogue sometimes. To be fair, Doctor Who was always targeted at a family audience so the criticism is probably more on me than the Doctor. Still, after watching fantastically mature shows like Battlestar Galactica, I can't help but wonder what a mature Doctor Who would be like.
Still, its probably for the best that its a family show. Can you imagine the outrage if they tried to make it mature and fluffed it?
Daleks
I should clarify here that I don't dislike the Daleks. I just dislike how often they show up for a race which is supposed to have been genocided during the Great Time War.
The thing is, the first Eccleston Dalek episode, where you found out that the Daleks were extinct, is excellent. When you find out that the Doctor had to wipe out both his own race and the Daleks in order to end the Time War, this brings a real gravity to his situation as the last of the Time Lords (which Ecclestone acted out brilliantly). However, the constant reappearance of the Daleks (from between 2-4 episodes each season) completely diminishes the dramatic aspect of their death in the first place. Which is a bit of a shame really.
He can do what now?
Another issue I had was the constant introduction of new abilities. Again, this may be nostalgia, but the skillset of the Doctor was pretty well known in the past. Now, whenever he's bored, he just whips a new ability out of his pocket.
Epic storylines!
Granted, we are getting into major nitpicky territory here but it was annoying how often the danger that he was facing was of "epic" proportions and of threat to the entire World or Universe! The problem with making so many "epic" storylines is that, after a while, it loses the dramatic impact and is no longer epic. Sometimes, smaller storylines can be fascinating as they allows you to focus on the relationships and character building of the main characters in your show.
If I knew how to embed sounds into blog posts then, right now, you would be hearing the sound of a TARDIS dematerialising. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do that so instead, you will have to put up with "whooo-whooo-whooo".
The reality is that if you are in anyway familiar with British culture, then you will know what sound I'm referring to. You will also know who the Doctor is and how important Doctor Who is to British Sci-Fi culture (and if you aren't, there is always wikipedia). Being the nerd that I am, would it surprise you to learn that I loved watching this show as a kid?
Quick aside - Peter Davison is, and will always be, my fav Doctor by virtue of the fact that he was the encumbent Doctor when I first started watching.
Anyway, when I heard that the show was being relaunched in 2005, I have to admit that I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to start watching again. Despite that though, I never actually got round to watching the show until recently.
Overall, I have to say that I like the new Doctor Who (although I have to admit that I don't think its as good as old Doctor Who). Granted, this may just be nostalgia talking but the sight of the Doctor tooling around with his sonic screwdriver just sends a tingle down my spine. If you get the chance, and were a fan of the old Doctor Who shows, then I would recommend you take the effort to watch.
Having said that, there are some areas of the show which I'm not particularly enamored with. Most are probably a little nit-picky but the first two I talk about below are issues which I feel really negatively impacted my enjoyment of the show.
For those who haven't watched yet - spoilers!
Romance
My first major dislike of the new show is the introduction of romance into the Doctors life. In the old Doctor Who, the Doctor was an ancient alien with no interest in romance whatsoever. However, the new Doctor seems to run around picking up companions based on how likely he is to get a bit of the 'ol nudge-nudge-wink-wink. What is particularly galling though is that they reintroduced Sarah Jane Smith and retconned her so that she also loved the Doctor. WTF!?!?
Deux ex machina
My other major gripe is the number of plot resolutions which rely on deus ex machina. Not sure if this is something which can be classified as a bad decision or just down to having bad writers but so many episodes seem to rely on a deus ex machina to resolve the crisis instead of relying on the cleverness of the Doctor.
Again, this may be nostalgia, but the overwhelming memory I have of the Doctor is his ability to use his brains to solve a problem.
Target market
The show seems to be primarily targeted at a family audience and this really shows in the dialogue sometimes. To be fair, Doctor Who was always targeted at a family audience so the criticism is probably more on me than the Doctor. Still, after watching fantastically mature shows like Battlestar Galactica, I can't help but wonder what a mature Doctor Who would be like.
Still, its probably for the best that its a family show. Can you imagine the outrage if they tried to make it mature and fluffed it?
Daleks
I should clarify here that I don't dislike the Daleks. I just dislike how often they show up for a race which is supposed to have been genocided during the Great Time War.
The thing is, the first Eccleston Dalek episode, where you found out that the Daleks were extinct, is excellent. When you find out that the Doctor had to wipe out both his own race and the Daleks in order to end the Time War, this brings a real gravity to his situation as the last of the Time Lords (which Ecclestone acted out brilliantly). However, the constant reappearance of the Daleks (from between 2-4 episodes each season) completely diminishes the dramatic aspect of their death in the first place. Which is a bit of a shame really.
He can do what now?
Another issue I had was the constant introduction of new abilities. Again, this may be nostalgia, but the skillset of the Doctor was pretty well known in the past. Now, whenever he's bored, he just whips a new ability out of his pocket.
Epic storylines!
Granted, we are getting into major nitpicky territory here but it was annoying how often the danger that he was facing was of "epic" proportions and of threat to the entire World or Universe! The problem with making so many "epic" storylines is that, after a while, it loses the dramatic impact and is no longer epic. Sometimes, smaller storylines can be fascinating as they allows you to focus on the relationships and character building of the main characters in your show.
Monday, October 18, 2010
How Liverpool tactics have changed
Wow. Things have been a bit hectic lately so I haven't had much time to blog. Hopefully, they will settle down a bit now though so with any luck, I can get back to my regular blogging schedule.
A couple of weeks ago, I briefly mentioned that Liverpool were in an unbelievably poor run of form and that October would be a tough month for them. Unfortunately, things look much bleaker than I would have thought possible (I really thought that we would at least have 3 points courtesy of Blackpool). The only upside in recent times has been that those American owners have finally gone (here's hoping the new American owners are better!).
Now, the key challenge going forward is to improve results on the field. With that in mind, I found this article talking about the way that Liverpool now play under Hodgson to be really fascinating.
The first thing I would say is that I still think we should give Hodgson some time to get things right. Removing him now would do be unfair on Hodgson as he really hasn't had enough time to stamp his own style on the squad and for the squad to adjust to the way he wants to play. However, discussing his tactics is obviously fair game (and ever since I started playing FM2010, I have to admit that I find the whole topic really fascinating)!
The second thing I want to say is that I don't really watch Liverpool games as I just don't have the time. What this means is that I have no real idea if the playing style being adopted is indeed as the author claimed. In other words, I'm taking a lot on faith here!
With all that said, from reading the article, it certainly seems like Hodgson is trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Reading that article reminded me of when I first started to play Football Manager 2010. If you read my gaming blog, you would know that I spent a fair amount of time analysing the players I had and devising some tactics and playing styles to cater to the strengths of the players I had. Fundamentally, my view is that, until you have had time to buy some new players that fit the system you like, your only real tactical option is to play to the your existing strengths.
Granted, this is a game I'm talking about, but I'm pretty sure the principal is true to real life football as well.
Anyway, the biggest concern I have about the current Liverpool tactics is with Torres.
Torres is not and never has been a target man. However, this seems to be the role that he is being asked to fill. As I said above, I don't really watch the matches anymore as I don't have time. However, I have a tendency to believe that he is being asked to play as a target man as many of the match reports I see all mention the fact that he is often left alone up the pitch without any real supply or support. Of course, this may not be a huge problem if Hodgson can buy a traditional target man during the Winter transfer window. At this point, I guess a lot will depend on whether he has any money to spend.
A couple of weeks ago, I briefly mentioned that Liverpool were in an unbelievably poor run of form and that October would be a tough month for them. Unfortunately, things look much bleaker than I would have thought possible (I really thought that we would at least have 3 points courtesy of Blackpool). The only upside in recent times has been that those American owners have finally gone (here's hoping the new American owners are better!).
Now, the key challenge going forward is to improve results on the field. With that in mind, I found this article talking about the way that Liverpool now play under Hodgson to be really fascinating.
The first thing I would say is that I still think we should give Hodgson some time to get things right. Removing him now would do be unfair on Hodgson as he really hasn't had enough time to stamp his own style on the squad and for the squad to adjust to the way he wants to play. However, discussing his tactics is obviously fair game (and ever since I started playing FM2010, I have to admit that I find the whole topic really fascinating)!
The second thing I want to say is that I don't really watch Liverpool games as I just don't have the time. What this means is that I have no real idea if the playing style being adopted is indeed as the author claimed. In other words, I'm taking a lot on faith here!
With all that said, from reading the article, it certainly seems like Hodgson is trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Reading that article reminded me of when I first started to play Football Manager 2010. If you read my gaming blog, you would know that I spent a fair amount of time analysing the players I had and devising some tactics and playing styles to cater to the strengths of the players I had. Fundamentally, my view is that, until you have had time to buy some new players that fit the system you like, your only real tactical option is to play to the your existing strengths.
Granted, this is a game I'm talking about, but I'm pretty sure the principal is true to real life football as well.
Anyway, the biggest concern I have about the current Liverpool tactics is with Torres.
Torres is not and never has been a target man. However, this seems to be the role that he is being asked to fill. As I said above, I don't really watch the matches anymore as I don't have time. However, I have a tendency to believe that he is being asked to play as a target man as many of the match reports I see all mention the fact that he is often left alone up the pitch without any real supply or support. Of course, this may not be a huge problem if Hodgson can buy a traditional target man during the Winter transfer window. At this point, I guess a lot will depend on whether he has any money to spend.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Newfound respect for authors
I have to admit that I have always had a huge amount of respect for authors of fiction. The ability to dream up new worlds or to come up with crazy situations or characters while at the same time making everything seem realistic and possible. Amazing.
That level of creativity is something which I've always struggled with. For some reason, despite not really understanding the rules of grammar, I don't have a huge issue in writing (generally) technically correct English (I can already tell this sentence is going to bite me in the ass at some point down the line!). The problem for me has always been coming up with something interesting to write about and then to make that "thing" engaging to the reader. If anything, this feeling has intensified recently with my attempts to do a bit of fiction on my game blog.
The whole affair started with a series of journals (the so called Aladuchar Journals) tracking one of my characters in a role playing game. I thought that if I didn't have enough creativity to come up with new situations or characters, then I could just "borrow" them from an existing game. In effect, I was doing a fanfic.
However, I soon found that even doing a fanfic is not easy. The problem I found myself facing was that the journals soon became a pretty boring log of what I was doing in the game. And quite frankly, even I found myself bored to tears upon reading them. I can't imagine what anyone else would have been thinking.
As a result of this, I scrapped the journals and decided to do something on a smaller scale. Instead of cataloguing the adventures of a character over the course of a 100+ hour game, I would just catalog one quest. Hopefully, the smaller scale would be easier to manage and keep interesting.
The result was a write-up of the Blood Ties quest in Fallout 3 (part one here and part two here). Overall, although there are a couple of area's which could be improved, I have to say that I'm relatively happy with the results of that writeup. It's also worth mentioning that your enjoyment of the story probably depends completely on knowing about the background of the Fallout universe.
Of the things I learned while writing that story, the most important one is probably the need to plan out the story. When I first started writing, all I was doing was cataloguing what I had actually done in the game while adding in the occasional commentary on events as they unfolded. If I had a proper plan to the story, I would have been able to incorporate some foreshadowing into part one.
In addition, with a proper plan, I would have been able to make the change in tone a bit more consistent. In writing part two, I felt that I had to keep the start of it lighthearted as well so that it had a consistent tone with part one. Having said that, I'm still in two minds about this. Part of me likes the way that the tone suddenly changes at the end of part two as it serves to make you reevaluate all the stuff that came before.
That level of creativity is something which I've always struggled with. For some reason, despite not really understanding the rules of grammar, I don't have a huge issue in writing (generally) technically correct English (I can already tell this sentence is going to bite me in the ass at some point down the line!). The problem for me has always been coming up with something interesting to write about and then to make that "thing" engaging to the reader. If anything, this feeling has intensified recently with my attempts to do a bit of fiction on my game blog.
The whole affair started with a series of journals (the so called Aladuchar Journals) tracking one of my characters in a role playing game. I thought that if I didn't have enough creativity to come up with new situations or characters, then I could just "borrow" them from an existing game. In effect, I was doing a fanfic.
However, I soon found that even doing a fanfic is not easy. The problem I found myself facing was that the journals soon became a pretty boring log of what I was doing in the game. And quite frankly, even I found myself bored to tears upon reading them. I can't imagine what anyone else would have been thinking.
As a result of this, I scrapped the journals and decided to do something on a smaller scale. Instead of cataloguing the adventures of a character over the course of a 100+ hour game, I would just catalog one quest. Hopefully, the smaller scale would be easier to manage and keep interesting.
The result was a write-up of the Blood Ties quest in Fallout 3 (part one here and part two here). Overall, although there are a couple of area's which could be improved, I have to say that I'm relatively happy with the results of that writeup. It's also worth mentioning that your enjoyment of the story probably depends completely on knowing about the background of the Fallout universe.
Of the things I learned while writing that story, the most important one is probably the need to plan out the story. When I first started writing, all I was doing was cataloguing what I had actually done in the game while adding in the occasional commentary on events as they unfolded. If I had a proper plan to the story, I would have been able to incorporate some foreshadowing into part one.
In addition, with a proper plan, I would have been able to make the change in tone a bit more consistent. In writing part two, I felt that I had to keep the start of it lighthearted as well so that it had a consistent tone with part one. Having said that, I'm still in two minds about this. Part of me likes the way that the tone suddenly changes at the end of part two as it serves to make you reevaluate all the stuff that came before.
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