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Showing posts from November, 2011

Fight Night

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To paraphrase a line from this play by Gavin Kostick, after getting a good sorting out from a Cuban, you usually get a bronze Olympic boxing medal. The main character and protagonist in Fight Night , Dan, doesn’t come close to the Olympics. And at the close of the play, we don’t really learn with absolute certainty if he ever will. Time is against him for one. And the play ends in much the same way as the original Rocky movie that is cited by the central character. But Dan’s ancestors and his bro have done very well with the boxing. His problem is trying to live up to expectations. It’s a great, tight monologue, at about fifty minutes in length. Aonghus Og MacAnally carries the burdens of a guy who has a lot to live up to with a terrific performance – and we learn as Dan starts his new family that there are cycles of both perfectionism and dysfunction that ought to be broken. If you come away from the play thinking that maybe it’s more than okay to just coast through life at a level

The best way to tackle constipation

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The best way to overcome constipation is to get pulled over by the police. How you manage to do this is entirely your choice. Photo courtesy of anotherview . You may wave and point at the policeman as he comes up behind you in his squad car. This may give the police officer the false impression that you are under the influence of alcohol or some other substance. Once the police officer has turned on his lights, you should continue to drive at least fifty metres before pulling over. Hopefully, this will heighten the officer’s stress levels to a point where he feels you are being uncooperative. You can continue to be unaccommodating as you show him your licence. Don’t worry, take your time. Being uncooperative leads to a slightly unsettling feeling and it may result in a ticket or a citation of some kind. If you find that you are not quite as anxious as you should be, try being a little bit more disrespectful to the police officer. He will resent you, but luckily, both you and he will

McAdam’s Torment by Audrey Devereux at Bewley’s Café Theatre Oct 31st to Nov 12th

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  John McAdam (played by Paul Cunningham) recounts a series of events in his life that took place three decades earlier, from his deathbed. He and his servant Caleb were caught in a blizzard in the Scottish countryside. The mystery behind Caleb’s disappearance in the storm takes up much of the tale – and the play. We gradually learn through the course of the drama exactly what McAdam’s Torment is. It’s worth the wait. This is a great yarn set in the seventeenth century with plenty of Gothic and horror elements – and a fiddle. The set is minimal with the two impressive actors, Cunningham and Rab Handley, employing touches of mime, music and mimicry to fill in the gaps. Written by Audrey Devereux and directed by Graham Eatough, the production has already played in Scotland so it’s been through any teething problems – if there were any to begin with. Everything about the show is tight. It can be easy enough to lose audience interest in small, relatively low budget productions, particula