THE Who’s getting up to what at Christmas
I Insider is delighted to hear of the continued success of theatre babel's F/ledea. what with Liz Lochhead being the first playwright ever to win the Saltire Award for the script. Maureen Beattie ‘rlghll picking up a Manchester Evening News Award for best actress in a Visiting production and the company packing its bags for a tour of Indra in FetX‘uary. But Insider couldn't help wondering about the provenance of the claim that Medea is the 'most successful play ever presented at the Edinburgh Fringe". It's a line that cropped up a couple of times in The Scotsman. and so the nation's 'top investigatwe reporters duly copied it down for their own articles. Now it's acquired the status of fact. But what exactly does it mean? Is it any different to the Doug Anthony Allstars. the Australian comedy trio. who returned home claiming on their posters to be “.‘iinners of the
lrdinburgh I-ringr, ? Bah humbug!
I Iriends and colleagues concerned for the health of Eileen McCallum should be reassured that. contrary to reports llI every newspaper everyx'xlieie. that is not her picture in the publicity for ()lga at the li'averse theatre Iabovei. The image is of a grey haired woman
and McCallum is indeed a grey
6 THE LIST Ina ,' 1-..la1: Ill/,7
Bah humbug!
Bah humbug!
haired woman. but there the similarity ends. Rehearsals at the Edinburgh theatre were intense. but not so intense as to completely alter her appearance. Bah humbug!
I 'Tis the season to make sarcastic remarks about the editors of other publications. Bah humbug. Insider doesn't want to shatter the illusions of younger readers. but that wasn't Father Christmas at the recent Broughton Nursery School Christmas Fair in Edinburgh. it was Don Currie. editor of posh
society mag C(I/(XJOIIIH. Ho ho ho.
Blah. blah, blah. And wasting time at Friends Reunited on the internet. Insider came across an entry for one Dean Nelson who claims to be ‘practically senile already'. Is this a suitable quality for the editor of The Sunday Times Scotland?
I Insider isn't done yet with the ‘bah humbug!‘ Scrooge attitude: you would think newspapers and magazines would avoid misspelling the name of the author of Christmas blockbuster The Lord The Rings. But now ‘Tolkien’ is going out as ‘Tolkein’ all over the place. Now. after Insider. 'i' before ‘e' even when spelling JPP. Tolkien.
I There have been plenty of reports about Hollywood's ‘secret talks' with the Pentagon about how to win America’s propaganda war. Insider. however. wonders whether Hollywood harbours a secret grudge that President Bush's ever-expanding war on terrorism (alternatively a thinly-veiled war on all things not American. AKA a plan of global domination). is ruining its foreign fortunes. Not so. apparently. Movie moguls can rest assured that while its nation's armed forces drop bombs in the East and Israel and Palestine join in the fray. moviegoers in that part of the world are still happy to shell out. as it were. for Hollywood blockbusters. The Middle East market. which counts for 20:; of America's foreign box office grosses (and remember that's 2% of millions upon millions of dollars). for the likes of Planet Of The Apes. Pearl Harbor and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Bah humbug!
I OK. OK. Insider bows to pressure to end on a happy note: here's a pressy suggestion for the kids. Perverts who pinch behinds on the Tokyo subway have their own new butt-poking arcade game. Boong-Ga Boong- Ga.’ (in English Spank emf). It's sweeping Japan. Players jab a plastic finger into a jeans-covered bottom. which juts from the machine as if a person‘s head and torso were stuck inside. Lovely. And happy Christmas all.
Tl-IE QUOTES ‘
‘You’re always going to see the world differently if you pee
standing up.’ Tori Amos concludes that men and women will never see eye to eye.
‘Y’know, in the movies, you have to do things over and over again and you can’t count on that consistency. That’s why you need a contraption.’
Ben Stiller on penile erection techniques in his films.
‘For a simple urban boy such as me, the idea of listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell.’
Culture minister Kim Howe/ls adopts the diplomatic approach to his job.
‘Musicians have a tough enough time without prats like that.’
Fed-up folk/e Martin Carthy replies.
‘I don’t want to just sit down and make records and play the piano and stuff like that, and become Winifred Atwell.’ A bit late, Sir Elton.
‘What a fucking diamond he was.’
Liam Gallagher is in no mood to start the George Harrison back/ash.
‘In a war on terrorism, what is an act of terrorism? Writing for the Daily Mail could be an act of terrorism.’ Gore Vidal is unconvinced by current US foreign policy
‘Until now, my one-on-one experiences with animals has
been very limited.’
Tamzin Outhwaile Tam 'n has a one-on-one experience
discussing her dealings with dolphins. Not with Phil, Steve or Ian.