The View From Lower Down

 Me neither. I was born in the 90's. I've had thoughts on this subject for a while now, and only just remembered that I have an (albeit small) platform to broadcast my thoughts. You may have heard of or even remember the short-lived spoof police procedural TV show,  Police Squad! , but in case you haven't, I'll briefly describe it: Police Squad is a comedy TV show about a police precinct solving crimes, focussing mainly on the activity of Detective Frank Drebin. The comedy is surreal and absurdist and despite good reviews and positive feedback, ran for only six episodes in 1982. You're probably thinking, why cancel it if it had positive feedback? I'll let then ABC entertainment president Tony Thomopoulos take that one: [Thomopoulos] claimed it was because " the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it. "  TV Guide magazine would later condemn that statement as " The most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series. "  (sourc...

 I recently saw the show (deep breath)  A Shoddy Detective and the Art of Deception ( ASDatAoD  from this point on; Shoddy Theatre seem to be getting inspiration for their show titles from Voloz Collective or Mischief Theatre ) WARNING: MINOR OUT-OF-CONTEXT SPOILERS BELOW ASDatAoD  is a reimagining of the show A Shoddy Detective  (and you couldn't keep the title why?) It was debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018, but the newer version has been improved (I don't know exactly how; I didn't see the original) As I mentioned in my review of  TMWTHKTM (please don't make me type the whole title), I don't want to compare the companies, but the fact is that there are a lot of similarities with some of my favourite theatre companies. Most obviously (other than using the idea of ridiculously long titles), only four actors are playing (I think) 11 parts, similar to a New Old Friends production. However, unlike most  New Old Friends  productions, two of t...

 When I mention the TV show Lab Rats , you probably picture one of three things: 1. Absolutely nothing. You've never heard of that show in your life. 2. The Disney Channel show about the billionaire inventor who created three robot child superheroes that ran from 2012-2016 3. The BBC show about a group of hapless scientists who work at the Arnolfini in St. Dunstan's University which ran from 2008-2008 This post is talking about the third one. First, I'll address the relatively inconspicuous elephant in the room. While I haven't directly mentioned the show before, it's been referenced in over 50 of my posts. But how haven't you noticed?  Because I didn't use the name . All of the Lab Employees in Tangents: The Play About Something Else: The Game  are named after the actors who portrayed the character they are loosely based on a badly-remembered version of, with the following exceptions: Ben, who is named after a real person I knew a long time ago Colin, who i...

 In my review of Six, I claimed that Six had a near identical plot to Cats . This was only a joke, but since then I have discovered an academic paper citing the same hypothesis. I have included the body of the work below: “From Jellicles to Queens: A Comparative Analysis of Cats and Six as Non-Linear Musical Pageants” by Dr. F. A. Catchelor of Musical Sociology, Lower Down Institute for Theatrical Overthinking Abstract: This paper explores the striking structural and thematic similarities between Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats (1981) and Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss’s Six (2017), two musicals with wildly different aesthetics, but eerily parallel narrative devices. Both productions utilize a non-linear, presentational format; feature characters who take turns performing autobiographical numbers; and culminate in a sort-of competition to be chosen—either for ascension to the Heaviside Layer or for emotional redemption via collective empowerment. The findings suggest that Six may, ...

Italicised text in this review is written by AI. Some of it has been removed for clarity; nothing was added except what is not italicised. When I was writing my review of Six: The Movie , I wondered how ChatGPT would write a review using my style, prompt: Please* write a review of Six the musical in the style of the blog The View From Lower Down *Always be polite to ChatGPT. This is why I didn't think it quite mastered my voice, but I did particularly enjoy this comment: Wheelchair access at the venue was decent, though I’d recommend checking seat plans ahead—some of those “accessible” areas feel about as welcoming as a medieval dungeon.  However, I quickly ended up down a rabbit hole of what it thinks I have to say. One of the things I asked was about a description of myself in the first person, which was way funnier that the one I actually wrote : Hello! I’m a culture-loving wheelchair user with a penchant for musicals, mystery plots, and mild sarcasm. This blog is where I park ...

I recently saw the movie version of Six the Musical . I've spoken about Six before on the blog , but no one who doesn't know me in real life could tell from the blog how obsessed I am with the musical. Sorry to those who do know me in real life who are wildly aware. There being four of them makes sense in context. You won't learn what the context is here Now, for a long time, I've wanted a Six movie not to exist. This might seem a little confusing, so let me clarify for those of you unfamiliar with the plot: The six wives of Henry VIII have gathered together to form a band, but they cannot decide who should lead the band. Therefore, they all tell their stories and the one who had the worst life wins the competition. Also, all the queens are modelled after female singers If that plot sounds familiar to you, it's because it's the same plot as Cats , albeit with a different ending: Once a year, the Jellicle Cats meet together at the Jellicle Ball. They all introduc...

 I'd like to talk about- Oh my word he's still alive - Ed. Yes, I know I haven't posted in a while, since the Christmas Quiz in fact. Let me tell you though, the theme for this year has been decided and I'm writing it now. In the meantime, I'd like to talk about obscure references, and you can't stop me because I'm the only one with edit privileges. Let's start with an obscure reference: Our whole universe was in a hot dense state, then nearly 14 billion years ago expansion started- wait. The earth began to cool; the autotrophs began to drool; Neanderthals developed tools; We built the wall- We built the pyramids, Math Science History, unravelling the mystery, it all started with the Big Bang - CRACK! I like to hide references in my posts, sometimes quotes and sometimes more subtle references. Take my review of  A Christmas Getaway for example, which contains references to (in order) to: Peter Pan Goes Wrong Monty Python's Flying Circus Noises Off O...

 Thank you for signing up to the Christmas Quiz 2024! The scoreboard will be available on the blog throughout December and will be updated daily (usually between 5 and 6pm as I work full time). Here's how everyone is doing: Raring to Snow  - 1830 Points Katzen Patatas  - 1730 Points The Eastside Avengers  - 1410 Points Socks and Crocs  - 1280 Points Platypodes in the Snow - 1240 Points Michael Bublé Bath  - 808 Points New Phone, who dis? - 690 Points Central Donner & Blitzen Office  - 640 Points TMcB  - 549 Points Merry Berry and Co  - 480 Points Let it Snow - 180 Points Slight Clown - 40 Points Last updated 23 December 

Struggling with a particular clue? Here's some tips: 1. Is there a person in one of the pictures you don't recognise? Ask around, ask your friends, your family, your co-workers. Most of them are reasonably well known celebrities, so chances are someone will know. 2. I am unlikely to include words such as and, the, a, of etc, so don't bother looking for those as part of the clue. 3. Most of the pictures used will be the first one on Google, so if you think you recognise it/them, look up what you think it is and see if that picture is the word which shows up. For example, the picture I used of Al Gore in the Guess The Theme picture is just the main picture on his Wikipedia page . 4. With that said, there are some words which appear multiple times. The word Christmas appears in 6 of the answers, but I have used a different picture for each. 5. If you think you know part (or multiple parts) of the clue, but not the whole clue, use what you have and try to fit in the rest, for e...

Congratulation s ! As most of you guessed, the theme this year is pictorial clues: ( Ice PICK - TORY party - AL Gore ) Some clues are easier tha n th a t; some are harder. The clues with people in are g ener a lly people you should have hea r d of, a lthough the person in Clue 16 (23 Dece m ber) is particularly hard. So here's the rules: 1. A pictorial clue similar to the one above, but denoting the name of a Christmas movie, will be sent out via email at 11:00 every weekday (Monday-Friday) up to and including Christmas Eve.  2. You have until midnight that day to send me the correct answer. 3. Every correct answer will receive a number of points which will decrease by ten points every time (so the first correct team will receive 150 points, the second 140 and so on). Be careful though; people have been known to be very fast in figuring out the clues in past years, as the below image demonstrates: In fairness, Die Hard was pretty easy last year 4. The overall scores will be on ...

It's November, which means it’s the perfect time of year to start thinking about Christmas Quizzes (For you; I’ve been thinking about them since February). That’s right, it’s signup time once again for the annual Christmas movie quiz! This year, the theme (chosen by last year’s winner Raring to Snow ) is: When you signup, include your guess for what this means. 20 points available if you get it right! Think you can figure out which movie goes with which clue? Sign up using the following instructions: 1.       S end an email to  xmasmoviequiz@gmail.com , saying you want to join the quiz. 2.         Include a team name (you can also play as an individual, but you will still need to give a team name). Your team name must adhere to the following rules: a.         Maximum four words long                       b.     ...

Good news! This review is going to be relatively spoiler free, and all spoilers are out of context. I thought about asking ChatGPT to write a review for me so we could compare the two, but unfortunately when I did it was actually pretty accurate. It even included the Easter Egg which appears in all my posts! I put it up on the blog for you to read anyway;  find it here . Of course, I know you actually came for some unrelated colour, so here it is. We saw the show at the Birmingham Rep, where we've seen several other shows. However, on this occasion, we weren't in the main auditorium at all, but in the secondary theatre The Door ("How many theatres are in this theatre anyway?" Fun fact: I just spelled weren't incorrectly twice before getting it right. The Door is a perfectly fine performance space, but it is a lot more intimate than the main auditorium. I was expecting this. what I was not expecting was for the theatre to be in darkness when we arrived. There were...

 DISCLAIMER: MOST OF THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BY AI. ALL BITS I WROTE ARE IN NORMAL TEXT; ALL AI COPY IS ITALICISED. I originally wanted to ask ChatGPT to do a review in my style so we could see how laughingly inaccurate it was, but when I did, it actually wrote quite a decent review, and although it lacked the some of my trademark humour™ You can't trademark common English words - Ed. See? Although it lacked the some of my trademark humour I use in my posts, you could see the influence there. But first, I'll show you ChatGPT's first attempt. Prompt:  Write a review of the man who thought he knew too much in the style of The View From Lower Down ChatGPT: Review of The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much As Seen from the Ground Up In the quiet tradition of storytelling that tends to slip underfoot rather than stride boldly across the stage, The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much offers up an underwhelming protagonist whose self-assurance becomes his unraveling. It’s the story of Hub...