#Seymour Centre

[brian-in-finance]

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Remember… (about Caitríona’s directing a S7 scene) She knows the characters inside out, she knows Brianna from Claire’s point of view as well, which is really cool, because the scene that we did was Brianna talking to Jemmy and being very maternal towards Jemmy. It was almost like, passed down to generations. — Sophie Skelton to She Knows

[edmundhoward]

tragically, i think katherine parr/thomas seymour is just delicious, narratively speaking. i think after marrying a frail young man living under his overbearing father and his rages, and then two older men — varyingly under the shadow of treason — all three of whom predeceasing you and taking your prospects of children, love and satisfying sex with them... marrying a charming and handsome young man who feels like a choice and not an obligation, well, makes complete sense. emotionally, it's very rich. becoming elizabeth truly unfailingly disappointed me. i don't give a fuck about those two cardboard cutouts they dared to call elizabeth and robert. i wanted katherine and thomas and edward and anne and—

[gorillaxyz]

tje american flag in his room

[scotianostra]

September 10th 1547 saw the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh.

Fought along the Firth of Forth near Musselburgh, southeast of Edinburgh, this battle is also sometimes called the Battle of Falside.

It marked the beginning of a new phase in the Rough Wooing, the sustained English attempt to compel the Scots to accept a marriage between their queen and the English king. The overwhelming English victory destroyed the main Scots field force, allowed the English to establish garrisons across southern Scotland, and brought the French into the war on the Scottish side.

When the Scottish Parliament refused to ratify the Treaty of Greenwich in December 1543, Henry VIII launched successive invasions of Scotland to force acceptance of the main provision of the treaty, the marriage of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, to Prince Edward, the future Edward VI. At Henry’s death in January 1547, the Scots remained defiant. Because of the king’s youth, control of the English government passed to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who, as the king’s eldest uncle, assumed office as lord protector. In Scotland, the government of the even more youthful queen was headed by James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, who worked in uneasy partnership with a pro-French party led by the queen mother, Marie de Guise.

In late August 1547, while massing a force of more than 16,000 on the border at Berwick, Somerset issued a proclamation to the people of Scotland reminding them of the 1543 agreement and of the history and geography they shared with the English. His army, he claimed, was coming not to threaten Scotland, but “to defend and maintain the honour of both the princes and realms” sounds like a previous King eh?!

Crossing the frontier on 31 August, the English marched along the coast toward Edinburgh, supported on their flank by a fleet under Edward Fiennes de Clinton, Lord Clinton. Moving swiftly, the English seized castles along their line of march and dispersed harassing bands of Scots. On 9 September, Somerset encountered the main Scottish force, 20,000 in number, holding a strong position along the river Esk.

Next morning, Somerset ordered his right wing to assault the Scottish line, thereby shifting the entire army toward the Forth and the protection of Clinton’s guns. Arran, in command of the Scottish force, misinterpreted the movement; he believed Somerset was trying to avoid an engagement by taking his men to the coast for embarkation on the fleet. Arran accordingly ordered the Scots to leave their well-prepared defences and attack.

Seeing the Scottish movement, Somerset halted his army and formed line of battle. The Scots, far inferior to the English in cavalry, had no cover for the flanks of their pikemen, the same bristling formations of spearmen that James IV had used so ineffectively at Flodden Field. Slowed by cavalry charges and broken by artillery, the Scottish formations disintegrated, and the battle degenerated into a slaughter as the English infantry pursued the fleeing Scots to the gates of Edinburgh.

While English losses numbered 500 to 600, the Scots, figures vary from 6 to 15 thousand, over 2,000 were captured.

Organised Scottish resistance ceased, and Somerset spent the following months securing southern Scotland by seizing strong points and establishing a web of English garrisons centred on the fortress at Haddington.

Thanks to French inducements- Arran, who was given the title Duke of Chatelherault-and the efforts of the queen mother, the Scots turned in this emergency to their ancient ally, France.

Concluded in July 1548, the Treaty of Haddington promised the Scots French military assistance in return for the marriage of their queen to the eldest son of Henri II. In late July, Mary was spirited into France, there to be raised at Henri’s court. Although a victory for English arms, Pinkie was a defeat for English policy, opening a decade of French dominance in Scotland and ensuring that the Scottish queen would become Catholic in religion and French in sympathy.

Pinkie Cleugh was the last pitched battle between Scotland and England. The Memorial to the battle is at Salters Road near Wallyford.

Members of the Old Musselburgh Club with the Pinkie Cleugh Battlefield Group will,as we I post this,, led by a piper, walk along the battlefield trail, starting from the Roman Bridge in Musselburgh. and meeting at the memorial stone in time for the commemoration at 1pm, where the laying of floral tribute and speeches are made.

Ian Wood, club treasurer, will read 10 of the names out of the 10,000 who lost their lives in the conflict, which will be followed by an act of remembrance.

Pics include a wood cut depiction of the battle from not long after it happened, “The Raising of The Fire Cross for the Assembly of the Highland Clans before the Battle, a depiction of the battle and two of the memorials to the battle, the second is a relatively new one showing two soldiers in combat.

[aimeedaisies]

Court Circular | 4th May 2024

St James’s Palace

The Princess Royal, accompanied by Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, today carried out engagements in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Her Royal Highness, Commodore-in-Chief, Royal Canadian Navy (Pacific Fleet), this morning toured HMCS Max Bernays at sea.

The Princess Royal, Commodore-in-Chief, Royal Canadian Navy (Pacific Fleet), later visited Esquimalt Military Family Resource Centre, Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt.

Her Royal Highness, President, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, this afternoon visited God’s Acre Cemetery, Colville Road, and laid a wreath at the Memorial.

The Princess Royal later visited the Maritime Museum of British Columbia Archive, 4000 Seymour Place.

Her Royal Highness afterwards visited Fed Urban Agriculture Society Urban Farm, 395 Harbour Road.

The Princess Royal this evening attended a Reception given by the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia (the Hon Janet Austin) at Government House, 1401 Rockland Avenue.

Her Royal Highness subsequently attended a Dinner given by the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia at Government House.

Court Circular 5th May 2024

St James’s Palace

The Princess Royal, accompanied by Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, today carried out engagements in British Columbia, Canada.

Her Royal Highness this morning visited Government House Gardens, 1401 Rockland Avenue, Victoria.

The Princess Royal, Commodore-in-Chief, Royal Canadian Navy (Pacific Fleet), later attended the Battle of the Atlantic Memorial Parade at the Parliament Building, 501 Belleville Street, Victoria, and laid a wreath at the Cenotaph before taking the salute at the march past of Canadian Armed Forces Veterans, Serving Personnel and Cadets.

Her Royal Highness this afternoon attended a Royal Victoria Yacht Club Youth Dinghy Regatta at 3475 Ripon Road, Victoria.

The Princess Royal, Patron, Canadian Therapeutic Riding Association, later visited Victoria Therapeutic Riding Association, 6917 Veyaness Road, Saanichton.

Her Royal Highness and Admiral Laurence this evening departed Vancouver International Airport for the United Kingdom.

[batshieroglyphics]

AO3 Scene Breaks - Final Fantasy Style!

Following from my set of FMA scene breaks, I've been working my way through my works to add scene breaks that are both screen-reader friendly, and just generally more fun.

This batch is for my Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X fics (not including the crossovers, those will be a different post). This has been shared previously with my patreons here. (The below is basically copy&pasted from the Patreon post, they just got it a few days sooner.)

Image descriptions are either in the image alt text, or shared below, if tumblr wouldn't let me add alt text. 🙄 Most of these are larger versions of the breaks used on AO3, but I don't have larger saves of the first two, so you're getting the smaller versions.

[Image Description: Final Fantasy 10 logo of Yuna sending bracketing the Zanarkand Abes logo; all are in colours of blue and yellow /end ID]

Final Fantasy X line break, which I actually created...last year? Ish. It's the Zanarkand Abes symbol, the fatter version that Tidus wears on his shorts, between mirrored versions of the Yuna sending logo for the series in the original sunset ombre.

[Image Description: Seymour Guado's chest tattoo bracketing the Zanarkand Abes logo; Seymour's lions are black outlined in purple, the Abes symbol is dark grey outlined in teal]

I also created an alternate, which is the thinner Abes symbol that Tidus wears as a necklace between Seymour's chest tattoos, which I'd halfway through to use for a Tidus/Seymour fic, although I prefer the above for Crooked Wings, and I haven't really done any other FFX fics that require scene breaks and have them as main characters.

Not actually using this one anywhere, yet, but one of the holiday card ficlets for this year is a non-shippy FF8 piece, and I seem to recall it having a scene break, so I decided to make a break that could be used no matter the ship. In this case, the Balamb Garden yin-yang symbol with the white halo. With, I think, light grey outline? So it can be seen against a white background.

Standard Seifer/Squall shippy break of the Balamb Garden yin-yang between Hyperion and Revolver. The Hyperion I ended up using is the 'costume' Squall has in Dissidia, because I'd otherwise have had to use the pixelated version from the base game. And that wouldn't have looked terrible in the small scale, but the pixelated base game version of Revolver doesn't have the Griever keychain and the embossing on the blade is...a disaster, so I ended up going for two higher-def gunblades, even if Hyperion's handle is wrong. Highlights of red around Hyperion and blue around Revolver were mostly because of my long-held headcanon that Seifer leans more towards fire (thanks fireball in the opening scene spar) and Squall leans more towards ice magic. Which meant this scene break worked very, very well for Zyxt, where the two blast Adel's Tomb in space and end up inheriting her magic.

This one is 100% created for my Sorcerer!Squall fic, Silver Wings, because there was no way I wasn't going to find a pair of spread wings and recolour them silver for this fic, come on. And then the Griever necklace in the centre, because of the backstory this fic attaches to it.

For Noblesse Oblige, I wanted Lion Heart as a sort of nod to how advanced Squall is, that he's already done all this before, and the crown for the title's meaning, that Squall (and Seifer, to a large extent) are the nobility of Garden, having been some of the original students and, in this fic, very much paving the way for generations of SeeD.

For Sins of Our Young, I knew I was going to go with the gunblades again—they're really the best way, I think, of implying about Seifer and Squall's relationship without using the character images, which I was sort of half-consciously avoiding—and I crossed them at the handles. But I wasn't certain how to bring in the implication of the title—namely, the 'Sins' bit. I tried finding blood drips or splatters I could add to the gunblades, but I wasn't really coming up with the vague image I had. The bloody hand print wasn't terrible, didn't hate it, fully intended to use it, and then I remembered I had a sort of dripping font and decided to just type 'Sins' and recolour it red. So, the left one is the version you'll actually see used in the fic.

For Kissing It Better, I honestly thought about just using a line of kiss marks, lol, but then I did a quick re-read of the fic and remembered the bit about Seifer giving Squall the Griever necklace, so I decided I'd just use that charm again. And then a calligraphy swirls line break I stumbled across got re-purposed as a sort of necklace chain, because I wasn't having a lot of luck, otherwise.

I actually almost used the gunblades with the Balamb Garden yin-yang for Broken For the Scars I Forgave, except, part of that fic is that Garden isn't really welcoming for them, after canon, so they have to find somewhere else to go. Too, Rinoa's relationship—both the Sorceress/Knight bond with Squall, and the friendship/mutually-hated persons thing she has going with Seifer—is...so important to this fic. And I wanted to recognise that. So, gunblades crossed at the hilt in front of Rinoa's Shooting Star.

[rhaenella]

Ed Speleers: Filmography 2010-2023 🎥

Deathless (2010) — John Ray

A Lonely Place to Die (2011) — Ed

“It was certainly a physical experience, definitely. I think from a stunt element, I try to do as much as producer jurisdiction would allow me to do. But you can’t take any credit away from a fantastic stunt team, and Jamie Edgell was a brilliant stunt coordinator. […] Wherever possible I tried to be as hands-on and do as much as Julian [director] wanted me to do.” [x]

The Ride (2011) — Student

Metamorphosis: Titian (2012) — Actaeon

“I was very excited to get involved. I think the initial reaction was to see Luke and Remi [directors] and seeing some of their previous work was what really drew me in at first. And then you start looking at the National Gallery, and then you start realising that Titian is, obviously, a fantastic artist. To be able to recreate one of the great paintings was a fantastic opportunity for me.” [x]

Love Bite (2012) — Jamie

“My mum told me I was always comfortable with nudity as a kid, but I think as I got older I’ve become rather uncomfortable with it. It’s one of those things where the director just comes up to you ‘right, Ed, today you’re naked, and you will be running through the streets of Glasgow’ – ‘alright, okay, let’s do it, yeah fine’. And the cameras are rolling, and whilst they’re rolling you think nothing of it. But it’s when the cameras go off and cut, you suddenly look around and there’s fifteen men in North Face coats with cigarettes and big, burly beards just staring at you, and you think ‘yeah, I’m definitely naked, alright then, wicked’.” [x]

Turncoat (2013) — Nathan Reece

Plastic (2014) — Sam

Downton Abbey (2012-2014) — Jimmy Kent

“It was a very special time working on the show. But the character himself wasn’t at the forefront. When you’re downstairs, and Julian Fellowes, the writer, his emphasis is on the upstairs – that’s the world he knows very well. And the downstairs characters quite often bridge the gap between upstairs and downstairs, but you’re not always front and centre, which is fine. You’re part of an ensemble, part of the process. And actually, there I had to learn how to be a part of an ensemble, or learn how to be a part of the big scene, maybe not having to say a great deal all the time but learning how to be present. Learning how to be on the ball. Learning how to respond to others, whether it be very subtle looks or whether it be just learning how to play a little bit.” [x]

Wolf Hall (2015) — Edward Seymour

Howl (2015) — Joe

Partners in Crime (2015) — Carl Denim

Interview with Ed for BBC’s Saturday Kitchen hosted by James Martin. James: Your character is like a playboy character, would that be right? Ed: I wouldn’t say playboy… James: Rides a motorbike? Ed: He rides a motorbike, yeah… He rides a motorbike. [Audience laughs] James: I know this cause he [Ed] didn’t ride a motorbike. Ed: No, no… I unfortunately couldn’t ride the motorbike. I’m really rock ‘n roll, clearly. It was a beautiful bike as well, a Triumph Tiger. So, I think, at some point, you will see a shot of me riding off on the bike and then it’ll cut to a slightly wider back. [x]

Remainder (2015) — Greg

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) — James Harcourt

“Getting to work with some of the people that are involved was a key element, and knowing I was gonna get scenes with Mia Wasikowska was a massive drawcard. I think as a young actor, it’s not just about scripts sometimes, it’s who you might be able to be rubbing shoulders with and in the sense of who you might be able to bounce off with. And also, working with James, it was a real delight to work with James Bobin. I thought he was a wicked director, really in touch with comedy and comedic timing. For me, it was a nice opportunity to get together with some really good people so, it made sense to me to do it.” [x]

Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands (2016) — Slean

Interviewer: Slean is very angsty and frustrated when we meet him. Do we discover any new layers to him as well? Ed: I hope so. I suppose that depends on how well I play him, really. But I think characters – good characters always have some sort of light and dark anyway, and I don’t think it’s a clear-cut case of him being a bad guy. Yes, he’s angsty, but he’s got a lot to be angry about. [x]

Breathe (2017) — Colin Campbell

The House That Jack Built (2018) — Ed

“It was like being on a stage. There was nothing to worry about. […] We were allowed to do whatever we wanted, and we kind of tore the place apart. You could feel the camera coming in close, you could feel it going wide. It was such a liberating way to work. […] He [von Trier – director] gave me one note: ‘can you get some chewing gum?’ Not because my breath stank by the way, it wasn’t because of that. It was because he just wanted the detail of the chewing gum, he said, ‘try that’. And a mate and I went to go and watch it, because I was curious to see how the whole film had turned out, and he was like ‘mate, you chewing gum, what a great move’, and I was like, ‘yeah, yeah, I thought that’d be good’. [Laughs] No, I did go on to tell him it was Lars von Trier’s idea. But I thought, that tiny detail, I was a small supporting role but to have little ideas like that, they are minute details and behaviour things, I suppose. But it shows someone who’s got great attention to detail to be able to offer that up.” [x]

Zoo/Death Do Us Part (2018) — John

For Love or Money (2019) — Johnny

Outlander (2018-2020) — Stephen Bonnet

“His physicality is immensely important. I looked at a lot of rockstars. Because I think a lot of frontmen and rockstars, don’t quote me, they have sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies. [Laughs] There’s something about a frontman, like Liam Gallagher or Mick Jagger, and all of those… I’m not saying I took directly from them, but I think I did try and play with the notion of Stephen Bonnet being this 18th century rockstar. I mean… I just did. [Laughs] I thought with the piracy thing and everything, but then you intertwine that with the fact he also considers himself a gentleman, that to me just sounds like a modern-day rockstar. That sort of confidence that they exude, that’s where a lot of the swaggering element came from.” [x]

Against the Ice (2022) — Bessel

You (2023) — Rhys Montrose

“The difficulty was how to place myself, mentally, in that state of being tortured. What that would be like, what substitutions I could find and what power of imagination I could use. […] But I think we [Penn Badgley and I] had a really strong respect for one another and what one another was trying to do. And actually, we just trusted each other. So, when you get to a scene like that, it all comes down to trust. And he’s so great to act against – it’s not minimum requirement because that’s lazy and I don’t think that’s true. But if you offer yourself over to someone who is going for it inherently, something is gonna work, something is gonna happen.” [x]

Star Trek: Picard (2023) — Jack Crusher

“I think the time period is one thing, and obviously you have to adapt to that, but I feel that the skillset is still the same. You need to be applying to what’s the script telling me? What’s the character telling me? What am I feeling, what am I thinking? ‘How am I gonna get out of this situation?’ is normally what Jack’s thinking. […] But what I did feel early on in some of those scenes was: I can’t let other people down here. I’m stepping up to the plate with some big heavy hitters who know this inside out and they’re not gonna, even if they’re the nicest people in the world, which they are, they’re not gonna take prisoners or suffer fools gladly. So, you’ve got to match them and you’ve got to surpass that as well, I felt. I relish that because I felt it tuned into Jack as well. So, it was a lovely little way for me to step into something that was like, ‘Okay, come on there, guys. What have you got? I’m gonna bring you this. Let’s see what you guys have got. Let’s have some fun and let’s play.’ And I love that.” [x]

[reallyhardy]

Bestie, please break down those costumes.Plssss.I am soooooo jealous of U🫀❤️♥️

of course!

the 2018 regent's park open air theatre little shop of horrors production is pretty standout visually because (while they didn't change the script by updating it) they did move away from the typical 1960s historical fashion for the characters and instead played with modern outfits and a blend of textures. the whole show had a strong colour scheme of black and white, neon green, pink, and blue. costumes & scenic design was by tom scutt.

we'll start with seymour, as played by the lovely marc antolin. his outfit is all blue, down to his glasses. (why are the curtains blue? you could say for his boyishness, or that he's kind of a melancholy character, or that white guys always wear blue, take your pick haha)

the main bit is a boiler suit made of different patchworked denim in various contrasting stripes and tied around his waist. his short sleeve button up continues the patchwork vibe with the painted brushstroke-esque check pattern. he also wears a shacket at certain points, and while hard to see in the above image it also had a thin pinstriped pattern. seymour is all about pattern mixing. a fun detail to note is that audrey ii's main colour is obviously green: in the centre bottom photo you can see he wore green band-aids on his fingers :')

also: while in these above photocall pictures that were used in promotion here had him in yellow socks, it's important to note that, at least when i saw it, his socks were pink. who's main colour is pink? it's audrey.

actually, her first outfit is also mostly blue. seymour and audrey have the most similar colour scheme so that gives them a strong visual link. so her first outfit is very much giving sexy: she's got a frilly top that we can see her bra through. we have a nod to vintage fashion with her cigarette pants. also while these photos show her wearing fluffy slide slippers, when i saw it she was wearing the little clear plastic kitten heels shown in the design sketch - we can tell this is her 'im trying to look sexually appealing to my boyfriend' look. she's showing it all off.

but notably, her hair is this adorable bubblegum pink shade, so i thought it was extra cute that seymour had socks to match. just a little hint of who he's thinking about.

anyway, during act 2, when audrey & seymour's relationship is blossoming further, audrey debuts a different look entirely:

(concept sketch shown along with a photo of understudy rosalind james.) in dramatic constrast to her 'sexy-for-orin' look, now she's in dungarees and a cute sweater, and she's swapped the heels out for sneakers. also, she's got on a pair of pink glasses, suggesting that contact lenses were part of her sexy look. this look is all about comfort: because she's happy and in love with seymour, who makes her feel more comfortable than orin did, and this outfit looks nicely like the 'partner' look to seymour's outfit.

this is getting long, so the rest is going under a readmore. click through!

so this is her 'sominex' outfit, the look she wears when she encounters audrey ii just before she dies. the clear raincoat is honestly just fun. i think if i recall right the stage directions in the script do call for her to be wearing a yellow rain-slicker, but pink is this audrey's colour, so she's rocking this. the glasses are still on too.

underneath, she's wearing this fun floaty half-blue half-pink nightie with matching 'mismatched' pompom slippers. she is giving everything in this look honestly. the meeting of the pink-and-blue, because she's wearing both her own and seymour's main colours (she'd still love him, even if he'd never found the plant, and all she wanted was to be with seymour 😭)

i'll do orin next:

absolutely obsessed with matt willis as the dentist. as a busted fan in my childhood, i went to see this production specifically for him :') so he's got a much more dishevelled punk look he's very ghoulish with his white foundation and heavy black eyeliner. also love the detail of him having a blacked-out tooth too, really emphasises how he's probably not the best of dentists. his dentist gear including bloody apron is in a very medical neon blue-green, and i love how utterly sci-fi horror the gas mask harness is. LOVE the ripped off sleeves on his white coat. he also had this amazing leather jacket with tooth design on and the ensemble had matching outfits:

get a load of the teeth print leggings on the backup dancer on the middle left, absolutely obsessed. love the 1980s punky vibe for the 'dentist' number. this production makes great use of matt willis' own tattoos: after seymour kills orin, he came back on stage with some dismembered orin bits, and the creative team had gone to the effort of painting matt willis' tattoos onto the fake arms that seymour fed to the plant :')

okay let's move on and look at mr mushnik, played by forbes masson:

small guy, huge voice, absolute standout. they've gone for 'little greasy man' as the vibe here, complete with a drawn-on pencil moustache. his outfit, much like the ensemble, doesn't have a lot of colour, just a fairly normal grey suit with a work jacket. the most notable thing about his look is that while he starts out in a purple bow tie, once the shop starts seeing success, he wears a bow tie in audrey ii's neon green. like seymour's band-aids, audrey ii's colour (and therefore her influence/impact) shows up in the costumes of a lot of the other characters.

let's do audrey ii next then, as played by vicky vox:

so this production makes use of both the usual 'audrey ii is a puppet' situation plus then having the drag queen performer on stage to interact with the other characters as like, the plant personified. absolute LOVED it. let's start with the puppet:

we've got the baby form and slightly bigger form i think here, it's a fun alien looking plant, love the spherical head with human teeth. for the plant to 'grow', a bigger version of this plant head is placed inside of a 'mouth' that can open and close sort of like an aperture:

and upon opening it, drag queen audrey ii steps out. she kind of comes in and out of it, and mostly just interacts with seymour.

this outfit is absolutely fabulous, and i especially love the 'HERE IT IS' pointing down to her booty on the back of the jacket.

then a notable progression for audrey ii's appearance is the changing wigs. we can see that her first wig shown here below is the direct partner of audrey's, (after all, the plant was named after her) and is styled the same way.

when i saw the show, both audreys were wearing different wigs that i thought weren't really as pretty as the ones from the photocall, these wigs are on the left of the above image. i'll call these the round wigs.

the most important thing to note though is that when audrey ii first appears, she has that strong visual link to original audrey. and this is played up in the way that audrey ii interacts with seymour during 'feed me' - audrey ii acts quite flirtatious with seymour and he seems receptive to it and has to visibly shake himself out of it. then in the second act, audrey ii switches wigs to the style in the above middle. during suppertime, there was more of audrey ii trying to be flirtatious with seymour, but at this point he is much more disgusted by it: audrey ii's wig no longer resembles original audrey’s, and by now seymour hates her guts.

the final look for audrey ii via photocall features what seems to be the original wig but with the curls blown out, styled to be more messy and windswept, but by the end of the run during the finale audrey ii just wore the round wig, with the added venus flytrap headpiece and feathered cape.

apologies for the terrible screencaps: the fabric the cape was made of featured green rocky horror-esque lips showing teeth. it was mega. the wig also featured some long pink extensions at the back.

let's go back a bit to some other characters who have been wearing audrey ii's green consistently, and that's the urchins:

they wear these punky, i would say more 1990s streetwear inspired costumes throughout the whole show, and don't change until the end. the two gals on the left wear pieces that tie in strongly to the set, which is a crumbling grayscale newspaper-inspired city/drive-in theatre set proclaiming 'GOD BLESS AMERICA' across the top.

we can see the girl on the far left has a grayscale US flag top, while the middle girl has grey cityscape patterned sweatpants. then all three of them are wearing the bright neon of audrey ii, reminded us and the audience who's story they're telling. out of the 3, my definite fave look is the girl on the right, with the green jacket and shiny 'FEED ME' print leggings. i need those leggings. but yes what we can notice is that 2/3 urchins' outfits align strongly not only with audrey ii's green but with the same grayscale/cityscape patterns that the ensemble wear during skid row & other scenes:

anyway i like that the ensemble's look speaks to like... the set coming alive to tell the story. it's cool. this comes back during act 2 when the ensemble put on gloves that resemble audrey ii's vines and push around shopping trolleys with bits of building set inside:

not so easy to see that they were wearing the gloves, but basically they had long fingers that looked like smaller versions of these vines.

and with all this green let's get to the finale, where everyone has a different look. we've already seen audrey ii, here's the urchins.

lovely and shiny looks, this time they're all wearing the same thing. these are their sort of... idk i guess this is circus vibes tbh? welcome to this absolute circus: the finale definitely DOES have a circus vibe, making clowns of the cast, particularly seymour. here's a look at everyone with audrey ii lording over everything at the top:

the enesmble have VERY fun alien plant costumes on, with a big focus on toothy mouths and floppy tongues (we've seen audrey ii's cape with its green lips so it's all on the same oral fixation) let's take a closer look at seymour's outfit, which is definitely giving clown, considering he was the great fool of the story.

so it's this great big fluffy clown suit over his blue shirt that now his this shiny blood appliqued on, love it, with the green on the limbs ending at the shirt with the plant lips and teeth at his shoulders/waist, implying that his limbs have been eaten by the plant. this is great to see in action!

now let's take a look at the rest which i'm gonna have to show via very low quality screencaps because seymour's was the only photo tom scutt posted. here's audrey, orin & mushnik's 'plant looks', these guys are more like... audrey ii's put them in drag.

audrey's achieved her somewhere that's green fantasy, in a great swirly dress with full skirt and ruffly sleeves, still in her blue and pink colour scheme, in her same sneakers and pink glases. she's also got white lace gloves on. audrey ii said 'okay girl you can have this as a treat'. hers is the least alien-plant because it's like... audrey's fantasy look, and i love that.

orin's in a gold sequin mini-dress, but still his same combat boots. it reminds me of a brad pitt photoshoot from rolling stone 1999. look it up and i think you'll agree and i'd hazard a guess that it was a direct inspiration for this look.

mushnik's got on the long vine-finger gloves that the ensemble has during the meek shall inherit, and then a spectacular sequined set: blazer, bow tie, and the actor forbes masson said it's specifically supposed to be a kilt, because he is scottish and i think chose this as part of his look. he's also got light up gold sneakers, obsessed, and in the close up you get a look at his gold & green cats eye glasses and green lipstick.

okay i think! i've covered all of the main looks, or at least everything that i could find reasonably clear images of. iirc seymour did have a leather jacket for the scene where he's trying to make himself more like orin because he thinks audrey will like that, but i couldn't find any photos.

thanks for reading! i know this was a long post but i absolutely adoooore the visuals of this production and its a damn shame that it doesn't have a recording 😭😭😭

[that-bookworm-guy]

London MCM October Saturday Cosplay!!

Taking my Seymour Krelborn and Audrey Two cosplay to the ExCel Centre this October!!

[brian-in-finance]

Video 📹 clip from Twitter of JW Anderson LIVE

Twitter

Instagram Tracey Emin, Ruth Wilson, Caitríona Balfe, Sophie Skelton

Remember when Caitríona and Sophie attended the 2024 JW Anderson Autumn show?

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Death Ride to Osaka (Kaplan, 1983)

Decided to mark Jennifer Jason Leigh’s birthday by checking this out. As expected, she’s a great centre to this movie. The movie definitely plays into her innocence, and she brings enough warmth and sympathy to her character so that this doesn’t just play as a pure fear mongering sleazefest but as actual engaging drama. Plus she sports a number of amazing hairdos, although given her character’s predicament, you should maybe feel a little bad about them.

With this material you’re probably you can’t expect positive portrayals of the Japanese, but I think it compares favourably in this regard to something like Midnight Express in that it gives you actual Japanese characters to latch onto. Plus it has some juicy roles for Asian American actors, including Richard Narita as a conflicted underboss, Mako as a sleazier one, and Soon Tek Oh as their superior. There is the questionable casting of Caroline Seymour as the half Indonesian wife of Mako, but I will say that she’s pretty good in this, just as ruthless as he is, if a bit more polite.

Tonally this is somewhere between serious drama, ripped from the headlines sensationalism and diet sleaze, or as much as you can get away from in a TV movie, although the international cut (which I watched) is a little bit naughtier, with some nudity that’s probably justified by the subject matter. Jonathan Kaplan directs with some verve, especially in the neon overload new wave nightclub performances, and he gets to throw in a few cheap thrills by the end. But the location shooting and JJL’s performance help ground this in something genuinely involving.

[alldancersaretalented]

KAR Nationals Statistics

Amount of Titles won by studios: (Top 10)

Triple Threat Performing Arts (24)

The Element Dance Center (21)

Rising Stars Dance Academy (18)

Yoko's Dance, C&C Dance Co (14)

Cutting Edge Dance Center, WCSA, OCPAA (13)

Soul Shock Dance Company @ PDC (12)

Starz Elite Dance Center, Avi's Dance Project, South Carolina Dance Company (11)

Karen's School of Dance, Creative Dance (10)

Signature Dance Academy (9)

Studio J Dance Company, Gotta Dance Academy, GTB Australia, Studio 84, Dance Deluxe, Acapriccio Dance Company (8)

Most titles won by an individual:

4 Titles:

Nick Farris (Performers Edge Dance Company)

3 Titles:

Alexander Mateo (Rising Stars Dance Academy)

Brooke Shaw (WCSA)

Crystal Huang (Yoko's, The Rock Center For Dance)

Damian Seymour (Nancy's School of Dance)

Diego Gonzales (La Bella Dance Company)

Dylan Rogers (Michelle's Academy)

Jennilee Soares (Rising Stars Dance Academy)

Josh Escover (Lana's Dance Studio)

Justin Renaud (Yoko's)

Lauryn Martin (The Element Dance Center)

Macy Waters (Ashley's Dance Company)

Mia Barone (South Tulsa Dance Company, Creative Dance)

Michelle Cheng (OCPAA)

Olivia Beauchamp (Dance Expressions, Viva Dance Co

2 Titles:

Alex Dominguez (Art In Motion Dance Academy)

Andrew Van Allen (And A 5678 Studio of Dance)

Ansley Hare (Soul Shock Dance Academy @ PDC)

Audrey Stone (Avi's Dance Project)

Avery Wyatt (Ashley's Dance Company)

Berlynn Gonzales (Avi's Dance Project)

Brandy Baker (WCSA)

Brendan Farris (Performers Edge Dance Company)

Brooke Wendel (Cutting Edge Dance Center)

Calvin Biesecker (Starz Elite Dance Center)

Carter Cliff (GTB Australia)

Chris Critelli (TJE Dance Force)

Christian Harmston (Starz Elite Dance Center)

Christina Crocker (Avi's Dance Project)

Coco Backshell (Triple Threat Performing Arts)

Darius Stokes (Candy Apple's Dance Center)

Diego Moreno (Triple Threat Performing Arts)

Easton Kinsey (Acapriccio Dance Company)

Easton Bright (Joni's Dance Centre, BC Dance)

Easton Mahoney (The Dance Connection)

Ellary Day Szyndlar (Yoko's)

Emmy Cheung (WCSA)

Ethan Huang (Yoko's)

Gavin Davis (Dance Deluxe)

Giuliana Damato (The Dream Center Dance Aca.)

Isabel Jones (Triple Threat Performing Arts)

Isabella Rayborn (A Touch of Class Performing Arts)

Jack Schofield (Elite Academy of Dance)

Jacob Piattoni (Cutting Edge Dance Center)

Jayden Marquez (La Bella Dance Company)

Jaylaen Higgins (Yoko's Dance)

Jayse Gillott (Forever Dance Lake Tahoe)

Jessica Sutton (Avi's Dance Project)

Joey Mato (TJE Dance Force)

Jolie Bermas (South Caroline Dance Company)

Julian Bargas (Studio J Dance Company, The Stage Dance Academy)

Justin Pham (The Element Dance Center, Murrieta Dance Project)

Kadin Mestas (Denver Dance Starz)

Kairi Devera (Triple Threat Performing Arts)

Kamryn Smith (Soul Shock Dance Company @ PDC)

Kayla Chan (Triple Threat Performing Arts)

Kelsey Young (The Dance Connection)

Kianna Gachett (Cutting Edge Dance Center)

Kyler Durrence (Centre for Performing Arts)

Lana Baird (Just Dance!)

Lance McDougal (Studio J Dance Company)

Lauren Shaw (WCSA)

Mackenzie Belanger (Karen's School of Dance)

Maddux Ellison (Cutting Edge Dance Center)

Madeline Underwood (Starz Elite Dance Center)

Mariah Humphrey (The Element Dance Center, Signature Dance Academy)

Mary Smith (Prestige DSOD Copped Dance Company)

Morgan Perschy (Triple Threat Dance Company)

Nathan Pringle (Triple Threat Performing Arts)

Pablo Cabrera (Rising Stars Dance Academy)

Paisley French (Tammy Jo's Studio, The Studio of Dance Kentucky)

Rachael Reese (Creative Dance)

Reese Gabran (Jordan Center Dance)

Sabrina Huang (Gravity C Dance LLC, Academy of Ballet Arts)

Sari Thaler (Rising Stars Dance Academy)

Scarlett Adlam (JEM Dance)

Sophia Laufer (The Rage)

Susie Miller (Soul Shock Dance Company @ PDC)

Taylor Valadez (The Element Dance Center, Just Plain Dancin')

Vanessa Soto (Dance Deluxe)

Vaughn Ramirez (360 Dance)

Zeb Hanson (Studio 84)

Zoey Guillette (South Carolina Dance Company)

[paparazzifuckoff]

!!BC RESIDENTS!!

Provincial State of Emergency declared in response to wildfires - please evacuate if you live in

Quaaout Reserve No. 1 - Skwlāx te Secwepemcúlec (Little Shuswap Lake Rd, North Subdivison, and Dancing Fawn Subdivision) - report to McArthur Island Park Reception Centre in Kamloops

Thompson-Nicola Regional District - Turtle Valley Area (please check website to confirm the applicability of this order to you) - use Shuswap-Chase Creek Rd and Hwy 1 - report to McArthur Island in Kamloops

Scotch Creek, Lee Creek, Celista, Magna Bay, and Little River area between Squilax Bridge and Sorrento - The Scotch Creek Bridge and the Talana Bay Bridge are closed due to fire. Anyone remaining in Scotch Creek must evacuate by boat located at the Provincial park Wharf at 4248 Ashe Road. Those people in Celista east of Talana Bay Bridge can evacuate to Seymour Arm. Those West of the Scotch Creek Bridge can evacuate via Squilax Anglemont Road to highway 1 to Kamloops.

further info at https://www.emergencyinfobc.gov.bc.ca/current-wildfire-information-2023/

[dreamsandroots]

Synecdoche, New York (2008): Charlie Kaufman’s Metatextuality and Man’s Post-Ironic Quest for Soul

A dreamscape layered with subtext, Synecdoche, New York concerns itself with the unravelling of a mind, and beyond this the unravelling of the ‘self’ as a discrete unit of social capital. This becomes apparent as the film’s mise-en-scène steadily escalates from the meandering stumble of strange conversations and snippets from the life of its protagonist, renowned stage producer Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) into an unrelenting sense of hyper-surrealism which tumbles from its latent form until it lands front stage and centre, and plays out like a strange and troubling dream which starts to make less and less sense … and then goes on and on forever, and keeps going on until you (kinda) wish it would stop.

Hoffman plays a struggling artist, buried and emasculated by the crushed impetus of his slowing career, his stagnant marriage, and gradually his entire reality. When his wife Adele (Catherine Keener) goes on an extended holiday to Paris with their daughter (played by various actresses as the time shifts drastically throughout the piece), Caden’s self-esteem spirals out of control leaving him immersed in failed—and largely guilt-ridden—attempts to outmanoeuvre his libidinal castigation. This ongoing defeat inspires him towards an impossible quest to reignite his stagnating career by producing a play that captures the very essence of life itself. By extension of this effort, we read: that ultimate life-changing, orthodox-mutating artwork imagined by every dreamer since consciousness began its great roll-on effect throughout the ages.

In typical Kaufman fashion, the manifest form of this play—itself called ‘Synecdoche, New York’—soon condenses with the entirety of the film itself. The viewer is soon bombarded by the absurdities of actors playing actors, and before long the director himself is caught up in his own endlessly recurring emotions and plot points, until he finally ends up as a bit player in the story of his own life. “We’re actually having an affair offstage,” he says to a surprised couple immersed in a rehearsal, “you’re actors playing actors,” he continues as he strolls through an impossibly large hall full of people, all rehearsing their own specific parts of the larger whole. “You’re in this scene, you’re not just filming it,” he adds to an unwitting cameraman, and so it goes on.

As the film progresses, we increasingly observe the way that the play within the film acts as a reflection of the playwright’s (as well as the filmmaker’s) mind: the entire production spirals into an ongoing series of rehearsals and imaginings played out by its eternally changing cast. Towards its stifling conclusion, a man in a priest costume mock-orates to a kneeling audience of actors:

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make. You destroy your life every time you choose.

The looks of sadness, frustration and general disinterest from his audience are priceless.

It’s here that the inherently black comedy heart of the film really shines forth, but it is latent to the point of passing for sheer tragedy for much of its duration. It feels almost as if the film attempts to co-opt a gradual state of disconnection from its increasingly collapsing plot, which further demands the viewer recognise that what she’s beholding is simply too sad to be taken (too) seriously.

To understand this film—let alone achieve any sense of enjoyment from it—I feel like it’s pertinent to know at least a little bit about its writer and director, Charlie Kaufman. Known primarily for writing films such as Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Kaufman made a name for himself as a writer’s writer. His stories are—at least somewhat—autobiographical (or perhaps, we might say, a little more so than most are). His protagonists are mercurial introverts whose worlds become transformed into projections of the struggling artist, or the subconscious workings of the deeply introspective thinker. It’s within these precipices of heightened, and psychologically charged, symbolism that Kaufman engages in such finely tuned metatheatricality; by exploring the deluded grandeur of the artist, he asks his audience to admit (if not at times, admire) the often convoluted artifice alongside the beauty inherent in art.

I mention all of this because I feel like Synecdoche starts out from this pre-established place of metatextual exploration, or at least, it seemed to me as if it made sense immediately when placed within the context of these prior films. So does Synecdoche fester into a state of idle repetition when placed alongside the rest of Kaufman’s oeuvre? Well, yes and no. No in the sense that it certainly pushes itself to new extremes, but yes in the sense that this state of repetition almost seems to stand as the film’s oratorio, if not its chorus.

In terms of its final point, I feel like the double-play of emotion and disconnection acts almost as a form of self-parody, and thus falls somewhere between the realms of a grandiose—and largely self-effacing—absurdist joke, and the hint of an immense spiritual transformation which never quite emerges from its primordial foreplay into the climactic revelation it seemingly promises from its outset. It’s an interesting hybrid in this sense—at once intellectually unique, and emotionally frustrating. But it certainly does not, for a feel-good casual viewing, make.

Beyond the stylistic similarities, I feel like Synecdoche also acts as a thematic continuation of something which seems to lie at the heart of many of Kaufman’s films, and particularly the ones I mention above: that of the postmodern man and his seeming defeat, or ‘lack of soul’ for want of a better term. Central to this quest is his ongoing use of male protagonists who idolise—and are often almost completely defined by—an idealised woman who leave them broken. Following this tradition, Synechdoche takes this trope as part of its premise and seeks to play out its reflected platitudes in a double-faced—yet not necessarily insincere—fashion. Caden’s struggle is real, and as viewers we relate to this. But beyond this, we also feel the director’s ephemeral eye-roll at the recursive nature of this theme.

I tend to judge a film’s inherent worth by how much can be said about it. And while I didn’t ever feel like I ‘enjoyed’ Synecdoche, New York in any conventional sense (its anti-cathartic nature, its stifling hybridisation of familiar postmodern tropes, all those scenes of Philip Seymour Hoffman crying to himself) it certainly left me with much to ponder, and has brought me back for numerous viewings.

Was Synechdoche, New York a ‘good’ film then? If the aim of a film, as with any work of art, is to compel its audience to that ‘new place’—one which is dramatically different from that which came before it—then yes, Synechdoche certainly earns its spectacle. As far as a work’s aim might be to assuage, or to effect the illusion of escape, I’d say it very consciously fails at this. Beyond anything else, this work continues to prove that Kaufman is a writer and filmmaker worthy of serious attention.

[m--bloop]

undefined

Trailer for Begin the Beguine dir. John Cassavetes

“Begin the Beguine (originally known as Husbands II) was written as a play, and Seymour Cassel made some attempts to produce a stage version at Lincoln Centre after John’s death. Peter Bogdanovich remembers the last time Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, and Cassavetes got together for dinner: ‘The three of them were so funny, kidding each other constantly. It was a rollicking evening. Because John ignored this gut hanging over the table, everyone else did. He was trying to get them to do a picture, Begin the Beguine.” (John Cassavetes: Lifeworks by Tom Charity)

“[Begin the Beguine] takes its title from a 1934 song by Cole Porter that Cassavetes apparently loved. He wrote it with two actors in mind: Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara, his co-stars in ‘Husbands’ (1970)...” (The Economist)

“Begin the Beguine was the last play the legendary filmmaker John Cassavetes wrote - for Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara - before his death. This bleak and glimmering allegory named after the Cole Porter-evergreen about love and death, Eros and Thanatos, never got further than the preparatory stage. It was never performed.” (Needcompany)

[grandmaster-anne]

Court Circular | 9th March 2023

Buckingham Palace

His Excellency the Hon Philip Goff was received in audience by The King today upon his appointment as High Commissioner for New Zealand in London. Mrs Goff was also received by His Majesty. His Excellency the Hon Stephen Smith was received in audience by The King upon his appointment as High Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Australia in London. Ms Jane Seymour was also received by His Majesty. The King received Addresses from Privileged Bodies to which His Majesty was graciously pleased to make reply. These were: the General Synod of the Church of England, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Free Churches Group, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the City of London Corporation, the Corporation of the City of Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh, the University of London, the University of St Andrews, the University of Glasgow, the University of Aberdeen, the Royal Society, the Greater London Authority, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association, the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, the Lieutenancy of the City of London, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral, the City of Westminster, the Corporation of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, the Dean and Canons of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, the Royal County of Berkshire, the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, and the Military Knights of Windsor. The King’s Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard was on duty. His Majesty afterwards held a Reception at Buckingham Palace for the Privileged Bodies. The King later visited the Animal and Plant Health Agency, Woodham Lane, New Haw, and was received by His Majesty’s LordLieutenant of Surrey (Mr Michael More-Molyneux), the Minister of State for Biosecurity (the Lord Benyon), the Chairman (Mr Christopher Nicholson) and Mr David Holdsworth (Chief Executive). His Majesty received briefings on the work of the Agency and visited the Avian Influenza Virology High Containment Laboratory and the Genome Mapping Laboratory, before visiting the Library and meeting members of staff and scientists. The Queen Consort this morning visited the British Racing School, Snailwell Road, Newmarket, to mark their Fortieth Anniversary and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire (Mrs Julie Spence). Her Majesty, Patron, the British Sporting Art Trust, this afternoon visited Palace House, Palace Street, Newmarket, to unveil the Belvoir Huntsman painting and was received by the Hon Peter Stanley (Deputy Lieutenant of Suffolk).

Kensington Palace

The Prince and Princess of Wales this morning visited Hayes Muslim Centre, 3 Pump Lane, Hayes, Middlesex, and were received by Ms Manju Malhi (Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London).

St James’s Palace

The Earl of Wessex this morning visited Propstore, Great House Farm, Chenies, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Hertfordshire (Mr Robert Voss). His Royal Highness this afternoon visited Ashridge House, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, and planted a tree for The Queen’s Green Canopy. The Earl of Wessex, Patron, the Production Guild of Great Britain, later visited Sky Studios Elstree, Rowley Lane, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The Countess of Wessex this morning visited the Countryside Education Trust, Palace Lane, Beaulieu, and was received by the Hon Mary Montagu-Scott (Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire). Her Royal Highness, Patron, Lions Clubs International, Multiple District 105, British Isles and Ireland, this afternoon planted trees for The Queen’s Green Canopy.

St James’s Palace

The Princess Royal, Patron, Maritime UK, this evening attended the Annual Awards at DoubleTree by Hilton Hull, 24 Ferensway, Kingston Upon Hull, and was received by Her Majesty’s LordLieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire (Mr James Dick).

Kensington Palace

The Duke of Gloucester, Grand Prior, the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, this evening attended the Installation Dinner of the Prior of the Priory of England and the Islands at St John’s Gate, 26 St John’s Lane, London EC1. The Duchess of Gloucester, Royal Patron, Missing People, this evening attended the “Night of Light” Gala Dinner at the Pan Pacific Hotel, Houndsditch, London EC3, to celebrate the Thirtieth Anniversary