Monthly Archives: June 2016

I have a tradition with a couple of close friends — every Thursday evening, one of us hosts the others for dinner. As well as meaning you only have to cook one out of every four Thursdays, it’s a great chance to catch up with people who I don’t necessarily get to see that often. There is only one rule: You cannot cook something you have cooked before. Given that we’ve been doing this for nigh on five years now, it means you need to get creative with what you’re doing and go outside your comfort zone. For someone like me, who loves to cook, it’s a great chance to try doing something I’ve never done before. Sometimes, it doesn’t turn out great (e.g. Green Apple Curry). Other times, you make something truly excellent and get a real sense of accomplishment — tonight was one of those nights.

Recently, we’ve started ‘theming’ rounds, so that each of us do one meal using a common unifying thing. The current theme is something simple: ‘Italian’. Behold, my contribution:

To start, a delicious selection of antipasto — roasted marinated red peppers; grissini wrapped in prosciutto; sliced pepperoncini; fresh basil; sicilian olives marinated in lemon and garlic; green olives marinated in garlic and chili; and bocconcini in olive oil, salt and pepper.

Main is a sweet potato and feta gnocchi (hand made) in a creamy sundried tomato and spinach sauce.

And finally, for dessert, malteser tiramisu.

I am a culinary god. Worship me!

I’ve got a few more radio play recommendations for you — the two programmes below specialise in horror and suspense stories. Again, these are all freely available on the Archive.org thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers Group.

Quiet, Please (1947 – 1949)

The Thing on the Fourble Board: This is legit the creepiest radio play I’ve listened to, and is widely regarded as not only one of the best horror radio plays around, but one of the best radio plays ever.  The title is a bit of oil worker argot: the “fourble board” of an oil derrick is a narrow catwalk that is as high up as four lengths of drilling pipe (two lengths are a “double”, three a “thribble” and four a “fourble”, much to my housemate’s consternation).

Whence Came You: About an archaeologist who, on the way to a dig, meets a strange woman in the lobby of Shepherd’s Hotel in Cairo. The excavation finds a hidden city beneath the one they were already working on, and once they descend into a tomb that had been sealed off by an enormous block of sandstone, they find… something.

Lights Out (1934 – 1947)

Death Robbery: Boris Karloff stars in this one 🙂 it’s about a scientist who’s been working on a way to bring the death back to life. His wife dies and, well… you get where this is going. This radio play succeeds well in being both incredibly cheesy at times (“We’re going to rob Old Man Death himself!”) but also legitimately creepy.

Murder Castle: This one is based on the real-life case of H. H. Holmes, a notorious serial killer who opened a hotel which he had designed and built for himself specifically with murder in mind. I encourage you to read his wikipedia page if you’re at all morbidly interested in serial killers.

Valse Triste: Another one starring Boris Karloff, about a mad, violin-playing hermit who imprisons a pair of women, threatening to murder one and marry the other. This one sticks out in my mind as one of the few radio plays I’ve heard so far that has a predominantly female main cast.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of radio plays/dramas. If you’re interested in checking some out, the Old Time Radio Researchers Group’s material on Archive.org is a pretty great source. I’ll make a couple of recommendations…

Escape! (1947 – 1954)

Three Skeleton Key: Written by George Toudouze, adapted by James Poe. This one is super popular, and for good reason. It aired several times, and my version of choice is the one narrated by Vincent Price. It’s about a trio of men stuck at a lighthouse when a ship carrying something terrible comes out of a storm and crashes on the rocks.

The Abominable Snowman: Written by Antony Ellis. A hunting expedition to prove the existence of the titular monster. It does not go well.

Pollack and the Porroh Man: Written by H.G. Wells. This one shows its age a bit with regards to its treatment of race, but aside from that (still rather glaring) flaw, it’s a pretty good story about a terrible person afflicted by a terrible curse.

X-Minus One (1955-1958)

A Gun for a Dinosaur: Written by L. Sprague de Camp, adapted by Ernest Kinoy. Time-travelling big game hunters going after dinosaurs for sport. I’m not generally a fan of hunting as a ‘thing’, but the story on this one is good enough that I’m willing to ignore that. A little disappointed it’s not a story about arming dinosaurs.

Time and Time Again: Written by H. Beam Piper, adapted by Ernest Kinoy. An excellent time travel story about a soldier’s mind being accidentally transported back in time to inhabit his younger self. The ending on this one is great and seems like an excellent set-up for a sequel or follow up.

To The Future: Written by Ray Bradbury, adapted by Ernest Kinoy. About a pair of tourist time-travellers who are trying to stay in the past, being hounded by an agent that has been charged with returning them to their proper time period.

This afternoon I went to a matinee session of Little Shop of Horrors at the QPAC Playhouse. It was excellent and I’d really recommend it.

I love Little Shop, it’s one of my all-time favourite musicals.

My introduction to it was when I was quite young, my parents had the theatrical cut of the 1986 film on VHS. I watched it several times, ’til I could sing all the songs by heart. It wasn’t until many years later that I finally saw a stage production of it and fell in love all over again. I remember it well; I was surprised and delighted at the ‘new’ (read: original) ending, which I liked much better than the ending in the theatrical cut of the film.

Today I also got to introduce another to the stage version, a lovely lady who is a big fan of the film version like I had been but who had never seen it on stage before.

After the show, when we came home, I put on the director’s cut of the film — which I had obtained recently but not ever actually watched — and we watched it all again. I was really struck by how much of the dialog in the film is lifted directly from the stage script with little to no changes. It indicates the quality of the writing, I guess.

Screenshot from the 1986 film. All rights belong to their owners.

I mentioned that I had never actually seen the director’s cut ending of the film until tonight. It was excellent — we watched the theatrical cut ending on Youtube separately afterwards to compare, and the theatrical ending just doesn’t compare. I can understand why the original ending wasn’t used for the theatrical release… ‘everyone dies and then the world ends’ was an ending that wasn’t saleable to the general public in the 80s, but today we’re much more accepting of that sort of thing.

There are some scenes and songs that I think work better in the film than on stage. The Dentist song works much better in the film than the times I’ve seen it done on stage, due to the different set and the customers. The scene with Seymour coming to kill Orin works better in the film, too. And of course, you get the lovely ending with building-sized plant monsters tearing the city apart. Still, with musicals I find live performances are just better for some reason.

Little Shop of Horrors is just one of those musicals that I can see myself going to see again and again, whenever I get the chance to. It is and will remain one of my favourites.

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No writing progress at all today, first time I’ve missed my 500 words. I’ve resolved to catch back up by Sunday.