today is:

~ 17 years since she was born.

~ 20 years since she was born.

~ 1 year since entropy aired on sky one (buffy season 6)

and the reason i know this incredibly pointless fact is because i watched the first half before leaving the house to go to the hippodrome, which means it's

~ 1 year since my second viewing of sunset

and hence

~ 1 year since meeting faith brown for the first time.

and this time last year i was probably twitchy and nervous as heck thanks to the fic thing. and while i'd claim it was one year since the y-k-w thing began, i'd be lying - i realisd that started somewhere between the two shows...

whee! nostalgia!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAOMI AND EVE!!

hope you enjoy your presents, because they're so mysterious ;) (naomi, don't hurt me for the card...)

occasionally, i have amazingly wonderful vivid dreams that leave me with a pleasant feel-good feeling for most of the day (or at least a few hours.) last night, i had another one. well, it was a nice one, if not 'amazingly wonderul', but it was vivid. and, of course, fragmented. the day i have a dream that follows a coherent, linear state of events, i'll be very concerned indeed...

from what i remember of the beginning, i think i'd been to see a film, or something. and... lloyd was there, which then translates to eve and sweet being there as it turned out to be something vaguely 'sunset'-related. and there was some other guy there who i think was my father. *shrug*

anyway. for some reason, we'd watched said film/whatever on the television in the living room of my grandmother's old house. here's a brief mental map of the layout of the room. as you come in, there's what remains of one wall on the left where she had the two rooms knocked into one (and in the other room, the piano and a few chairs and very little else...) and on the left is the original room. immediately behind the door, to the left, is the sofa (a greenish-brownish, leather three seater covered in rugs), opposite that, the gas fire. next to the sofa is a chair (i think it was just a wooden one, but it might have been one of her many different armchairs), then a beam up the wall, then another leather, swivel chair. then there's a small, longish table, and finally, by the window, another chair. opposite that chair by the window is the television, and then, a little further up, opposite the wall beam, is a large wooden armchair. (see what i mean about the chairs?) and then you're back to the fireplace again. and for those wondering, yes, it's a large room. (and i've just realised how much of my childhood [um, all of it] was spent in that house, but i'm not going to get all nostalgic over it now...)

anyway. in the dream the room had a sort of elongated perspective to it that made it seem longer than it already was. seated in the chair by the window was eve (being quiet and observing the action, although i know it was her), in the swivel chair, my father, being irritating, in the chair on the opposite wall, me, talking to the two figures on the sofa, at either end of it - faith brown and jeremy finch, the latter being nearest the door. (oh, like it was going to be anyone else with the sunset-crew in the dream ;) oh, and sweet was, i think, somewhere on the floor, or possibly on the remaining chair...)

i seemed completely calm and collected about this. in fact, i knew they were there because i'd invited them, or they'd invited us, or something, but the whole thing was arranged and i wasn't being a fangirl. either that or they'd randomly turned up and shocked me so much i couldn't be a fangirl, because lloyd hadn't seemed to have recognised them until i told him who they were later and he yelled at me for not telling him... *shrug*

faith was being quiet and watching the credits of the film or whatever it was that we'd all just watched on the television (and, even more oddly, nobody was hassling her...) and i was trying to hold a conversation with jeremy from the other side of the room over the noise of the credits music (which everyone wanted to hear and wouldn't turn down) and my father being bored and annoying and making odd, random noises. i shushed him at one point, i recall.

the conversation itself, i actually pretty much remember word for word (or at least, i did first thing this morning) but i won't transcribe it. i think at first we were just talking about the show in general, and then he accidentally let slip that someone had managed to get permission to make a video of the final show as a gift to the cast. and then, of course, i was all ears and pestering him like hell to clarify it. he did, somewhat grudgingly. and then, naturally, i was pestering him to get me a copy. i was using my very best persuasive voice with my very best kicked-puppy expression, and, surprisingly, it actually worked - and i also used the excuse that the only thing we'd got to remember the show by was allan's dvd from the end of the night of everyone meeting faith. (and then he was quite put out that there wasn't one of him... :P)

by this point, we'd all started to file out as the credits had finished and they'd all gotten bored of watching me talk to him. faith was gone first, into a... blue car, i think, but not after saying goodbye to everyone and being generally lovely as usual. sweet, eve, and lloyd all got into either a taxi or another car and waited for me somewhat impatiently as i finished pestering jeremy. see, there's still something i don't know - whether or not he frellin' read TUOS. this has been bugging me off and on since may, when i sent it, and even more so since the show by the fact that i didn't ask, and faith kinda implied that he did, and last night while re-reading it myself i was in a perpetual state of "i want to know. no, i don't want to know. i'm happy not knowing. but, god, i wanna know!" etc. so that is most likely where the next bit of the dream came from...

i asked, "can i ask you a question?" (this was said as we were heading out of the from door, i remember, from the hall to the porch and out... i'm sure that has to be relevant somehow :D) he said i could. a deep breath. "well, about may, i... uh... sent you something... um..." (pretty much the same question i asked faith the first time, with it trailing off into a sort of quiet 'nah, forget it' feeling)

"oh, that! that was you?"

(har! you'll just have to imagine the combination of horror/realisation for yourself.) i said that yes, that was me, and left the question of whether he'd actually read it up to him to tell me. and, this being the lovely dream that it was, and jeremy being one of the nicest people alive... of course he'd read it ;) and went on to decree that either i was officially his biggest fan, or he was officially mine, i can't quite remember which. and then he said he'd pull some strings about the aforementioned video of the show for me, and then i let him leave ;)

then i got to the taxi with the others and told lloyd who it was, and then he yelled at me, as i said. and then it was odd. the taxi and the others disappeared and then it was me trying to get home from the cinema (which was now a cinema as opposed to my nan's old house...) the first taxi i got into had no driver, and ditto the second one, and i was trying to think of someone i could call and giggle at over what just happened, and then i realised it was only about 7pm and i'd be able to get a bus after all. and then the only thing i was worried about was the fact that when i sent the fic, it had my old uni address in the letter as opposed to my new one, and the video, if he managed it, would never get to me...

and then i woke up, even though i didn't want to, and decided to share the wonderfulness with the world at large :)

and now i have to go to jacksons for some bread, and then there's something i have to do...

this time, faith brown didn't kill my scanner. ;)

( the programme )
all done :)

you know, it would have been just the coolest damn thing to get a picture of faith and jeremy together, but they never leave at the same time. and if i'd thought i could have got away with it (and if i'd had enough wits about me) i'd have asked him nicely to hang around til she came out. except he obviously wanted to go home, and faith brown most certainly does hog the limelight, through no fault of her own.

still, it would have rocked... albeit in a very surreal way...

More on Saturday's escapades. The show itself. You can skip this if you want, but you'll never understand about the plant if you do ;)

( Roadtrips, Fangirls, and 10086, continued. Again. )

Phew! Just got Sunday (boring bit) to type up, and my blow-by-blow account of the entire show, and things I noticed, which you don't have to read. Just something I want to do for future reference...

today had a definite feel of 'monday' about it...

i got up in ample time and got out. then realised i had no money and had to steal 90p from the kitty (which i WILL pay back later...)

the bus was meant to arrive at 10.30 so i could get in for 11.00 for the module info day.

the 10.30 bus simply failed to turn up. the 11.00 bus was late by 15 minutes and didn't arrive til 11.15, which meant i didn't get there til 11.45 and completely missed the info thing...

i made a doctor's appointment for thursday afternoon so i can get this bloody cough looked at again...

and town was just busy as frell, again, and all i wanted was a phone topup card and a french loaf (and i had to get a big french loaf as they'd run out of the little ones, AGAIN!)

and tomorrow i have to plead insanity to mary and get the module handbook out of her so i can peruse it at my leisure.

and i STILL have to do my 20th century fiction coursework, but i will start that in due course...

so it was, over all, a very crappy morning.

but.

i checked the post.

IT'S HERE!!!

and i haven't read it yet, and eve's getting impatient, so i'm about to do just that... and it's hand addressed, no less :D

will be back very shortly...

Current Mood: excited

letter will be scanned (hopefully) when it arrives... grrrr...

( autographs )

y'know, it's weird... everything that happened outside the stage door last night keeps coming back in random fragmented sections, as if i was very, very drunk...

in a way, i suppose i was... drunk on the biggest post-show high i've ever been on... and i didn't feel hyper until about an hour later. after the show i was almost... i dunno... i was very subdued and silent, just serene and calm and incredibly quiet...

and when faith came out i couldn't stop giggling, but she's a very funny lady :)

i remember she did an impression of mavis from corrie. completely randomly... i can't for the life of me remember what she said, but...

and... i recall there was a guy wanted his arm signed... and the nice japanese man (who was almost as excited as me, by the sound of him) had just lent me his pen and the arm-guy wanted the pen... and i was holding it over my head trying to get it away from him... then faith got the pen... wow, it's such a blur, it's scary...

the guy did get his arm signed in the end...

and... i am now completely mortified by the fact that i asked about the damn fanfic... i can't believe i did that... and... that moment, when it seemed like it hadn't got there, and the embarassment factor was just rising and rising, and then the light dawned... i think i must have breathed the biggest sigh of relief...

and then i couldn't stop grinning. and couldn't string a sentence together... but all the while, still being remarkably calm and collected.

until i got in the taxi and practically burst out in giggles while i texted eve...

wow... so bizarre...

"sunset boulevard". once more.

okay, you know what? circle seats aren't as bad as you might think. you can see the entire stage, and they're really well tiered so you don't get heads in the way. the only major drawback being that you can't really see the facial expressions of the cast that well...

okay...

~ jeremy finch. what can i say, he was fabulous tonight. it's been a month, and he's finally found his voice. and he has absolutely perfect comic timing. some of his reactions were hilarious (what i could ascertain of them, anyway...), such as after he says "she put me in what max called 'the room of the husbands'...", and... ah, i can't remember, there were lots. but he's gorgeous :D halfway through i texted eve and said "oh my god, i think i'm in love", or some such... the combination of joe's character, and jeremy's portrayal... it's just... oh, i don't know. frell it all, i'm in love with joe gillis, and finally i realised! what's another fictional character for the list, after all?

the last note in "sunset boulevard" at the beginning of act two made me tingle all over again... and his high notes... are... wow... a few more years, he'll be playing the phantom, i guarantee it...

(oh yeah, and the stripping? almost twice as hilarious as before. i was well aware i was grinning like a complete idiot and just couldn't care less, thank you very much. the entire scene is pure comedy.)

~ faith brown. she's divine. there's no other way to describe it. and tonight, she was on perfect form. during "as if we never said goodbye" she nearly moved me to tears (as soon as the spotlight hit her, to be precise...) and when she was fighting off max at the end of act one, right before joe comes back, i was nearly sobbing... she IS norma desmond. plus, she clearly adores the role, and it shows. (but more on her later :D)

~ faith and jeremy together. the chemistry was electric, AND they'd re-choreographed the tango. (MUCHO shippiness, there :D) and she was more touchy-feely... if they change him now, it'd be a crime... but god... they're so good together its scary... the kiss at the end of act one... i didn't cry... but i was close to it... i could hear Nautica bouncing around my brain. she did all the "AWWWWWWW"ing for me :) anyone who tries to convince me that joe never loved norma, not even a tiny bit, is going to be wasting their time, seriously...

~ the show. has much improved; particularly, the set change into schwab's drugstore was seamless (there were problems there last time), and there was only one glitch, which seemed to be a feedback problem towards the end. the cast were all wonderful (betty was perhaps a little flat, but... hey, it's live!)

~ the audience. was fantastic. all of the jokes got laugh-out-loud chuckles instead of minor murmuring, there was complete silence during the most dramatic scenes, and i think nearly everyone stood up. i know i did. it was very much a last show atmosphere...

right. and the question. did i stalk the cast? you bet i frellin' did!!

first of all, i had no idea where the stage door was and ended up down the wrong side of the theatre, but when i'd found it, there was a gloriously small amount of people there :D

there was a nice friendly japanese man who lent me his pen, too. unfortunately, i had to get them to sign my ticket as my programme was at home (see, i KNEW i should have taken it...)

the first person we saw was lee ormsby, who played artie green.. he was deep in conversation with a friend, but nobody was that concerned with him (i had limited space :P). then, michael bauer, who played max, came out, on his way for a pint, by the looks of things. he was... nice... what little he said, anyway...

then, (argh, forgot her name, will update it later) who played betty came out. she was welsh and lovely. i'll scan the ticket and the message when i get back to uni, but it said: "To Becs, or rather Bex..." hehe. i love it when they do that :)

then... okay, i'm calm. i'm calm enough to tell you this with minimal typos and shrieking...

faith brown. she was practically mobbed. the regulars were there, they've been following the tour around the place... she signed things and was talking to everyone, and she's SO NICE... and... and she signed my ticket...

and...

okay, okay, here's where i usually start giggling and grinning like an idiot...

and...

i nonchalantly asked if she'd had anything interesting in the post.

she asked who i was. it didn't ring a bell. i was thinking oh great, the frelling hippodrome lost the damn things... and then...

the light dawned...

she's. read. my. fanfic. MY FANFIC! FAITH FRELLING BROWN HAS READ MY FANFIC!!

and, not only that, she's written back (it hasn't got there yet, but i have something to look forward to on monday :D) AND... she. liked. it.

she said i was clever. i haven't been clever in a looong while...

i was, of course, just going "thank you, thank you..."

and she gave me a hug.

oh. my. god...

i spent the entire taxi journey home grinning like a complete idiot.

the only downer was that i missed jeremy as he was the first to leave and i was around the other side of the building (grrr.) but that's easily rectified. i'm definitely going to get tickets for the october show now, if only so i can nab him ;)

okay... i'm not going to get any sleep tonight, this much i know...

i'm all on such a buzz you wouldn't believe. it's one thing getting reviews at FFN for stuff... but to have a real person... a real famous person, no less... who you based the fic on... read it... and like it... and write back...

it's...

there are no words...

*happy post-show sigh*

hm. i'm frelling starving...

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: you'll never guess what i have in my head ;)

finally, i finished them...

have decided, in my infinite (and so often wrong) wisdom, to thank faith brown and jeremy finch in the best way i know how, and give them copies of the SBfic as personal gifts... so i just thought i'd share with y'all here the disclaimer, foreword, and dedication that i'm going to stick on the beginning ;)

(the facing letters to go with them are for theirs [and eve's] eyes only. and possibly sweet thing's. but they're too long to put here...)

the disclaimer:
"I do not own these characters, nor do I lay any claim to them in any form whatsoever. "Sunset Boulevard" and all associated characters, plots and situations are all original creations of Billy Wilder, and copyrighted to him and the RUG, as well as countless other affiliates, no doubt. The lines of dialogue not created by me are gratefully borrowed from the libretto of the American Premiere Recording. Absolutely no infringement is intended. I am just a fan who wants to give something back in the only way I know how."

the foreword:
"Andrew Lloyd Webber is quoted as saying, upon first seeing the movie "Sunset Boulevard", that "it inspired a tune." The 'tunes' he created for his musical of the same name have inspired these words in my mind. Until such time as my words may inspire an image and complete the cycle, I present this, the result of those words..."

and the dedication:
DEDICATION

I dedicate this...

~ to Faith Brown, for providing me with a Norma Desmond I could understand on far too many levels, and for making my first experience of the musical of "Sunset Boulevard" such a fantastic one...

~to Jeremy Finch, whose portrayal of Joe Gillis will be first and foremost the one I remember, and who will forever be my definitive Joe...

~ to them both, for being completely wonderful on stage together and being partly responsible for this...

~ to Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose music is so constantly inspirational...

~ to the late Billy Wilder, without whom this wouldn't have been possible at all...

~ and to Norma and Joe, who deserve a happy ending...

and that's it. it's all highly stupid and hideous, but i have to do something. i refuse to let them leave without them knowing how completely wonderful they were. so, two copies of the fic, each including all of the above and a letter to either faith or jeremy, will be in the post on monday (along with eve's copy of the soundtrack) c/o the hippodrome... and if they read it, it'll be a miracle ;) and that's if it ever gets there, of course...

wish me luck!

Current Mood: apprehensive
Current Music: my brain telling me to sleep

a grantle, i have decided, is a combination of a grumble, a rant and a ramble... so this is a grantle.

"sunset boulevard"... wow... just simply, utterly, wow... shall attempt to summarise and be coherent and numerical... and, for those seeking a summary which makes sense, go here.

1) the show begins on-screen. it shows a black and white close-up of norma desmond. she does her whole silent filmstar thing... the camera zooms in, then the audience is left facing the barrel of a gun... nice bit of foreshadowing, that ;)

2) this is the only show i remember where a) i didn't cry (which is either a good OR a bad thing. in this case it's a good thing, there was nothing really cry-worthy in it. which, again, can be a good or a bad thing...) and b) i didn't get the horrible feeling of wanting to kill myself halfway through. possibly because there's no young female lead in this. well, there is, but she's not the coolest character, and i'm too young to be norma desmond ;)

3) it's been a frelling long time since something i saw had a standing ovation at the end. faith brown truly did shine...

4) right, show chronology would be good... the set is, as usual with a lloyd webber production, amazing. a staircase on wheels, many yards of fabric to make gold rouched curtains, sliding set pieces, old bits of film set, a drop-down projection screen, and an actual working camera at the end (more on that later.) and everything slides together really wonderfully between scenes. there was only one major glitch - the set piece for schwab's bar obviously took longer than they anticipated to get set up, since the orchestra played the introduction to the song about 5 times over... other than that, the set was great ;)

5) lead guy was purrrdy :) his programme photo did NOT do him justice. he had a lovely smile...
[ADDENDUM 09/05/02 - hehe... the beginning of a beautiful infatuation...]

6) faith brown may not be glenn close (who is the definitive norma desmond in my opinion, because she looks manic most of the time anyway), and she may be a tad too busty for the part, but she was incredibly good. if it hadn't been so cold i might have attempted a backstage door stalking, but it really WAS cold...
[ADDENDUM 09/05/02 - i renounce that statement. faith brown is divine and brings a certain elegance to norma that glenn close lacked... this is not to say that i don't like glenn close - she really is totally manic in the most wonderful way... and gloria swanson is, of course, the original norma, and that can't be beaten. there is no definitive norma for me... my norma is a bizarre amalgamation of faith, glenn and gloria...]

7) the shipper in me has been hooked on this since i saw the movie. i'm incurable, what do you expect? add to that the fact it's practically the reverse of the POTO scenario, and i'm a goner. norma and joe deserve each other by the end, they're both as deluded as each other. thus, the act one tango scene is one of my new favourite theatre moments. but, see, in the soundtrack, it says that after they dance (and sing "perfect year". yes. the same one sung by dina carroll), norma kisses him. i was anticipating this and it didn't happen. nor did joe kiss her later when he comes back from artie's party. i was NOT impressed (even if the final kiss at the end of act one DID make me tingly all over... :D) however, they made up for it in kind in act two :) and threw some in where i wasn't expecting it. *sigh* i was well aware i was grinning like a moron, but by that stage, i really didn't care... and i need shipperfic. i will be the universe's first SBshipperficcer... (i just know i'm still going to be rambling about this later...)

moving on...

8) joe's big solo at the start of act two, appropriately entitled "sunset boulevard" also made me tingle. there was something about the guy's voice, the underlying chord, and the way it just sounds in a theatre...

9) norma's big scene at paramount studios when she sings "as if we never said goodbye" completely alone in the spotlight, then provoked my mother to say later that it's something everyone HAS to experience. she's done it herself. *sigh* so now i have to live up to her expectations as well as my own. great... anyway, faith brown ;) she was fantastic in the scene, her delivery just hit all the right metaphorical and literal notes. it's amazing how much more sense the words to something make when it's delivered properly...

10) dammit! i forgot to mention the headlights!! hee! there's a car chase scene, so they darkened the entire stage and had a couple of sets of headlights on wheels to roll around. it sounds corny but it was SO effective! and they ended it with overlaying the footage from the original film over the end of it... making me very glad i watched it before i went, or it would have made less sense.

11) screw the chronology... they missed out the naughty words!! well, word, singular, really. they left in the line "get me that shithead nolan", but turned, uh, 'frell' (artistic license :P) into "heck", as in "joe, what the heck brings you here?" it doesn't really have the same effect. possibly there were too many kids in the audience tonight. still, i find it highly amusing that they can disguise it as culture and then swear at us :)

12) i started humming the intro to act two without realising it... :-|

13) the worst thing about seeing a live show is that the whole thing seems to pass so quickly, and there's no rewind button. and i find if you sit too close, it never seems real somehow... it's like you're watching it on a huge screen. if you sit further back it makes the stage more... well... like a stage. probably just a me thing. anyway, yes no rewind button. which means if you miss something, you miss it... and if there's someone's head in the way, you definitely miss it... luckily, there wasn't, this time ;) however, i want to see it again. now.

14) i'm allowed to be obsessed now i've seen it, right?

15) the ending was clever. the famous closing line of the film is "and now, mister de mille, i'm ready for my close up", and there's a close up. obviously, you can't do that on stage. aha, but you can! the aforementioned camera came in handy here. they rotated the entire staircase so that norma was facing stage right, brought the semi-opaque screen down and had a camera on her face to do the close up... and the final image, with the last words of "with one look" ringing out, is on her eyes... her manic, insane eyes... it's a breathtaking moment.

and... the thing about musicals, no matter how sad the ending... is everyone comes out smiling. it doesn't happen often with plays...

now for the grumble/rant part.

i remember Theatre. it was an excuse to dress up. the ice-cream was in those little tubs with the wooden spoonsticks, or was cornettos. the lights would dim and a hush would descend on the auditorium. and out of the silence, the opening strains of the orchestra would begin.

now, people wear jeans. (someone had the audacity - or sheer blindness - to turn up in a "les miserables" tee shirt. to a lloyd webber show...) the ice cream is expensive, it's ben and jerry's. the lights dim, and people carry on talking. the orchestra starts, people still whisper, and rustle their sweets, and rumple their programmes. watches go off every hour, text messages hit mobile phones, and... it's just not the same.

the only thing that makes it seem familiar is walking to the seat while the orchestra tunes up. a tuning orchestra is one of the most amazing, beautiful sounds in the world... and even the metropolitan hell that is the new hippodrome seemed like a theatre from days of old...

i really think i'm too young to be so nostalgic over things like this ;)

oh, and here's what i bought:

1 souvenir brochure - £3.00
1 programme - £4.00
1 vocal selection - £10.00 (bloody cheap for sheet music! god only knows how much that'd be in a shop...)
1 keyring - £3.00
1 lapel pin - £2.50

coming to a grand total of £22.50, resulting in my mum having to go to the bank since i forgot my card. but as i bought the tickets (£55.00 in total...), i think i deserved a present ;)

anyway. i was going to also type up the beginnings of the fanfic. or rather, me trying to talk myself out of it, failing, and throwing ideas around. but it's long. so next time, i will :)

and now, good night.

PS: "frasier" - aw!! he proposed! and... and... just... niles. all crying and nervous and aw! *sigh*

Current Mood: between euphoric and tired...
Current Music: little bits of SB going around and around and around...

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T'eyla Minh

Rambling Verbosity since 2001

Entries tagged with celebrities: faith brown

today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAOMI AND EVE!!

wow...

more. sorta.

(no subject)

"I held Jeremy's plant!" - part three

(no subject)

all scanned.

remembrance of things past...

i am perfectly calm, honest...

humour the fangirl...

"sunset boulevard" - a grantle.