"THE TEMPEST" in pictures

Beautiful Lea as one of the Ariels in the opening scene

Antonio and Sebastian, trying to kill Alonso, the king of Naples

Alonso and Gonzalo awoken by the scream. Behind them, having failed to kill Alonso: Antonio

Ariel tortures Caliban, Sephano and Trinculo (left to right)

Ariel responding to Prospero's call

Caliban and his alter-ego...

"All the infections.... on Prosper fall and make him by inch-meal a disease!"


All the pictures are curtesy of Mr. C. Nigel Davy (chrisb4davy@gmail.com), who kindly photographed our dress rehearsal.

Sugar questions

I'm cold. The heating is on full blast and has been for over an hour. I'm wearing woolen everything - hat, scarf, finger-gloves and thick Bavarian cardigan, but am still freezing. Nick Drake is singing from the other side of my room - he's my favourite lazy-morning music, although he sounds better, when the sun is shining outside.
I had a wonderful nine hours of sleep, which I'd been missing. Upon waking up, though, I noticed a dozen places of my body that were hurting - my elbow - I can't put any weight on it - under my knees, where the leather straps were particularly tight and between my toes, where they pull when I walk - under my eye, where a long scar adorns me and another one at the edge of my forehead...
War-wounds, they could be called, but "theatrical sacrifices" would be a better term: last night was our second performance of Shakespeare's "The Tempest", in which Prospero - as ever - showed no mercy or holding back when he beat Caliban up. Three times he smashed his head with full force on the books splattered across the black stage floor.
I quite enjoy playing Caliban and don't really mind the grooves that the costume leaves behind in my skin or the scars that Prospero inflicts on me. I only feel them when I wake up the next morning. I am a bit disappointed that we couldn't have any blood for the head-on-books scene. But it's probably brutal enough already.

Two minutes after the end of last night's show - we (the excited cast) had just congregated in the corridor outside the dressing rooms, sharing our thoughts on our performance - our director gave us a relatively demoralising speech, in which he made very valid points, but the timing seemed to me a little tactless. Our initial enthusiasm vanished and we all walked into our dressing rooms with heads down and little joy. And as opposed to after our first performance the night before, when most of us stayed in the theatre's bar until it shut, this night everyone went home more or less straight away and only a handful were still in the bar an hour after the show, awkwardly chatting to parents of fellow-actors that had come up from Durham or even Cardiff to see our 'Tempest', or just drinking and chilling with friends.
It so happened that I was at a table with two straight girls - Sarah (the wonderful girl in charge of our costumes) and her 'academic' daughter (who kept throwing sheepish looks at me) and two gay guys - Russel (a good-looking dark-haired boy) and Seth, who plays Stephano and is thus the sole object of Caliban's admiration. Seth's parents had just left and he came to our table looking slightly miserable because they had put pressure on him as to what he is going to do after graduation...
While we were all engaged in a conversation, Seth opened one of the sugar packets stacked in a glass next to a candle and poured it out onto the table. He then started arranging the sugar granules/crystals to form what looked like a pattern of lines and angles. I had just re-joined the conversation after observing his strange work, when he tapped me on the arm and pointed questioningly to the final product of his efforts - I recognised letters, a question mark and an arrow. The arrow pointed towards Russel, the letters above it read G A Y , followed by a question mark and the letter below the arrow were a capital Y and capital N.

I smiled - Seth is a wonderful person, however odd and out-of-place he might seem at times. He's obsessively sexual, mostly in a verbal sense - he loves to mention guys that he's pulled or 'been to the bathroom' with and considering how small the gay community in St.Andrews is, he seems to know them all, ... well, at least they all know him. So I was slightly baffled that he asked me whether Russel was gay, since I had had my doubts about that, too.
As I was staring at the sugar question, admiring Seth's quirky genius, suddenly the focus of the other three people at the table shifted on us and the sweet message between us. I realised the danger of them deciphering it and swooshed my hand across the letters, creating an odd-looking shape, in the middle of which remained only the captital Y.

I looked up at Seth and he returned a conspiratorial smile.
(-;

(this is Seth and me in one of our Caliban-Stephano scenes. ---- Oh, did I mention Caliban's third leg?)

Curried Parsnip and Apple Soup

OK, this isn't really the right forum for sharing recipes, but I made this soup the other day and with all modesty I can here announce: it was the best goddam soup I've ever made OR tasted ... ... (well, maybe I've tasted better, but not more than once or twice and only.... ah, who cares -- IT'S REALLY YUMMY, ok?!!!).

So, since I'm of the altruistic kind, I thought: how can I spread the word about this lovely soup and get as many people as possible to have a chance to taste this easily made delicacy. So I shared some with my dear flat- and soulmate Chris, then brought some to my good friend Sarah, who's awfully ill and tied - coughing - to her bed, but then I realised: that's only 2 more people. So I had a blitz of blissful inspiration: MY BLOG!!!
Now that I am going to reveal the secret recipe on here, theoretically MILLIONS OF PEOPLE have access to it through the world wide web. YAY!! [I'll just ignore the fact that only a handful of people (if I'm lucky) actually read this and of those, who will actually bother going shopping and trying this out...?! ...sniff]

ANYWAY: THE RECIPE (serves four, I'd say)

What you need:

2 (big) parsnips
2 carrots
1 eating apple
2 spring/salad onions
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp garam masala spice mixture (optional)
750ml - 1liter vegetable stock (hot, just use stock cubes, they're fine)

I obviously recommend as much of the above as possible to be 'organic', but that's just cause I'm spoiled.
Now those are the essentials and should be relatively easy to get by. If you want to spice it up, there's 3 more ingredients, that give it that extra kick, if you have them, or can get by them, but they're not essential:

1/2 handful of dried curry leaves
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds

How to make it:

Put the water in the kettle or in a pot and bring to the boil, while you start preparing the rest. Once it's boiled, add the stock powder or cube... (don't add it to the kettle - unless you want stock-tasting tea for the next 2 weeks ...haha!)
Chop the spring onions into thin little discs, heat some clarified butter (ghee) or just vegetable oil in a saucepan and - once hot - add the fenugreek and coriander seeds and curry leaves if you have them, wait till they begin to pop and then add the spring onion.
Let fry at medium heat for a few minutes, while you chop up the parsnips, carrots and the apple. If they're organic - don't peel them before chopping, because the peel contains the best nutrients, just wash. If they're not organic - it's up to you. Add all three of them to the pot, put the heat up, fry and stir a little. Add the curry and garam masala powder and stir again. Fry this for about 5 to 7 mins, then add the hot stock. Bring everything to the boil, then cover the saucepan with a nice lid and let simmer at a low heat for 15 mins or so, not sure, but the way to know when it's done is when the parsnip and carrot are soft inside when you poke 'em with a knife.
Then remove the pot from the heat, enjoy the smell for a second and get hold of a food processor-thingie, mixer, blender or whatever it's called (blender, I think, right?). Blend it all together, so it becomes a nice smooth soup.

Done! How wonderfully simple is that, eh?!! You can probably make the whole soup in 30 mins. It's best served with some natural (organic) yoghurt, to contrast (and combat) the spiciness.

Trust me, this tastes so good, that you'll feel really good about yourself having made something so yummy (that's how I felt). It'll make your day!

YAY!! All ye people out there, make a yummy parsnip and apple soup and have a wonderful day!

This is the Fredericton Airport building, in Fredericton, the provincial capital of New Brunswick, Canada, where a couple of the previous blogs were from. - I love the colours and the snow.