The importance of reading instructions

I have just spent two days filming three short instructional films for people on oil rigs –in both English and Norwegian versions, which reminds of those very early days of sound film when several language versions of a film would be made on the same set. I have, for instance, some Laurel & Hardy films which the boys perform in both English and Spanish. Well, the Laurel & Hardy analogy is good for the filming we did over the course of the two days. I was the clumsy one who doesn’t read the instructions, so I guess that makes me Laurel. My screen wife (who is not pictured) was the clever one. We shot one of the films on exotic location Oslo’s main park, and the other two in interiors, where one of my tasks was to assemble an Ikea chest of drawers. This being no easy feat for someone like me,  I used method acting to at least give the illusion that I looked like I knew what I was doing! Much of the actual assembly was however done by the camera man between takes. At the end of the day, the chest of drawers stood there, stubbornly, like the black column in 2001 - A Space Odyssey, and just as foreboding. Nobody wanted to disassemble it, or take it away, so it remains where it was built. However, one gentle push will probably send the whole thing crashing back to its default state of countless bits of wood,  screws and bolts.

Just how this is going to enlighten and enthuse those hardy souls on board oil-rigs in the North Sea is beyond me, but at least it pays next month’s rent.     

This Week’s Flashback -Easter Skiing in "Home Sweet Home"

In Norway everybody seems to head to the mountains at Easter time to go skiing. In my play "Home Sweet Home -The English Familiy" from 2004 I dramatised the experiences of a football-mad English teenager and his eccentric mother when they move to Norway in the early seventies. The play was performed over a period of two years, primarily for school audiences, and one of the most popular scenes was our first day on the ski slopes. The character of the mother claims she has learned how to ski from watching the Beatles film "Help!" dozens of times, and here she is trying to convince me that it’s a piece of cake. Happy Easter!

Recording W. H. Auden

Today I have been in the recording studio, recording a selection of poems and short stories for an audio book for learners of English to be published later this year. Among the material I recorded was a poem by W. H. Auden (pictured) called "Musée des Beaux Arts". Poetry should always be read aloud, so it is is always a great privilege to be able to do so and get paid for it! Some poems are naturally more challenging than others –and I got through the Kipling and Herrick without any worry; but Auden is a tricky customer. His poems are full of pictures, and move from image to image in a word, following seemingly unrhythmic patterns and trails. "Musée des Beaux Arts" is not an easy poem to understand at first, and I spent considerable time trying to get under its surface, but once I started recording it all came together..rather like a jumble of unconnected notes suddenly emerging as music. Yes, Auden knew his beans all right. I hope the listeners think so too!