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alobearThe lovely Corone recommended a game to me recently, so I bought it and took it along to a weekend at my parents. It's called Colt Express, and you play desperate bandits, trying to rob a train in the Old West. There's an actual 3D train to build, and you move your little men around using action cards, attempting to pick up the loot, avoid the marshall and thwart the other players by shooting them or punching them in the face. Where the amusement value lies is in the fact that some of the action rounds are played blind, so it often turns up that people aren't where you think they're going to be, and either you're shooting empty air, or being punched by someone who unexpectedly pops up in your carriage. I think it would be better with more players, so I'm looking forward to trying it out again in a couple of weeks when there are five of us instead of three.
Last night, I went to the Sadler's Wells Theatre and very much enjoyed Matthew Bourne's Car Man. It's a ballet with the music from Carmen and the plot (mostly) from The Postman Always Rings Twice. I had never seen the film, so I had no idea what was going to happen, and I was quite enthralled by what transpired in the little town of Harmony (not very aptly named) over the course of the evening. As with all the Matthew Bourne productions I've seen, there was a lot of characterisation in the smaller parts, which gave the show a very rich feel. The main dancers were all excellent, and there were some lovely set pieces, which used the space, the set and the other dancers very cleverly. What really struck me, though, was the lighting. It was very effectively done, separating the characters by colour and providing the sense of different levels of reality at different points. I was particularly impressed when the ghost of the murder victim came back to haunt his killer and staggered around the stage very menacingly, all lit in green, while the rest of the scene went on as normal with normal lighting. All in all, a very good show.
This morning, I finished reading Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, which I also really enjoyed. It's a post-apocalyptic novel, set both before and after a flue pandemic wipes out 99% of the world's population. It's beautifully woven together, telling the stories of a handful of characters and how they connect up in the past and the present. It drew me in to the world of the book, gradually revealing a detailed tapestry of individual lives, as well as exploring bigger issues of the consequences of such a pandemic and how people react to different types of adversity.
Last night, I went to the Sadler's Wells Theatre and very much enjoyed Matthew Bourne's Car Man. It's a ballet with the music from Carmen and the plot (mostly) from The Postman Always Rings Twice. I had never seen the film, so I had no idea what was going to happen, and I was quite enthralled by what transpired in the little town of Harmony (not very aptly named) over the course of the evening. As with all the Matthew Bourne productions I've seen, there was a lot of characterisation in the smaller parts, which gave the show a very rich feel. The main dancers were all excellent, and there were some lovely set pieces, which used the space, the set and the other dancers very cleverly. What really struck me, though, was the lighting. It was very effectively done, separating the characters by colour and providing the sense of different levels of reality at different points. I was particularly impressed when the ghost of the murder victim came back to haunt his killer and staggered around the stage very menacingly, all lit in green, while the rest of the scene went on as normal with normal lighting. All in all, a very good show.
This morning, I finished reading Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, which I also really enjoyed. It's a post-apocalyptic novel, set both before and after a flue pandemic wipes out 99% of the world's population. It's beautifully woven together, telling the stories of a handful of characters and how they connect up in the past and the present. It drew me in to the world of the book, gradually revealing a detailed tapestry of individual lives, as well as exploring bigger issues of the consequences of such a pandemic and how people react to different types of adversity.
