Debut

I am not quite sure what prompted me to begin writing a blog. I have enjoyed reading other blogs of family and friends. Admittedly these are much younger people than yours truly but I liked the idea of a public diary, or rather the commitment to writing encouraged by having a public diary.
There is no real plan of approach to this blog, other than a casual commitment to write at least weekly in the form of an evaluation of what has happened to and around me. My son in law uses his blog to write reviews of productions he has seen and my daughter writes reviews of films. Both these are options I would like to use as well. I was really privileged to see "Blackbird" at the Albery on Wednesday and hope to write a review as my second posting. I belong to a dvd rental outlet, which allows me to indulge in French films in particular. We have the Harbour Lights cinema at Southampton and New Park Place Cinema at Chichester which provide a richer diet of cinemagoing than is generally on offer at the multiplexes such as Gunwharf or Port Solent. The cinema is the only place to see films though and I would never advocate watching "King Kong", for example, on a TV screen in preference to a cinema experience - no matter how big the TV screen!
Theatre is still my first love. The reason is that you sit in the auditorium and the performance you are about to see will be the one and only time that performance will be seen. It may bear a striking resemblance to the performances that have gone before and to the ones that follow it. However it will be composed of so many factors - rushes of adrenalin, new discovered emotional patches by the actors, mistakes and errors onstage and off, the make up of the audience itself and its unique influence on the performance. In the cinema the distributed copy being shown will be the same if you return for another showing at the same cinema or attend a showing at a different cinema - the film will basically be the same.
Acting as a non professional has provided me with some of the best moments in my life and provided me with some of the best friends a man could ever hope to meet. My current role is as Marc in a Bench Theatre production at the Havant Arts Centre scheduled for July 2006.
One thing that occurs to me is that I need to time myself as I write these "posts" otherwise I can see me recounting my whole life story in one go.