The Wizard Of Oz - It's a Pantomime...Oh No It Isn't

We took a trip to The Lowry Theatre to see The Wizard of Oz this weekend. Each year at about this time the Lowry do a show, usually a classic kids' favourite like the W of O. So, not unreasonably, the assembled throng expected a panto.

The assembled throng were wrong. What they got was a straight lift of the Wizard of Oz from the film - starring Lorna Luft, Judy Garland's mum, as the Wicked Witch of the West. And I say straight lift, because that was what it was. This confused the audience who had dressed up in costume for the occasion and bought 'light-up' wands with them for the dark parts of the show.

It confused me too. Do you boo or don't you boo? You see in a panto there is interaction, so when after being bood the Wicked Witch of the West just got on with her next line without raising an eyebrow, the audience simply didn't know what to make of it.

A pity really, this was a really good show. Not a panto though; which we all would have rather liked.

The evening was saved though by the Grandma, Daughter, Grandaughter (approximate ages 35y, 20y and 5y) sat beside me. Each had that indomitable Salford pedigree that made them doggedly determined to have an interactive experience. They must have spent months, no years, learning the entire script of the film and they hooted and howled the lines along with the cast. And their enjoyment seemed to be enhanced by the contents of the innocuous looking soft drink bottles that were passed between the two adults at regular intervals.

The youngest of their party was named Lewis. Someone sat in front made the mistake of speaking a little too loudly when they said,
"It must have been where she was conceived..."
Their partner added
"What the Scottish Island?"
And in true Mancunian style, the young lass's mum responded
"Nah Luv, the store in the Trafford Centre - John Lewis, I used to work there."

Now that's entertainment!

Fleeting Glimpses of Other People's Lives

Flicking through the pages of my notebook I came across this observation from a few weeks ago. From the tram window I saw a man walking across Piccadilly Gardens. What caught my eye were the two angry weals running diagonally across his face from chin to ear, as though he'd been whipped with a cane or stick. His face itself was pockmarked and ruddy, his eyes bleary; and his stumbling gait made me think he was probably one of Manchester's homeless winos. His crumpled clothing, that he had probably slept in and/or fallen over in, bore out the overall appearance; but in each hand he was carrying a pristine white carrier bag, each bearing the smart emblem of the Royal Marines. The contrast could not have been starker and I suddenly felt very sad staring at this shambolic figure. Had he picked up his bags and contents in HM Forces' career office; perhaps determined, in his disordered state, to make a fresh start? I wondered whether the recruitment officers had been kind to him or whether they had scoffed and took the piss after encouraging him to get fit and join up before sending him on his way.

I was filled with a sense of this man's vulnerability: who had whipped him across the face? As he shambled across the square I could see swaggering chavs pointing him out and I was reminded of a wounded antelope being circled by lions waiting for the moment when one of them went in for the kill.

The tram soon passed and the scene went, as they all do. I wondered what my response should be to what I had seen and how it had made me feel. Should I shrug, tell myself to get over it, with a comment that life is tough? Perhaps it might prompt me to make a donation to a homelessness charity this Christmas. Or perhaps I'll forget, as I get carried away with the seasonal preparations, only to come back to my notes, or this post in the new year and feel a moment's guilt - which, like the tram, will soon pass.

City Life

Sometimes Manchester is a really cool city, this week was one of those times: Autumn sun low in the sky, warming the bodies of people relaxing, kissing, eating and drinking (though not necessarily at the same time) on the grass and around the fountains of Piccadilly Gardens; people strolling loose-limbed around the smart shops on Market Street enjoying the last of the sun - and knowing that in eight or so weeks we'll all be hurrying, heads down, hoods up, against the more usual Manchester rain. Even I, despite being eager to get home after a hard day, slowed my stride to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the street musicians. I was particularly taken by these two men dressed in Native American costumes playing what - at least to my untrained ear - sounded something like music with a nod in the direction of native America. Click on the mini player thing to hear a dreadful recording made on my works (and therefore cheap) mobile telephone.



Ten minutes later sat, having missed the 16.15h train, on the platform of Victoria Station, I even thought the giant CIS building looked picturesque from my vantage point.

The strange thing was, thinking about it afterwards, that the people in Piccadilly were no different to usual: the regular collection of alcohol weathered faces; drug-collapsed casualties; loud students proclaiming the city as their own invention. The difference was in me - the sun warmed me through, making me want to slow down and lengthen my stride and, having done that, I just noticed more.

Oxfam Chic - At A Price

I am not noted for my sartorial elegance, nor for my interest in fashion matters; but, whilst crossing Manchester city centre the other day, my eye was caught by two young people dressed in what I would term Oxfam chic. The phrase deriving from the need of young people to dress stylishly, yet affordably, by searching out second hand clothes emporiums and charity shops. Indeed this was a method of clothing I adopted whilst a student nurse - though, if you ask Mrs C, it was more Oxfam than chic. I was known to wear an ensemble consisting of a RAF great coat, boilerhouse overalls or any other combination of mismatched, discarded garments adopted and adapted from Oldham's flea market. So it was with a fond smile that I viewed these two happy young people tripping carefree through the city streets. Until, that is, I spotted the carrier bag over the arm of the pretty young female; a bag emblazoned with the logo of Viviene Westwood.

"Isn't she one of those fancy expensive designers?" I asked myself; and getting no comprehensible reply hopped off to the expensive part of town to do some journalistic research on behalf of my readers.

Stepping out of my comfort zone (Marks and Spencer) and into the hallowed halls of Harvey Nicholls (where I felt I ought to pay just to cross the threshold), not finding what I wanted and having the burning gaze of people who could tell at a glance that I didn't belong, I left and continued my research in the classy part of town around King St and St Anne's Square. There I found Hervia; a quick peep through the window and I knew immediately that the down at heel appearance of my two student types was nothing more than an expensive copy of the real thing.

Needing reassurance that all was not lost in the world of clothes, I trecked back across town to the seamier, but far more interesting area around Oldham Street - where, incidentally, sits my most favourite of shop names: a body modification and piercing parlour entitled 'Holier than thou' - and went into Affleck's Palace the home of alternative clothing, alternative jewellery, alternative music and alternative haircuts. I sighed happily, transported for a moment back to my youth, as I saw that Oxfam Chic still existed and far surpassed the expensive imitations of King St.

Man's Estate

After his comment on Back Where I Belong , Bill Blunt got me thinking about estates: the sprawling housing developments that in the sixties and seventies replaced streets of terrace housing flattened in the name of progress, communities fragmented and people stacked in towers where they were highly unlikely to be able to talk over the back yard wall with their neighbours.

I have a jaundiced view, as Bill noticed, of these places after both sets of grandparents lost their homes in this manner. My paternal grandma lost her home to the Asda store in Longsight, Manchester; in fact if you stand in the frozen food section you are probably not far from her kitchen. She was moved to Armitage Court in West Gorton, which is at the centre of the inner city suburb used to film Channel 4's Shameless. The community spirit described in Shameless is not that of my grandma's back to back terraced housing.

My maternal grandparents lost out when Bertha Street and - the hub of the community - Edge Lane Methodist Church in Oldham were crushed to make way for St Mary's Estate and Shaw Rd Estate in Oldham. They were moved onto Radcliffe St, St Mary's were I spent most of my summer holidays whilst mum and dad worked.

If communities survived after their enforced exodus they did so in spite of the new estates, not because of them; the social engineers hoped it would be otherwise. And I do feel that the architects of the time had much to answer for; I am a believer in the theory that building designs affect how we feel about a place. If you don't believe me, have a look how successful some of the more recent enlightened designs in social housing are.

And before I forget, Bill Blunt and I are not the only people talking about the estates where they live. Tracey over at Gwelva Kernewek has been busy writing about the estate where she lives. If you need something else to convince you that where you live affects how you feel about life take a look at Tracey's post.

New Schuhs

I'm starting to get a little nervous. On Tuesday I return to work for the first time since 28th December. Last week I went into Manchester to buy a new pair of shoes. Knowing exactly what I wanted - a pair of black, smooth top Doc Marten gibsons - I headed straight for the Doc Marten shop in the trendy Triangle centre. The man in the sports shop that used to be the Doc Marten shop told me that there hadn't been a Doc Marten shop there for years, he shook his head in a gentle, sad sort of way at my shopping innocence - he recognised a shopping yokel abroad. Directed up Market St, by the kind young man, I found Schuh: a revelation. Trendy, with shoes so outré that, twenty years ago, I would have killed to wear them. The music was brilliant - Oasis, Blur et al - and I felt right at home forgetting that my youthful vigour is retained only in the (numerically decreasing) neurons of my brain. I was, in the eyes of the assistants, a middle aged man buying boring shoes and trying to look trendy by singing along to the songs: I stopped singing and stuck to conversation with the assistant instead.
"The last pair of these shoes I had lasted eighteen years" I said, enthusing about the quality and comfort of Doc Martens. She gave me a withering look and only afterwards did I realise that, in all likelihood, her job depended on people buying shoes far more often that every eighteen years or so. I paid and left hastily but happy, wistfully wishing I could wear these for work instead:

How to be famous

In yesterday's post I mentioned that during my stay in hospital, some of the conversations I overheard reinforced my view that the cult of celbrity has passed me by. I remain unimpressed by Big Brother, uninterested in soap opera and underwhelmed by gossip journalism. In todays Independent, Katy Guest's feature on Jade Goody the Big Brother winner, lays bare the UK's fascination with fame. In a wry look at Goody's path from dental nurse nobody, through 'Britain's most despised woman', to multi-million earning professional celebrity, she disects our national need to be close to famous people even to the point of inventing our own. As publicist Max Clifford is quoted as saying, "The public get the celebrities they deserve". My favourite quote though, goes to Guest herself when, talking about Goody's mother Jackiey, she says:

"She is not your average one-armed lesbian."

Having read the Goody piece I am no closer to understanding why I remain unaffected by the obsession with fame. In the same edition the paper celebrates the return of the Gallagher family in Channel 4's fabulous series Shameless. The piece compares the reality of West Gorton, the tough Manchester estate where the series is set, with the reality of the true residents. The comparison, even according to the locals, is a good one. Ironically the makers of the series may have to move the family to another Manchester estate because redevelopment plans could mean that the estate loses its tough appearance. Oh, by the way, when you watch Shameless tonight take a close look at the area; my grandma, used to live there, in Armitage Court an eleven storey block of flats, typical of the '60s housing used to replace the terraced slums that were the heart of many of Manchester's older communities.

I have an irresistable urge to to tell everyone that my Gran is nearly famous; tell your friends.