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!

Better than the Church Bookstall

What do you do with the piles of books that you've read and no longer want cluttering up your shelves? We usually wait until either the church Summer Fair or Christmas Fair and then haul them down to the bookstall. A colleague recently told me about Book Crossing. This is a website where you register a books you no longer want, are given a unique reference number which you write on a label in the book with an explanatory note, then release the book into the wild.
After years of reading John LeCarre novels this appealed to the clandestine in me: I loved the idea of surreptitiously leaving a book on a park bench or on a bus seat, hoping that no one will chase after you to return it.

Once you have released a book you hope that the finder will leave a comment on the website telling you where they found it and what they thought of it, before releasing it in a similar manner themselves.

I have released two books, both were books I loved - in fact one I liked so much that I didn't want to get rid of it, it was only by good luck that, ironically, I spotted The God of Small Things on sale for thirty pence at the Oldham Parish Church Coffee Morning Bookstall the other week when I was passing after buying fish on the market.

I released a Patrick O'Brien novel on a bench overlooking Salford Quays one lunchtime, I wanted to leave it somewhere fitting and this was the nearest I could get to the sea. The other I left folded in a copy of the Metro on a tram at Trafford Bar tram station.

So far, no one has 'fessed up to retrieving these books but at least I didn't return days later to find one damp and curled on the bench and the other blowing in pieces around the tram lines!

I think this is a fabulous idea and, as the year progresses, I hope to carry out further, more imaginative, deposits.

The Myth of the North

During one of our lunchtime perambulations around Salford Quays recently, we took a detour into The Lowry art gallery to visit The Myth of the North. This exhibition has been described as a tongue in cheek view of stereotypical Northern life; only it isn't, it could only look tongue in cheek to anyone who believed that Coronation Street was a quaint representation of the native population of our region. Wondering around the gallery it was instructive to listen to the comments of the other viewers; they were broadly in two camps: the 'would you look at that, it's just like me mam' front room' camp; and the 'what do you think of the quality of this installation as a piece of art as opposed to somewhere for the common man to look at nostalgia' camp. Can you guess which camp I was in? It was interesting to juxtapose the Salford that L S Lowry presents in his fabulous paintings with the Salford where a waterside penthouse apartment costs around half a million pounds; I wonder what Lowry would have thought of that.

Whether you are a city slicker who thinks that Northerners are quaint, rugged types, only good for keeping whippets and populating gritty dramas or soap operas; or whether you are actually a quaint, rugged Northerner, the exhibition is worth a visit. I for one was astounded by the range of Lowry's work that extends far beyond his matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs; and actually, the installations are very good and do bring a smile to the face: you can imagine my delight at a mini-cinema complete with George Formby movie. I was particularly moved by the painting shown above that, in typically blunt Northern style, is titled The Cripples and is a stark social commentary on disability from Lowry's time.

Of course many of you will be familiar with modern Salford's clean lined architecture that will soon be the Northern base for the BBC and is already the home for many prestigious events such as last week's Salford Triathlon. Among the many spectators at the triathlon was Lisa with her trusty camera who took this picture. You can see more of Lisa's triathlon pictures, and others, here at Flickr.