'Treasure Island' at Bristol Old Vic

Hot on the damp heels of Bristol Old Vic’s Christmas show Swallows and Amazons is their equally watery al fresco summer adventure: Treasure Island.

Bristol’s famous theatre may be undergoing some careful renovations inside, but that won’t stop the wonderful Bristol Old Vic from putting on a show. And since they can’t perform indoors, they’ve simply erected an amazing stage and seating arena on the cobbles in the front of their historic venue.

Tucked away behind a seemingly incongruous collection of scaffolding and green baize is a suitably ramshackle corridor that leads you to the temporary stage, complete with ushers wearing pirate hats and with toy parrots on their shoulders, guiding you to your seat and tempting you with a programme (which is well worth the cost – not least for the useful vocabulary sheet, and DIY hat).

Mother Nature blessed us with a balmy July evening, and Bristol’s seagulls swooped and squawked above our heads, adding a real sense of atmosphere to this famous sea-faring adventure. One that was brought to life by a multi-talented cast of just eight, who assume a variety of roles and slip between them with seamless professionalism. The plentiful references to Bristol in speech and song were warmly appreciated by the happy audience, too.

The tale of Jim Hawkins and his quest to find the buried gold on Treasure Island is well known and well loved, and is rightly a much-loved classic. Jim’s confrontations with the legendary Long John Silver have been lapped up by generations – who manage to gloss over the blood shed and greed to enjoy the boy’s own adventure at face value.

All of the cast are fantastic. But the stars of the show are clearly Jim (Jonny Weldon) and the wonderful Long John Silver himself (Tristan Sturrock). And while Jonny is a relative newcomer, a quick glance at the programme reveals why Tristan is as good as he is: he’s been a part of the Kneehigh theatre group for more than 20 years (surely the finest theatre group in England, on which note – I urge you to see their show The Wild Bride at St George’s this October: NB, buy your ticket soon, as last week they’d virtually sold out every night).

This production of Treasure Island includes a few respectful nods to its predecessor Swallows and Amazons (incorporating the musicians into the cast; the passing of the ship at the end), but this only adds to the feeling of inclusivity that the audience feels at joining Bristol Old Vic for yet another stellar production.

We Bristolians are truly lucky to have such an amazing theatre on our doorsteps. And I can’t wait until they reopen their main doors and unveil their brand new theatre inside.

Treasure Island is playing until August 26 – go and see it while you can. You can book tickets in person at the Bristol Old Vic box office, or by buying from their website here.

The Women of Twitter

I bloody love Twitter. I love Grace Dent, too. So when she wrote a book about Twitter, well, that was like heaven in paperback form.

When I joined Twitter last December, Grace was one of the first people I followed. Not deliberately – but so many other people I knew followed and Retweeted her, that I needed to join in to keep up. And never once has my finger hovered over the ‘Unfollow button, which it has for many others.

Grace’s book, How To Leave Twitter, is brilliant for many reasons. Here’s some of them:

- It’s very funny.
- It’s very funny because it’s so true to life.
- If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re screwed.
- Grace loves Twitter but she knows where to draw the line.
- The line is somewhere near the WiFi ‘off’ button.
- But she always comes back, because that’s the magic of Twitter.

Twitter is an amazing network of people you know, people you didn’t know you wanted to know, a few desperate celebrities trying to cling to the last hint of fame to bolster their flagging egos now they haven’t had a TV show for 15 years (Wincey Willis, I’m looking at you), and, of course, the lovely Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet (who I heart. Big time).

Grace acknowledges all of this, and more. Because she also recognises that Twitter is governed by an amazing network of witty, snarky, wise and savvy women – who know what’s going on in the world, who’s doing it, and what needs to be done to make things better. Which is why the strongest part of her wonderful book is where she laments that all too often women are denied a voice on TV – yet on Twitter, we can talk as long as we like, unedited.

As she says, on TV women are often “screen parsley stuck on the side of the plate”, pointing out that “no one would really notice if you scraped them into the bin”. Grace points out there are hours and hours of TV screen time every day devoted to men (“potatoes in jumpers”) being able to tell us what they think. BUT WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? Since no one wants to hear what we have to say, we’re all on Twitter… in our millions.

Here are some of my favourite funny women on Twitter: @gracedent, @scouserachel, @DawnHFoster, @caitlinmoran, @soul_of_twit, @sueperkins, @gail_brand. There are many more, though. MANY.

(In the interests of equality, I should stress that I also know there are some amusing men on Twitter, too: @wowser, @GarethAveyard, @RealBobMortimer, @Headspill, @StephenMangan… oh, and some others.)

Depression in the digital age

Until I had depression, I didn’t understand what it was. If I said I was depressed, it was usually because of something inconsequential like staying late at work. That’s not being depressed, that’s being fed up – at worst, pissed off. But it’s not being depressed.

Depression is the complete and utter, all-consuming gloom. It’s the dark cloud that saps your energy, your spark and sometimes your will to live. It can be the torment of countless, endless, sleepless nights, trying to remember to breathe slowly while staring at the ceiling and knowing (knowing) you are the only person in the whole wide world who is awake at that time. And it is a thousand other permutations of barely living misery. Depression cannot be overstated.

So for people who don’t understand depression to say they’re depressed ‘cos there’s no milk for their tea, is really rather insulting.

But it’s also understandable. Because if they haven’t experienced depression themselves, or seen someone they are close to experience it, why would they understand it? Depression is one of those things that people just don’t talk about because it’s to do with “mental health” and the unfortunate link that having “mental health problems” makes to someone therefore “being mental” and having “the people in white coats come and take them away”. Depression is not glamorous, even if celebrities come out and say they have mental health problems, too. Sadly, unless handled well (Catherine Zeta Jones, Stephen Fry), they often get mocked for it (Kerry Katona, Charlie Sheen).

Which is why the internet is a wonderful thing. The essential charity Mind has a website that is filled with an endless stream of priceless resources, support and advice. In my early days of depression, I nervously visited their website worrying it might be tracked in my internet history file, and another user of my computer would then judge me as “mental”. This never happened. But what did happen was that I found lifelines such as plain English factsheets explaining why feeling the way I did was OK, and audio files of relaxation sessions to ease me through a panic attack, which I could burn to a CD and play endlessly. Mind’s website, which is laid out in such a simple yet unpatronising way (perfect for those visiting in a less than clam state), is straightforward, easy to use and unendingly supportive.

Extensions of the Mind website (and similar organisations) are their Facebook and Twitter profiles (@MindCharity, @the_elephant_, @timetochange, @Rethink_), and associated #timetochange and #whatstigma hashtags… plus more I’ve probably forgotten, apologies. All of these are updated throughout the day with useful suggestions, relevant news stories and interesting links – and you should follow them all.

Bizarrely, a further extension of how social media helps to challenge ignorance and offer unconditional support, is (surprisingly – to me, at least) through the Twitter timeline. In real life, I feel too embarrassed to tell all but my closest friends that I have depression – it just never comes up in conversation. I certainly don’t tell my employer, even though I’m 99% sure they’d be supportive. And I don’t shout about it on Twitter… but slowly, over the months I’ve spent in the Twittersphere, I’ve seen a few hints from people I follow (who I don’t know in real life, but I follow because they post amusing or insightful commentary on the news, or funny pictures of puppies in berets, or because they were once in a band I liked) that maybe some of them have depression, too. And while I obviously don’t feel pleased that they do, it is also incredibly reassuring to know that there must be thousands of other people out there (people who are pretty much like me) who do their best to get on with their lives, but some days it’s just not happening. And so when someone I follow suddenly apologises for being on Twitter that day, and saying they should never log on when “the black dog” is around, a light bulb of affinity and connection clicks in my mind.

Like anywhere, Twitter obviously has its negative characters, but like anywhere, they are outweighed by the genuinely kind and generous people who populate the community. And in 10+ years of being online, I’ve never found that anywhere like I have on Twitter. Twitter is addictive because it is a 24/7 stream of news, jokes and funny pictures of cats on a mocked up front page of The Guardian. But it’s also addictive because among the anger and resentment at the bastards who are ruining our country and crippling us financially, there is a real sense of camaraderie and team spirit. There are sometimes people on Twitter who, when having a bad time, tweet about what a shit day they’ve had – and receive messages of genuine support from total strangers. Which is sometimes what you need, because often it’s easier to tell your problems to a stranger than it is to those you’re closest to in real life. I’m not saying that joining Twitter is the answer to depression, but it is certainly an amazing support network – even if people don’t realise that’s what they’re doing.

Laurie Penny... looking familiar

A few weeks ago, I bought Laurie Penny’s short book Meat Market. I’d planned to blog a review of it but, after reading, was left feeling so “meh” about the book that I never did.

At £9.99 (less via Amazon) for 68 pages, Meat Market patently isn’t good value. But I knew this before I paid. However, after reading it I wondered how the publishers (Zero Books) were justifying £9.99 for what constitutes little more than a badly-edited pamphlet.

This aside, the content of Meat Market left me underwhelmed. Not so much in the message Laurie was imparting (ie, that women are items to be consumed), but more because I didn’t feel I was reading anything new in her book, or that I had learnt anything from it. I wondered what the point of Meat Market was.

Meat Market constitutes four brief chapters, which loosely inform each other, but none of them feels like new writing from Laurie. And here comes the big problem. Some quotes within this book appear to NOT be new. (If I'm wrong, then please forgive me writing this humble blog post.)

ONE: On page 18, Laurie quotes Finn Mackay (who Laurie calls ‘MacKay’, and the proof readers never corrected). No source is given in the footnotes, leading me to assume this is an interview Finn gave to Laurie for Meat Market. But when I contacted Finn yesterday to ask if she had been interviewed by Laurie for the book, Finn not only had no knowledge that she was even mentioned in the book, but said: “She never interviewed me or told me she was using quotes in her book. It must be from conversations years ago. I don’t think I’ve even spoken to her [Laurie] for about two years.” In fact, the quote Laurie uses by Finn was originally printed here.

TWO: Laurie attempts to pick apart some views made by Julie Bindel. While on page 38 Laurie states that she is quoting Julie from a 2009 article, on page 42 Laurie makes the claim that she interviewed Julie specifically for Meat Market for the subsequent quote (“… Bindel, when I spoke to her in the process of writing this book, emphasised …”) . A fact Julie refuted yesterday in a Tweet to me: “She [Laurie] said she interviewed me for her crap book. All lies. She never did.” A lengthy Twitter discussion broke out between Julie and Laurie, and Laurie confirms that the quotes she attributes to Julie as new and for the book were in fact based on a 2009 phone call. Laurie said: “I interviewed you in the autumn of 2009, on the telephone. It lasted about an hour! I can dig out the transcripts if you like…” But it’s the same quote attributed to Julie as being gathered in the preparation for Meat Market that Laurie uses here. Laurie later Tweeted to clarify: “that article was extended into c3 of my book. Just because you [Julie] don't like what you said doesn't make me a liar for writing it down”. (NB: I’m not calling Laurie a liar about anything, but I do wish it had been made clear to readers that some of the book had been available in other formats prior to publication.)

So, while I originally was left feeling cheated by Laurie’s book because of how unsubstantial and dated much of the content felt to me, there are now at least two instances of people quoted not even knowing they were going to appear in this book.

This made me wonder about the book in general, so I went on Google and put in “Laurie Penny” alongside the names of a few random others quoted in Meat Market. And this is what I found:

P2 – Dr Petra Boynton’s quote is from Laurie’s article here.

P13 – Dita von Teese’s quote is from Laurie’s article here.

P23-24 – Anorexic Hannah’s quotes are from Laurie’s article here.

P39-44 – Sally Outen’s quotes, trans Amy’s quotes, AND trans Kasper’s quotes, are all from two of Laurie’s articles here and here.

And, I was very surprised to see that quotes on page 62 from Judith Ramirez are identical to those printed in a March 1988 New Internationalist article by Jane Story.

- Is Laurie re-using quotes? If so, I wonder what people think about this?

- If this is true, I wonder why it was not made clear that parts of Meat Market have been previously published – as is usual when this is the case?

- I also wonder why the Judith Ramirez quotes (from 1988, and for your reference Laurie was born in 1986) are presented as if Judith spoke to Laurie, rather than being credited to where they appear to have come from. (Perhaps I'm wrong about this, and Judith did repeat herself verbatim to Laurie during her research for this book.)