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Still here: While They Were Waiting - Upstairs At The Gatehouse

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As the song goes, time heals everything. Or as another song says, it's time after time. Yet waiting—for a moment, a minute, or even a while—can feel like a chore. In Gary Wilmot’s slightly absurd and silly While They Were Waiting, the focus is on waiting and wordplay. No opportunity is missed to find more than one meaning in what is said. A debate arises about the difference between a smidge and a whisker. There's a playful riff on how you can be here and over there at the same time, depending on your standpoint. If this piece has a point at all, it depends on what you find funny. The concept of waiting-related language is, in itself, amusing, and there is plenty to laugh about in this show. It’s currently playing at Upstairs at the Gatehouse . The premise is simple: Mulbery (Steve Furst) arrives for an appointment and is kept waiting. What the appointment is for, we are not clear about but he is waiting for a yellow door to open. Nobody answers when he rings. He’s joined by th...

Things I have not covered

While waiting for broadband to be connected by Wanadoo (I have been waiting six weeks now), I can confirm that I have yet to cover
  • Seeing Stockard Channing and Aiden Quinn in The Exhonerated. It has an extended run at Riverside studios with a revolving cast. They were fantastic. A brilliant play which is staged as a simple reading telling the true tales of people wrongly sentenced to death in America.
  • Going to the Australian Film Festival at the Barbican and seeing "The Illustrated Family Doctor", "Opal Dream" and "Three Dollars". Of the three, Opal Dream is worth catching. It is set in Cooper Pedy and actually paints the town as a nice place so it was a monumental feat of film-making and storytelling there.
  • Caught Capote which was another great film. After seeing the film one should try to speak for as long as possible like Truman Capote until it drives you and your friends insane. I think it should be a new game.
  • I have written another dirty letter to Wanadoo. I used bigger words like "incompetent" and "fools" and "fraudsters" - sometimes in the same sentence! Can't wait to read what their reaction will be. Pity that I have to still pay for their rubbish service, but we'll see.

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