Caligari's Dinner
The ever-replicating TV virus that is Masterchef has undergone another mutation, I notice. Masterchef - The Professionals is the result. One half of the regular presenting duo has vanished, having presumably failed to make it through to the last round of Masterchef - The Presenters. He is more than made up for by Michel Roux Jr., and his extraordinary repertoire of grimaces and mad stares, none of them remotely relevant to the subject in hand. He resembles nothing more than a mad scientist in a movie, specifically John Carradine in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask.
Another memorable grotesque, who has clearly also eaten his share of the tortes, is the shambling, wheezing David Thomas, the only remaining original member of Pere Ubu. They are from Ohio, and the 70's. I went to see them last Friday at the ICA, naively anticipating a straightforward gig, in which they'd play 'the hits'. Instead, they were doing their version of a nineteenth-century Absurdist play. I should have known.
No really, I should have. I saw them do it last year. I just thought they might have got over it by now. But this story of the rise and fall of a dictator is their Evita, and they aren't going to let it go. On this occasion the female lead was played by some cardboard boxes. A man with a chicken's head adopted various poses. There was canned applause, in case the audience didn't oblige. 'Any questions?', hissed David Thomas, drily.
In a certain (greenish) light, DT bears a distinct resemblance to Saddam Hussein, which added something. And there was no doubt that the thing had been tightened up since that first performance (wherein, I seem to remember, half the audience fled during the interval). It was even occasionally possible to work out what was going on.
Afterwards I saw a Chinese man in a high-visibility vest bearing the legend 'Indian Cuisine', as though that explained anything.
Another memorable grotesque, who has clearly also eaten his share of the tortes, is the shambling, wheezing David Thomas, the only remaining original member of Pere Ubu. They are from Ohio, and the 70's. I went to see them last Friday at the ICA, naively anticipating a straightforward gig, in which they'd play 'the hits'. Instead, they were doing their version of a nineteenth-century Absurdist play. I should have known.
No really, I should have. I saw them do it last year. I just thought they might have got over it by now. But this story of the rise and fall of a dictator is their Evita, and they aren't going to let it go. On this occasion the female lead was played by some cardboard boxes. A man with a chicken's head adopted various poses. There was canned applause, in case the audience didn't oblige. 'Any questions?', hissed David Thomas, drily.
In a certain (greenish) light, DT bears a distinct resemblance to Saddam Hussein, which added something. And there was no doubt that the thing had been tightened up since that first performance (wherein, I seem to remember, half the audience fled during the interval). It was even occasionally possible to work out what was going on.
Afterwards I saw a Chinese man in a high-visibility vest bearing the legend 'Indian Cuisine', as though that explained anything.
posted by martin at 11:55 AM
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