Cabin Pressure season 4
Dec. 16th, 2012 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenSo tau_sigma came to stay last night we mulled wine, got drunk on it and then ate pretty much a whole salmon, a whole apple pie, and brandy cream and cranberry-brie filo parcels, because of my recent realisation that you can eat Christmas food whenever you like - and then we got up this morning so so so very early and got the first fast train to London. Because hi, guess who had tickets to the season 4 recordings of Cabin Pressure! THIS GIRL. I later found out that there were around 200 seats available, and there had been 17,000 applicants for them, and was very grateful I hadn't listened to my initial irrational urge to stay in bed.
It actually all went very smoothly - we got the train with plenty of time, were able to walk to RADA from King's Cross, and it was sunny and bright and so warm you could do without gloves. When we got there around tennish (for a half twelve start), a couple of nice stewards stamped our tickets and said, why don't you go away and come back at twelve, now your tickets have been stamped you're definitely getting in. If that's so, I said, what are all these people queueing for? I don't know, he said: they never usually do!
I never did figure out what they were queueing for.tau_sigma and I went to Pret and had coffee and chatted in the warm, and got back just in time to go in and sit in the bar that had been advertised as "absolutely packed" and wasn't at all. Because some people get tickets and then don't turn up, they give away more than they have room so all seats are filled up in the audience, but it means some people with tickets get turned away. I actually like the casual aspect of it all - the tickets are free, you're advised upfront not to travel long distances for them, and we did see some people come up to the door, hear it was full, go "eh, breakfast time then" and wander off.
Of course the studio audience are put on their honour not to write about the episodes on the internet before broadcast! But given that - ah, Cabin Pressure, it is wonderful, and the recordings were wonderful, the actors and the audience were wonderful. It was a back-to-back recording of episodes 3 and 4 of season 4 (V and W), and they ran through them in one go and then did retakes of anything that needed retakes, and from my perspective the most impressive part was that John Finnemore, who does, y'know, act in the series, added a few lines by hand to each episode script and they were done at the end.
And it was delightful! So quiet and casual and hilarious and delightful! I guess if Radio 4 is about anything it's creating total brilliance out of nothing but talent and intelligence and bad puns. The whole audience was in stitches. The two episodes were rather different from the first three series episodes, but that is all I can say about it, I think. They were very good, and will make people other than me very happy!
And the thing is I am not an actor, I've never acted and I don't know much about acting as a craft, but I do know that if you're just wearing street clothes in a small space at a mic, with no scenery or colour and you have your script still in one hand and you're in front of a studio audience who have been primed to laugh by an hour of situation comedy, and you still stand up and bring the audience to a tense pin-drop silence with your few lines of dialogue - yeah. The cast were spectacular. I still have a crush on Benedict Cumberbatch when he's ginger and giggly and couldn't look less like Sherlock if he tried, it turns out - it's the charisma of the man. And Roger Allam and Stephanie Cole and ah, the guest stars, whom I can't talk about either! So good.
Afterwards we filed out into the late afternoon and nearly ran into Stephanie Cole, but were too scared to go and speak to her, and went back to KX very happily. Hurrah for Cabin Pressure! I think I absolutely must go and see things being recorded again - it is such a gentle, joyful day's project.
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tau_sigma came to stay last night we mulled wine, got drunk on it and then ate pretty much a whole salmon, a whole apple pie, and brandy cream and cranberry-brie filo parcels, because of my recent realisation that you can eat Christmas food whenever you like - and then we got up this morning so so so very early and got the first fast train to London. Because hi, guess who had tickets to the season 4 recordings of Cabin Pressure! THIS GIRL. I later found out that there were around 200 seats available, and there had been 17,000 applicants for them, and was very grateful I hadn't listened to my initial irrational urge to stay in bed. It actually all went very smoothly - we got the train with plenty of time, were able to walk to RADA from King's Cross, and it was sunny and bright and so warm you could do without gloves. When we got there around tennish (for a half twelve start), a couple of nice stewards stamped our tickets and said, why don't you go away and come back at twelve, now your tickets have been stamped you're definitely getting in. If that's so, I said, what are all these people queueing for? I don't know, he said: they never usually do!
I never did figure out what they were queueing for.
tau_sigma and I went to Pret and had coffee and chatted in the warm, and got back just in time to go in and sit in the bar that had been advertised as "absolutely packed" and wasn't at all. Because some people get tickets and then don't turn up, they give away more than they have room so all seats are filled up in the audience, but it means some people with tickets get turned away. I actually like the casual aspect of it all - the tickets are free, you're advised upfront not to travel long distances for them, and we did see some people come up to the door, hear it was full, go "eh, breakfast time then" and wander off. Of course the studio audience are put on their honour not to write about the episodes on the internet before broadcast! But given that - ah, Cabin Pressure, it is wonderful, and the recordings were wonderful, the actors and the audience were wonderful. It was a back-to-back recording of episodes 3 and 4 of season 4 (V and W), and they ran through them in one go and then did retakes of anything that needed retakes, and from my perspective the most impressive part was that John Finnemore, who does, y'know, act in the series, added a few lines by hand to each episode script and they were done at the end.
And it was delightful! So quiet and casual and hilarious and delightful! I guess if Radio 4 is about anything it's creating total brilliance out of nothing but talent and intelligence and bad puns. The whole audience was in stitches. The two episodes were rather different from the first three series episodes, but that is all I can say about it, I think. They were very good, and will make people other than me very happy!
And the thing is I am not an actor, I've never acted and I don't know much about acting as a craft, but I do know that if you're just wearing street clothes in a small space at a mic, with no scenery or colour and you have your script still in one hand and you're in front of a studio audience who have been primed to laugh by an hour of situation comedy, and you still stand up and bring the audience to a tense pin-drop silence with your few lines of dialogue - yeah. The cast were spectacular. I still have a crush on Benedict Cumberbatch when he's ginger and giggly and couldn't look less like Sherlock if he tried, it turns out - it's the charisma of the man. And Roger Allam and Stephanie Cole and ah, the guest stars, whom I can't talk about either! So good.
Afterwards we filed out into the late afternoon and nearly ran into Stephanie Cole, but were too scared to go and speak to her, and went back to KX very happily. Hurrah for Cabin Pressure! I think I absolutely must go and see things being recorded again - it is such a gentle, joyful day's project.
raven is also at Dreamwidth: there is or are