Lambing Live and a Wrestlemania review - what a combo!

So, the Warden household is currently a little obsessed with BBC 2's Lambing Live. It is a show about farmers and lambing...which doesn't, of course, sound that exciting. But with the wonderful Kate Humble as anchorwoman (I love her!) and so many sweet animals, coupled with the continual sense that these brave folks are battling with the elements to provide good TV, means that this is currently top of our watch list. Tonight, though, football took precedence so we'll catch it on iplayer later on.

I have also spent the week catching up on Sunday night's Wrestlemania. For those of you who don't want to know the scores, look away now... So, I wasn't totally blown away by this year's fayre. Some odd matches, some rushed matches and some weird endings. My highlights were: 1) John Morrison's amazing 'off the ropes' move. He is fast becoming my favourite wrestler (after Shawn, of course, but that goes without saying). 2) The pre-match videos. 3) The Undertaker v HHH match. OK, so I didn't hold out a great deal of hope for this one. It was going to be interesting and exciting (of course, given the high stakes), but I wasn't expecting a good match between two wrestlers who have barely been in the ring in recent months. But, they put on an amazing show, including a couple of truly mad moves, one of which saw the Undertaker nearly taking his own head off as he flew towards the Spanish Announcer's table. Man, these two old guys have still got it. Wasn't convinced by the Cena/Rock/Miz squabble (although some of this was resolved on Monday Night Raw) and Edge has gone down in my estimation after his somewhat pathetic outburst.

Anyone who doesn't care about this sort of populist drivel can resume their reading from here...

And, as for me, I'm glad it's Wednesday night. This is my last mad Wednesday. Before this teaching block, my Wednesday largely consisted of a couple of teaching hours, class prep, a lunchtime yoga class and a departmental meeting or two. This block, however, I have been running around like a mad thing! Today I managed twenty minutes of email checking and sushi as a lunchbreak. No complaints from me, though, as the students have been magnificent all day. The Adding Machine is really coming on. Just occasionally I hear Elmer Rice turning slowly in his grave as we turn the Guide into a lecherous old man, cast two women in the role of Shrdlu or act Lieutenant Charles with humorous asides...but I'm ignoring him! The whole play is really based on the students' ideas and just goes to show that you can really 'act the archive' with imagination and freedom. I'm excited by the precedent this sets.

Anyways, as Lambing Live is yet to appear on iplayer (boo!) so I'm going to have to find something else to do with my time before bed. To be honest, an early night is a jolly prospect as I haven't been sleeping well. Too much dreaming about work!

CSW

Lovely weekends, shining sun and victorious Magdalen

Goodness, where has the week gone? Well, Saturday saw us heading up to Yorkshire for a special day with the Luehrmanns. It's great to see our friends so settled and happy. And yesterday, after the service, D and I went back to Whisby nature reserve for a wander round the lakes. In fact we walked and talked for so long that we didn't even bother to go home before the evening service. The weather was beautiful and I got to wear my white jeans and new stripy shirt combo for the first time this Spring.

Today, however, is a different story. Winter has returned and I (boo hiss!) have turned the heat on again just to warm the place through. Man, it is freezing here! But it's been a great day of student meetings and rehashing the book proposal. All looks positive on that front. I have taken to hanging out in the Enterprise cafe. Enterprise is Lincoln's version of a career centre but it is really rather exciting and dynamic...and has the best coffee on campus. It is also quiet with BBC news rolling in the background and lots of space to work peacefully, away from the madness of the LPAC.

Tonight we went to another university lecture. Two BBC reporters were discussing the Wikileaks phenomenon and it was all rather inspiring and exciting, particularly for the undergraduate journalism students present. D asked a question about perceived bias in BBC reporting...which went down a treat, as you can imagine :-) Brilliant! And then it was back home to see Magdalen College, Oxford triumph on University Challenge. What a great team!

Actually, I am quite impressed that I'm still up and about, and writing in sane fashion after watching the first part of Wrestlemania last night. This is the most exciting wrestling event of the year. I wasn't totally blown away by what I saw before I finally drifted off at about 2am. D watched it through to the end and says that things improved. I don't know the final results and am particularly looking forward to watching the Undertaker v HHH later on tonight if I can find it online.

Anyways, this week is relatively calm with teaching, book proposals, play reading and many student meetings. And there is a peaceful weekend coming up. The Masters Golf will probably dominate chez Warden. In fact, it feels as if we are slowly winding down for the term. That is a pleasant but sad feeling as our third years will be flying the nest.

I'm off to find out if Cena beat the Miz (!) and drink another cuppa.

CSW

University Challenge and Challenges

See, three blog posts in a week. Da da!

The day was spent running at break neck speed around the LPAC in a pair of shoes that I shouldn't have slipped on this morning. It was a sneaker day really, given the amount of time I spent in Studio 2 but, as I was also interviewing perspective students, I felt a smart outfit was more appropriate. My feet are only just recovering and were not improved by tonight's squash game - soundly beaten, as usual. Tomorrow, in sharp contrast, is a quiet research day at home.

Anyways, today was mostly spent discussing promenade theatre spaces with my first years, carting boxes of paint around, meeting the stars of tomorrow and (most bizarrely!) turning balloons into skulls to be used as props for the mad Thomas Middleton play, The Revenger's Tragedy. Surely nobody else in the world had a day like that!

And, finally we got round to watching Monday night's University Challenge on iplayer. This is really the only show we never miss. It began as a bit of joke when D and I spent three months apart. Every Monday night we would get Skype going and watch UC together. It all gets rather competitive. Tonight was the last semi final and Magdalen College took the last place in the final. They're a pretty brilliant team and the final should be mammoth.

But D found an older American version of this show, which we enjoyed as a pre-UC warm up. It was the 1966 battle between the might of Princeton and the lowly women's college, Agnes Scott. Go the girls!  Thought I'd embed the final part below for your enjoyment.

Anyways, a quick cuppa and a snooze is in order.
CSW

Staff Magazine Editorial

This month I had the great privilege of writing the editorial for the University of Lincoln Staff Magazine. Just thought you might like to read it. Comments welcome as it describes something I've been thinking about for a while. It begins with a number of silly questions from the general editor, Dave...

Proudest Moment: Being awarded my PhD and getting married in the same month.

Dream Dinner Party Guests: my husband, Elizabeth Gaskell, Peter Gabriel, Ewan MacColl, William Wilberforce, Nigella Lawson and wrestler, Shawn Michaels. We would change the world in the space of an evening!

Favourite film: Studio Ghibli's My Neighbour Totoro

What are you listening to at the moment? the 'Inception' soundtrack while working and Yes' 'Talk', Asia's 'Omega' and Peter Gabriel's 'Ovo' in the evenings.

If you had a superpower what would it be? Space/Time manipulation

Last week I gave two lectures as part of our first year Foundations of Twentieth-Century Theatre module; in the first I received a round of applause for pretending to be a rhinoceros and in the second I baffled the group by reading Karl Schwitters' peculiar poem 'What a b'. The former was an attempt to bring the Theatre of the Absurd to life through the poetic diction of Eugene Ionesco and the latter, part of a broader explanation of Dadaism.

Both lectures were loosely connected to my own research in the area of theatrical avant-gardism. At times academics can be guilty of disconnecting research from teaching, presuming that there is little relationship between the two.  So recently, I've been reconsidering the way my own research impacts my students. For this Foundations course, my studies proposed a clearer way of understanding the relationship between the concepts of 'modernism' and 'avant-gardism'. It also, inevitably, meant that students had to pretend to be body parts as we participated in a workshop of Tristan Tzara's The Gas Heart!

And, further, I've been listening to the way my students respond to the ideas I present. After the fireworks of Ionesco and Schwitters, one student legitimately asked, 'but isn't it all just meaningless?' It led to a rewarding conversation about the intention of experimental theatre and how it might help us to think differently about art and the world outside the theatre walls. While I've considered these ideas before, my own conclusions were reinvigorated and challenged by the fresh eyes of my slightly bemused first years. As I write my first monograph and look forward to teaching on a fresh, revalidated degree next term, this experience has reminded me of how excitingly fruitful a university can be for academics and students alike.

CSW

Starting a new week

So, D is back after watching Scotland lose to Brazil. He had a great time though and enjoyed catching up with his mates and eating pulled pork and ribs at Bodeans (anyone who knows how much I adore this London restaurant will spot the slight tinge of envy in my writing there). It is VERY good to have him back. I spent Sunday...tidying the house a little, reading, watching the football, eating dahl, and attending a friend's baptism. I also rewatched Christopher Guest's Waiting for Guffman, which is just about the funniest film ever! Trouble is, as I watched, I began to wonder if I was actually turning into Corky St Clair. I too do breathing exercises and force my students to play silly games as a warmup. I too float around talking about set design, 'darling'. Oh dear, I need to step away from the theatrical world before I find myself wearing sequins during the day (that's a wee joke for one of my colleagues there!).

I also spent a bit of time thinking over my current goals and objectives. I think I've probably posted on this before, but I like to do this on a fairly regular basis. The last time I was in London, I nipped into Muji, which has to be one of my most favourite shops. I bought a couple of notebooks for just this purpose. As you might imagine for a person who spends most of her time reading and writing, life only really makes sense when I see it written down! It is a bit like taking a life MOT, and I can only say that I find the process very rewarding.

Lots of things to enjoy today: a lecture for the gorgeous second years and I even got the technology working first time round, a lovely two hours in the Enterprise cafe reading a play I'm teaching (The Revenger's Tragedy), our V-C's inaugural lecture (complete with rather excellent buffet!) and some great evening quiet time after a tough capoeira workout. And have recently had some fab email chats with old friends. Our mates are now spread all over the country and, indeed, the world, but it is always great to say 'hello'!

Anyways, we missed University Challenge tonight so a glass of juice and BBC i-player in bed beckons. Next Creation and Realisation rehearsal tomorrow. Received two emails of notes from student-organised meetings over the weekend and, apparently, the purpose-built Facebook page (don't ask me, I don't do Facebook) is buzzing. Man, those guys are just great! I love their enthusiasm and vision - it is all rather inspiring actually.

CSW

Where are the Wardens?

Happy Saturday one and all! I start with apologies for a distinct lack of posts this week. It has been a nicely busy one of rehearsals, teaching and exciting research plans. And then my Dad reminded me tonight that I hadn't written a post all week. Ooops. So here I sit watching Quantum of Solace out of the corner of my eye. I had forgotten how terrible the camera work was in this film. It doesn't let you focus on anything for more than a split second together. That fascinating opening fight on the scaffolding is made virtually incomprehensible. It begins to feel as if you are on a rollercoster after drinking three espressos. What were they thinking?

Anyways, I am home alone as D has travelled down to London to watch Scotland v Brazil with some old school chums. It always feels very odd without him but I've made the most of a quiet weekend. I'm finally starting to get to grips with a play called Hassan by James Elroy Flecker. It is a very weird play...very weird! But I am interested in it as a presentation of Iraq on the Western stage. I finished my second reading of the play this evening and now just need a couple of weeks of cogitating time. 

So this week we mostly...booked a wee holiday to Norfolk for our Easter break, ate sushi with friends, played a new tennis game on the PS3 and listened to Iron Maiden's rather good new album, With 100% attendance, I was prouder than ever of my gorgeous first years. And I've got back to a book I started a good long while ago, Battle Cry for Freedom. It is all about the American Civil War, a topic I know very little about really. Very interesting but a little dense for pre-bed time reading. Another quiet day in store tomorrow, awaiting the return of D.

Enjoy the rest of the evening. I'm off to make a cuppa in the break.

CSW

Here comes the sun...do do do do...

Finally Spring has sprung and we have had a gorgeous weekend of sunshine. Yesterday, the flat was a mess and a had a pile of books to work through. But instead the Wardens dropped the chores and went for a long walk in Whisby Nature Park. D even got to wear his shorts! OK, so a filled in quarry doesn't sound all that great, but I absolutely loved the place. It is so pretty and quiet. We walked and talked and got our vitamin D fix. And all this after a Friday night of jazz and sushi. We have got the hang of this sushi thang now!

We've been enjoying the Yes Minister box set. While it is dated in some ways, it is totally contemporary in its analysis of the civil service. We're also playing a game of Fifa on the PS3 every night at the moment. I am totally hopeless! D is aiming for a 10-0 drumming but hasn't quite made it yet. I must admit, it is a rather demoralising way of spending an evening!

And so, another week begins and it starts with a 9 o'clock lecture tomorrow on politics in post-War British theatre. There's still a bit of marking to do and some teaching prep to bash through. Tuesday sees the next Creation and Realisation rehearsal. It's now fully cast and the students find out their fate this week. I have an incredible group of guys for this module. Can't wait to see what they make of it! I have a number of research projects to work on, including a couple of ace new books to read, a couple of papers to bash into shape and two brand new articles to begin. And this on top of trying to sort out copyright for the book. This is a complicated process! Glad to have a slightly quieter teaching load this block so I can crash on with some research work.

Tea to finish and then off to bed.

CSW