Camp game show host meets reality whilst helping fix Rumpelstiltskin who has torn himself in two! Value for money.

Dale and Rumple, Good times Dale would love a magic touch to do the trick!

Hello my fellow ramblers, I want to celebrate my wonderful mind and its randomness as it has created some of my most famous characters for the stage and I want to share a few of them with you all and we only imagine how I got the inspiration for each. But first I must thank the place I get to become these fine characters and the folks that give me endless chances to bring these to life in front of a paying audience. GBMTC (Great Barr Musical Theatre Company) has been going for over 20 years and has produced some amazing, fresh, professional performances to rock the amateur world in Birmingham. Please come and see one of there shows it will be the finest £12 you will spend all year!

Firstly is Dale from Reality the Musical 2009 GBMTC. He was the most camp game show host I have ever had the pleasure to encounter, he started of with my infatuation with the most skill full and talented presenters of the American total wipe out, I do love those two. They are everything a fantastic presenter should be, WITTY, QUICK AND EXTREMELY FUNNY. I naturally developed the voice of Dale first and tried to dumber more vain version of the two presenters from Total Wipe out. Next was the most annoying physical gesture, the hands on the hips, I couldn't stop doing this for about a month after the production and gained some very interesting looks to say the least. The finished article could be completed unit his famous spandex vest, dicky bow and the most unflattering tight trousers but the jacket really helped me encapsulate Dale and bring him to life, with this jacket I felt transformed into this confident presenting machine its amazing how much a costume can enhance your performance and the right costume can really become the character, there wasn't a point when I became Dale that I slipped back into James, the only time that happened was when i took the costume off! I present to you, drum roll.......... Dale, enjoy this one in a lifetime buffoon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRtC9JxMQNM
and his final bow.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOK1Ol8w7A

Enough of Dale for now. Next is one of my finest characters I have ever created, the most evil, creepy and easy to slip into. Introducing Rumpelstiltskin, he was my 2009 creation for my final student production for my degree. I found with Rumple is with the voice came the gesture which dictated his movement, the pace and tone of this voice really helped me to craft the way this character reacts to others and the environment around him.Again I have found as with most of my characters that my wonderful mind creates is that once the character is born then instantly I know which costume I want to create, I knew exactly that Rumple had to have a top hat, long flowing jacket and pointy shoes. This really encapsulated my image and feeling for him. I must admit the laughs I had whilst playing this charecter were immense, one of my lines at the end is the queen tries to guess my name "is it TOM?, no, is it Dick?, no, is it Harry?, YES!, really, NO....bollocks. So please meet my only evil character to date, the one and only Rumpelstiltskin!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k77ESS_1Hs

and his grimm end....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkqHggtNmU4


After completing my secondary education in 2003 and spending some time in full time employment, I decided to take a leap into performing arts by approaching a local amateur musical theatre company, where I realised not only a talent for performing on stage but also a passion to entertain people. During my time with the company I have performed in 5 shows, 2 of which I played a principal role; "Reality: The Musical," where I played the male lead of Dale, and "The Wedding Singer," in which I took on the role of Sammy and also assistant director. I am currently co-director of my 6th show with the company, "Boogie Nights."

In 2006 my membership in the company motivated me to take this passion for performing further by enrolling on the University of Wolverhampton's Drama and Performance degree program, where I received a 2:1 BA (Hons) in 2009. During my degree I took part in a number of student productions, including a dance theatre performance called "Fractal" and in 2009 I played the title role of Rumpelstiltskin in "Grimm Tales" at the Arena Theatre in Wolverhampton. Not only did my degree give me performance experience, but also allowed me to gain skills and knowledge in popular performance, physical theatre, dance theatre, commedia dell'arte and devised theatre. It also gave me the confidence and increased passion towards the world of performance.

Well I must log out now and unfortunately resume life in the real world where my mind has to embrace real life questions as to weather to have a nap or clean the house...... Decisions

The essence of life is……. Ingredients 200g of the plague, 50g of love, half a chalice of enchanted water, 2 scream’s of fear,nice tea and a mince pie.

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The essence of life is……. Ingredients 200g of the plague, 50g of love, half a chalice of enchanted water, 2 scream’s of fear, leave to rise out of the pretty box labelled social stigmas and enjoy with a nice tea and a mince pie. Yum!

It is amazing how art helps to stimulate the brain; one is sitting here bored out of my mind due to a lack of teacher related plague’s that is keeping them in the school for another day and me on my bed writing this ramble about art.

Art has become so overlooked as a powerful tool to help stimulate the brain. We begin to think about art as a picture with no words but actually it is a million different scenarios, words and worlds in one beautiful colour or stroke of the brush, its amazing how being in the company of this masterpiece (in my opinion) for a mere two minutes has took me to memory’s of places I once regularly thought of, worlds I used to explore in the vastness that is our imaginations. Isn’t it a shame that we begin to loose our imaginations as we get older. I remember times of fighting under the desert sun with a sword so powerful it could sculpture the sky, reshape the moon and redefine the stars and now the only sword I have is the double blade of Gillette fusion to shave away those years! I must admit the bonus to those awful GCSE Maths classes were the endless hours I would stare out the window and look out to the endless green fields and the hope of escape that emulated from the trees in the woods, that one day I would be brave enough to leave this prison the excitement of escaping and becoming whatever I desired. This was a dream that was shattered by the harshness of reality when you had to become a man and plunge through those woods of adolescence and realise that your once favoured pastime of staring out of the window into the never ending blue sky would become the stare of adult whose world has been shattered by the fake dreams he conjured of the world with his mystical, magic powers and the ever changing ability to be who he wants to be, do what he wants to do, only to find that the leaves are again falling from the trees, your praying for rain and the hope that another human becomes unable to go to work so you can begin to regenerate your bank balance into the positive numbers bracket. Thanks to university and these pipe dreams derived from the blue sky from your prison window that it all looks very different now. What a depressing view of life all thanks to ones loss of their imagination and the politics of today’s society which for the past ten years have encouraged us into higher education with the promises of richer fuller lives with endless blue sky’s and warm sandy beaches where you breath a sigh of relief whilst you sip your enchanted water and indulge in the serenity this scene offers you. This brings me back to a quote from my degree,
“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation”
What an amazing analogy of life and I do believe that it by far surpasses any interpretation of life I can muster. Looking at this quote by Shakespeare as an unqualified in life 23 year old one can finally begin to agree that life so far is an elaborate hoax, life is an illusion intended to entertain people with money and the higher force that controls our every move, we are like pawns on a chess board and the only way to evolve is to understand, appreciate, respect and fear life itself as even the religion quotes “the lord giveth and the lord taketh away”. I am not a political or religious person but one begins to contemplate the power of these forces in life and they are a force that if you don’t understand, fear and respect them you can become stuck in one of life’s endless roundabouts but fear not the rambler does offer you get out of jail free card. This is that, you can do what you want to do In life, don’t be pigeon holed into societies pretty boxes of which you apparently fit into because of your gender, race and ability, just because some one tells you, you can only achieve this tell them that you can if you really want it get it, but politics is the devils pretty box and he makes it very attractive and alluring with is mirage of blue sky’s and easy street life! Look at Art see the way soaps depict real life, its true but you have the power to make a difference and become everything you want to be, the world might be a stage but it’s a blank canvas for you to regain that mystical, magical sword we once wielded in our childhood imagination and sculpt your future and become the kings and queens of your own chess game when that pawn reaches his destiny at the opponents end of the chess board but its not the end, the truth is out there you just have to know where to begin…..regain your imagination! Its is amazing how one piece of art has provoked a whole ramble and avid readers of which there is two if you include one’s self I could write a lot more! This beautiful piece of art at the begging is rich in colours and tempts you with the fantasy of world’s left to explore and journeys completed. A whole production could be sculpted from this stimulus and provide the most ground breaking, articulated, mystical journey for all to explore and for all to draw their own adventure form. This image shows life in its entirety in my opinion, death, love, past, present, future, life this is the spirit of life that lives in all of us, unique and beautiful and mine was released by Love soppy as it may sound. This image encapsulates what I believe is my essence incorporated through my depiction of this image. It’s hard to believe that ones brain can even begin to contemplate this so early on a Monday, do we all think like this? Or do I have some cancer that prevents normality to be resumed in my highly contaminated brain? I would be nice to begin to see the lighter things in life enjoy the breeze on a sunny day admire the snow falling from your cosy, warm dimly lit living room with out constantly wondering, ok I know why it rains, why does it snow? Why do the elements not allow us to make rain balls and wet angels? And why does it always seem like a good idea to put our nicely toasted hands into the freezing white abyss to then throw it at each other or make a fat man with a carrot or whatever item you may find for a nose….. That is a good question and one should begin to ponder over it with a mince pie and a good old cup of tea. I think tea is brain food and I know at least two people in my life that would agree. I leave you with this we are a nation that is obsessed with reality and we become engrossed in the world that the TV producers, directors and actors deliver to us we get so engrossed we want to become the people we idolise and crave our daily dosage of reality each week but yet fake reality is better than our own we are our own soap and x factor we just don’t need cameras to depict it just Facebook to broadcast it.
Good night out there, whoever and whatever you are!