In between recent painful dental work I’ve been busy doing post production on a children’s reading series called Book Worms.
Near FM collaborated with St Davids Boys National School and their principal Dwain Moore.
Each week the boys from Ms Cahills 6th class read from “Gangsta Granny” by David Walliams, followed by a discussion on the topics raised during the reading. The process was facilitated by Near Drama’s Declan Cahill.
3 Episode have aired already with 3 more episodes to air at 9.30am over the next 3 Wednesdays. The 6th episode is particularly fun as the kids read from stories they have written themselves. Some crazy imaginations on some of those kids.
I’ve produced a few of Henry Hudson’s plays over the years for radio and I’d consider his scripts among some of the best I’ve worked on. He’s got a new stage play premiering later this month.
by HENRY HUDSON
Directed by BERNADETTE FORDE
New Year’s Eve, 2007 and the family of Mick ‘The Mixer’ Murtagh gather at his home for their annual New Year’s Eve party. Mick’s construction company, Murbuild, is valued at one hundred million euro but Mick craves more. He plans to go ‘international’ and become one of the great movers and shakers of the Celtic Tiger age. The clock ticks towards midnight. The champagne flows. The Murtaghs believe that 2008 will be their best year ever.
Then a phone rings… and nothing will ever be the same again.
SEAN O’CASEY THEATRE, St Mary’s Road, East Wall.
Tuesday 20th– Friday 23rd May *Nightly at 8pm * Ticket €10 * Theatre Box Office 01 850900
I’m a huge fan of watching terrible films. So I’ve decided to keep a log of the ones I watch each week.
This week I watched Sleepaway Camp for the first time:
I can’t believe I hadn’t seen this one before or even really heard of it.
It was released in 1983 and written and directed by Robert Hiltzik. It did surprisingly well at the box office too going head to head with Amityville 3D and beating it significantly. On a budget of $350,000 it brought in $11,000,000.
It’s your standard slasher film with a bunch of murders taking place at a summer camp, so all very Friday the 13th. But what sets it apart is just how utterly crazy it is. One big difference between this and other films of this genre is the teenage cast are all significantly younger than what you’d normally get and on top of that the chef at the camp is an open peadophile who boasts in front of other staff members about how he wants to have sex with the kids.
Artie“Look at all that young fresh chicken. Where I come from, we call ’em baldies. Makes your mouth water, don’t it?”
(This line is spoken to James Earl Jones’s dad!)
The movie opens with a gruesome accident at Camp Arawak involving a motor boat colliding with a father and his two children in the lake. The film then cuts to 8 years later and only 1 of the children, Angela, survived the accident and is now living with her aunt and cousin. The aunt is completely nuts, you need to watch the following clip to appreciate how amazing the performance is:
The two kids are sent off to camp. It’s Angela’s first time at camp and she’s a very disturbed kid who never speaks. She quickly draws the fury of camp bully Judy who has developed breasts since being at camp last year.
Judy“She’s a real carpenter’s dream: flat as a board and needs a screw!”
( Jane Krakowski of 30 Rock and Ally McBeal fame was originally going to play this part but dropped out before shooting as she wasn’t comfortable with the gruesome manner in which the character is killed)
As the film unfolds a number of horrible murders start to happen, all the victims seem to be people who have wronged Angela in some way though. Is Angela the murderer? Is it her over-protective cousin, Ricky? What about Paul, Ricky’s best friend who has a romantic interest in Angela? Or is it just a series of unfortunate accidents as the camp owner, Mel, wants people to believe? You really need to watch the film for yourself to find out as you need to enjoy the shocking twists first hand.
Billy: “Eat shit and die, Ricky!” Ricky:“Eat shit and live, Bill.”
If you love bad movies then Sleepaway Camp is an absolute must see, it’s just constantly entertaining. And you can find the entire movie on YouTube as well, so no excuses.
The are 2 sequels made in the 80s by a different director and starring Pamela (sister of Bruce) Spingsteen as Angela. There is also a more recent sequel by the original director which ignores the other sequels and picks up where the original left off. I plan to make it a priority to see all of these sequels!
This time we play through Toki, an arcade platformer where a man is turned into an ape creature and has to gob on monsters to work his way though the game. It’s a pretty tough game though.
This is a game that features regularly at the boardgamesireland.com meet ups. Saboteur and it’s expansion, Saboteur 2, are really portable and the rules are simple enough to be taught to people quickly. It can support up to 10 players (12 with the expansion) and as such is a perfect warm up game to start an evening of gaming.
