Been there... Seen that...

If memory serves me well, and thankfully it still does, the last time I spoke to you, I was sitting in a dressing room, covered in swathes of green costume and make-up waiting to tread the boards as the panto's baddy Skoda Octavia. Well, guess what? I'm in yet another dressing room and yet again covered in even more green paint and drapes of green costume waiting to go onstage as a giant... wait for it... lizard. And this is a serious adult play would you believe.

By the time you read this we'll have finished our run of Edward Albee's Seascape at the St James Cavalier theatre. It's a lovely play, which gives a kick-in-the-nuts run of home truths about relationships, marriage and evolution. And having to don a five foot green tail, wear a skull cap and ingest more spirit gum and latex than one should wish to shake a stick at - is vital to the plot. Believe me. It had better be. I've never been so bruised. I don't think my knees will ever be the same again. I have a newfound respect for lizards and all things slithery.

That aside - what have I been out and about doing this month? Well I've not been on the audience side of the stage for a while unfortunately. I have however made up for it by watching as many films as I could possibly squeeze in between work and rehearsals.

Starting with an oldie but one of the best films in the world ever, Apocalypse Now.

Watched this for the umpteenth time on DVD. It never grows old and I'm convinced that Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando only get better every time I view this movie.

Rent it and rent Heart of Darkness (a very special "making of", along with it. Settle down for a few hours of a mind-blowing napalm fest.

A serious contender for my top five films ever has to be Across the Universe. Sigh. A delight of a movie. A theatrical and musical experience rolled into one and so filmic that the film-studies-geek in me did a little dance of joy and then had a jealous cry. Directed by Julie Taymor (she directed Lion King on Broadway) and starring Rachel Evan Wood and Jim Sturgess (he of, well, me, if I had my way) and featuring interpretations of The Beatles songs with delicious cameos by... nope I'm not telling you. Watch it. I've watched it three times already and I'm hankering for more.

21 (also starring Jim Sturgess along with Kevin Spacey), Untraceable (with Diane Lane and a rather ingenious method of murder), Vantage Point (Forest Whittaker and Matthew Fox of Lost) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr and a kickass costume) are all good fun and I recommend highly. Street Kings (Forest Whittaker again along with a surprisingly decent Keanu Reeves) and The Bank Job (fun British Heist set in the 1970s replete with appropriate hairstyles) are both more fun than staying at home complaining of nothing to do.

On the other hand; Fool's Gold (Matthew McConaughey, and The Cottage are not worth the trip downstairs to the front door.

Next up I hope to watch In Bruges, so I'll tell you what I thought of it another time. And anyways I have to leave now as it's time to slither my way onstage and stick my tongue out at a bevy of audience members.