Bradley Cooper is a very fine specimen of the human male, he has blue eyes evoking a million Instagram photos of your mates on beach holidays in Ibiza, his wavy, honey coloured hair has that magical ability to flop seductively over one side of his face, forcing him to raise one of his impeccably defined arms and push it back behind his ear. His body, now that I’ve seen it in real life, is a thing of magic, bronzed god-like, perhaps better placed on a plinth in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence if David ever gets tired of being gawked at by middle-aged American* women. But my latest, somewhat surprising discovery is that Bradley Cooper is a truly exceptional actor. #manisgorgeousandtalented #luckybastard
I’ve seen more plays in the last 12 months than I have in my entire life, more about that soon, but this past week was the first time I’ve been moved to tears, thrice, before the final curtain. And I wasn’t weeping at Bradley’s superhuman, deific physical perfection...seriously, I think that warts and pimples are mystically repelled from his skin fearing the stain they might inflict on the only living example of masculine, human perfection. Am I gushing…he really was that good?
When I moved to London 15 month past, I quickly formed an unlikely friendship with a former colleague from the Fruit Company. Unlikely, only because I’d vowed to cut all non-actual-pieces-of-fruit from the realm of my life. The Critique was a woman I’d seen about the office when I visited London, but never said more than about 10 words to. Full credit for our new bond sits in the palm of Pinterest; sharing pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch is the solidest of foundations of any long-term friendship, based on a mutual appreciation of Posh Totty.^
Posh Totty and Theatre.
That’s Theatre pronounced, thair-ah-tair.
Just this year, we’ve seen Chiwetel Ejifor snort a 10-foot line of coke off a 10-foot long table, Ralph Fiennes dance with an Andalusian Devil, Stephen Mangan throw a freshly roasted Turkey at his mother and on one sad occasion, when the Critique was stranded in the US, she missed James McAvoy unicycling in his Y-Fronts. As if that wasn’t enough, still to come in 2015, Dame Judi, Robert Sean Leonard (O Captain, My Captain) Kenneth B and the ultimate prize, Benedict himself holding forth the skull of poor Yorick.
But it isn’t just about the Gossip Page Celebrities polishing their acting chops in the hopes of winning an Olivier. (Although I will grant you that I’d have never willingly sat through George Bernard Shaw’s 4-hour marathon of sexist sludge, Man and Superman, if Voldemort hadn’t played the lead role.) I love the nervous feeling, the anticipation, the visceral experience of sitting in a blackened room and witnessing the action and activity played out by real life people, their spit flying across the stage, their skin glistening with the perspiration of effort and efficacy, their faces Photoshop free, the fact that unlike so much of my politically correct professional life, this shit is real.
It isn’t cut, or spliced, or edited or effected to look it’s pristine best. There is no green screen, no motion capture, no aide off camera shouting out the lines; the people actually act right in front of you. The actors’ voices quiver as they wail, they grunt and groan with the physical exertion and Chiwetel must be losing 3 kilos every night as the ranting and running of poor Everyman sweats through his shirt onto the back of his suit jacket. #mustbethecoke
So why did Bradley make me cry?
Bradley played John Merrick in the Elephant Man, a role made famous in the 1980 film with John Hurt in a role that won him an Oscar nomination and BAFTA award. But John Hurt was covered in prosthetic make-up to create his physical deformities; Bradley’s face was delightfully free of anything God did not give him (phew, crisis averted), rendering his performance an exceptional feat of human physicality. His face was contorted, his body tilted to the side, he walked with a stick and I was completely, utterly convinced that he was deformed.
Despite the muscular acrobatics, the gurning and the grimacing, he was still able to cry, to laugh and to deliver a performance of emotion and humour of such intensity, that I when I close my eyes, I can still see it. I was weeping as the lights came up at intermission and at the end of 2 hours of perfect playing; I was full tissue-to-the-mascara bawling. The man is a fucking genius.
The only other thing I’ve seen recently that had me howling was Matilda.
If you live in Sydney, in about 3 weeks, you have a unique opportunity to see the musical I never wanted to see, but haven’t stopped raving about since Motherbear forced me into the Cambridge Theatre in March. I don’t like kids on stage, even less when they sing and smile in that fake, overbearing-stage-mother fashion that stage-children learn too early. I don’t like kids that dance with jazz hands learned at ‘acting schools’ whose parents plan to retire on their progeny’s earnings.
But I do love Roald Dahl. And I fucking love Tim Minchin.
If you haven’t been to a live show or a play or a concert in the last 6 months, you really should. There are such a variety of things to see wherever you are. Little kids ballet-dancing, older folk singing the standards or sweary stand-up comedy, these professionals put everything into what they do to be judged by regular people’s purses rather than Simon Cowell’s management budget. Live and in colour is real life, not pseudo-reality constructed under the watchful eye of Big Brother.
And instead of stuffing FOX, or Netflix, or Apple’s pockets, wouldn’t you rather give your money to a real actor?
Most especially one with very fine eyes?
*Yes, I perved too, but felt unnatural ogling a man made of marble. Having said that, David is slightly more reliable than the flesh and blood variety; you know exactly where to find him and he is never late.
^When being beautiful is only half of the equation; employment of multisyllabic words, encyclopaedic knowledge of Shakespeare and pronouncing all 4 letters of the C word without sounding at all vulgar are example elements of the remaining 50% of the attraction.
