Jeni Barnett – Page 76 – Acting is all about honesty, if you can fake that you can fake anything.

Uncle Vanya

6 November 2009 by Jeni Barnett

Just got in from ‘The Young Vic’ where the old man is in a workshop production of ‘Uncle Vanya.’ Interesting. The cast are strong. A dreadful moment when one of the actors had to cook macaroni cheese in an onstage microwave. In real time. In real space. The smell of the cooking pasta made me … Read more

Curry Up its bed time.

3 November 2009 by Jeni Barnett

She’s gone.
The lodger has gone.
The girl who locked herself in my spare room has finally gone.
The funny little thing that made my life so difficult has taken her strange smell with her and gone.
Some people rub you up the wrong way she was one of them, I was in a perpetual state of cat-fur-stroked-the-wrong-way-itis. I tried to be a forgiving, decent human being but I turned into a sneidy, hissing landlady who couldn’t give her one inch, frightened that she may take a mile, now thank heavens she has gone.
She has left the room empty but not clean.
My lovely Sarah,scrubbed, hoovered, dusted, mopped, cleaned, and changed the bed clothes, it’s ready to be slept in again. I cleansed the room with a candle and some space clearing spray. I sprayed and sprayed, lit the candle, opened the windows, and the curtains – which she didn’t open for four months – and opened the door.
I have my flat back. It has been an absolute nightmare. I’m pretty sure she’ll never read this but if she does, I take total responsibility for the last few months, it was like windscreen wipers on a dry window. That squeak that gets your teeth grinding….

London Sunday

1 November 2009 by Jeni Barnett

There are so many leaves around that I await the train cancellations. Sunday in London consisted of up late and a shower. A long, hot shower which went cold in the middle because Jim put the tap on in the kitchen. Then a slow drive to Borehamwood to visit ma mere. We stopped in, I … Read more

Up and Away game

31 October 2009 by Jeni Barnett

Yesterday I cried on air.
The topic: the lack of after care for servicemen who arrive back in England having done tours of duty.
Alcohol abuse amongst the youngest, depression and Trauma amongst the least educated, paranoia and anxiety amongst the rest, not to mention a damaged immune system from the victims of ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ who were used as human guinea pigs by The MOD to test out new vaccines and tablets.
All my contributors were men who were suffering from one or the other of a litany of damaging conditions.
I don’t approve of war, I especially don’t approve of war when it uses young men as cannon fodder or as lab-mice for new drugs.
The men said the ‘NHS’ had no way of helping them since they had no experience of surviving in a war zone.
18 years of 3 hours sleep a night, with a knife under your pillow. 18 years of anxiety, paranoia and guilt, 18 years of living a half life.
By the time my last caller revealed how one session with a trained NLP councilor had turned him round I started to blub. He said the birth of his daughter made him look at his behaviour and his anger.
Just exactly what are we fighting for in Afhhanistan and Iraq? Whose war is it anyway?
NO MORE WAR such a feint naive cry heard in the midst of arms deals.

Unusual traveling experiences.

26 October 2009 by Jeni Barnett

It was one of them days. A car ride there, a tube ride here, a three hour show, a walk to Waterloo, a train ride back, a car trip to Battersea Arts Centre, a bus ride back to Leicester Square. An evening of quick changes from Arturo Brachetti, then a walk through St. james Park, … Read more

Sees fruit and leaves….

25 October 2009 by Jeni Barnett

23.40. Dark outside although there is a quarter moon. The new road lay out by St. Thomas’s hospital is just a little confusing I nearly drove into the Plaza Hotel. Drove Bee back to Hackney. Right across London. Over Southwark Bridge, through Shoreditch, down the Kingsland Road . Every time I get to Aldgate and … Read more

Question Crime

22 October 2009 by Jeni Barnett

The father of my daughter and I went to see ‘End Game.’ It was intense, cerebral, dark and worth a visit if you really know the play. Simon McBurney, he of ‘Complicite’ played one character, Mark Rylance, he of ‘The Globe’, played another, and Miriam Margoyles sat in a dustbin with her husband, Tom Hickey, in another.
Becket is a wonderful writer, but I felt that the only one who really got it was Mr. Hickey, who played the Irish dark humour deftly, it’s like dancing at a wake, the juxtaposition of bleak and funny, there was not enough funny.
I nodded off as did the man sitting next to me. I kept nudging him to wake up, good job it was the old git.

All Change.

21 October 2009 by Jeni Barnett

Foster carers, Menopause, and the lap-top generation, not to mention Travis Payne, Michael Jackson’s choreographer.
That was on the menu today at LBC.
I pre-recorded Travis, a little nervous as I’m not a Michael jackson nut, although I do appreciate his brilliance. I went to Google and could only find a little bit about Mr. Payne, wahey! I thought, was he trying to hide something?
In the event he was a God-fearing dancer who had made good. If I ever feel like taking up the samba he’s my man. Humble, gorgeous, friendly, funny and touched by Michael…

Disgusted from TWells.

20 October 2009 by Jeni Barnett

So there’s this reverend in Tunbridge Wells who says that playing Tina Turner at funerals is un-Christian and that the removal of sacred music is the beginning of the end. ‘Death to Death’ he said, he said he feels like a lemon when families read out badly written self- penned poems about their nans. The … Read more

Postal traumatic stress.

19 October 2009 by Jeni Barnett

Am I the only person in England who cares about the Postal workers, it felt like it today. After many of your calls this afternoon I can see why members of the CWU feel abandoned and lonely in their struggle for fairness. I cannot believe how heartless Lord Mandelson is, I cannot believe how devious … Read more