s
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo edited by Steve Pretty

 

The Lady and The Cripple

Shot The Lady and the Cripple, in which I was playing the eponymous (if somewhat insensitively-named) Cripple, Franklin. It's a zombie film (well, short film), which pays homage to that genre by having lots of references to classic horror movies. I didn't know much about these, so was interesting watching films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the name of 'research' (my character is partly based on the whiney, curly-haired guy in a wheelchair in that film).  

The production values of this were pretty damn high, with some frankly amazing prosthetic severed heads, blood and general gore. We shot it over 2 days, one of which was slashing down with rain and the other of which was prosthetic-meltingly hot. I'm presuming that this might be a reason that the film is still at the post-production stage...

(download)

 


The Hot Mikado, Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch

Appeared as 'All the gentlemen of Japan' in the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch production of The Hot Mikado. 

This was a lot of fun and involved hoofing around stage in a bright green zoot suit playing some pretty challenging lead trumpet parts and occasional bits of percussion and piano. Also did some good old-fashioned gospel-style soul belting from time to time. Not a lot of speaking in the show, to be honest, but that's not really what it's about - it's about taking Gilbert and Sullivan and dunking them by the ankles in a massive vat of American-style big band, soul and gospel music until they scream ‘take it to the briiidge’.

Was great to work at this venue, which specialises in shows using actor-musicians and sadly one of the very few places left in the country offering something like the weekly rep that used to dominate UK theatre. Great bunch of performers to work with, too.

Oh, and got a nice review:

'Steve Pretty was brilliantly corrupt in his sleazy All Gentlemen of Japan role' - UK Theatre Network.

 

(download)