Hello 2006'ers

I hope your Holidays were fun and frollicksome.
OK the time has come...Blurty has been good to me but I have jumped on the Blogger bandwagon and now have a new Journal.

So change your bookmarks everybody 'cause now I'm packing up my bags, loading up the Mazda 321 and moving over here.

I'll change over the links from the homepage soon (and give it a much needed update)

Until then - happy trails
Lliam

Ho Ho Ho Life is sucking me down hard and I'm making a sound like a gumboot being pulled out of a mud puddle at the moment.
Official apologies: Second update to the OS trip has taken awhile because I'm comfortably nestled back into my rut and the days are whipping past since I set foot back on Tullamarine Terra Firma. The next instalment will continue at some stage I promise.
Auditioned and got an ad for AMMI which I filmed one hot Saturday a couple of weeks ago - great fun as I got to sit around on the back of a tray truck (or Low Loader to refer to it's technical name) pretending to drive a car and trying not to accidentally swear in front of the actor kids sitting in the back. Waiting to hear about a Mitre 10 ad next...fingers crossed for Christmas has killed the Credit card....and Video killed the Radio Star.

Also had a new DVD showreel made up by the talented Raphael at Red M - thanks Raph

Christmas matters:
The (real) tree is up
The (real) tree is fully decorated
The (real) tree is making everyone in the house ill because we're all allergy sucking vessels.
The (real) tree will have to be replaced by a (fake) tree - something I have never had in my life.
and it looks like the kids are asthmatic.


wheeeeeeee.

All present shopping is done bar one and I am staying away from anyplace that ends in ".... Shopping Centre"
I do love Christmas though - in fact I'm a sucker for old festive cartoons, colour and movement. Bring it on.

New year will bring surprises for this blog ...oh ye-hus it will....
All the best
Love
Lliam

The internet equivalent of the '50s slide night!

Go HERE and experience the magic for yourself - It's almost like being there! But not.

More soon.

Hello and apologies for lack of updates over the past three weeks - I have been hoofing my way through Germany, Belgium and London pursuing the mysterious shaggy beast known only as "improvisation" - and what an adventure it was...

MELBOURNE - SINGAPORE - HAMBURG
I had a good flight over - spent 8 hours trying to sleep in Singapore and just missed seeing Elaine Paige strut her stuff downstairs in the transit lounge while I buggered around looking for my gate....After 12 hours of leg crushing fun I emerged blinking and stinking into the sunshine at Frankfurt airport and caught a train to Hamburg where I was met by the jazz loving Marcus. He plays the piano for Steife Brise (Stiff Breeze to you and me) and has a huge tattoo down his arm which he got in Vienna when he was twelve. He is the nicesest man ever (and probably has a baby now - congratulations). I had been invited to perfom in a show called Improslam - so, with a small amount of jet lag but with open arms I went along to the pre show meeting. Here I met up with Patti Stiles and Sarah Kinsella from Impro Melbourne and I also met the people I was going to perform with that night. Everyone was sexy and friendly I played with Ralf, Thorsten and Wiebke. The show went well and is based on Whose Line (ahhh who am I kidding - it is "whose line" but in German) and...my first encore ever. Later I met up with Kirsten Sprick (a guest at our Melbourne Festival and a lovely lady) and we all went to funky bar called appropriately Le Fonque. Hamburg was fantastic, beautiful, sad and otherworldly. After a great tour of Hamburg and a meal aboard a fireboat/restaurant - it was off to Belgium on one of the worst train rides ever...we ended up getting a taxi from Germany to Leuven - at the railway companies’ expense - it was an hour and a half ride. Wheeeeee....

BELGIUM
The 4th International Belgium Improvisation Theatre Festival was a huge shindig put on by the good folks at Inspinazie - a great company full of wonderful performers and Johnstone inspired improv. The first night saw a gigantic 24 cast Micetro with members from all the surrounding Belgium companies. Some were wonderful and some were struggling but the winner of the night was a talented guy called Stephen who had some great physical prowess (but who didn't make eye contact with any other performers all night, huh...) It's interesting to watch impro in another language because you can still see the same mistakes being made, the same set up for jokes and the same missed offers. It was fun none the less.
The other companies invited were:

SWEDEN - Improvisation & Co - these guys rocked, hilarious impro and really lovely people. Nicklas, Camilla, Karin, Joel and Robert presented a long form called "Crime Noir" - an ambitious long form that attempted to sustain a film noir genre for an hour, in English, in costumes and without a plot. Looked great but it all got a bit confused. We also played against them in a Theatresports match that was a highlight of the trip. You can read all about it (in Flemish) here.

&

GERMANY: Die Gorillas - Three ladies of cool, Billa, Beatra (I will check spelling on this) and Kirsten. They took impro to new lands with thier long form 1 +1 = 3 as well as helping us out in our own format Mortal Coil. In one show I had to perform a scene with them speaking entirely in German - apparently I suggested we all do a little late night naked music performance...unbeknownst to me.

There were also performers from France and Colombia but they didn't really come until later so I didn't get to know them as well as the others.

I stepped out of comfort zone and booked into a couple of singing workshops - One with Niklas and the other with Manuel Wolff who was one of the musicians during the festival. Lovely guy and all round improv hunter like myself. He has a website here.

The Belgian beers nearly killed me but I carried on and flew the party flag most night for Australians everywhere...some photos here & here

Travel blog part two coming soon....

More photos from the show over at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lliam/ - all were taken by the talented Mr Kevin Yank.

Also one person I left off my Oscar Speech two posts ago was Sarah Kinsella our publicist - thank you Sarah, great job. See you in Hamburg!

Cheers
Lliam