Buffy readthrough
On Saturday we had the Buffy readthrough organised and hosted by smhwpf, which was enormous fun. Pure, unadulterated self-indulgence, but that didn't matter because we weren't inflicting it on any audience, we were just all indulging together. We read Prophesy Girl, Becoming I and 2, The Zeppo, some excerpts from Spiral and The Weight of the World, The Gift, excerpts from Bargaining 1 and 2, and Once More With Feeling. The best bits included:
- the many varied portrayals of Buffy, from the taking-herself-too-seriously the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh (Elly) to snappish, somewhat confused, frustrated-with-the-world (Catriona), to stubborn, compassionate, stupid self-sacrifice (Yves). And my Valley Girl, which was fun (although admittedly a somewhat dislocated, bleak Valley Girl in OMWF. With silly songs). It really brought out the development - and inconsistency - of the character throughout the series, and helped to vary the mood and pace considerably.
- Eddy, Sam's dad, who cooked a fantastic curry and played a very powerful Whistler and General Gregor.
- weaselspoon's Xander in The Zeppo. "Right. Bombs. Wow, I can't believe I had sex. No! No. Must think about the bombs!" Particularly the scene with Faith (elise). Mmm.
- the narration for The Zeppo (by romauld and smhwpf), which really came together; it was fast, funny, original, and very suited to the mood. We did end up concentrating quite a lot on the angsty season-finale side of Buffy, and it was good to get the humour in there, because Joss' one-liners are one of my favourite things about the series.
- the_alchemist as Glory, who managed without having ever watched Season 5 to be both scarier and better looking than Clare Kramer.
- leonato as Sweet in OMWF. In fact the whole of OMWF, which was just so much fun. Particularly indebted to mirabehn's bass playing, which pretty much kept the whole thing together.
Oh and I got to play Vamp Willow. I can't believe they let me! I loved every second of it. And dextress was fantastic as Willow in that episode. Fun. Funfunfun. Here are some photos by evil_nick:
"You. I don't like you."
"Bitch ... !"
"This world's no fun ..."
(more here.)
Afterwards there was an excellent party, involving singing the opening speech of Richard III to the tune of the can-can, complete with dance, performing the Richard and Anne scene in Richard III in the style of the Clangers, much telling of bad jokes, a foot massage "orgy" which somehow developed into a foot-led rendition of the Timewarp, and a rather excellent game of non-word Scrabble:
The non-word Scrabble game of DOOM!
Non-word Scrabble is a game best played drunk. You are not allowed to make any word which actually exists, but the words you make have to be convincing, and if challenged a definition is required. We employed fluffymark as judge, who on several occasions rejected words derived from Welsh because they didn't contain any Ls.
svinndbi: (noun) a type of small yellow fish occuring on the Norwegian coast
liphontsvinndbi: (noun) a parasite which only feeds on svinndbi fish (there was a small disputation about whether this word requires a hyphen, but in the end this version was passed. I remain unconvinced.)
gielorey: A Scottish toast or greeting.
lanckgugielorey: the above on an occasion of particular drunkenness
zuonical: (adj) sort of like alive
ezuonical: (adj) the opposite
lerbunt: (verb) to propel a canal barge by paddling with one's feet.
CETA: a toast used among thespian circles, derived from the acronym 'Come every theatrical arse'. Now definitely a word in its own right.
ut: the sound someone makes when you hit them in the gut
zeaser: (verb) to rip out someone's rib cag, "he zeasered his enemy".
lotrimer: (noun) a polymer-like substance made out of characters from the Lord of the Rings.
yeaiou: (verb) to make a sound of feline exclamation
goedegyt: (noun) a testosterone-induced feeling of happy recklessness upon seeing a pretty woman, particularly when inebriated
I'm not sure about the others, which is a bit poor because both quoajets and padoxefa were played by me and strongtrousers. Any contributions?