Field Notes

Trinny puts seventeen different moisturizers on her face and takes us shopping, but not both in the same episode. She likes to wear things that are made of silver parachute material or have sleeves that flare out like medieval costumes, but not both in the same garment. She prefers to layer them. She secretly films herself trying on things in shops and then says the shopkeepers are trying to throw her out. We don’t know why they would. People watch her and afterwards they go and buy the things she tries on. Women watch her, to judge from the messages she displays on the screen, but surely men too. She talks to her viewers when she sees their messages on the screen. “Hello Elly, hello Amanda,” she says in her commanding voice. “Is it sunny in Brighton? It’s very grey here.” Sometimes her assistants hold the cameraphone and relay the messages. “Trinny, they want to know the name of that concealer.” She puts on her spectacles and reads them the name on the package. The assistants are European and Trinny has viewers all over the world to judge from her shout-outs. “Good morning, Auckland! You’re up late, my god, what time is it there? Hello, Istanbul!”

Some products I have learned about from Trinny: long gilets made of soft cashmere, metallic trainers, Vitamin C serum, apricot hued skintone corrector, rouge that is also lipstick, electric facial massagers, a little roller which sticks pins into your skin like a yogi’s pillow. “What it’s great for, ladies, is stimulating the collagen,” Trinny says in her voice that could close a prizegiving or open Parliament. Trinny finds something great in almost every product she talks about. Sometimes she will say a skin or makeup product is not exciting and she does not like it as well as the seven she is about to show us. We take that as proof of her honesty. All the products in the same category look the same when she puts them on, but most of the time she is able to find differences between them. If she can’t find any difference or the difference is only something transient like smell, that means the cheaper one is a bargain and she is letting us in on a secret. Still, how things smell is important to Trinny. If a handbag is leather, she snuffs it like a dog. If it is not leather, she snuffs it anyway and talks about it as good value and long wear.

Trinny lets us see her at home, in her bathroom with its library of skin and makeup products, and her bedroom with its clothing archive that takes up an entire wall. The kitchen she keeps private. Sometimes she has a clearout and gives away a few things. “Yes, they want it,” the assistant says as soon as she offers a spare blouse or tube of beauty balm. Trinny shares a lot with her ladies. We have seen her jogging in her underwear while she brushes her teeth. We have seen her with her hair full of color foils. We have seen her with threads scissoring whiskers off her face. We have seen her, from the waist up, getting a colonic. Trinny shows us what she is getting everyone for Christmas: her daughter, her goddaughters, her assistants who have to leave the room when she gets to their presents. A jacket with metal sequins like coins, a pashmina, rose and violet creams, a drone. “What’s great about this drone is it can go to any height and you can control it from your phone.” [Dɾəʊn], [gəʊ], [‘kəntɾəʊl], [fəʊn]. Nobody is going to disagree when she says it like that. It probably smells divine as well. She is our mad posh aunt and we cannot stop watching her.

The Raspberry Pi is a double-edged device: it is designed to challenge the user to learn about technology because it is not encased in a simplified consumer product interface. At the same time, it is meant to be a little bit user-friendly, helping to widen participation in electronics hacking. A persistent person with access to the Internet – and a parts budget, because this thing attracts more accessories than a Barbie doll – should be able to figure it out.

I bought an RPi 2B+ a year and a half ago at the first Ipswich Raspberry Pi Jam and finally got it to work at the third Pi Jam this weekend. Thanks to all the members of Ipswich Makerspace who took time to answer questions, check on my progress, reiterate encouragingly that “it’s supposed to just work. Usually it just works,” and finally reflash my card in some magical way. Below are some hints for others who are trying to realize the Raspberry Pi dream.

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Cloth wrappings are integral to Iqbal Khan’s Macbeth; the witches, four of them, perform a body-part puppet show with a black curtain while a PA system speaks their speech over ghostly music. At intervals through the action, characters appear draped in tents, encased in overcoats, swaddled in bedding, smothered and screaming. Out of these depths emerges a memorable production that has placed Khan with Josie Rourke on my list of directors to keep track of.

The beauty of the Globe tends to overwhelm the plays it was meant to showcase. It’s the opposite of the immersive cinema experience and actors have to work extra hard to draw attention. Khan uses the thrust stage to advantage, pushing the speakers forward for their star turns and sometimes even bringing them in through the audience [1]. The early scenes were handsome if somewhat bloodless. Then Macbeth and Banquo (Ray Fearon and Jermaine Dominique) exploded on the stage and kicked up the action several notches. Dominique brought wonderful warm turns to his lines, making the early loss of Banquo especially harsh. Fearon and Tara Fitzgerald, as Lady Macbeth, seemed to be mugging for the crowds in their love scene (as one does in a Globe production), but then gave off sparks as they plotted. His soliloquys were splendid and her sleepwalking scene was unexpectedly fresh.

The rest of the cast was strong, actor for actor, and that meant even the most cryptic speeches were always delivered with some kind of local sense. Nadia Albina showed wonderful talent as the Porter, marred by topical deviations (Trump? Not disputing that he’s the devil, but it was more mugging). Elizabeth Andrewartha was not merely credible but constructive in her soldier role, and Kerry Gooderson showed great shape-shifting ability. The three youngish men with beards or stubble who were difficult for the face-blind person to distinguish since they were only on stage together at the end; but that means their performances were also of equivalent quality. Sam Cox’s Duncan was a lordly-looking place holder, which made the idea to remove him more logical; he was also the only greybeard in the thirtysomething-looking cast. He was present in the final tableau in another role (uncredited) together with Freddie Stewart as Malcolm and the youngest actor (also uncredited, and unexplained – he seemed almost to become communal property). Together they created a wordless commentary on succession in this very late Elizabethan moment. This production was long for Shakespeare’s shortest play [2], and yet it managed to end with a bang rather than the usual relief.

The Globe’s Macbeth runs through early October. Thanks to Nely and the Helsinki Shakespeare fans for their choice of production and their company.

[1] I was a groundling which probably boosted the impact of stage-edge acting further. I wholeheartedly recommend standing at the theater if you have the stamina. It concentrates the attention.

[2] There was one intermission, quite late. When the Globe opened, the idea was to have short intermissions after each act, and it might be good to return to that. It would keep the audience awake, distribute the bathroom queue, and make the structure of the play more evident.