Frances Lynn: Blog June 2006

June 26, 2006

Script Tank

Checked out the Script Tank writing group at the NPA Film Centre in Shoreditch High Street. There were delays on the tube getting there, due to an overhead fire at King's Cross station. If I had foreseen how long it would have taken me to get there, I would have packed a picnic basket.

The good, out of work actors who read one of the group's screenplays had a lot of fun with it, even if the audience, a room full of professional writers didn't. But, I was surprised how well-balanced the writers' criticisms were. The woman whose script was being read, confided afterwards that Script Tank members weren't brutal unlike the ones at Player Playwrights, whose 'unkind' comments about her work had made her cry. 'We trust each other,' a TV writer explained to me, adding she has been attending Script Tank since its formation ten years ago.

David Cottis, a director and the group's organiser told me that until recently, the writers' group was held in a 'dingy' basement in Warren Street, which is nearer to where I live. Apparently, it was infested with rat-droppings and syringes from local junkies, but I would have preferred that unsavoury environment to trekking out to the East End, even though it was definitely worth the journey.

Posted by frances on June 26, 2006

June 20, 2006

Lady Captain's Day

Gail Ralph currently reigns as Lady Captain of Porters Park Golf Club, so it was her duty to organise today's annual Lady Captain's Day.

All the Ladies in the club had been ordered to play at the crack of dawn. It was a shotgun start and we went out in threes.

Gail was the hostess with the mostest, even roping in her daughter to take photographs of us all halfway round the course, looking dishevelled and deranged. Some of us had even broken the club's sartorial rules by no longer having our shirts tucked in!

I played well on the front nine, even though my putting wasn't spectacular (all that practising putting on the carpet hadn't helped). I nearly crucified myself when I four putted on a couple of holes, and wondered why I hadn't married a sports psychologist, but, all in all I played well.

I was just fantasising about running up to the podium after lunch, in order to collect my prize in front of the entire Ladies section, when I saw Gail whizzing around the course in a buggy, overloaded with refreshments.

How hospitable of her I thought, as I saw she had left a tray of orange juice by the tenth tee. It was a very warm day, and I felt de-hydrated, so I impulsively gulped down a couple of glasses, before realising with horror, I had just swigged back potent Bucks Fizz.

The champagne must have been more lethal than I feared, for I immediately fell into a drunken coma, proceeding to drunkenly stagger and sway over the fairways, blobbing holes left right and centre. I had ruined my card, but at least I didn't kill anyone.

Committee member Gillian Edmonds said the Bucks Fizz helped her to totally relax. It must have done, for she was the one who won, and ran up to the podium to collect her prize from Gail.

Posted by frances on June 20, 2006

June 19, 2006

Remake Hell

I'm not the only one who's jaded when it comes to movies. When I ask my film critic friends (the ones who've clung onto their columns since B.C.) if they've seen any good new releases recently, they look at me blankly, their hands begin to shake and they surreptitiously swig from their hip-flasks. 'Can't think of any,' they all mumble, even though most of them had slept through all the new movies at Cannes.

Hollywood are now playing it safer than ever, going berserk with their prequels and sequels, but were surely acting suicidal when they re-made the 1976 horror hit, 'The Omen', ingeniously released on 6/6/06. David Seltzer wrote the screenplays for both movies, which could be the reason why the dialogue and action in both versions are almost identical.

I hope the late Lee Remick who played the Antichrist's mom in the original movie isn't writhing in her grave. She used to go to Dreas Reyneke, my old Pilates/body conditioning teacher. She was a convincing actress, unlike Joan Collins, who also had her (good) body sculpted by Dreas. One crack of dawn, when I flopped down on my machine in the studio, I merrily said, 'Joan Collins is very upset with me.' A creature sat bolt upright on the machine next to me. 'Tell Miss Collins in person,' Dreas soothed. I was in a horror show! It was Joan, looking incognito, minus her wig.

But, it's a tragedy that so much unoriginal dross gets the green lights these days. David Blyth's Eighties horror hit, Death Warmed Up literally had the shocked audience vomiting in the aisles during its UK debut at the National Film Theatre.

If Hollywood ever miraculously decided to no longer play it safe, they would be wise to pick up David's new screenplay, 'Pandemonium', about a Dominatrix with a difference. 'Be warned, no dark secret is safe' is the tantalising tag line. I've read the script and it was so 'unique and visionary', I couldn't put it down.

Before I attended the ScriptWriter Magazine horror seminar at RADA last year, David advised me to make friends at the bar, preferably with a talented young film-maker. I took his advice and met Clive Ashenden. His short, 'Snatching Time', which generated a lot of interest at Cannes, has just been accepted by this year's Fright Fest. He and his Sick Puppy Films partners are making a low-budget feature film this year, and Clive has offered me a cameo in it. I hope it's a monster role, dripping with loads of Special Effects.

Posted by frances on June 19, 2006

June 3, 2006

Eezee E

Eezee E is the genius geek on FlashMacGits, my favourite mailing list. He lives in Brighton and for some time now, has been promising to invite me down for a free computer lesson on the first hot day.

At the crack of dawn this morning, he Skyped me, asking me to visit him today as the weather was flaming. I dropped everything and ran down to see him. It's not every day, one gets offered a free lesson with one of the most knowledgable geeks on the web.

As well as being an Apple Mac obsessive, Eezee is an innovative computer graphic designer and a famous pirate radio DJ. He is also the 'sole active survivor of the original helm crew' of the revolutionary Interface Pirate Radio and makes sure it continues to broadcast (the station's tenth year anniversary will be in February 2007).

The website rapidly became a victim of its success and was getting more than five million Hits a week (ninety per cent more than the most popular porn sites), so in order to stop becoming a 'webslave to death', Eezee took the website down, leaving just one page to connect to and enter the chatroom, but it still gets up to a million hits a month.

'I hate Emails and they hate me,' Eezee declares which is a shame for him as he used to receive two thousand e-mails dailly. He now averages about a few hundred per day, which are mainly requests for his DJ services.

'Snoop around,' Eezee told me when I arrived at his flat, which housed five cutting edge, Apple computers.

As it was such a hot day, we went and sat in his other office: the beach, where we sat on the pebbles. After Eezee had finished giving futuristic computer tips to the grateful people who were playing on their laptops nearby, we returned to his flat. He proceeded to give me an advanced PhotoShop lesson on his 20" Intel iMac. 'Let me show you something else,' he kept insisting. I had to tear myself away just before midnight in order to drive back to London. 'You should come for a week next time. One is learning all the time with PhotoShop,' he said, before chaining himself to his computer for the rest of the night.

Posted by frances on June 3, 2006

June 2, 2006

Cosmo Landesman

Cosmo Landesman, the star film critic of the Sunday Times took me out for a long, non-alcoholic, smoked salmon/lobster mousse/steak and desert lunch at the French House Dining Room in Soho.

Cosmo, son of Fran and Jay Landesman is currently writing a book about the pursuit of celebrity called 'Starstruck: Fame, Failure my Family and Me,' which will be published by Macmillan early next year. In between mouthfuls, he interviewed me about my gossip writing days in the late Seventies, when I was a bitch columnist for David Bailey's Ritz Newspaper.

Cosmo must be an ingenious interviewer, for he effortlessly dug the dirt out of me about my 'Ritz' gossip days, which I thought I had mostly forgotten before his discreet interrogation. Cosmo describes himself as a cult writer, so I'm really looking forward to reading his fascinating and intriguing sounding book when it comes out.

Posted by frances on June 2, 2006