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Spectator
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Why disaffected actors often make excellent playwrights
Actors are easily bored on long runs. Phoebe Waller-Bridge once revealed that she staged distractions in the wings to amuse her colleagues. On the last night of Hay Fever, egged on by another actor, she bent over 'and showed [her] arsehole' to the on-stage actors. Nabokov's plays are seldom performed. But he was alive to middling, mediocre dramatic clichés, fashions long-forgotten, but invaluably preserved in his 1941 lecture 'The Tragedy of Tragedy': 'The next trick, to take the most obvious ones, is the promise of somebody's arrival. So-and-so is expected. We know that so-and-so will unavoidably come…' This is the lost convention, the stand-by that Beckett was frustrating in Waiting for Godot – with its tedious announcements and its adamantine disappointment. John Osborne was a jobbing actor and therefore intimately irritated by the conventions of repertory drama. In Epitaph for George Dillon, co-written with another actor, Anthony Creighton, Osborne super-sizes the Act One curtain line. It is announced that George Dillon will be arriving as a temporary lodger. He arrives. It is intimated that he will replace Raymond, a son who has been killed in the war. He is exceedingly polite. But his curtain line, as he contemplates a framed photograph of Raymond, is 'You stupid-looking bastard'. As David Baron (his stage name), Harold Pinter was another disaffected thesp. Hence his brusque impatience with dramatic convention. The Caretaker begins by violating convention: MICK is alone in the room, sitting on the bed. He wears a leather jacket. Silence. He slowly looks about the room, looking at each object in turn. He looks up at the ceiling, and stares at the bucket. Ceasing, he sits quite still, expressionless, looking out front. Silence for thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of silence in the theatre is an eternity. And this second silence follows on the initial silence. Then Mick exits. Without saying a word. An unusual, irregular opening. When Act One ends, we expect the act-division to cover an omitted passage of time. But Act Two begins 'A few seconds later'. The Room begins as a two-hander – a bizarre one-handed two-hander, in which the wife drivels on, unstoppably. The husband, Bert, says nothing until the very end of the play – an extreme version perhaps of the radio comedy Take it from Here, where the young couple, Ron and Ethel, displayed the same imbalance, Ron's dialogue being restricted to 'Yes, Eth'. Ron being short for Moron. The Homecoming has an important stage direction describing the set. The wall between the sitting room and the staircase isn't there. The audience assumes this is an exploded view, a stage convention, so we can see what would otherwise be hidden. However, as Lenny tells us later, the wall has actually been knocked through. The imaginary and the real are confused, as they are for most of the play, until it becomes clear that the men in the play are acting out a communal fantasy – a sexual fantasy trailed by Max, the patriarch, when he is guying his homosexual brother, Sam: 'When you find the right girl, Sam, let your family know, don't forget, we'll give you a number one send-off, I promise you. You can bring her to live here, she can keep us all happy. We'd take it in turns to give her a walk round the park.' This prolepsis is long before the arrival of Ruth and Teddy, long enough for the audience to forget it. Ruth is a prostitute. But for most of the play we aren't certain. The confusion over the wall is emblematic of this overall instability. The Dumb Waiter – two killers waiting for their victim – derives from Hemingway's story 'The Killers'. The hyper-banal is invested with menace. Hemingway's title makes even the diner menu toxic: 'chicken croquettes with green peas and cream sauce and mashed potatoes.' Banal, except that the men eat with their gloves on. 'In their tight overcoats and derby hats they looked like a vaudeville team' – if they didn't look so much like gangsters, George Raft or Jimmy Cagney. Food and fear, a telling zeugma. In Pinter, orders for scampi, for soup of the day, liver and onions, jam tart, arrive via the dumb waiter, defunct but still active – like a moribund stage convention. Here we have the classical convention of the deus ex machina, the god lowered in some sort of box who intervenes at a play's end to resolve all difficulties and provide solutions. But instead of instructions, there are customer 'orders'. It is significant that the stage directions refer to the 'box': 'The box descends with a clatter and bang.' Not 'compartment' or 'shelf'. Pinter's play knows it is a play. Just before the dénouement, Gus and Ben rehearse: BEN: When we get the call, you go over and stand behind the door. GUS: Stand behind the door. BEN: If there's a knock on the door you don't answer it… What transpires, however, is nothing like the rehearsal. Gus stumbles in looking more like a victim than an executioner: 'He is stripped of his jacket, waistcoat, tie, holster and revolver.' A reversal of the rehearsal. Nothing is resolved. Anyone for menace?
Spectator
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Why OnlyFans has young British women in its grip
The porn star Bonnie Blue offers a straightforward explanation for her decision to join OnlyFans. She was in her early twenties, married to her teenage sweetheart, pursuing a career in recruitment and living in Derbyshire, the county of her birth. As she told an interviewer last year: 'I used to work an office job, nine to five, sit in rush hour, get given 20 days' annual leave. And for a while I'd accepted that. I was like 'OK, this is what life is. This is as good as it can get.'' But Blue (whose real name is Tia Billinger) wondered if life might not have more to offer her. So she left her husband, moved to Australia and pursued a new business idea: having sex with hundreds of (in her words) 'barely legal' teenage boys and uploading the footage to subscription-based, content-sharing platform OnlyFans. 'I just wanted a better life,' she insists. And, in her opinion, OnlyFans gave that to her. Now 26, Blue has become world famous for the escalating depravity of her stunts. She was planning to host what she called a 'petting zoo' event this weekend, in which as many as 2,000 men would be given sexual access to her over 24 hours, all on camera. She cancelled the stunt after an online backlash, but promised to replace it with the 'craziest, largest livestream ever' instead. OnlyFans is the most profitable content subscription service in the world. Subscribers pay monthly fees to creators in return for access to images, videos and personal interaction via messaging or video calls. Yet even though the platform generated £4.5 billion in gross revenue last year, the vast majority of its content creators make very little from it. The mean annual income is less than £1,000. Not only are most OnlyFans creators not as rich as Bonnie Blue, who claims to make £1.5 million a month, most of them are barely covering the costs of their electricity bill. And yet the site continues to attract enormous numbers of would-be stars. Britain is host to 280,000 creator accounts, giving us one of the highest concentrations in the world. Eighty-four per cent of those accounts are run by women, and if they are all (give or take) between the ages of 18 and 34, then we can estimate that just shy of 4 per cent of young British women are selling their wares on OnlyFans. Of course, not all of them will be behaving like Bonnie Blue, but these figures nevertheless demand some kind of explanation. Men and women with the same kind of psychological weakness can now mutually exploit one another online It's not as if the work is pleasant. You don't make it big by selling the softcore stuff. The latest competition among top creators is over who can have sex with the most men in a day. In December, British OnlyFans star Lily Phillips – also, oddly, from Derbyshire – filmed herself having sex with 101 of her subscribers in a London Airbnb. In the resultant documentary, titled I Slept With 100 Men in One Day, the cameraman entered the bedroom at the end of the event and was so appalled by the smell that he retched. Phillips herself was reduced to tears by the experience, but this did not deter other women from attempting to beat her record. In January, Bonnie Blue (of course) claimed to have had sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours, and last month Australian creator Annie Knight was hospitalised after a stunt involving 583 men. Whatever OnlyFans is, it isn't easy. For creators like Blue, Phillips and Knight, their 'work' is gruelling, disgusting, painful and dangerous. If you're a beautiful and cynical young woman intent on becoming rich, it would surely be far easier to seek out a wealthy husband, particularly given the fact that a history of prostitution – online or offline – will make most eligible men run a mile. OnlyFans is to the marriage market what a criminal record is to the job market, and yet a significant number of young British women have jeopardised their future relationship prospects. Why? Mental illness of some kind, perhaps – a crushing sense of insecurity or a drive towards self-harm. Or maybe creators have the gambling addict's inability to weigh up risks vs benefits. It's also possible that some are so desperate for cash they're willing to risk their children or even their grandchildren one day coming across their most hardcore content (in this regard, OnlyFans is a riskier proposition than 'normal' prostitution, since the images remain in circulation forever). I suspect there's something else at play, too, and it can best be understood by looking at the other side of the OnlyFans exchange – the men paying for it all. Online porn is a classic example of a supernormal stimulus: that is, an exaggerated stimulus that elicits a stronger response than the natural, evolved stimulus it resembles. The relationship between normal sex and online porn is similar to the relationship between normal food and the most ingeniously designed ultra-processed food. Both porn and junk food are supernormal stimuli that scramble the brain, inducing not only a heightened response, but also a desire for more stimulation – the 'once you pop, you can't stop' effect. I'm reliably informed by various male writers – Sophocles, Kingsley Amis, Russell Brand – that being possessed of a young man's libido feels like being chained to a lunatic. And that's in normal circumstances, without the addling effects of tech. Female sexuality functions differently. Yes, women watch online porn too, and some of them end up addled by it. But when women seek out erotic stimulation it's much more likely to be in the form of smutty novels, which – while they might encourage unrealistic expectations – are hardly addictive. The online super stimulus that really knocks women sideways is not the consumption of sexual content, but the production of it. Women want to be beautiful as fiercely and obsessively as men want to get laid. I'm generalising, of course, but if you're in any doubt about the strength of this kind of female desire, look at the size of the cosmetics and fashion industries. Female vanity is not new, and nor is it surprising. Beauty profoundly affects how you're treated in many areas of life. People who are conventionally unattractive suffer all kinds of adversity: they are more often passed over for promotion and more likely to struggle to make friends. Being ugly is not a trivial misfortune – which means, conversely, that becoming more beautiful can radically improve a person's life. No wonder so many women are obsessed with achieving the perfect glow-up. And bear in mind that silvered glass mirrors did not become widely available until the 1830s. Before then, most people would go their entire lives without seeing a clear image of themselves. They would see blurry images in water or other partially reflective surfaces, and they would know from the responses of other people whether or not they were beautiful. But they could not minutely examine their appearances in the way that a mirror or a photograph permits, and nor could they elicit worldwide admiration in the way that the internet permits. Image-based social media is a supernormal stimulus for women, particularly young and attractive ones. Posting a sexy selfie is a guaranteed means of attracting sexual attention from men and 'You go, girl' compliments from other women, all of which induce a fizzy feeling of self-esteem in a woman evolved to cherish her own beauty. OnlyFans then goes a step further, giving women access to the sexual attention and money of hundreds or even thousands of men. Most women are not vulnerable to this temptation, in the same way that most men are not vulnerable to becoming porn addicts. But thanks to the technological sophistry of OnlyFans, men and women with the same kind of psychological weakness can now find their counterparts and mutually exploit one another online. The result is a cascade of depravity, as the likes of Bonnie Blue compete for more and more of what they are addicted to: sexual attention. Blue insists that she neither wants nor needs our pity, and I'm sure that the men who pay for her content would say the same thing. But I think we should offer them pity anyway. Being on OnlyFans is a curse I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, whatever side of the interaction they find themselves on.
Axios
17 hours ago
- Business
- Axios
Musk says he regrets some of his Trump posts: "They went too far"
Elon Musk appeared to wave the white flag Wednesday in his extraordinary feud with President Trump, tweeting that he regrets some of his posts last week about the man he spent nearly $300 million to elect. "They went too far," Musk acknowledged. Why it matters: The world's richest man and former special government employee went nuclear on Trump after a dispute over the "One, Big, Beautiful Bill," which Musk fears will add trillions to the deficit. Musk did not specify which posts he regretted, but there are plenty to choose from: taking credit for Trump's election, calling for his impeachment, even accusing him of being "in the Epstein files." Trump, who initially responded by threatening to terminate Musk's billions of dollars in government contracts, has sought to tamp down tensions with his former "First Buddy" in recent days. Still, the president has indicated that he has no desire to reconcile with Musk, who he suggested went "crazy" and may be dealing with a drug problem. "I think it's a shame that he's so depressed and so heartbroken," Trump said in an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker Sunday. "We had a good relationship and I just wish him well. Very well, actually," Trump told reporters Tuesday.
Press and Journal
19 hours ago
- Business
- Press and Journal
Aberdeen safety firm eyes £1m milestone as global growth accelerates
An Aberdeen process safety engineer who 'always wanted to start his own business' is now leading a fast-growing company with clients across four continents and a £1 million turnover in sight. David Jamieson founded Salus Technical six years ago after leaving his role at energy giant Equinor. The 38-year-old has went on grow the business to 11 employees, more than doubling headcount in the past year. Salus Technical now works with 80 software clients in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and South America, and has supported around 30 engineering companies in the UK. David has described his journey as 'fantastic' so far, despite being faced with challenges. Salus Technical, based at Neo House, was founded just a few months before Covid hit. David said: 'Our target this year is to reach £1 million and if you look at our past six months we are well on for that. 'I've always wanted to start my own business, I really loved the idea that you could just make a business up yourself. 'I worked as a process safety engineer for many years, and decided it was an area I could deliver on and thought it was worthwhile. 'It's been really difficult, because probably every single year I've been in business, there's been some sort of challenge to overcome. 'We were only four months old when Covid happened, so all our projects got cancelled, and the company making our software weren't able to support us anymore, so we had to press the restart button again. 'Even other things like, the change of government last year and the budget really slowed down a lot of things.' David plans to keep developing the business and what it offers. He said: 'We're at a million pounds, and that's half and half with engineering and software, so I would really like to get that software revenue on its own over the million pound mark. 'We're trying to improve our products so it appeals to a lot more industries and looking at what new software products we can build as well. 'That's the direction that we're trying to go, but we still want to maintain our engineering and services that we do very much here in the north-east. 'There's a lot of the challenges in the UK energy sector but we're obviously still proud to support UK oil and gas. 'Ultimately, all I want to do is grow my business.' David took part in Opportunity North East's (One) business growth programme with a focus on insights into scaling marketing and funding. Entrepreneurs and founders also gained direct access to investors, sector leaders and international market opportunities. He said: 'The One business growth programme was very helpful. 'Speaking to other founders you find out that everyone has got similar issues and problems so it's good to share stories. 'The mentoring programme was also instrumental and transformative. It helped me as a founder to strategise better and make better decisions.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Shenandoah cleanup aims to bring community together again
When Shenandoah held its first townwide cleanup this spring, five dumpsters worth of junk were removed from public and private properties by volunteers, making a big difference in the borough's appearance. But the benefits of that 'Shenandoah One Community, Helping Each Other' effort, as it was called, went far beyond that, officials said. Working hard together on that rainy April day united people who'd never met before, 50 residents and officials from different neighborhoods, backgrounds and ethnicities pitching in for the good of Shenandoah, officials said. Afterward they celebrated together with a picnic, feasting on donated food of all types, from Italian to Mexican to Polish to Dominican. And now the borough is looking to make such cleanups into regular events, with the next scheduled for Saturday, June 21. 'The town was getting a little cruddy looking,' said Shenandoah Council President Joseph Boris. 'So we decided to be proactive. And being proactive gets results.' Those volunteering for the June 21 cleanup should meet outside borough hall on W. Washington Street at 9:45 for a quick safety briefing. The work will take place from 10:30 to 3:30, rain or shine, followed by another big picnic at the Columbia Fire Company, with restaurants from town again donating the food. There is no need to bring trash bags or gloves as those will be provided. 'Just bring yourselves, be ready to work for a few hours and bring a healthy appetite,' said borough manager Mike Cadau. Members of the Shenandoah community pick up trash along a road during a Community Cleanup event in April. (SUBMITTED) The upcoming cleanup will work much like the first, with the volunteers walking through as much of the town as they have time for, picking up trash wherever they find it. In many cases the volunteers knocked on doors to let people know that they were there to help clean their yards, and often the residents were thankful for that help and came out to assist. It's also an educational day, Cadau said, as those whose properties are getting run-down will be politely told of the borough's ordinances against high grass, debris and other maintenance violations, and how they can get into compliance instead of facing code enforcement penalties. While last time the volunteers loaded up mattresses, downed fences and other large pieces of debris in the dumpsters, this time they'll focus on smaller items and inform people of the process for getting bigger things hauled away. That involves paying the borough $15 for a tag to place on those items, which the borough will then haul away, a much cheaper rate than they'd pay if they took it to the landfill themselves, Cadau said. When Boris and four others were finishing for the day during the April cleanup, they walked by Divine Mercy Parish on W. Cherry Street and several of the nuns invited them inside the chapel to bless them, which was indicative of the appreciation that the cleanup received, Boris said. 'The whole town supported us,' he said. That includes the community group La Casa de los Latino, an organization led by resident Victor Aquino. Shenandoah's Latino population is just as interested as anyone in improving the borough, he said, and it was happy to be part of the cleanup. 'It was good,' he said. 'A lot of people joined us. We all want to get our town looking better.' Cadau agreed, saying the cleanup was a day of unity that should help break down ethnic barriers in the community going forward. The post-cleanup picnic was a good example. 'It was a nice way to celebrate what we accomplished together. There was a lot of camaraderie,' he said. 'And the food was delicious. I tried things I'd never had before.' 'It's all about taking the opportunity to get to know each other,' he said. 'People are people.' Since the first cleanup, there has been a big increase in code violation tips called into the borough office, he said. That shows that more people are caring about the state of things and taking pride in their community, which is what borough officials want, he said. Volunteers for June 21 can sign-up in advance by calling the borough office at 610-462-1918, or they can just show up at borough hall at the meeting time. Even those who don't start the day as volunteers can take part, Cadau said, by keeping an eye out for the large group that will working its way through town wearing the yellow 'Shenandoah One Community' shirts, he said. 'If you see us, come out and join us,' he said.
