Matilda: the Musical

I’m often asked what my favourite book as a kid was and I’ll always answer: ‘Matilda’ by Roald Dahl. I love the dark humour, the tenderness of Miss Honey and Matilda’s friendship and I love how scary it is in the final ‘blackboard’ scene. So, also being partial to the odd musical, I was very excited by the prospect of Matilda: the Musical.

The show managed to exceed my already high expectations.

It’s running in the West End of London now (and is opening on Broadway in 2013) and won a record breaking number of awards in the short year it’s been there. If you’ve read the book or seen the film, you’ll know the story already. But the writing team of Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin (yes, the comedian musician Tim Minchin) took the fantastic novel and expanded on it in all the right places. I won’t give too much away but they added a really ingenious subplot between Matilda and her favourite librarian. Read the rest of this entry »

Soundtrack for Arthur (Book 2)

As I wrote in a previous post, music plays a big part for me whenever I’m coming up my stories. Sometimes I listen as I write but generally it’s whenever I’m strolling around the place, earphones in, world shut out and thinking about the various adventures Arthur gets up to.

There’s a bit more music mentioned in ‘Arthur Quinn and the Fenris Wolf’ than there was in ‘World Serpent’ so I figured I’d list some of the tracks that inspired the feel of the story. Some of you may like to use this list as a kind of soundtrack for reading, while others may just be interested in the songs that I had in mind, while even more of you will probably say that this is a boring post and that you have no interest in it.

Regardless… Here are the tracks.

 

99 Red Baloons’ by Nena

When we first meet Arthur in ‘Fenris Wolf’, he and his friends are at a bowling alley. In the book it says that a pop song from the 1980s is playing. I only really had one track in mind when I wrote this – ’99 Red Baloons’ by Nena. I really like the way the song starts; slow at first and then kicking right into it with a fun beat. If this was a film, I imagine the prologue ending with that quiet part of the song before we arrive in the bright and colourful world of the bowling alley. The song is so upbeat that it works as a perfect contrast to the scary thing that happens later on in the chapter!
Read the rest of this entry »

Pixar Intro Parody

I’m sure you’re familiar with the Pixar intro where the cute little lamp (Luxo Jr I believe his name is) comes along and bounces on the ‘I’. Anyway, College Humour have made a parody of the famous intro full of dark humour. Enjoy!

Warning: you may never look at little Luxo Jr the same way again!

 

 

Writing – YA novel

I’m back writing! But what I’m writing is very, very different to the world of Arthur Quinn. It’s a YA novel and I don’t want to say too much about it but I will say that it’s quite grim at times.

As usual, I’ve created a writing soundtrack and I’ve included some tracks here so you can get an idea of the tone of the book.




More Seuss – Mad Men

I’m a big fan of Mad Men. One of my favourite characters is Ken Cosgrove. He’s often overlooked but I like him because, although he’s just a boring accounts guy at work, he secretly writes short stories at home. The creator of Mad Men has said that the series will end in the modern day and we’ll get to see what all the characters are up to. I always get the feeling that Ken will have left the advertising industry to become a full-time and very successful author.

Anyway, I read this blog and it reminded me a lot of Ken. Turns out Dr Seuss worked in advertising before becoming a children’s author.

Caine’s Arcade

This is a really sweet and heart-warming little film. It’s a documentary about a young boy who built his own arcade from cardboard boxes. Take ten minutes out of your day and watch.