Once again, Watch With Mothers enables us to take a look behind the metaphysical curtain of disbelief-suspension, unshrouding the machinery of thespianism and removing the cloak of stage mystery. Using the UK’s premier drama series – a show whose very title has become a byword for ‘believability’ – we take our example from the fictitious realm of Walford, and pluck one of the show’s more devastating performer’s out in solitude in order to better examine her acting methodology – so that we might learn a thing or two from her craft.
I jest – of course. From this example we can take nothing but inspiration. Anyone attempting to affect or mimic the excellence on display here would be as chaotic in conveying their doomed offering as a child in an unscripted free-for-all, who has just received a disorientating blow to the brain.
Look and wonder.
Emotion 1 – ‘I query your statement’
In this scene, Ms. Westbrook appears to channel the fundamental question of her very existence through the expressive canvas of her forehead and the subtle curvature of her lower lip. By creasing the bunched muscle at the top of her nose and disrupting the symmetry of her lower jaw, she reaches into our collective chest and wrestles with our hearts.
Emotion 2 – ‘A Fool Discovered’
Transferring a sense of wistful longing for the time before her character’s numerous acts of infidelity, Ms. Westbrook cannily distorts her brow into a fold of creases and angles her lower mandible – the facial disruption thrusting her emotion toward the deep shag carpet which envelops her slippered feet.
Emotion 3 – ‘Rage Unbounded’
Here Ms. Westbrook becomes rage. She positions herself within the eye of a storm and causes mayhem with just the subtle movement of one or two facial muscles. To accurately define the fury of Sam Mitchell, she warps her eyebrows into an evil frown and skews her bottom lip a bit.
Emotion 4 – ‘Rampant Disbelief’
Her character is incredulous, and the face says it all. In order to instil a sense of outright disbelief, Ms Westbrook makes her eyebrows look all cross again. And twists her lips up.
Emotion 5 – ‘Persuasive Love’
To keep Ricky by her side after her many betrayals, Ms Westbrook attempts to show a soft and sensuous side to Sam Mitchell’s persona. She does this by pulling the same expression as a British Bulldog eating its own poo. Again.
Next Week: Perry Fenwick.
165 Comments
And she used to be such a pretty little thing, she’s now got a face like a bombed abattoir. I suppose that’s what too much sniff and a rotten temper does to a person fizzog.
Surely emotion one is the very epitome of the phrase ‘a bulldog sucking piss from a nettle’?
Doesn’t stop her putting it about the Square, mind you.
And emotion 3 has to be the same bulldog (still with the bitter taset of piss and nettles in its mouth) chewing a wasp?
*Has now read the last sentence in the text*
Ah, er i thought i was being wittily observant, but it turns out that I was merely parroting a better mind. Sorry about that swines.
Noooo problem. Not sure about ‘better’ though.
Nice work.
Although that’s still four more emotions than Joseph Fiennes in FlashForward whose repertoire runs the whole gamut from man-straining-to-hold-in-potentially-pant-moistening-fart-in-board-meeting to man-straining-to-hold-in-potentially-pant-moistening-fart-in-board-meeting.
Blammo, 4*. Right on. I keep on expecting him also, at every moment, to become Uncle Monty and go “It’s gawwwwn…” Leave your Hamlet face by the door, Jo-Jo.
Poor old Danniella. She looks like the evil baby with the unibrow from the Simpsons.
JRME – I don’t know that particular baby, but that comment has triggered a long-held suspicion that Daniella Westbrook was one of the puppets from the Child’s Play/Chucky stable
*ahem, I meqant triggered the memory of a long-held suspicion, otherwise I would have held it for a mere 5 minutes!
Ah, Daniella Westbrook. The thinking Klingon’s crumpet.
(says the man sitting here with a face like a bag of bruised apples)
Admittedly I too have a wonky face – like a punched and swollen Nicholas Lyndhurst.
What, covered in all wasps Fawny?
Until last week, I had thought that you are a lady. It is because your name has a sonnerist lady name.
I am odd.
*spoonerist.
Not only am I odd, my piss poor proof reading makes me look subnormal. Gah.
Mel, you lowland-based genius! That’s the one. Evil Baby vs Chucky Doll. But which one is the better Westbrook lookalike? There’s only one way to find out…
..look at them both and decide that’s it’s the Chucky doll. Thanks for playing.
*throws in chips*
Wow, people, people, please! Don’t all be so hard on yourselves! Let’s all think of one positive thing about our appearance and repeat it a few times. *punches self in face*
Ooh, I look much better now.
Wish I’d read this instructional acting post before me and the missus went to a quiz show audition on Friday. We were told to look happy when we got a right answer and distraught when we got one wrong. I think I went too far in breaking down and sobbing when we didn’t win, mind.
No thanks, swines I have already eaten.
JRME – I love how the Chucky in this picture appears to have a Nick Cave-style widow’s peak.
Did you really go to a quiz show audition? Or was that a lie to bolster your quip?
If so – which quiz?
*throws in some more chips*
WHADDUP!
I’m going to fucking Wales in two weeks to watch has-been rock bands perform in a holiday concentration camp. Thanks to Dr. Beeching I have to go to Stockport, then Crewe, then Chester to get there on the train, which STINKS.
I’d like to translate SW’s excellent descriptions into their cockerknee equivalent
Pic 1 “Come again?”
Pic 2 “Ow could e?”
Pic 3 “I’ll fucking do ‘im!”
Pic 4 “Do what?”
Pic 5 “Please, I’w do anyfink!”
Which bands, which bands?
Will REO Speedwagon be there?
*tries to look innocent with half a chip hanging out of side of mouth*
Actually, it is gone lunchtime. FUD.
Bah Nappers, I have to go to fucking Copenhagen in 2 weeks time, and am likely to be staying in a wharehouse, becuase there appears to be no room at the inn. In a warehouse. In Denmark. In winter.
However, I can get on a train here and then get off in the town of my destination. So, maybe that is a bit better.
Hang on, I’ll check …
Swines – I’ve never bolstered my quip in my life and I’ll thank you not to cast such aspersions. It was for Pointless – an unhumorous account of the day can be found here – http://bit.ly/6khiRA
Trouble was the other contestants had personalities – damn them!
Christ! This is worse than I thought. I’m seeing these buggers.
WHADDUP!
Napoleon, I was in Crewe station not long ago. It confirmed all my suspicions about The North.
Is one of the bands Whitesnake, Saxon and/or Megadeth?
Bloody ‘ell Nappers
*is now scared of Napoleon*
That looks terrible.
WHADDUP, Grogee!
No Saxon, Whitesnake or Megadeth, I’m afraid. Sadly, it’s the likes of W.A.S.P., Queenryche and The Quireboys.
I’ve seen Queensryche before, and they’re SHIT.
That looks terrrible, and I have never even heard of any of those bands.
What makes it worse is the fact it’s being held in a 1950s Welsh holiday camp.
Awful rock fans + awful rock bands + Belsen-On-Sands = misery for muggins
Ha! Napoleon’s going to watch W.A.S.P.!
How fitting! Maybe if they reformed they would become J.A.S.P.E.R.
Christ it looks like something out of 28 Days Later…
Alas Fiona, I am not a lady (that’s the missus’ job). I never thought of FawnDoo as being all that feminine a name when I started using it online but as you’re far from the first to think that I’m a woman, maybe I should have gone for something more masculine. “Lord Grrrr”, perhaps?
P.S. Yes, all covered in wasps, and little stickers with flags on them.
Can I asked what posessed you to buy tickets for such an aural battering, Napoleon?
I like a bit of shite rock as much as the next man, but that is like spending a weekend in Bruce Dickinson’s faeces…
Terrorvision, for fuck’s sake!
“Voodoo Johnson”? If I ever have to go into witness protection, that’s the name I’m asking for.
I like the accommodation “1 bedroom 5 persons £575″
The mind boggles…
Ooh, I hope that Terrorvision play tequila. And that one off of it’s your letters on TFI Friday.
Does anyone know how many shows Kyle has done to date?
Voodoo Johnson sounds like a great name Fawny. I might have stolen that from you if swineshead hadn’t already donated me a fantastic pseudonym.
Nick – too many?
That wasn’t Terrorvision, was it?
I’m not sure that was Terrorvision, Mel. It was some terrible indie-funk lot with a lumbering Vernon Kay-a-like front man.
NC. Monster Magnet are okay… Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts? Christ, are they still going?
The rest of the line up is awful though, Ratt… Terravision, Jesus wept on my shoes…
Westbrook 1. Hard stool
Westbrook 2. Occupied
Westbrook 3. Followed through
Westbrook 4. Cystits
Grogee – I’m not paying for it. I’m going for nowt, courtesy of Classic Rock magazine.
In fact, it was Reef.
*quick look at Google*
Reef!
Queensryche are bloody awful live Naps, strangely, W.A.S.P are actually awesome-not Saxon awesome, but certainly ‘Exploding Codpiece’ awesome…
Fourstar got there before me, and managed to make it not sound like a warning being shouted from the crows nest.
Piqued – Fun, eh? I’m particularly looking forward to seeing Queensryche again. The last time I saw ‘em was at Monsters of Rock and they were the worst thing on the line-up. And that’s saying something considering Deep fucking Purple were headlining.
Jesus Christ, I’d forgotten about DP, was it proper DP or did they have that bloke from Kansas in by then? altogether now “Carry on my wayward soo-ooonnnn”…
Interceptor – Are they radical as well? And skill? Are they Goonies-good? Michael J Fox- good? Frickin’ 80s frickin’ Weid Science frickin’ ALF frickin’ ninja-good?
Odd. According to this list its 1235…….
Well, I prefer to think that those awful songs were sung by Terrorvision, cos it makes me happy. I also like to credit soundgarden with similar shite, and hhave resolutely stuck to that gun in the face of a mountain-like evidence to the contrary.
Also, as someone that does not play poker, does throwing in one’s chips mean that you want to have a go or that you are giving in? It has been vexing me since 1.38 (2.38 my time)
NC, I know you and I don’t always see eye to eye but you have my sincere sympathies. For the most part you’re attending just about every band found unloved in a Woolies bargain box.
And then there is the ‘Wales’ issue.
Well, W.A.S.P are possibly the most 80’s metal thing this side of motley ’shitbag’ crue, so yes, yes, I reckon they are. Strangely, I imagine Queensryche to be a strangely 90’s concept despite their 80’s origins. Incidentally, they are from Seattle, so I directly blame them for Grunge-Queensryche ruined music.
Theory is that WASP stands We Are Sex Perverts.
Oh Christ, Tigertailz!! AHAHAHAHAHA.
(sorry)
Mel: throw your chips in, make a bet. Throw your cards in, give up. or “fold”. </patronising>
Ooh, I right want to go and listen to Strangelove now. I am also petrified of Napoleon, Jamie – these look like those proper sacrificing virgins and seas of gob type bands, not the cuddly metal that scared the weebles out of me as a stupid child. Iron Maiden and the like.
Piqued – I know. Wales? Nobody likes Wales.
JRME – surely the Seas of Gob was a concept album and tour by the Buzzcocks, or the 60 foot dolls?
Thanks. I am naive when it comes to most forms of gambling.
I am going to Cardiff next Monday, which I have never found to be that bad, Nappers
I don’t suppose there’ll be any Rilo Kiley or Crowded House playing then. Does everyone who attends have to wear one of those big black leather trenchcoats?
Mel – I went to Cardiff in 2000. Bloody awful, it was. I enraged the Welsh in a boozer with my reworking of Land of Hope and Glory (Land of misery and despair - Wales! Wales! Wales!), and my friend nearly got beaten up by an ex-Welsh rugby international star.
Jamie – I’m not wearing a big black leather trenchcoat. The last one I went to I wore a Beatles t-shirt. Didn’t go down well at all. This year I’m thinking of buying a Carpenters t-shirt. Or an ELO one.
Better yet, Nappers, you should wear a Jedward T-shirt, or a JLS one.
Carly Simon!
Will the Lighthouse Family be doing a set?
Wonder if there’s any Daphne and Celeste T-shirts still about?
Perfect tee shirt for you naps
I’m seeing an advert for Twitter up the top of this page, like I need any further encouragement to waste hours of my employer’s paid-for time telling my friends about my imminent poo.
Reef!
It’s your letters, it’s your letters!
Fucking hilarious.
*throws in chips*
W.A.S.P did a song called Fuck Like A Beast. I remember the cover of the 7″ single well.
Tasteful!
Didn’t they sing “Place your hands on my hole” or am i imagining that?
And if so, what hole were they talking about?
Run your fingaz through my soul – ALRIGHT NOW.
Hmmm … that Lady Ga Ga t-shirt’s nice, but I’m not sure it’d have the impact of a Black Lace t-shirt. Or a Tight Fit one.
***ponders
The old tour t-shirt is a funny one isn’t it?
We’ve all probably got one..but do we actually wear it?
It’s the same as wearing a football team’s shirt ain’t it?
***ponders
Is that link safe for work, swineshead?
Also, I don’t get adverts on the banner anymore. Is this because I am a Forren?
***ponders
It’s a tribal thing really ain’t it? A sort of a late 20th/early 21st Century statement of allegiance.
***Continues to ponder.
Your work might have an ad blocker, Mel… and the link’s pretty safe.
Tour ‘t’ shirts aren’t really the thing any more, are they?
Speaking of band t shirts, anyone see the Iron Maiden berk on Come Dine With Me?
If tour t-shirts aren’t the thing any more, how will bands make any money? I suppose they’ll have to move into china figurines.
Ugh, please stop with the Reef. Giving me mid-90s mid-teenage opprobrium. *hoots “wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill” at anyone in glasses*
Oh, you have.
It’s an interesting point, DINLT – when did the tour or indeed band tshirt flip from cool to insanely uncool? I think it was the moment Rachel on Friends wore an MC5 tshirt.
Pilchard – you are correct. They call it ‘Porcelain Merch’ in the biz…
Here’s one of Cheryl Cole used to promote her smash, We’ve Got To Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight For This Love.
I wonder what the first tour t-shirt was?
***still pondering.
Off topic, but how do people manage to to get those links in comments so that you click on a highlighted word instead of having to paste the link. I can do it on my blog but in my comment box here the insert/edit link icon is greyed out
*is a computer idiot*
Alesha Dixon commemorative ‘The Boy Does Nothing, Absolutely Nothing’ china figurine.
The Alexandra Burke ‘The Bad Bad Boys’ china figurine.
And for Olly Murs forthcoming debut solo single – ‘I’m Alright Jack, ‘Alf a Pound o’ Treacle’ – another commemorative figurine.
Give Armstrong+Miller another series, DINLT, and they’ll probably explore that issue in their hilarious ongoing sketch series “Cavemen do sort of modern things or something”
Please can everyone watch Cowards to see that gag done properly? Apart from Swines who probably won’t like it at all because they’re posh Oxbridge types.
Those figurines are smashing.
Good Afternoon. I think a contender for the first Tour T-Shirt may have been Orpheus’ “To Hades & Back” Tour.
***still pondering
I think they began in the eighties.
The first football match I ever went to, I wore a scarf and a rosette! What ever happened to rosettes….?
Google gives only 15 results for “Porcelain Merch”, so it can’t be a very big business yet. S’all am sayin yo.
*dashes off letter in green ink to Dragon’s Den*
Porcelain rosettes – now there’s a thought.
I’ve got an itchy arse.
Hello Thumps! What about God’s “I’ll Rest On The Seventh Day” tour tee?
Hello Pilch. That was a hell of a tour. I’ve got the live album “No Sleep Til Sabbath”.
My dad bought me back a tee-shirt from the 1969 Isle of Wight festival..wish I knew what happened to it.
all of those statuettes seem to have far too many clothes on to be truly reprasentative of the modern Postrel.
I would have made this point ages ago, but our internet is on the blink this afternoon.
WRT tour t-shirts, they must have existed before the 80s surely? or are all those rolling stones ones you see modern rip offs? *Calls Antiques Roadshow*
Local Tesco store, is selling 40 PG Tips for 95p and 80 for 2.12! 160 is 3.00, I bought 160. I wonder if it is some sort of IQ test?
Swineshead’s just told me off for ignoring his e-mail. This is what you don’t see, readers. He’s a bloody tin-pot dictator behind the scenes.
See these whip marks on me back? See?
*moves one foot slightly forward, removes hat, bends graciously so that hat’s feather brushes lightly across the very ground that Thumper walks on*
The email I sent was a fat woman dressed as Chun Li off of Tekken. It’s time sensitive, and Napoleon chose to ignore it.
See what I have to put up with?
As my mother would say:
“Pack it in the pair of you, otherwise I’ll come up there and bang yer bloody heads together”
From the Isle of Wight eh Nick? that would be a great thing to have. It also means that I will have to retract my eighties theory.
BTW: Is your radio show on i player? (Nick).
I missed it last night.
Ahem, my email regarding bandcamp?
The one I replied to Nick? And am in the middle of sorting out, Nick?
This one, Nick?
It is DINLT. I’m going to put edited highlights i.e. just the bits with me in, up on my website tonight. Poor foreign types can’t watch the iplayer in thier country, the poor sods
Which website Nick? You have more than one. Perhaps you could homogenise them!?
My main one, the one you go to when you click on my name.
Won’t be up until later tonight though.
I was addressing Naps SH.
Oh.
Nick – I couldn’t be arsed to reply to your e-mail. I haven’t even clicked on that bandcamp link.
How’s THEM fucking onions?
You remembered though. I find that touching..
Baseball caps..? When did they start? 80’s or 90’s?
The thing is baseball is not big here is it?
I’ll give you that.
So what’s this all about, this bandcamp thingie? Will it make me as rich as Sir Elton John? Or him with the daft hair off of ELO and the Travelling Raspberries?
It might it might not but it’s worth a punt. It’s free so ….
DINLT – i think the rise of the baseball cap as a fashion item started in the UK on the cusp of the 80s/90s. I believe it had been big in the US for many more decades than that.
William Hague invented the baseball cap.
That, and “baseball cap” sounds better than “rounders bonnet” when you’re trying to sell the things.
Didn’t the Baseball Cap effectively arrive in the UK in 1986 or so with Run DMC and the Beastie Boys?
Yep Mel, the old baseball cap is an essential part of americana, going back to whenever. Not necesarily baseball teams either. Rap music I guess,introduced them here as a fashion item.
Yup, i think you are right – the rise of the baseball cap and rap music did go hand in hand.
I used to have a Beastie Boys Baseball Cap, as I had a Hip Hop Phase in the 80s. In fact, I was actually briefly cool between September and November 1987 when I had the 1st Public Enemy album before hardly anyone had heard of them.
Is Des O Connor still alive?
Can one get a Des o Connor tee shirt?
No US pres. would be seen without wearing one at some stage.
Hey, I know an interesting thing about baseball caps. You know the hard hats that construction workers wear? They’re the shape they are because builders used to dip baseball caps in tar and let the tar harden.
The American fireman’s distinctive helmet shape derives from two baseball caps worn at once, one facing forwards, and the other facing backwards.
Hooray for hot tar.
What about British hard hats? Are they just copies of the American ones then?
They are indeed, Nick. If you watch some of the wonderful old documentary shorts from the BFI such as Shipyard (Paul Rotha, 1935), you will see that the British craftsman traditionally relied on his flat cap and a cigarette in matters of health and safety. Shipyard is particularly notable for the way the men nonchalantly throw white-hot rivets to each other.
I wonder why no British person thought of dipping a flat cap in some hot tar? I suppose we were too busy inventing the hovercraft, the jet engine and the teasmaid.
I think it would be fun if we all wore stetsons. Say what you like the US, but you can go there and wear any manner of headwear and not look out of place.
That’s democracy!
Surely they are the shape they are because the dome affords the most head protection by giving, as it does, a crush space to act as a shock absorber of any impact of falling debris, while at the same time having some structural rigidity. And the peak at the front is to afford some protection to the eyes?
I have no wish to piss on your baseball cap fact parade pilch, but there seem to be very few designs that would fulfill this brief.
I have a DVD Box Set of some of those old BFI documentaries Pilch, it’s incredible stuff. I particularly like the one where an employer decides that, in order to fill a vacancy, he will take the enormous risk of hiring someone registered at the Labour Exchange.
What is it with people that work in music shops.
I’ve just been making enquiries about 12 string guitars. I’m interested in some that are between 2 to 3 grand and the guy spoke to me like I was a piece of shit!
HE can stuff it!
YES OASIS MUSIC IN RINGWOOD, YES YOU!!!
Stuff it mate….
The peaks aren’t that big on hardhats are they. They’re massive on baseball caps.
*gives Pilch the skunk eye*
Just before i left that Sceptered Isle, the BFI had a brilliant series on about all the public service broadcasts over the years, from a gentle one telling an old fella what to look out for while reverse parking in the early 50s, through Tufty the squirrel and the green cross code man, right up to Charley and the stranger danger. It was great.
I’d no idea that 12 String guitars were so expensive, Nick. Why don’t you just get two six string guitars? Or three basses?
If only life was that simples Thumper….
Some bastard had a twelve string guitar in the pub the other week. Thankfully, he only played it for a couple of minutes.
People who play guitars in pubs should be burned alive.
Or exiled to Welsh holiday camps….
Chandler guitars Nick.
He’s a twat as well DINLT. An arrogant one.
*goes home grumpy*
Reef have announced they’re reforming.
Thank fuck for that.
Good news for the parrotfishes indeed.
Yes, Thumper, it’s a brilliant set, and the labour exchange one is a beaut. I also like the one about life in the fens (it’s miserable) and the one about the town planner who is going to rid Dunfermline (? I think) of all its hideous old buildings and put up lovely concrete ones instead. But Shipyard is wonderful: the way the ship rises from nothing to loom over the town – a town entirely supported by the building of the ship.
Missing from the set though is a very fine Coal Board film about shovels and shovelling, which is funny at first, but then reminds you about what an incredible job miners did, and how important it was to our (bad old) economy.
Fans of boring old documentaries will either loath or loath this stultifying film and its dreadful music.
Early baseball caps had shorter peaks than the modern variety: check out the dudes in the 1867 woodcut here.
And Mel, all hat brims protect the eyes. Baseball caps were cheap, hence you could dip one in some tar. You wouldn’t do that with your best derby.
It would be all so much simpler if you’d just believe everything I say.
Anyway, look at the size of the brim on this hard hat. I rest my case.
*hopes no one asks why hard hats are yellow when hot tar is black because doesn’t have an answer*
What a shame that we don’t still have forward-thinking types turning up in our towns and cities and telling us our old buildings needed sweeping away in favour of a dual carriageway and underpass system. Those were the days.
*looks at old photos of now demolished buildings and gets a bit miserable*
pilch, I am not saying that I don’t believe you, but as I said before, I would still argue that it would be very difficult to change the shape and still meet the brief of head protection.
And they are yellow now because it is easier to see them if you have put them down on a coal heap. (this might not be an actual fact)
On the other hand, Nappers, as you were arguing the other day, to not modernise condemns people to living in cold unhealthy slums, and having to shit in a row with their neighbours in an outdoor privvy.
Also, I am pretty sure there are still lots of road extension/expansion plans going ahead.
Except, Mel, that a lot of the replacements for the slums became slums themselves pretty quickly, and have themselves since been pulled down and replaced by traditional housing (eg Hackney Wick).
It’s true that those old dox do show the unsanitary state of much British housing, and the filth of the air in industrial areas, but they also show kids playing in the street and people talking to each other.
The main goals of the Dunfermline planner (as I remember them) were to segregate industrial and residential areas, relieve traffic congestion, and open up green spaces. Now that our dirty industries have declined (or been shifted to other countries), the benefits of living miles away from your work are not so clear – especially as all those relief roads actually helped to push traffic levels up.
One sad thing about this film is that it backs up its claim about traffic congestion by showing a deserted street with one truck temporarily inconvenienced by a parked car. Otherwise the place is empty.
Well, I suppose it’s easy to be wise with hindsight. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to take the blame for Coventry.
I’m not saying I know the answer to all these problems, by any means. And as an equal opportunities hater, I despise Poundbury too.
Another hat-stiffening hat: hatmakers used to use mercury to stiffen the brims of felt hats. That’s where the saying “mad as a hatter” comes from.
That is the second of my hat-stiffening hats.
I seem to have used the word “hat” instead of “fact” there twice. Time for me to unplug, obviously.
How do they get the cranes off of the top of skyscrapers once they’ve finished building ‘em?
Immac.
That made me snort tea everywhere, SH.
*mops up tea*
I’m sorry about that.
Those cranes are clever, they dismantle themselves
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