Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular - Sydney

It was Sydney's turn today to host the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular. Back in February the family attended one of the sold out Melbourne shows and I reviewed it as

One of the best concerts that I have attended. A perfect performance by the orchestra, choir and soloists as well as a wonderful atmosphere generated both by the production and the audience that attended it. The whole family loved it.

So how did Sydney compare?

A bit has changed between the two shows. I'm now more familiar with the music, having had time to listen to the Series 6 soundtrack. Much of the music of Series 6 takes a few listens to appreciate in full, but it is highly rewarding to do so.

Gone were the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Concordis Choir and the venue of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, to be replaced with The Metropolitan Orchestra, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and that most famous of all concert halls in Australia: the Sydney Opera House.

Alex Kingston (River Song) and Mark Williams (Brian Williams) replaced Mark Sheppard (Canton Everett Delaware III) in hosting duties.

The line up of pieces to be played changed slightly, with An Untimely Arrival, Almost People Suite and the Closing Time Suite replaced by Brianosaurus and The Final Chapter of Amelia Pond.

I was quite curious to see how The Metropolitan Orchestra would perform as I've been quite disappointed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra's performance in comparison to the Melbourne Symphony. At least the conductor would be the same Ben Foster who conducted not only in Melbourne, but for the series recording  themselves.

The Sydney Opera House is a lot tighter venue that the Melbourne Convention Centre. The foyer was chaos as Doctor Who attired patrons attempted to buy merchandise, pick up special memorabilia packs, purchase drinks or take photos with various Doctor Who cutouts and costumes. Fortunately there is an outdoor area, where we escaped to watch the Costa Romantica cruiseliner push past the Harbour Bridge and berth at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. I met a work colleague also attending the concert and we chatted while B and Alex bought a TARDIS soft toy. Then it was time to go in.

Our seats inside the concert hall were quite far back as the very large front sections were unaffordably expensive. Still, I don't think they were any further than in Melbourne. The hall was much narrower, however.

After a prerecorded introduction from Matt Smith, the current doctor, on the video screen behind the orchestra the performance began with A Madman in a Box. Immediately, I thought the Soprano Antoinette Halloran was tonally wrong, despite her flawless performance in Melbourne. In fact, the whole orchestra's sound seemed a bit off.

The reason why didn't hit me until Alex Kingston emerged to introduce herself and the next performance. She was typically sassy, taking full advantage of River Song character being a far more substantial member of the series than Mark Sheppard's Canton. However, her voice, and that of every other announcer, came out of the auditorium speakers sounding thin and missing in middle and base frequencies. Either the speaker system is flawed or the acoustics of the hall are faulty.

Unfortunately, these issues detracted from the entire concert for me. The orchestra sounded unbalanced, unlike the near perfect sound in Melbourne, but I just don't know if it was them or the venue. The choir too sounded unbalanced, with the male voices too weak. It looked to me that the choir had fewer members than in Melbourne.

Despite the problems, I did enjoy the concert, still got tingles down the spine when listening to The Majestic Tale of the Madman in a Box, the Saturnyne vampires in Liz, Lizards, Vampires and Vincent, farewelling Amy and Rory in The Final Chapter of Amelia Pond, the powerful countertenor voice of Daniel Bonic-Goodwin sing Vale Decem and the encore Song of Freedom.

It was also nice to hear from the composer Murray Gold, who again attended the concert.

Four year old Alex was a bit tired today and fell asleep during the beautiful Abigail's Song, to awake after the interval for the Daleks of Battle in the Skies. He asked too many questions during performances and complained later that the show was too long. Understandable, as he usually sleeps longer and some of the pieces are a bit slow for his age. I let him play Angry Birds on my phone for a while to keep him quiet. When the Daleks, Cybermen and other creatures appeared on stage Alex loved it. Especially, when a vampire lady stalked the aisle beside us. He also swung his arms around  in excitement, conducting and dancing, when he heard the recurring I Am The Doctor theme, his movements reaching fever pitch during the Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme. He was singing it out loud as we walked along to the Opera House.

Was it as good as Melbourne? Sadly, much as I still enjoyed this concert I could not answer yes to this question. Perhaps the orchestra and choir wasn't as good as the MSO and Concordis choir, but more than anything I blame the venue. The Sydney Opera House may be  the most famous piece of architecture in Australia, but I am certain now that there are serious issues with its acoustics and it's really starting to annoy me. (That, and the sloppy disdain for modern popular music held by the Sydney Symphony and those associated with it).

But if you are a Doctor Who fan and there are still seats to the Symphonic Spectacular available don't let my criticisms stop you. You must come and see the concert, because it really is spectacular and a lot of fun.

Music performed

The Madman With A Box
I Am The Doctor
Amy
A Stitch In Time
Brianosaurus
Abigail's Song
The Doctor, The Widow & The Wardrobe Suite
INTERVAL
Battle In The Skies
The Majestic Tale Of A Madman In A Box
Liz, Lizards, Vampires & Vincent
The Wedding Of River Song
This Is Gallifrey/Vale Decem
Pandorica Suite
The Final Chapter of Amelia Pond
Song Of Freedom
Doctor Who Theme

Spider-Alex is 4

These day not a week seems to go by without the release of some new superhero movie. But when have they ever made a film dedicated to the superhero's support crew? The people that feed them, sew up their costumes and clean up after them. Where's The Butler Begins (Mopping Again) or The Incredible Hulk's Tailor?

It's hard work being the support crew, but that was our role on Saturday as we hosted a greater collection of superheros than The Avengers movie at Alex's fourth birthday party.

Three long nights of cake baking, decorating and popping. My hat goes off to my fanatic cake decorating colleagues as it is a fiddly and expensive process, belied by the simplicity of books and YouTube videos. Alex helped where he could, but even he slept late.

When the day arrived we go stuck in a jam trying to enter a Hurstville carpark so we could collect the sausage buns we had ordered from a Chinese bakery. Then a magically lost ticket turned a free park into a $25 one.

We barely made it to the park on time, so thanks to the in-laws for grabbing a table for us. We quickly set up the food as the first guests arrived. Family, B's friends, Alex's preschool friends, many dressed up in superhero costumes, as was a muscly Spider-man Alex.

Faced with a larger crowd than initially expected we hired an entertainer to keep the kids amused and it worked a treat. Spider-man/Isaac had the kids in stitches with his magic tricks and games. The huge smile on Alex's face made it all worthwhile.

When Isaac started making the balloon animals other kids asked for dinosaurs, flowers or weapons. Alex requested an apple!

Much of the food was devoured, the fruits, spinach cob dip, jellies and cake pops, leaving us enough buns for half a week's lunch. And the rain stayed away, despite the threatening grey clouds and the torrential (but localised) rain and hail of the day before.

Afterwards, my side of the family and us headed off to Top Ryde to find dinner, ending up in a pub after the other eateries proved too expensive. Alex fell asleep on the way hope and refused to wake up for a shower or change of clothes or even the gorgeous firework show that magically appeared over the Georges River.

This was certainly a different birthday to last year's in Paris and far more exhausting. It may not be easy being in the superhero support crew, but it is fun.

Citizenship

B became a citizen of Australia today. The last step in the process was to attend the citizenship ceremony at the Sutherland Entertainment Centre. Watching the families and individuals walk on stage to accept their certificates of citizenship warmed my heart, as I genuinely believe that Australia is a better place for its diversity of peoples. Certainly the Sutherland Shire could do with a greater mix, though many on stage were of Anglo-Celtic origin, as were all but one of the government and community guests.

Speaking of them, I was, as always, appalled by our Federal (Liberal) member who praised coal, iron and entrepreneurship as the greatest things about the country. Spends all his time complaining about taxes. Oh well, now B gets the chance to decide on his future and that of the rest of the country, including our son.

There are many things that diversity brings to Australia. One is definitely food. Prior to the ceremony we had a quick dinner of "modern Vietnamese cuisine", which was quite nice, despite the pan-Asian nature of their menu, plus a couple of nods to local tastes. After the ceremony it was mini meat pies, sausage rolls and ANZAC biscuits.

The entertainment at the ceremony consisted of a couple of guys dressed in stockman outfits singing typical Australian folk songs.

To me, that's not Australia anymore. I'm not quite certain what it means to be Australian anymore. I'm not sure I care much about nationalistic identities, but I do think it should be richer, more sophisticated and more diverse than it so often portrayed as by "True Blue Aussies". Let's cast off our cultural straightjackets and celebrate and share our many different cultures. Once you accept that culture is a living thing and traditions are not laws life is far more fun.

Make it so!

A presentation from NASA's Dr Harold White about how an Alcubierre Warp Drive might work [pdf] and how they are testing for it. See the Discovery article for a less technical explanation.

The Olympic Legacy

As the final ceremony of the London Olympics fades away the media are already asking whether they were better than Sydney. I have no answer to that question as I have only seen a little of these latest games, held as they were, across the other side of the world. It matters not in the end, for hopefully each Olympics learns from the successes and failures of those that preceded it.

Yesterday we visited the Sydney 2000 Olympic site at Homebush for one of its fine legacies, the Aquatic Centre. Unfortunately, the water playground was closed for maintenance, but it did give us the opportunity to drive elsewhere around the site.

The location at Homebush has many detractors, but I suspect that many are from those who restrict themselves through snobbery to the eastern areas of this city. I like the lonely grandeur of these venues that only come alive for sports matches, concerts and the annual agricultural show. Maybe because it allows me to remember the crowds and the buzz of twelve years ago.

I don't think Sydney has ever been better than it was during the games. When not attending events I was in the city. It had a relaxed and happy atmosphere, workers crowding around the big screens at Martin Place and elsewhere to watch Olympic events, or on the televisions which sprung up across offices everywhere. More people supposedly departed Sydney than arrived for the duration of the games. I like to think that the city's nastiness departed with them.

So I think the Sydney Olympics were a success, if only a fleeting one, just to show that this could be a great city. I hope that London enjoyed its time too.

Two Towers Concert

I missed out on the Sydney Symphony's Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring concert last year, mainly because I had blown the concert budget. But also because I attended the SSO's Lord of the Rings Symphony way back when the composer, Howard Shore, conducted it. Truth was that I was a bit disappointed at the lack of the original exotic instruments and hence a different sound. The SSO has got me before like than, most notably with Tan Dun.

I've probably blown my concert budget again this year (whole family down to Melbourne for the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular) but I waited until the cheap restricted tickets were released for the SSO's LOTR: The Two Towers performance. Okay it meant restricted vision, but I was there for the music.

In my opinion the music of the Two Towers improved upon the first installment's. I first really listened to the soundtrack while on holiday in the South Island of New Zealand, and there can be no more appropriate place than that.

The deal with this performance was that the music would be performed by the orchestra while the film was shown on a big screen above. I didn't expect that the dialogue and effects tracks would also be played, but they were. I couldn't see the point of that, as you can always watch the movie in the comfort of your own home in that case. It's difficult not to focus on the film because it is rather good!

I was seated in the middle right section of the very front row, but I still had decent vision of most of the screen. Unfortunately, I found the nearby speaker rather distracting and confused my localisation of sound from the orchestra. Still, that was a minor issue. The other downside of the seat was that I could only see the conductor and the front strings sections, when vision of the rest of the orchestra would have been interesting. I shouldn't complain though, the tickets were discounted.

Unlike my last few experiences with the SSO, the performance was generally excellent, with only a few minor wobbles from the brass section. The sounds seemed genuine, though I do wonder if it was actually a hardanger (Norwegian fiddle) used for the Rohirrim scenes as the chief violinist's (she did the solos) instrument looked the same as a normal violin, except there were electrical wires emerging from it. Sound modification or just a soloist's microphone, I wouldn't know.

The two choirs, the Sydney Philharmonic and Sydney Children's were both fantastic and the solo vocalists Clara Sanabras and Sebastian Pini were wonderful. The Opera House's acoustics again seemed to detract from the overall sound. It's a pity that this wonderful piece of architecture just doesn't support the perfomers properly.

Will I attend the final installment, The Return of the King? Quite possibly. I'm sure that it will be staged because all sessions of The Two Towers appeared to be virtually sold out.

The applause at the end lastest as long as a Peter Jackson battle scene: The Extended Edition.

Blocked help

Oh it is such a joy to use Microsoft based technologies. Needed a Sitecore (A .Net based web content management system) API reference. So far as I could see it was only available on their developers network as a Windows help file. Download file. Double click. Can't view contents. Need to go back on the web and search to discover that you need to go back into the properties of the help file and click "Unblock". Nowhere does Microsoft make that obvious. If I were using an open source CMS then the APIs would probably be in nice searchable and commented HTML files easily available on the web.