Confession Time

One of the mags I write for (ooh I like saying that) has asked for a kind of year's round up of the year in arts and theatre. It's meant to be fun and as the last editor put it, "a bit self-indulgent." So when asked to give my performance highlight of the year, I offered what follows, with the new editor's response following...



LAURIE ANDERSON’S HOMELAND

My favourite performance of the year was Laurie Anderson’s Homeland. I wrote a review which appeared in these pages, but I did not read the review when it came out and I only have a vague recollection of what I wrote because on that wonderful Sunday night in October I did something I have never done before and will never do again. Somehow between seeing the gig, meeting Laurie and getting home to belt out the review (due first thing in the morning), I got drunk before writing the review. Not a bit tiddly or cutely sloshed but falling over drunk. In fact the only thing preventing me falling over all the way from the Opera House to Surry Hills was the fact that I was sitting in a cab. This is the kind of drunk that only your nearest and dearest should see, and then only rarely.

Maybe it was the relief of finally getting what was to me a pretty important interview, maybe it was searing beauty of the performance itself or the unexpected bonus of meeting the star after the show – an artist whose work I have admired for a lifetime, but whatever the reason by the time I arrived home I was ripped, and I didn’t feel cool like Hunter S. Thompson.

I’d been suspicious about my level of intoxication during the cab ride, but it wasn’t until I sat down at the computer that it dawned on me just how scootered I was. The keyboard couldn’t focus itself and the letters were moving about like some funny bastard was shuffling the letters in a Scrabble set. I pouted and was not happy with the situation; I had to write a review of an amazing concert with a deadline of now! and I was utterly, atrociously, comically fucked.

Still, I set to work because at the end of the day I give what I have promised to give. It took centuries and a lot of squinting, wobbling and poking, but I eventually wrote my review of my performance highlight of the year. I hope it made a bit of sense. I recall it as being quite... erm... enthusiastic.

But with good reason.

Lee Bemrose

And the editor's response? "I like it but can you please make it a bit less about yourself and more about the performance?"

Quite frankly, I was gobsmacked.