uptone

Thursday, 10 November 2011

George Tilley is now 18 years old!

Happy Birthday George!

Click here to watch yourself growing up (from 1989 to now): http://www.sharenow.com/relations/folders/279/

Lots of love - Dow

Peter Andre opening his New York Coffee Club in East Grinstead

This must be the highest profile occasion ever to take place in the centre of East Grinstead! It was crazy!

Here's that photo the paparazzi are taking (which you can just see me in, top left, taking that video!):

image: 3am.co.uk

News coverage of this story:

Sunday, 2 October 2011

Harry Wood is joint winner of The Carol Barnes Courageous Child of the Year Award 2011

Harry Wood on stage at the Theatre Royal Brighton

The Argus Achievement Awards ceremony was held on 2 Oct 2011 at Theatre Royal Brighton. The master of ceremonies was newsreader Nick Owen.

Joint winners of The Carol Barnes Courageous Child of the Year Award 2011 were:

Harry Wood (appears in the last few seconds of the video), David Edwards, Rhien Browning, Charlie Allen, Maisie Smith, Millie Davis, Craig Beckett and Stephen Robinson.

And here's the link to the video Harry made to thank the doctors and everyone who wished him well after his accident and during his recovery, that earned him his award: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpT9cPv06lU

Each of the 8 winners of the award were given a 'front page'-style framed certificate and a cheque for £100!

Another awardee whom Harry was pretty chuffed to meet was former Chelsea FC footballer, now manager of Brighton and Hove Albion FC, Gus Poyet for his Contribution to Sussex Sport.

Here's The Argus's coverage of the awards:

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9284154.Argus_Achievement_Awards_hail_Sussex_heroes/

These guys kept us entertained during the interval: The Iron Boot Scrapers They were great fun!

Harry Wood is 15 years old and attends Greenfields School in Forest Row, East Sussex.

Thursday, 15 September 2011

No Naughty Bits: How smutty British childish humour took on corporate America and won

Read my guest blog post on TheRealGilliamFan:

No Naughty Bits Press Night #montypython #terrygilliam #michaelpalin

A very short and very loud clip of Terry Gilliam gesticulating a lot

It was a total celeb-fest! In other words, to use a Jonathan Ross term, the celeb/civilian quotient was rather high!

Nigel Franklin talking to Terry Gilliam still gesticulating

In no particular order, on Tues 13 Sept, in addition to Terry Gilliam himself, the Hampstead Theatre was graced by:

Emma Thompson
David Gilmour
Steve Punt
Larry Lamb
Alexei Sayle
Greg Wise
Maureen Lipman
Amy Rosenthal
Simon Jones
Nancy Lewis-Jones
Tim McInnerny
Alison Steadman
Maryam d'Arbo
Hugh Hudson
Robert Hands
Christopher Biggins

I had such fun that night - one of the most amazing and memorable nights of my life. Thank you SO much to all the lovely staff of the Hampstead Theatre who looked after me so well.

I gave the author of http://therealgilliamfan.blogspot.com over in the US a bit of a shock during the interval. I called her up, then handed my phone to Terry Gilliam. She blogged about the experience here: I Just Told Terry Gilliam "I Love You!!".

In addition to chatting with Terry, I was very pleased to be able to see Simon Jones again. He is SUCH a lovely man. So warm, kind and friendly. I had to talk about his "This is my receipt for your receipt" scene in Brazil, obviously. I also met his wife, Nancy Lewis-Jones, who I think was very tickled for having just seen herself on stage in 1975. And I met their charming son, Tim Jones, who took this picture of his dad and I.

John Wood (me) with Simon Jones

As if that wasn't enough, I ALSO had a chat with David Gilmour. I told him that the album Wish You Were Here was a major part of my school years and that it is just an incredible album. I've got an idea I'm not the first to tell him that, but I'm really glad I did anyway. It sort of completes the circle, and it's not every day you get the opportunity to do that sort of thing now is it?

Press Night Photos/Reviews

The Real Gilliam Fan Blog

Other links

The last page of the script, signed by Nancy Lewis-Jones and Terry Gilliam