Those damned Yanks. Not a clue between them. They come to London, go and watch Martin Freeman in Richard III at the theatre and once he’s done his ‘now is the winter of our discontent…’ soliloque, they clap. Applaud!!!! At a theatre!! Which is shameful and not what we do over here. And for good reason. Actors on stage have to get ‘into character’ far more keenly than those on screen. There are no retakes, no fuck-ups to end up on the director’s floor, there is just the moment. And that moment is shattered if the audience break into applause. It upsets the flow. Which is why British audiences (at least we’re the best at something) never applaud until the end of an act. Its not fair on the actors to do otherwise. Bleeding precious luvvies that they are.

Americans will generally clap and ‘whoop!’ at anything. Its what they do. That and Middle East invasions. They even clap at a cinema screen on occasion. Which, if you think about it, is just a touch weird.

But worse still is that these audiences who have so upset the ‘true’ theatre-goers don’t applaud great acting. No, they only applaud ‘stars’. And because Martin Freeman a Lord of the Rings star, and was totally brilliant in the tv series Fargo, he gets cheered and applauded on stage, whereas other perhaps lesser known actors, equally excellent, don’t. Its like the world of ‘Hello!’ has arrived at the stage door.

And is it the end for Roger Federer? Was yesterday’s amazing final possibly his last? I hope not, I truly love the man, in a very butch and back-slappy, manly kind of way, obviously. Yesterday’s match was simply incredible. And odd how such a majority were supporting Fed, the good guy, the white knight, and not Djokovich, cast in the Darth Vader, forces of evil role. Even Kate and Wills abandoned thier normal impartiality to cheer for Roger. Everyone wanted him to win. Other than the child molesters, rapists, people who eat at KFC, wife-beaters, terrorists and Lib Dems. They were on Novak’s side.

But it wasn’t to be. And even I have to admit that the Serb was very gracious in victory, very humble and even (for a Serb) quite charming. He obviously has a new speech-writer now he’s learning all from Boris Becker. Just don’t let him in the broom cupboard.

Ok, back to work

Happy monday

A xxxx