Blog Archive: October 2025

Entertaining Mr Sloane
On Saturdays at this time of year I can often be found travelling to see my good friend Mr P Myland to have a drink and then sit together through an afternoon of expressive arts. Usually this is to Peterborough to see The Football, but on the Saturday just gone it was to London's glittering theatreland to see A PLAY with him and the rest of the group we know as The Mylands.

For LO! we had tickets to go and see Entertaining Mr Sloane at The Young Vic, a theatre what I have not been to before but which turned out to be VERY nice. It was peasy to get too, there was an ample bar selling booze and Actually Rather Tasty grub, and the seating within the theatre itself was v comfy and felt very up close to the action of the show. The only minor quibble I had was that they have invested in TERRIBLE stools that were surely designed by someone who has never seen an arse in their life - they have the same ones now at The Barbican (yes, I am very sophisticated) and they are awful.

Apart from that it was all great and the show itself was dead good too. It starred Tamzin Outhwaite out of Eastenders, Moxey from Auf Wiedersehn Pet, The Bloke From Rizzle Kicks, and Daniel Cerqueira who has not been in any telly I've watched but who was good. Tamzin Outhwaite was VERY good throughout, and Moxey was too, which made The Bloke From Rizzle Kicks look slightly - not a lot, but slightly - less good overall. It was his first proper stage play apparently, so with that in mind he did all right. I suppose the Young Vic would want to cast him as a way to get in young people who are so easily swayed by this sort of thing, unlike hepcats like me who definitely weren't just there to see Mel from Eastenders. AT ALL.

The play itself was a bit of a rum old do. I am very mildly familiar with Joe Orton from a) living in Leicester for a long time b) reading about his unmade Beatles movie and c) us doing "Loot" when I was a student, but wasn't familiar with this one at all. I read online afterwards that it was like a cross between Harold Pinter and Beckett, which seems pretty perfect to me. It was odd though thinking about how SHOCKING it would have been at the time, but that the things that shock us now are the general air of misogyny and acceptance of violence, whereas the amorality and comedy of awkwardness is something that's been absorbed into culture generally. Stick that on your posters, Young Vic!

It was a highly delightful way to spend a Saturday afternoon with highly delightful people, and was certainly more fun than recent trips to London Road have been. I wonder if they do Season Tickets?

posted 8/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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The Rubber-Keyed Wonder
The other night I was gently scrolling through Amazon Prime on the telly, as one is wont to do, and was delighted to see that The Rubber-Keyed Wonder was available to view.

I had vaguely heard of this film being out, but even if I hadn't the fact that it clearly showed a ZX SPECTRUM in amongst all of the other tiles showing gruff looking people looking Serious because they were solving CRIME meant that I was bound to watch it, and I am glad I did because it was GRATE. It was packed with familiar places, games and people - they seemed to have interviewed pretty much EVERYBODY who is still alive and had done a thoroughly excellent job of telling the full story of how this mighty machine came along and not only changed a the lives or people who had them and laid the groundwork for the massive British computing industry what we know and love today.

It's wonderful to see this story breaking out into the mainstream and becoming an accepted part of our national history. The whole reason I wrote the song Hey Hey 16K - over TWENTY FIVE years ago! - was that this seemed to be being forgotten - I make no claims that the song, and especially Rob Manuel's video was any part of this change in perception, but I would certainly like it if OTHER people said so!

With that in mind, it did feel a bit of a shame that they didn't use the song in the film. There were LOADS of sections where people said things like "Yes, we made it look educational so people would buy it TO HELP WITH YOUR HOMEWORK" or "It did in fact build A GENERATION WHO CAN CODE" and so on when it would have surely been IDEAL to lob in a bit of the song? I mean, I am highly aware that I do not own the rights on Remembering ZX Spectrums, but I would have totally been up for it if they'd asked!

Apart from that it was FAB and I'd highly recommend a watch to anyone of a similar disposition. But if anyone wants to make a film about e.g. realising you liked The Smiths a bit too late, or having a romance with someone who helps fix your computer, do get in touch!

posted 2/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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