New website coming soon

Hello there. Tom Wateracre here.

I'm mashing my website like a swede and remodelling it into a brand new whizzy website which will encompass all areas of my life. Well, not all areas, just the interesting ones.

That will mean that it will look a bit messy round here for a bit. Please hang on, as normal - if not actively better - service will be resumed soon.

Hooray!

Act/React: The King Of Spain

I made a new half-hour show for the lovely people at Upstart Theatre on the 10th November, and they were kind enough to put some video highlights up on YouTube. Here they are, for your delectation!

About Tom Wateracre

Tom Wateracre is a comedian, actor, writer and songwriter, based in London, England.

He was born at the tail-end of the Seventies, in Surbiton, Surrey, an area emerging from the horrible shadow of The Good Life. A childhood of introspection and isolation produced a man of oblique talent - with a fascination for the smaller peccadillos of interpersonal behaviour. And also of battles between alien spacecraft.

He got into acting in his teenage years, which were regularly described by onlookers as "difficult". Whilst attending the University of Exeter, he ran a fortnightly comedy sketch show with the other founder members of what was to become Pegabovine.

Pegabovine's first post-university show The Freudian Slip won two awards at the National Student Drama Festival in 2003, including the Festgoer's Prize for most popular play.

Wateracre took part in Pegabovine's two Edinburgh Fringe shows - "The Slush Pile" (2006) and "Coat Of Arms" (2007) - before taking the reins for 2008's "Polite Club", a one-man show of songs and sketches.

With Pegabovine, he has also appeared on Radio 4's 28 Acts In 28 Minutes, and on the BBC's Edinburgh YouTube channel. Pegabovine's podcast House Of Mirth is produced by Tom from the comfort of his home-studio-slash-bedroom.

He has deputised for both the Penny Dreadfuls (Brighton Comedy Festival, White Mischief, Edinburgh Bongo Club) and Potted Potter (Big Brother's Little Brother - C4).

His writing has appeared on BBC7's "Tilt", and he was long-listed for the BBC's "Witty & Twisted" competition. He is currently completing his first original screenplay.

He has worn glasses since the age of two, and was almost killed at age 27 by a pie.

He wears the soles of shoes down to a smooth finish in about three months.

He shops for food like his six-year old self would (lots of jelly babies and ice cream).

He welcomes you to his website.


Tom can also be found on Spotlight, Casting Call Pro, IMDB, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Noostar, MusicalComedy...

Voice, Voice Overs and Voice Acting

I am an actor, comedian, singer and voice actor. I have appeared on BBC Radio 4 and Channel 4, as well as on self-produced podcasts for this website and for Pegabovine. I have also recorded voicework for ILEX (Institute of Legal Executives), the National Student Drama Festival, Kulture Vulture Films, and did two years of music-based shows on Xpression FM.

Here are some samples of my voicework. Either download or listen using the available players. I am available for voiceovers and voice work by emailing me at the contact address on your right.

Voice Reel (1:42) - Download



Longer sample of "Leaving Microsoft To Change The World" by John Wood (1:04) - Download



Longer sample of "Henry V" (2:50) - Download




See also my profile at Voices.com.

Reviews

Here's a collection of some of the reviews I've written for publication and for fun.

For types of reviews, click the links below:-

Theatre
Film
Live Music
Albums
TV
Experiences

What People Say About Tom

"Charm personified... If Wateracre was wearing a cap, you could be sure he'd doff it to passing ladies." - Chris McCall, Fest Magazine, "Polite Club" review

"Top-quality musical material... the confidence of a natural performer." - Ashley Davies, The Scotsman, "Polite Club" review

"Hugely likeable" - Alexandra Hilliard, Three Weeks, "Polite Club" review

"Wateracre gave a subtle and mature comic performance as the eccentric and repressed Kenneth which ought to have the RSC battering at his door, if that's what he would like." - Julia Chamberlain, Chortle, "The Slush Pile" review

"Every scene is stolen by the third sibling, Quentin (Wateracre)... Wateracre seems to carry the spirit of Graham Chapman, undermining the authority figure he cuts with a self-destructive, devil-may-care mischief." - Steve Bennett, Chortle, "Coat Of Arms" review

Big Brother's Little Brother

Due to Jeff sadly having to go on holiday, I deputised for him when Potted Potter appeared on Big Brother's Little Brother. I met Zezi and everything!

Casino Royale (a long time after everyone else has seen it)

Whilst reading about Gemma Arterton (I promise you, I am in no way obsessed by her delightful pointy nose and Uma Thurman bob), I came across an article about her in the new Bond film which had a spoiler warning.

It then said "Although, if you're reading an article about Bond 22 without having seen 'Casino Royale', you're an enormous internet geek who learns about the plots and characters of films from Wikipedia or Empire Online and not by actually seeing the films in question. Saddo. Get out more." I'm paraphrasing.

It was pretty shocking to realise, then, that I hadn't seen "Casino Royale". Despite being a Bond fan, despite my exciting fortnight working in the EON props archive, despite what everyone said about it, I still hadn't seen it.

Well, now I have.

If you haven't seen it, this review isn't going to be much help to you, but here's a cursory run-through of the plot. (Don't worry, there's not much plot in this film.) James Bond is, like, just some dude who kills two people and then instantly becomes an impassionate, cold-blooded killer. He does some running around, is in the Evening Standard, gets told off, goes to the Bahamas, annoys some guy, wins this guy's car at cards and sleeps with his wife. The guy is working for another, more mean guy, who has a scarred face. Now, this new guy is evil. The only tears he cries are tears of BLOOD, ffs! He likes playing cards and being evil, and so invites people to play cards and maybe a little evil on the side and Bond turns up to play some cards and see just how evil this guy is. By this point, there's an accountant with Bond, who is a hot chick (who'd have thought...). He plays some cards, beats up some guys, plays some cards, gets beaten up, plays some cards, gets poisoned, dies, comes back to life, plays some cards and then wins. The lady accountant is upset by all the beatings for about thirty seconds, then gets over it. Bond and lady then get captured, and the evil, blood-weeping guy plays Flicksies with Bond's testicles. Bond is hurt pretty bad, but when he wakes up, he decides that he is TOTAWWY IN WUV with the accountant. Then some stuff happens with some other dudes who aren't related to the weepy-blood guy, there's a big finish, and a smarmily self-referential coda.

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but for the first ten minutes I sat there thinking "this is just like a Bond film!" It didn't feel as dramatically different as I was led to believe. They had that goofy incorporation of the gun barrel logo, and another pretentious title sequence. The parkour stunt sequence, running up the crane, fighting on the crane, falling off the crane, is bloody great. After that point, it kind of waffled on for about an hour, batting off embarrassing cameos from Richard Branson and, uh, Gunther von Hagens and doesn't really pick up until Eva Green turns up, with her smokey eyes and smirky face. I liked her in this a lot, despite the fact that - as my housemate pointed out - her relationship with Bond is pretty stupid.

My main criticism of Daniel Craig as James Bond is that sometimes director Martin Campbell shoots him in darkened rooms and in the half-light, he looks exactly like Ray Stubbs.



Because Craig looks enormous. When he first tries on his dinner jacket, prancing around a hotel room, he looks like Bongo, the bouncer from the Ink & Paint Club in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". He is clearly exceptionally muscled, as the scene in the dinky pants shows (ladies), and after forty years of a lithe Bond (apart from in "A View To A Kill", ho ho), it's quite weird to see not a gentleman killer, but a killer - like someone cast Ricky Hatton as James Bond. Bond has always been the physical underdog - think of the look on Connery's face as he sized up Oddjob. Or Moore being pounded on the head by the massive hands of Jaws. In the exhilarating parkour sequence, the villain is the leapy, sproingy lightweight, and Bond is the hulking oaf literally running through walls. And what's painful is that Craig is clearly an intelligent actor, but the script requires him to be "a blunt object". He's a thug. Maybe the theory behind the progression of this "reboot" of Bond is that, over time, Craig slims down, becoming more like the Bond we know.

(Incidentally, rather than the Bourne films, I realised whilst watching it that my enjoyment of the Bond films has probably spilled into my love of "Spooks", and I then realised that Bond should probably be played by Rupert Penry-Jones.)

Tonally, the film's a bit like watching "The World Is Not Enough" whilst someone occasionally kicks you in the head (or plays Flicksies with your testicles). The imported grittiness feels jarring, and the humour (obviously from the flamboyant purple quills of Neil Purvis and Robert Wade) doesn't sit well with the lunk they've asked Craig to be. Then there's the much-vaunted contribution of Paul Haggis, a man whose origins creating kindly-mountie cop-fluff "Due South" I will bring up every time I speak of him. I loathed "Crash", and all the cloying dialogue late in the game about how Bond has "no armour… you've stripped it from me" is textbook Haggis. Craig even speaks Haggis's dialogue with the same enormous significance as they did in "Crash" - like there's a lump of coal in his mouth, and if he gently spits it out, Tiny Tim will be warm this Christmas.

It should also be mentioned that this film is really damned long. It's two hours and twenty-four minutes. Like I said, other than the parkour chase, the opening hour is all faff, and it's only once Eva Green plonks herself unceremoniously into the seat opposite Bond on the train to Montenegro that the film hunkers down and focuses. The love story doesn't work because it is fluffy and vague - Bond has been established as a cold-hearted rogue who clearly just wants to jump Green's bones, and we're supposed to believe that, after the Flicksies, Bond genuinely is in love. It's nonsense, and again jars with the smart-arse toughnut they've spent the previous two hours setting up. And then they go all Tracy in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" with the end of the film, which hopefully sets up Bond 22's excoriating examination of Bond's misogyny… it was all Eva Green's fault! Damned women! Can't trust them as far as you can throw them down a lift-shaft!

I absolutely agree that the franchise needed a re-think after "Die Another Day", which was the frothiest piece of nonsense the Bond films have ever thrown up. The good news is that "Casino Royale" doesn't have an invisible car or Toby Stephens playing the son of a North Korean general, or Halle bloody Berry. The bad news is that the weaker writing aspects of the Purvis/Wade era are exacerbated by Paul Haggis schmaltzification, and together they have contrived to make Bond a step away from being played by The Rock. Where "Batman Begins" provided an origin movie which showed the raw potential of a man being shaped into a hero, here Bond is a lump of clay, and remains a lump of clay. The hope is that Daniel Craig's Bond continues to develop over the next couple of films into something a little… well… Bondier.

American Gangster

American Gangster arrives in cinemas feted as a proper old crime epic, a throwback to "Goodfellas", to "Scarface", to "The Godfather". What could be better than two hours and forty minutes of narcs and kneecapping, especially when in such capable hands as Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott? Well...

Washington plays the titular gangster Frank Lucas, a real-life Harlem kingpin who hits on the boffo idea of buying heroin straight from the growers, an early proponent of the Fairtrade movement. In fact… a bold, original idea? Stacks of money? Dark-suited Mafioso-types? Where have I seen that before?

Crowe plays Richie Roberts, the detective who uncovers Lucas's scheme, principally by going to the Ali/Frazier fight and seeing who is in the front row. Roberts spends the next hour and a half trying to catch Lucas with his fingers in the cookie jar, before Lucas discovers (SPOILER ALERT!) that crime doesn't pay. Crowe is in schlub mode here - an early scene of him working out, doing some benchpresses, and sculpting his guns, doesn't help to distract us from the floppiness of his hair and - later - his breathless panting after going up some stairs. It was genuinely weird to come back from the cinema and see "Gladiator" on the TV, with a lithe Crowe shanking some hapless Roman in the guts, and equate it with sad-sack Crowe making a crisp sandwich in "American Gangster".

To be fair, the acting in this is pretty great. Lucas is depicted as still and quiet where his contemporaries are brash, and Washington turns in his usual exemplary display of confidence, vulnerability, charm, and moments of pause. Crowe's character too is quiet, understated, occasionally brought out into righteous anger. How odd that the two main characters in this grandiose-seeming film are probably the two most understated, which makes their eventual confrontation and collaboration seem fitting and right. They're portrayed as similar people - both with great integrity, both with a very American drive for work, both with a robust set of principles. However, I prefer Washington as a hero - there's a real kindness in his eyes that even in his uberbastard mode in this and "Training Day" lets us know that everything's going to be okay - and never quite bought into him being the type to commit the sporadic careless violence that Frank commits.

The cast is filled out with some neat little performances - Josh Brolin as the corrupt cop is flamboyantly cruel, shooting dogs and wearing a mean moustache. It was great to see the awesome John Hawkes from "Me You And Everyone We Know" in a key role, and there are some good rap-related roles for the RZA, T.I. and especially Common, who puts in a warm and engaging performance in a very short time. (I wonder if Ridley Scott knew about the anachronistic nature of the RZA's Wu tattoo. Or tatt-Wu. Maybe the RZA wouldn't let them put make-up over it.)

Less impressive, unfortunately, is Chiwetel Ejiofor, who I ordinarily think is bloody marvellous. In this, he didn't really have much to do, and in a long-shot of the Lucas brothers walking down the street, his confidence was let down by his English shoulders (spot the body posture geek).

The less said about Cuba Gooding Jr the better.

Despite the largely good performances, the film never quite earns its epicness. (Epicity?) The film walks some pretty well-trodden ground, and it does so timidly - never quite wanting to grandstand as spectacularly as "Scarface", and demurely slinking around the glamour that the life has afforded Lucas. You sense that his family is what drives him to continue, and it is only near the end with events slipping out of his control that he starts believing his own hype and really becomes a monster of greed. What we are left with is the straight guy of crime, when we probably really want to see the hilarious excess of 'Mr Untouchable' Nicky Barnes. (Although preferably not played by Cuba Gooding Jr.)

The violence is shocking, yet very sporadic, but still provoked enthusiastic wincing from our audience. The film is long on quiet character moments and short on action; even the drive-by shooting is quite matter-of-fact. Probably the best influence of Ridley Scott is evoking the environment of Harlem in the early '70s, with rundown Projects contrasted with the 1970s version of high-class. "That's alpaca!" says Washington of a blood-soaked rug, "Don't rub it! Dab it!"

So, a pretty run of the mill gangster movie, with little to recommend it above re-watching "Scarface" than Washington's performance. Perhaps the most confusing element of the whole thing is that Jay-Z was so inspired by the movie that he recorded a whole album based on both the film and its parallels in his own life. As another drug-dealer-turned-business-man, you could perhaps see where Jay-Z was going, but where Jay's own glittering career signified a new business world where African-Americans could be dominant, the film ends with Lucas as an outcast from the criminal community, principally because his intuition and, to some extent, ethnic origins had alienated him from the Italians who had supported his dealings, upsetting the status quo. The film's final shot sees Washington released from prison in 1991, alone and vulnerable in a new world, soundtracked not by "Across 110th Street", but by Public Enemy. So why was Jay-Z so inspired? Perhaps it is that Jay-Z's business model went from crime to using his talent as a springboard into legitimate business, and Lucas's tale suggests how different things could have ended up for the Roc-A-Fella businessman - short-lived glamour, followed by punishment. Lucas's Gangster is American because of initiative and ambition, because of principles and respect, but in latter-day America, you either (to paraphrase another rapper/businessman) get rich or die trying.

"Capturing Mary" (A Review In Kind)

As grammar is one of my strong suits, I have decided to become a 1950s gossip journalist. This blog is now only going to be filled with amazing tales of glamour and celebrity.

Yesterday, with the sun setting orangily across a mild Autumnal night, as I was crossing Hungerford Bridge in London's fashionable South Bank district, I passed the legendary film actor Mr Dustin Hoffman. Mr Dustin Hoffman! And that was but the start of it!

I was perambulating across the river on the way to the National Film Theatre where I was attending a screening of a film that my friend Ms H* is in. Ms H was late, due to the fact that she was doing something or other of great glamour and importance**. I bartered with the box office staff, they gave me one of our two allotted tickets and said that I should go in in case the film started. It was a preview of a film that is going to be on the BBC - written and directed by Mr Stephen Poliakoff, with Ms Maggie Smith, Ms Ruth Wilson (the one with the extraordinary mouth who was in Jane Eyre) and - bizarrely - Mr David Walliams.

I entered the theatre and some man-jack was sitting in our seats, so I said "Excuse me, I think I'm supposed to be sitting there", and they started to gather their things together. It was then that I realised I was moving Mr Walliams himself! Calamity! I still made him move regardless. I sat down next to the girl that Mr Walliams had been delightfully chatting with and said "Whoops, I just moved Mr David Walliams" and then bumbled on for a bit about that being something of a faux pas. It should also be mentioned at this point that I was carrying a Morrison's bag containing a crumpled suit, so I didn't exactly look prepared for high art.

Then Ms H came and greeted the girl next to me, as she was also in the film. Another hilarious faux pas!

The film was quite long and preposterous - at points unbearably tense, at other points rather crass and camp. This isn't helped by Mr Walliams being in it. Mr Walliams plays a sinister sociopath, with several haunting moments where his large face stares ominously into the auditorium, intoning something drastic and dramatic. He also makes a salad. Much like Mr Kelly, it is difficult to know how to take a figure traditionally associated with light entertainment as a sinister figure - to my knowledge, Mr Benny Hill never played Iago, and with good reason. Ms Smith is splendid in it, though. The story is told in flashbacks, with Ms Smith narrating it to a charming Cockney lad and it gets a bit clogged up with exposition. Anyway, the film is going to be on the BBC, you can sample its delights yourself then if you wish. It is called "Capturing Mary".

During the film, I recognise an actress playing a confidante of Mr Walliams, but I am unsure from whence. (From where? From whence? I am unsure of the correct formation.) As the lights go up in the theatre at the end of the cinematograph, I realise that I am sitting next to the actress in question. Troisieme faux pas! Her name is Ms Gemma Arterton, and she is soon to be in the new St Trinians film, god bless her.

Messers Poliakoff, Wilson, Walliams and the aforementioned charming Cockney then assemble at the front of the stage for a question and answer session. Little of note is said, although apparently it was very good that the actors were "in the moment" at seemingly all moments. How they managed that is quite beyond me. How brave! In fact, the only revelation is that the Cockney lad in real life is not a Cockney at all but a very well-spoken young man. What an actor! Mr Walliams stares at me throughout, as if ominously intoning "You stole my chair. You stole my chair." The effect was quite sinister, but then perhaps he was just creating in his mind a new sketch for his "Little Britain" entertainment where someone asks someone to move in a cinema and the person who sits in the chair finds it is made of sick.

Mr Walliams did not, however, make a salad.

After this bijou dollop of insight into the film, we were afforded a further… a further dollop, I suppose, in the form of a short film starring the mouth and indeed the rest of the person of Ms Wilson. For fans of Ms Wilson, Ms Wilson's mouth, Dalmatians, and china trinkets, this short comes highly recommended. For fans of logic, perhaps not so.

Anyway, it rounded off a perfectly splendid evening of Poliakoffanalia. The mildness of the evening translated perfectly into the mildness of my affections for each of the films! Would that every Autumnal night were blessed with such a cinematic decoupage of delight!


* This is how they refer to people in these sorts of things, isn't it?
** The District Line was down.