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SPEAKING
PART 1
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Do you enjoy attending cultural events in your home country?
I live in a village which, despite its relatively small size, has quite a
lively cultural scene. There’s a local dramatic society which puts on
plays two or three times a year, and I enjoy going to those. There’s also
an art society, a photographic club and a few other cultural groups who
hold exhibitions and shows once or twice a year. However, for anything
else I have to go to the nearest city, which is two hours away by bus. I go
there when I can, if there’s something I really want to see, but getting into
the city takes time and of course costs money. So yes, I do enjoy cultural
events, but I don’t do so as often as I’d like.
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Have you attended any interesting cultural events recently?
Last year our local dramatic society put on a performance of Goethe’s
‘Faust’. It was interesting and unusual because instead of performing the
play in a theatre, they did it outside in the village. Each act took part
outside a different building in the village, like the town hall, the church
and so on. So instead of sitting down and watching the play, the audience
followed the actors around the village and then stood there to watch the
action. Also, instead of being set in the sixteenth century or whenever, the
play was set in the 1920s, so the actors were dressed in 1920s clothes and
there was a jazz band which played before and after each scene. I thought
that was really clever and original.
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Are there any museums or art galleries you’ve been to that you would
recommend to others?
I think one museum I love and would really recommend is the Mus
é
e
d’Orsay in Paris. I was in the city on a weekend break a couple of years
ago and hadn’t actually planned on going there, but the weather wasn’t
very good, so it seemed like a good idea. Anyway, the Mus
é
e d’Orsay has
the biggest collection of impressionist and Post-impressionist art in the
world. Artists like Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Degas are all
represented there. However, one of the best things about this museum is
the building itself. It’s a converted railway station, still with many of the
original features like the glass ceiling, the station clock and so on.
Visually it’s really quite stunning.
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Would you consider yourself to be artistic in any way?
That’s a good question. I suppose it depends on what you mean by
artistic. I’m not very good at painting, but I can draw a little, and I
especially like drawing pictures of my friends, usually exaggerating their
features like their hair, nose and mouth. And I’m really keen on
photography. Not holiday pictures or things like that, but more abstract
things that I see when I’m out. Shapes, shadows and details on buildings,
that kind of thing. Does that count as being artistic? I also have a guitar
which I’ve sort of taught myself to play. But not very well, I’m afraid to
say. Actually, that’s one regret of mine, not learning how to play a
musical instrument. I have a friend who plays the piano and I’m really
jealous of her!
PART 2
Describe a book, film or play that you particularly enjoyed.
You should say:
what it was called and who wrote or directed it
what it was about
who the main characters were
and explain why you particularly enjoyed it.
I don’t really enjoy big Hollywood films, you know, with lots of special
effects and famous actors. I prefer watching films made by small,
independent film companies, which are more interesting, more unusual,
perhaps a bit more adventurous. Anyway, I recently saw a wonderful comedy
set in New Zealand called ‘What We Do in the Shadows’. I can’t remember
the name of the person who directed it, but he’s quite well known in New
Zealand, I think. And there weren’t any famous big-name actors in it.
Anyway, it’s a sort of documentary, a fake documentary, about a group of
vampires who share a house in Wellington. Like a real documentary there
isn’t really a story. We just see these vampires sitting around the kitchen
table and chatting, or arguing about whose turn it is to do the washing up
and cleaning, just like ordinary flatmates do. The camera also follows them
as they go out at night to look for victims or meet up with their vampire
friends. The main vampire in the house is called Viago. He’s a really funny
character, very uptight and obsessed about keeping the house clean. The
other vampires are called Vlad, Deacon and Petyr, and they all have their
own characteristics. Deacon, for example, likes knitting and dancing. I
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