pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/GizmodoGalleryAnnex.jpg" style="display:block;" /For a few weeks you've been hearing about the Gizmodo Gallery in NYC, catching a href="http://gizmodo.com/tag/gizmodo-gallery/"plenty of teasers/a for the cool stuffmdash;contemporary marvels, homemade wundergear and pieces of historymdash;we're showing down at the Reed Annex on Orchard St. from today 12 noon through Sunday 4pm. Now, for the first time, we're revealing ithe whole list/i. And it's annotated, for your pleasure./p pbStuff You'll Never Own/bbr a href="http://gizmodo.com/5098715/at-giz-gallery-103+inch-plasma"Panasonic 103-Inch TV/abr The biggest production HDTV in the world, this 103-inch diagonal plasma is coincidentally the largest set we could fit into Reed Annex./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/372072/sony-xel+1-oled-tv-review-verdict-small-on-size-large-on-beauty"Sony 11-Inch OLED TV/abr OLED technology will power all flat-screen TVs in the future, but the beautiful, high-contrast wafer-thin screens are still excruciatingly expensivemdash;in this case $230 per diagonal inch, or $2500 for the set./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5042268/draganfly-x6-uav-ufo-thingy-packed-with-carbon-fiber-hdnight-cameras-and-gps"Draganfly X6 RC Helicopter/abr A carbon-fiber remote-controlled helicopter designed to be stable in 18mph winds or even if some of its motors die. It's GPS enabled and can be armed with a high definition camcorder or night vision. And it looks like a Terminator./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/341896/hands-on-with-optimus-maximus-keyboard"Optimus Maximus Keyboard/abr A keyboard with little OLED screens under each key, which can be programmed to display whatever character, picture or animation and trigger any keystrokes you want./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/carbon-butterfly-gallery-rc-plane-lighter-than-a-sheet-of-paper-251243.php"Carbon Butterfly RC Plane/abr This remote-controlled airplane is lighter than a piece of notebook paper because of lightweight balsa, carbon fiber and Swiss-made gears./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/curvaceous-cell/new-au-infobars-shave-corners-just-need-lube-303709.php"Au Infobar2/abr Despite it lacking a lengthy feature list, the Infobar2 is the most beautiful phone from Japan's AU company and I think maybe the most beautiful in the world. On Loan from Gizmodo Japan and Au./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/nab07-hands+on-red-one-4k-digital-cinema-camera-gallery-252750.php"Red One Movie Camera/abr A digital movie-making revolution and a future-proof modular platform, the 10-lb. digital video camera shoots pristine 4K-resolution movies with its 12-million-pixel "ultra high def" sensor./p pbStuff You Might Convince Your Mom To Buy You/bbr a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/yamahas-ysp+4000-flagship-surround-bar-does-upscaling-hdmi-xmipods-288971.php"Yamaha YSP-4000 Surround Sound Bar/abr This soundbar is a 5 channel surround sound system that uses cold war submarine sonar tech to bounce beams of audio against walls and to your ears from different angles./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/amazon-kindle-live/amazon-kindle-e+book-reader-launch-live-324292.php"Amazon Kindle Ebook Reader/abr The first wireless E-Ink ebook reader with a cellular connection, so you can buy and download books without the need for a computer. It bests the paperback but can't be safely read in the bathtub./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5038693/review-pentax-w60-waterproof-camera-catching-whale-sharks"Pentax W60 Waterproof Camera/abr I've had many happy times in Hawaii with this camera. It's my favorite because it works to 30 feet and yet is small enough to pocket without causing a bulge./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/380767/hands-on-yamahas-tenori+on-synthesizer-we-love-it"Yamaha Tenori-On Music Maker/abr A revolutionary rethinking of the music keyboard, this 16x16 pad of light-up keys interprets a player's finger strokes and performs a light and sound show in response./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5096518/at-gizmodo-gallery-weird-japanese-usb-gadgets"USB Heated Gloves/abr Thanko's Gloves use the power from a computer's USB ports to warm your fingers on cold winter mornings./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5096518/at-gizmodo-gallery-weird-japanese-usb-gadgets"USB Neck Tie/abr Thanko's USB powered neck ties have a built in fan for hot office afternoons./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/once-upon-a-time/using-belkins-weird-powerstrips-289558.php%3EBelkin%20Power%20Strips%3C/a%3E%3Cbr%20/%3EThe%20only%20power%20bricks%20we're%20proud%20to%20display%20have%20clever%20cable%20organizers%20and%20closing%20panels.%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3E%3Ca%20href="Wicked Lasers Torch/abr Currently pending Guinness records for being the most powerful flashlight of its kind, the 4100 lumen Torch can easily set paper on fire./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/will-it-blend-crazy-old-man-blends-everything-in-powerful-blender-215611.php"Blendtec Blender/abr We don't know if Blendtec makes the best blenders, but if they can shred bananas the way they can shred gadgets on their famous YouTube videos, we're sold./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/383843/casio-exilim-ex+f1-slow+mo-super-cam-full-review-verdict-totally-unique-shockingly-powerful"Casio Exilim EX-F1 Super-Slow-Motion Camera/abr The first consumer-grade camera to deliver 1200-frames-per-second slow-mo, it can also shoot 60 full-resolution stills per second./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/359388/hands-on-chumby-wi+fi-widget-beanbag-cuddly-in-more-ways-than-one"Chumby/abr It's an internet machine disguised as a pillow. I use it to check the snow report, play internet radio, tell the time, check the surf and read the news, but it can run hundreds of additional widgets./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5099074/aiptek-pocketcinema-v10-pico-projector-review"Aiptek V10 PMP Pico Projector/abr Battery-powered mini projector plays movies from an SD card, using an LED to project a picture up to 50" on the wall without burning your hand. One day, all cellphones will have these./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/wild-charge-hands+on-really-does-charge-wirelessly-227215.php"WildCharge Charging Station/abr A charging matt that uses nubs on a matt instead of wires to charge your devices./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5100801/at-gizmodo-gallery-a-never-seen-before-tokyoflash-watch"Tenmetsu Tokyo Flash Watch/abr Tokyoflash's Tenmetsu watch is one of the cleanest designed of their collection, and has never been seen before the Gizmodo Gallery./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5018137/3800+piece-death-star-diorama-is-coolest-star-wars-lego-ever"Lego Death Star/abr This Lego diorama includes 3800 pieces, 21 minifigs and is one of the biggest sets ever made. It's also the only one that can destroy entire brick planets at will./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/tokyo-found-godzilla-beer-dispenser-roars-when-you-pour-225195.php"Godzilla Beer Pourer/abr This Japanese gadget looses a Godzilla roar when you lock in a can and serve beer from its mouth./p pbStuff You'd Have To Make Yourself/bbr a href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/mods/samus-wii-mod-tucks-rolls-explodes-with-goodness-303933.php"Metroid-Modded Wii/abr Samus tucks, rolls and explodes out of this yellow light-up Wii./p pa href="http://benheck.com/original-atari-2600-vcsp"Ben Heck Custom Atari VCSp/abr Almost a decade ago, Ben Heckendorn sparked an entire underground scene of custom, hand-built game consoles when he deconstructed the classic Atari 2600, transforming it into the Atari VCSp, complete with built-in screen, sound amplifier, battery power, and aluminum frame. On loan via Ryan Block, gdgt./p pa href="http://www.coin-operated.com/projects/ipomadness"Jonah's Slot Machine/abr This web 1.0 bubble art project checked for short URLs and if you land on an available address, you've hit the jackpot./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5098617/at-gizmodo-gallery-free-diy-laser-etching"Make's Phil Torrone and His Laser Etcher/abr Yes, our friend Phil from MAKE Magazine is showing up with his laser etching device to brand custom images onto any and every surface./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5099673/at-giz-gallery-reader-meetup-with-a-back-to-the-future-delorean"Back To the Future-Modded DeLorean/abr Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads. Oh wait, yeah we domdash;this mod is pre-Mr. Fusion./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5057856/nes-bong-is-one-third-party-nintendo-accessory-you-wont-find-at-gamestop"NES Bong/abr A Nintendo controller modified into a contraption for smoking tobacco and only tobacco. On loan from some stoner./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5020490/msi-wind-running-mac-os-x-also-thinks-its-a-mac-pro"PC Running Mac OS X Using Hackintosh/abr We're partial to Macs at Gizmodo, but there's plenty of nice PC hardware that we'd love to run Mac OS on, like this MSI Wind Nettop that uses Hackintosh to get it done. On Loan from Brian X. Chen of WIRED.com/p pa href="http://www.ladyada.net/make/wavebubble/"Limor's Wave Bubble Radio Jammer/abr An open source radio wave jammer that will disable connections like those from Wi-Fi, GPS, cellular and RF. Illegal. Small enough to hide in a pack of cigarettes./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/super-tv+b+gone-bulked-up-to-90+foot-range-184527.php"TV B Gone/abr This pocket sized remote spams IR power codes of common TVs to shut off different makes and models. Not recommended for trade shows. Trust me./p pbThe Stuff of History/bbr a href="http://gizmodo.com/5091517/at-gizmodo-gallery-ancient-apple-phone-prototypes"Apple Phone Prototype/abr In the early 80's, Frog Design and Apple collaborated on this phone prototype with electronic check payment and a stylus for use on the monochrome screen./p pa href="http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffudder.de%2Fartikel%2F2007%2F07%2F17%2Fdie-design-vorfahren-des-iphone%2Fsl=detl=enhl=enie=UTF-8"Apple Tablet Prototype/abr From Frog and Apple's "Snow White" design language comes this tablet, looking very much like a cousin of the IIc./p pa href="http://gizmodo.com/5098364/at-gizmodo-gallery-the-original-sony-walkman"Sony's First Walkman/abr The TPS-L2 Walkman did not record and was panned by the press before its release in Japan in 1979. Right before becoming a huge success. On loan from Sony Tokyo Archives./p pa href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Mavica"First Sony Digital Mavica Cam/abr This 1988 electronic camera paved the way for modern digital cameras. It wrote to a floppy disk and had a TV output cable./p pa href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blickensderfer_typewriter"Blickensderfer Portable Typewriter/abr George Blickensderfer's portable typewriters, introduced around 1892, were advertised as "The Five-Pound Secretary." The Model 6, first sold in 1906, offered an aluminum framework, at that time a relatively expensive and rare metal. On loan from Christopher Bonanos./p pa href="http://www.clickondavid.com/polaroid.html"Polaroid Land Camera, Model 95/abr In the fall of 1947, the chemist Edwin Land brought a few dozen new cameras and a pile of film to Boston's Jordan Marsh department store, to demonstrate the instant-photography system he'd developed./p pa href="http://www.corp.att.com/attlabs/reputation/timeline/83celltech.html"Bell Labs Briefcase Phone/abr First used in 1984 as an early example of a transportable cell phone (most other cell phones were car only phones). On Loan from the ATT Archives and History Center./p pa href="http://www.corp.att.com/attlabs/reputation/timeline/70picture.html"Bell Labs Picturephone/abr The first Picturephone test system, built in 1956, was crudemdash;it transmitted an image only once every two seconds. But by 1964 a complete experimental system, the "Mod 1," had been developed and wasbr displayed at the New York World's Fair, paired to a model at Disneyland. On Loan from the ATT Archives and History Center./p pa href="http://www.dyson.com/about/story/"Dyson G-Force Bagless Vacuum/abr James Dyson invented a bagless vacuum, which no one would manufacture because it would kill bag sales. It was picked up in Japan in 1983, though, and James used the proceeds to launch a company that today builds the world's suckiest vacs./p pa href="http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/200001/00-002E/"Sony Aibo ERS-111/abr Sony's first revision of their 1st generation robot pet was able to learn and grow from having puppy-like logic to dog-like logic. They were too unsophisticated to run or seem very lifelike, but they paved the way for true robotic toys like the Pleo dinosaur./p pa href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Kahn"First Cameraphone Prototype/abr Philippe Kahn built the first cameraphone in 1997 out of a digital camera, a laptop and a Motorola handset with some clever software. To date, well over a billion cameraphones have been sold. You do the math./p p[Links above wrangled by intern Ericamdash;Thanks Erica!!! And thanks to our host a href="http://www.thereedspace.com/"REED ANNEX/a and our benefactor a href="http://www.gizmine.com/"gizmine.com/a]/p pbGizmodo Gallery/bbr a href="http://www.thereedspace.com/"Reed Annex/abr a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=151+orchard+street+nyie=UTF8oe=utf-8client=firefox-all=40.721226,-73.989122spn=0.009741,0.015814z=16g=151+orchard+street+nyiwloc=addr"151 Orchard Street/abr New York, NY 10002/p pstrongGizmodo Gallery Reader Meetup/strongbr The a href="http://gizmodo.com/5099673/at-giz-gallery-reader-meetup-with-a-back-to-the-future-delorean"reader meetup/a takes place across the street from the Gallery, at a place called a href="http://www.theannexnyc.com/"The Annex/a (not to be confused with REED ANNEX where the gallery is hosted.) The address is a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=152+Orchard+Street+nyie=UTF8oe=utf-8client=firefox-all=40.721112,-73.988628spn=0.00914,0.013411z=16g=152+Orchard+Street+nyiwloc=addr"152 Orchard Street/a and we'll be there at strong9 PM SHARP on Friday December 5th/strong./p pGallery Dates:br December 4th-7th/p pTimes:br 12/4 Thursdaybr 12-8/p p12/5 Fridaybr 12-8/p p12/6 Saturdaybr 11-8/p p12/7 Sundaybr 11-4/p p[Read more about our a href="http://gizmodo.com/5082811/gizmodo-gallery-our-wonderful-world-of-gadgets-on-display-in-nyc"Gizmodo Gallery here/a and see what else we'll be a href="http://gizmodo.com/tag/Gizmodo%20Gallery"playing with/a at the event.]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=63eb1622619333b3bd0cd7e27b8c13dfp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=63eb1622619333b3bd0cd7e27b8c13dfp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=63eb1622619333b3bd0cd7e27b8c13df" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=mn6I4V1u"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=txWTtMZy"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=h5NcolEI"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=h5NcolEI" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=1iuAdOjZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=1iuAdOjZ" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/8gd41vjLT_8" height="1" width="1"/

Category: Lifestyle
Released: Dec 02, 2008
Price: $0.99

Description:
This amazing application takes the iphone further than you could ever imagine. Weigh any object by placing it on your iPhone. It could not be any simpler. Instructions: 1. Place iPhone on anything soft and compressible like a pillow or a cushion. 2. Start the iWeigh application. 2. Lightly place the object on the iphone. 3. Let go of the object. 4. After a few seconds remove the object. 5. The weight will be displayed on the screen. Warning: 1. Never place heavy objects directly on your iphone. 2. Do not DROP objects onto your iphone. Place objects just touching the iphone and let go.

Website: http://www.solidapps.com.au/iWeigh
Support Website: http://www.solidapps.com.au/iWeigh

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: iWeigh

Category: Healthcare & Fitness
Released: Aug 16, 2008
Price: $9.99

Description:
Sleep Therapist analyzes your sleep patterns: you will see when and for how long time you were in deep sleep and when you were rolling around. Background noises are visualized also, so you may check if and how they affect your sleep. SleepTherapist also includes a bio-ergonomic alarm clock. Set the alarm time when you need to wake up, and set the earliest time when alarm should start (e.g. half hour earlier). If you are just rolling around in the bed between earliest and target time, the alarm will start and your time is not wasted in bed. You will gain more active time, and sleep better the following night. Place iPhone besides your pillow before going to sleep - you may put it to Airplane mode if you want to ensure no electromagnetic waves. Connect to charger and set auto-lock state to 'Never'. Use your time in bed wisely!

Website: http://www.broadbit.com/sleeptherapist
Support Website: http://www.broadbit.com/sleeptherapist

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: Sleep Therapist

I don't even know how this app is possible. Apparently it lets you weigh objects by placing them on your iPhone's screen. This doesn't even make sense because the iPhone is capacitance touch; it can't sense the pressure of your finger on the screen. Link.

From the developer:

Quote: This amazing application takes the iphone further than you could ever imagine. Weigh any object by placing it on your iPhone. It could not be any simpler.

Instructions:
1. Place iPhone on anything soft and compressible like a pillow or a cushion.
2. Start the iWeigh application.
2. Lightly place the object on the iphone.
3. Let go of the object.
4. After a few seconds remove the object.
5. The weight will be displayed on the screen.

Warning:
1. Never place heavy objects directly on your iphone.
2. Do not DROP objects onto your iphone. Place objects just touching the iphone and let go. Who is going to be the first to spend waste 99 cents on this app? Not me...let me know if you do get it to work though. I can't see how it possibly could!

This has to be fake...but how could Apple let it through?

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/69710?ns=guardianpageName=Stage%3A+%27My+whole+life+has+been+a+black+comedy%27ch=Stagec3=The+Guardianc4=Theatre%2CCulture+section%2CJoe+Orton+%28Playwright%29%2CStage%2CTelevision+%28Culture%29c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CTelevision+Media%2CTheatrec6=Catherine+Shoardc7=2008_12_04c8=1128305c9=articlec10=GUc11=Stagec12=Theatrec13=c14=h2=GU%2FStage%2FTheatre" width="1" height="1" //divpIt has been a while since Doon Mackichan was last hung, drawn and quartered for laughing at the suffering of children. There was a week in August 2001 when you couldn't pass a newsstand without seeing her handsome, sparrowhawk face, forehead partially obscured by the word "evil" or "depraved"./ppThe Brass Eye paedophile special is now mostly remembered as virtuoso satire, so it's easy to forget what a stink it caused at the time. And it was Mackichan, who played TV presenter Swanchita Haze, who bore the brunt of it. People expected that sort of thing from Chris Morris, but Doon was a woman with - gulp - children of her own. "[Mackichan] had seen herself as a major comedy force in the making," wrote the Mail. "She even dreamt of becoming a film star. But with the Brass Eye disaster as her epitaph, all those plans lie in tatters."/ppLooking back, it's hard to say her career didn't suffer. There were two more seasons of Smack the Pony, the girly Channel 4 sketch show with Sally Phillips and Fiona Allen, but to diminishing returns. There were wifely roles in ropey sitcoms. There was theatre. Then came a two-year break for unhappier reasons (of which more later). And now she's back, in a play that, well, laughs at the suffering of children. Adults, too. Especially those six feet under. /ppJoe Orton's Loot, like Brass Eye, is comedy that sets out to shock. Don't be fooled by its age; although the play was first performed in 1965, Loot has weathered better than, say, a TV parody of late-90s news shows. Death doesn't date as a cultural taboo; likewise religion. Rereading Loot is like having a shower when you hadn't realised the boiler's broken: unexpectedly shocking./pp"Yep, it's full on," says Mackichan, eating a tuna sandwich between rehearsals in London. "There's this one line about a really great brothel run by Pakistanis who pimp out their kids for Mars bars." She smiles: an attractive smile, heavy on the lippy. "I'm like, 'Oh we'll cut that, won't we?' Well, no, we can't, because what about all the other things people might find offensive? Cut them all and you won't have much of a play left."/ppOther lines trouble her. Orton's gleeful description of a sexual assault, complete with tooth-breaking detail. "That specific image is just really horrible. Do you lose a portion of your audience when you leave that in? Do people stop thinking it's a great play? Or as my mum would say, 'Ooh, Orton's so kinky; yes, I love all that.' " /ppDoon plays Fay, an Irish Catholic home nurse and a prolific serial killer (87 in one week alone). She has lately buried her seventh husband and has her eighth in her crosshairs, having just dispatched his wife with a syringe of poison. Loot takes place on the day of the wife's funeral, and charts the power struggle between Fay, Hal (whose mother is being buried), Dennis, Hal's boyfriend, with whom he has robbed a bank and put the money in mum's coffin, and Detective Truscott, the sinister inspector who comes calling. /ppOrton's stage instructions put Kay in her late 20s; other than that Mackichan, 46, is a good fit. She is Celtic, by nurture at least. She grew up in Surrey but moved to Fife with her family when she was nine. She survived the transition, she says, by acting, specialising in "posh bitches". This is something she still does: she is a natural authoritarian, physically pneumatic, temperamentally tough - a few years back she swam the English channel with a team of paratroopers. /pp"Yes, I could kill someone," she says, without thinking too hard about it. "It must be so easy to just nip a needle in, or hold a pillow over an old person's face. The power and the buzz you'd get." She has been boning up on True Crime magazine to further understand her character's homicidal motivation. "But I just can't read the books. There's such an orgasm about they way they're written. 'Women who kill! Viciously!' When it comes to sex and violence, we're an island of obsessives. I mean, how does it help people to know the details of how someone was physically tortured?"/ppTen years ago, Mackichan got her fingers burned over an Anglican sketch on her Radio 4 show, Doon Your Way, but it hasn't left her any more on-message when it comes to religion. "It's been extraordinary finding out what Catholics actually believe!" she says of the research process. "All the rituals and superstition. The whole voyeurism of talking to someone behind a little screen. The idea that you can think, OK, I'll be a bitch, then on Sunday I'll say, 'Oh, I was a bit of a bitch' and then feel great!"/ppShe is not religious herself, "but I don't think I'm in an atheistic universe. I do think there's a higher power". Has she ever prayed? "Oh, I've been down on my knees many times." She pauses and then roars with laughter - it's a genuine, accidental Orton-ism. /ppIt turns out that Mackichan has had an extremely tough few years. Her father recently died. She is in the process of getting divorced from her husband, Common As Muck actor Anthony Barclay, with whom she has three children, India, 11, Louis, 10, and Ella-Rose, four. And, three years ago, Louis contracted leukaemia. Much of the past three years has been spent with him in hospital. He is now in remission, but shadows still hollow out her face. She wells up frequently, and there is something frayed behind the raucous laugh and actorly tics. "I do find authority hard to deal with now," she growls, after an assistant gives us a 10-minute warning that she needs to get back to work. "I feel a bit of an anarchist. I don't think I could work for someone who was an arsehole any more." She gulps down some fruit juice. "I can't actually have confrontations with people. It's too much. I'm a single muvva with three kids and a show to do." She laughs but she's dead serious./ppWhen things were at their worst, she says, her monopoly on heartache was hard to handle. "People would tut behind me in a supermarket queue and I'd have to go, 'Please, go ahead of me, you've obviously got somewhere to go. I'm just going back to the children's cancer ward.' I once had an actress telling me her hair was falling out because of her new kitchen and I thought, I'm not going to say anything, because this is quite interesting, because I remember how I was before it all." And how was she before it all? "Quite selfish, neurotic. Up my own arse. It's made me very tough. I do think I have endurance beyond the pale." /ppWhen Louis was well enough, Mackichan took her children with her to Africa to shoot a BBC2 series, Taking the Flak, loosely based on John Simpson's reporting from poverty-stricken, war-ravaged places. After such harrowing experiences, how she can cope with her relatively comfortable existence? "You walk into your house and you go: I'm a millionaire. I'm a princess; I live in a palace. And you think: I don't have a lot of shoes, but I do have too many shoes. You look at yourself and think: Party's over, mate. Time to be useful."/ppAnd yet she is not an aid worker in Africa. She is in north London, rehearsing a play. "I did think, I can't go back to acting. It's too vain, too ridiculous. I was going to retrain as a play specialist in Louis' cancer ward. But this is what I've done for 20 years. It's what I do." /ppShe's right. Mackichan is a natural born thesp, right down to her floaty black blouse and stripy woollen leg-warmers. Slice her in half and you would see "actor" written right through the middle of her. "I have a real mission now to be in work that will be cathartic for people. [Work] that's really honest about just how fucking hard it is to stay afloat."/ppLoot isn't exactly what she had in mind, she admits, but its no-nonsense attitude to tragedy has been cathartic. "My whole life lately has been a bit of a black comedy." She snorts. Might she consider turning it into one? "There's a lot of mileage in a children's cancer-ward comedy. All the opening curtains and waving at people being sick into bowls. You could set it in the tiny coffin-like kitchen where only the adults are allowed. You see these little bald children running past the window. It was like suddenly being in a war."/ppCould she really bear to return there, even imaginatively? "I don't know. They haunt me, those nighttime corridors. The characters, too: the carers and nurses and staff and the petty quarrels. And getting high on Quality Street till 3am. But I would like to." /ppstrongmiddot; /strongLoot is at the Tricycle, London NW6, from December 11. 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