Friday Five: Classic Films I 'Should' Have Watched

You know those films that you always feel you should  have watched, but you just haven't got round to it yet? Well, over the last week (we're in lockdown), I've been trying to catch up with some.

5 Classic Films I 'Should' Have Already Seen:

1. The Exorcist (1973 Horror/ Supernatural) - Lots of male doctors lecturing a woman about how to run her life and deal with her daughter; the keepers of the knowledge deciding females they can't understand must be hysterical... It might be almost 50 years old, but some aspects still resonate. I believe good horror stories are never 'just' about horror; they connect with our deepest fears, ignorance and insecurities to explore something psychological. I feel this films does that, and Ellen Burstyn is spectacular. In conclusion: worth watching as a classic of the genre (I know all the best lines anyway), but probably not scary to a modern audience.

2. The Godfather (1972 Crime/ Drama) - Men use their violence and strength to secure nepotistic deals and gain yet more wealth and power. How quaint. Again, all the best lines are familiar - offers you can't refuse; sleeping with the fishes etc. - the score is sumptuous, and Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and James Caan give brilliant performances. I understand that this film re-calibrated the notion of seeing gangsters as a response to a corrupt society and made them into good guys, but it really is all about the guys, isn't it - and the toxic masculinity and lack of female representation may have set the women's movement back as far as it advanced the film genre.

3. Sunset Boulevard (1950 Noir/ Drama) - Mavellous fun; full of dramatic tension, stunning design and black comedy, with a seminal central performance from Gloria Swanson as a previous silent screen star in a world of talking pictures. "There's nothing tragic about being 50. Not unless you're trying to be 25."

4. Battleship Potemkin (1926 Drama/ Silent) - I love me a good bit of revolutionary propaganda and I have particular views on borscht, so I thought I was ready for this. I wan't - it is outstanding! Those montages sequences and individual close-ups in the middle of mayhem are utterly groundbreaking, and the stirring score is thrilling. I appreciate the excellent moustache detail and I now understand the The Untouchables reference. 

5. Bonnie & Clyde (1967 Drama/ Crime) - Obviously the inspiration for The Dukes of Hazzard with a comedy-crime-committing duo who claim 'we rob banks' although there is nothing to rob because the people are so poor they've got nothing to save. I understand that life may be dull, but killing people is not the answer (although I agree with Ivan Moss's verdict on tattoos). Faye Dunaway has some fabulous outfits, Gene Wilder's screen debut is a highlight, and whatever charm and charisma Warren Beatty has (and with his reported womanising he must have some) it can only be off-screen rather than on. 

Friday Five: More TV

Here is a sample of some more TV series I've been watching - some are better than others, but they have all kept my interest up to a point. I've been keeping a list over the past year or so, so not all of these are bang up-to-the minute, but they are all on free-to-air services.

The women of The Split

5 Recent TV Shows I've Watched

1. Cardinal (SBS On Demand) - There are four seasons of this Canadian series (each of six episodes) which are thoroughly enjoyable in a classic crime-drama fashion. The series adapts the novels of crime writer Giles Blunt, focusing on police detective John Cardinal (Billy Campbell) and his partner, Lise Delorme (Karine Vanassa). They investigate crimes in the fictional city of Algonquin Bay, involving corruption, drug dealers, serial killers, politics, suspicious deaths of family members and all the usual tropes. It is the pace and the setting that make this stand out; it is cold and so everyone is careful and needs to plan ahead, while the lead actors are thorough and understated rather than displaying any of the histrionics and hyperbole one would expect from a US equivalent.
2. Cobra (BBC First) - I'll watch almost anything starring Robert Carlyle (*cough* Once Upon a Time *cough*), and so I was automatically drawn to this political drama. It's tonally a bit odd at the beginning when the UK's power is wiped out by a solar storm causing planes to fall from the sky and we're not sure if it's a thriller or a disaster series. Carlyle is the relatively new Prime Minister, Robert Sutherland, who has to deal with this crisis, as criminals and rioters take advantage of the situation and his daughter becomes embroiled in a drug scandal. Instead of working together, there are factions in the cabinet (mainly between Victoria Hamilton as Downing Street Chief of Staff and David Haig as Home Secretary) that attempt to score points rather than save community. Sound familiar?



3. Last Tango in Halifax (ABC iview) - It is a joy to see great actors (Sarah Lancashire; Nicola Walker; Anne Reid; Derek Jacobi) playing great characters with well-written, humorous dialogue in credible and entertaining situations (series created and written by Sally Wainwright). Set in the beautiful but bleak Yorkshire and Lancashire country and towns, it could probably be described as following the fortunes or otherwise of a blended family. The central couple (both widowed and in their seventies) reunite and act upon their past youthful affection for each other, and the series was praised by critics and endorsed by the charity, Age UK as, 'a triumph against TV's ageism'.
4. The Split, Season 2 (ABC iview) - This was a welcome return after Season One a couple of years ago - I was happy to see Nicola Walker back in her family of divorce lawyers and misfits. Supporting cast members of Stephen Mangan, Deborah Findlay, Annabel Scholey, Fiona Button, Meera Syal, and Anthony Head,  bring kudos to the series. The writing is still excellent (as one would expect from Abi Morgan), and it's refreshing to see a female-led series, but the will-she-won't-she storyline started to drag a little, and I would have liked to see more of the client drama - as apparently the legal focus is to protect women and ensure they get what they deserve from their divorces.
5. Wild Bill (7 Plus) - Rob Lowe is similar to Robert Carlyle in the 'must watch' stakes to me, so I gave this series a chance, which is more than ITV did (they pulled it after one series). Lowe is an archetypal American who arrives as chief constable in Boston, Lincs, tasked with cleaning up crime, which he sets about doing through statistics and a whiteboard. No one really likes the arrogant Yank except salt-of-earth farming type, Muriel (played by Bronwyn James, last seen by me in Harlots). There is some understated British humour and sarcasm, which grates against the American schmaltzy daddy daughter relationship scenes, indicating the potential difficulty in pitching this to the right audience.

Friday Five: More TV Shows

I was doing posts about ISO TV, but feel slightly fraudulent calling it that in Australia, where almost everything is back to normal operations - apart from theatre and festivals. So let's just go with TV shows; here are another five that I have been watching.

5 TV Shows Recently Watched:

1. Belgravia (ITV) It's not a patch on Sanditon, but it has some pretty bonnets, sly asides and wildly anachronistic character developments. The nineteenth-century drama focuses on illegitimate children, inherited wealth and social climbing as one would expect from Julian Fellowes, writer of Downton Abbey. The cast includes Tamsin Greig, Philip Glenister, Tara Fitzgerald, Paul Ritter, Harriet Walter, Saskia Revves and Tom Wilkinson, who are all marvellous, even if they barely get to flex their acting muscles.
2. Between Two Worlds (Seven Network) The monochromatic colour palette (almost everything is a shade of blue or grey) is matched only by the complete lack of inflection in the acting and dialogue. The premise should have been interesting - a man who has a heart transplant starts to imagine he has inherited characteristics of his donor - but the simultaneously tawdry production and deadpan delivery cannot raise a pulse. Models are all very well but their acting is more of the cardboard cutout variety.  Hermione Norris, what were you thinking?
3. Roadkill (BBC) Hugh Laurie seems to be cornering the market in nasty bastards. This political drama written by David Hare has a touch of Yes, Minister crossed with The New Statesman, but the comedy is replaced with cold hard pragmatism. Hugh Laurie plays Peter Laurence, a government minister on the rise until a past scandal threatens to bring him down. Helen McCrory and Saskia Reeves also star. The four-part thriller was filmed last year and, if COVID and finances permit, is perfectly poised for a second season. 



Julia Davis and Catherine Shepherd in Sally4Ever



4. Sally4Ever (Sky Atlantic/ HBO) Inevitably this will be compared with Fleabag because it is written by a woman  (Julia Davis) and features 'normal' women (Catherine Shepherd; Julia Davis) dealing with life and having sex. I long for the days when this isn't such a unique premise and the gender balance is more equal in terms of writers and actors getting decent work. In the meantime, this is a good benchmark. The seven thirty-minute episodes cause the viewer cringing discomfort and cathartic guffaws of laughter. It's black comedy at its best. 
5. The Good Fight, Season Four (CBS All Access) It begins with Diane (Christine Baranski) in an alternate reality where Hilary won, the #MeToo movement has never happened and Harvey Weinstein is still a good guy. After she wakes up it continues with military whistleblowers and an investigation into the death of Jeffrey Epstein. It's well-written and topical, with characters we grow to love (Cush Jumbo as Lucca Quinn; Sarah Steele as Marissa Gold; Nyambi Nyambi as Jay DiPersia; Michael Boatman as Julius Cain) and it combines stand-alone stories with a continuous thread. It's like a cross between Boston Legal and The West Wing, and I enjoy the glitzy American courtroom drama with powerful women not just doing the filing and answering the phone. Only seven of the scheduled ten episodes were fully completed before production was halted due to the COIVD-19 pandemic, and it feels unfinished with a tantalising mystery still in the air and Lucca has left the series. I feel a bit bereft. 

More of this sort of thing: Cush Jumbo, Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald in The Good Fight

COVID-19: Dreaming is Free

Stories are my saviour. Whether told on the page, stage, screen (large or small) or radio, they inspire, enlighten, challenge and comfort me. It may not be the best idea to be watching World on Fire at the moment, but last night we watched the final episode of the first series. The series is set during the Second World War in France, Germany, Poland and the U.K. and it follows several families and characters from 1939-1940. It's tough to watch at times (and there seem to be a few anachronisms in terms of speech and accent), but it is well acted and sufficiently tense and dramatic to keep me involved.

I am tempted to see parallels with our current global situation, and slightly reassured that I 'mustn't grumble: things could be worse'. No one is shooting at me, or trying to bomb me, or threatening to hang me because I am the 'wrong' race, colour, ability, sexuality or political persuasion. Not yet, anyway: I don't live in America - cheap jibe, sorry. But there is a preponderance of panic buying, propaganda, misinformation, uncertainty and an extremely rapid pace of change. Life (and death) goes on in altered circumstances; people still get born; get married; fall in love; fall out... not necessarily in that order. And like World War II, those in the midst of it have no idea of when and how it will finish. Trust me, I've just seen the last episode of World on Fire and there is no satisfying sense of closure - sorry if that's a spoiler.

Our COVID-19 situation also sees leadership, and the lack thereof. Boris has been chewing his way through speeches by Churchill and Plato and now emerges blinking from his shabby chrysalis as a somewhat unlikely statesman; Prince-Hal-like, the foppish fool has sobered up to face the future. Jacinda is calm and firm; just and fair, dealing with a hideous situation with sense and sensibility. Scotty is floundering about like a lumpfish in shallow water but out of its depth. Make some decisions; be bold and resolute; lead!

In Australia we are told that schools are 'pupil-free' but they remain open and no one is turned away. We are told that only essential services should remain open - yet many businesses have not been made to close, so people are still heading to the office, hoping for a gold star from the boss. We are not allowed to gather so theatres, cinemas, gyms, pubs, clubs and restaurants have been closed. Art galleries and museums are choosing to close. There is no statewide ban on beaches, although people are 'advised not go' - yep, we've all seen how well people are following those guidelines.

Hairdressers and beauty salons are still open - it's important to look good in your coffin, apparently - but no one will be there to see you. Churches and places of worship are closed except to very small gatherings; weddings and funerals are not allowed indoors except in small groups observing the one person per four square metres rule. I am a sporadic church-goer; my places of worship are hills and woods and the great outdoors. I worship a mixture of myth and religion - I would like to believe in a golden thread that we can follow out of this darkness into the light once more.

I do usually go to church at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun, however: they are the significant touchstones of my faith. This year, I will not be attending live services, but I will be commemorating the occasion in my way. Many people are suggesting ways to occupy their time in isolation (although Australia has not moved to this yet, and people are still congregating in entirely unnecessary groups); one of my pass-times is cross-stitch. I have been stitching little Easter designs of baskets and bunny rabbits, surrounded by eggs and flowers.

All this is probably what informed my dream last night in which I was trying to stitch together a Polish fabric that had been destroyed by Germany. It was my duty to reconnect the border by unpicking the existing stitches and working them back into an unbroken line with a golden thread. I believe our dreams are important - not in a Freudian way, but because they are a coping mechanism in which the brain shuffles events and tries to impart some meaning. My bible is the bard, and I find words to fit every event in his plays and poetry. And so it is with dreams, which come to us in sleep:

"Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

I know I have employed that quote before (it's one of my favourite, from one of my favourite plays), so here's something else that's been on my mind.

Friday Five: Apps

We have got a long trip coming up. There is an awful lot of nothing in Australia and we are driving across about 1,000km of it (a mere fraction, I know). To help us on this journey we have a few apps for our listening pleasure. Since getting a phone which allows me to, I have listened to many of these diverting entertainments. These are my current favourites (blame my mother for the last one):

5 Apps on my Phone:

1. Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film Reviews
2. Friday Night Comedy (The News Quiz/ The Now Show)
3. Great Lives
4. BBC Radio 3 Arts and Ideas: Free Thinking
5. The Archers Omnibus

World Cup 2014: Today's Talking Point - Heroes and Villains

Football is theatre. It combines high drama with low comedy and deep tragedy. Hours of training and rehearsal culminate in a performance before spectators. A variety of characters peoples the stage, including hard-working straight men and heroes.

Two of these heroes were in action this morning. Tim Howard played an amazing game for the U.S.A. against Belgium. Confident and reliable at the back, he anchored an at-times shaky defence and made more saves than in any World Cup match since record-keeping began. Reports tend to be all about goals scored and of course these are important, but goals saved are equally so. Despite being on the loosing side, Howard should be proud of his hand in his team's impressive performance.

Lionel Messi is another of football's leading men. I heard a commentator say, 'If Argentina didn't have Messi, they'd just be an average side. But they have got Messi.' The Swiss tactics were clearly to mark him out of the game; whenever he got the ball he was surrounded by red shirts, and yet he still managed to skip a way through. The theory is that Argentina have a Plan A (get it to Messi) and a Plan B (get it to Messi). If both of these fail, they resort to the last measure (keep trying to get it to Messi). 

Football also crosses the threshold into pantomime, and every pantomime needs a villain. Many people award this role to Arjen Robben of The Netherlands. They claim he dives to fool the referee into awarding him penalties. This may be true. It is also true that he was fouled repeatedly in the game against Mexico; at least twice in the penalty area. 

If you are kicked, hacked and tripped, and the opposition are getting away with it, you have to draw the referee's attention to it somehow. Your side's chances to progress, your football, and your fitness are all at risk here. Maybe he overdoes it, but not without reason - and maybe that one wasn't the penalty that should have been awarded, but it made up for the two previous ones that weren't given.

Much harder to defend is Luis Suarez. Biting people is indefensible. I said it last year in April, and I say it again. There is no excuse. I know there are arguments as to his phenomenal footballing brilliance and his dubious mental state. I appreciate that some think the four month ban from all footballing activity (including training with Liverpool) is too harsh and penalises a club that had nothing to do with the incident. This is not the place to discuss this. This is the place to quote Joyce Grenfell:

"I think it serves you right if he bit you, and don't bite him back. Because he's smaller than you are. Are you bleeding? Then don't make such a fuss." I think it's fair to point out that in this instance 'he' is a hamster called Harold Wilson. And that Joyce Grenfell also admonished another little girl, "We never bite our friends."

As for someone who is possibly both, you can't go past Cristiano Ronaldo. After the infamous World Cup winking incident of 2006, he was pretty much loathed by everyone who wasn't a Man Utd supporter. In fact, 'I hate Ronaldo' was, according to Google, the most popular Man Utd-related web search of 2007. 

In 2008, Man Utd faced Chelsea in the the Champions League Final. It was 1-1 at full time and went to penalties. Ronaldo was the only Man Utd player who missed his penalty, but his team went on to win the title. Did he celebrate with his team-mates? No. He lay down in the centre circle and cried like the spoiled brat that he is because he thinks he is more important than his team, whether that team be Man Utd or Portugal. I still think he is a petulant, whining, arrogant, selfish, vain, indulgent, tantrum-throwing, self-obsessed, pouting prima donna, but...

Ronaldo has no tattoos. This is a massive plus in my book. But the reason is even better. Apparently he gives blood a couple of times a year, and European Law states that you can't donate blood if you have had a tattoo in the past four months. And that ridiculous haircut of his? I read on the internet that it was to match the scar of a young fan who had brain surgery. And then I read on the internet that it wasn't. Whichever, it has made me soften towards him just a little, which is good, because a character who is all bad does not make for compelling theatre.

Out of Context

For Remarkable Theatre's summer show, I have put together a collection of comic scenes, songs and sketches to come under the umbrella title of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gardens. It's a promenade performance whereby a guide escorts the audience around the Botanic Gardens with a performance of 3 - 10 minutes duration in each selected location.

The hardest thing was to take comedy out of context. Many things are funny in the second act of a play becaue the first is exposition - without the initial set-up, the gag would fall flat and you can't just deliver the punchline without first laying the foundation. It's given me a whole new appreciation of farce. Noises Off is one of my favourite plays but you can't perform a short extract that makes any sense by itself.

Stand-up comedians often complain that their jokes are taken out-of-context and lead to them being labelled as racist/ sexist/ homophobic/ anti-semitic or whatever we are feeling particularly sensitive about that week. It may have come from a very funny line-up with a mitigating explanation, but if you remove all that, it's just another 'retarded gay nigger' joke.

Repetition is another factor in comedy. Something that is not funny at first utterance becomes increasingly so as we come to recognise, acknowledge, and then predict the inevitable. This is how catch-phrase or sketch humour works (Angry Frank being a classic example). And we can't claim this is sophisticated.

If you ever watch children watching theatre, they are bemused at the first appearance of the comedy elf. By the third or fourth appearance he becomes familiar, and by the time you, as an otherwise perfectly rational adult, are willing to bludgeon him to death with the nearest blunt instrument, the mini-critics are anticipating and so delighting in his entrance because they 'get it'.

'Getting it' is the pay-off for all the spade work and anticipation (no smutty innuendo please - let's leave that to The Two Ronnies. In all comedy there is an underlying theme which compounds throughout the 'drama'. If you only have five minutes to establish this drama, you have to choose the familiar and subvert it. And this becomes an exercise in defying stereotypes.

Comedy - it's not a science; it's an art.