Theatre news

The New York theatre season is buzzing, just as much as the London one. The Arthur Miller estate is ticking over nicely too. That recent London A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE has just finished in NY, with Mark Strong and the addition of a blonde Russell Tovey; and now that interesting new production of THE CRUCIBLE with Ben Whishaw Sophie Okonedo and BROOKLYN's Saoirse Ronan as Abigail. Here's Ben talking about it and more ....

Arthur Miller did a book signing (PLAIN GIRL) in London in his final years and one had to go along and get a copy signed by the great man. We were not allowed to speak to him, but just to be there in his presence was enough.

Soon: Four 'S's: SENSO, SANDRA, SISSI, MRS STONE; another list: 12 Other British '60s Movies; Cyd Charisse's skirt; those 50s/60s Italian compendium films (GOLD OF NAPLES, THE DOLLS, THE QUEENS, BOCCACCIO 70 etc); the trio of Audrey, Capucine & William Holden plus THE 7TH DAWN and THE LION,,

London boys and spies ...

LONDON SPY is a new BBC series (5 parts - the first aired last night) about spies in London, and the selling point is they are all gay - even Jim Broadbent as our hero Danny's sort of sugar-daddy. There has been a lot of buzz about this one, and it may be too early to review it yet, lets see how the drama unfolds, as last night's opener had a terrific first half hour, and then a baffling, oblique second half, with a brooding sense of dread. Just who led Danny to the keys to Alex's apartment, the keys he was led to in that creepy warehouse where he works, and then that weird sequence as he finds the secrets in the loft of Alex's apartment .... It is all very similar to the 'body in the bag' case which was a sensation here in the UK in recent years, that also dealt with spies and possibly gays.

LONDON SPY is the story of a chance romance between two people from very different worlds, one from the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, the other from a world of clubbing and youthful excess. Whishaw plays Danny – gregarious, hedonistic, romantic and adrift, who falls for the anti-social enigmatic and brilliant Alex, played by Edward Holcroft. Just as the two of them realise that they’re perfect for each other, Alex is found dead. Danny, utterly ill-equipped to take on the complex and codified world of British espionage, must decide whether he’s prepared to fight for the truth.

LONDON SPY has attracted a top notch cast: Ben Whishaw plays Danny, a lonely hedonist who bumps into a handsome jogger the morning after another night in clubland, and experiences something of a coup de foudre. (I too remember those Vauxhall dawns as one, sometimes worse for wear, left the clubs and made one's way along the river back to Victoria - good to see the London one knows depicted accurately).The series is billed as an espionage thriller, but most of this first episode is about the unfolding, in heartbreakingly slow and tender fashion, of their love story. Alex is a mystery man, he says he works for an investment bank and his parents are dead and he has never had a relationhip of any kind before ... for a while the two are blissfully happy but then Alex suddenly disappears and when someone mysteriously furnishes him with the keys to Alex’s flat Danny finds in the loft an array of S&M equipment, a laptop and a trunk, the last of which contains a dead body which may or may not be Alex. He smuggles a key hidden in the laptop out after calling the police (by swallowing it, cue scene at toilet ...) who discover that Alex is not Alex but a man called Alistair whose parents are definitely not dead and who is definitely not an investment banker.

The modern gay scene is nicely depicted without sensationalism, and it will be interesting to see where the story goes, particuarly as Charlotte Rampling turns up in the next episode, along with Harriet Walter, Adrian Lester, Mark Gatiss and James Fox, and the ever-terrific Broadbent. This could be a slow-burn thriller, like the hit BROADCHURCH, but with extra gay added. Written by Tom Rob Smith and directed by Jakob Verbruggen (THE FALL). Could this be a British HOMELAND? We will see ... 
We did see - and what a load of, baffling, pretentious piffle, crawling at a snail's pace. what did the cast see in it?

Here is the trailer:  

https://youtu.be/d5CWWaF06uM

Christmas treats: Paddington

A young bear from Darkest Peru with a passion for all things British travels to London in search of a new home. Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he begins to realize that city life is not all he had imagined - until he meets the kindly Brown family, who read the label around his neck ('Please look after this bear. Thank you.') and offer him a temporary haven. It looks as though his luck has changed until this rarest of bears catches the eye of a museum taxidermist (who turns out to be the daughter of the explorer who discovered the Peruvian Bears).

PADDINGTON is a joy from start to finish, children of all ages will love it, thankfully we had practically a private screening of it early this morning at the first show at the local multiplex, while schoolchildren are still at school! 

First of all it looks great, as directed by Paul King from Michael Bond's classic tales. Every scene is magical - whether the Brown's house, or the bears' hideaway in the jungle and its a terrific London film too, showing the city at its best. 
The cast throw themselves into it - Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins (PERSUASION, BLUE JASMINE) are both perfect as the parents, Julie Walters is their housekeeper, Peter Capaldi lives next door, Matt Lucas drives a taxi, Jim Broadbent is the kindly antiques dealer. Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton voice the older bears and Ben Whishaw (above) is sheer perfection as the voice of Paddington with his love of marmalade sandwiches, there are good running gags featuring pigeons, and then there is Nicole Kidman - repenting for her dreadful GRACE OF MONACO with her deliciously camp portrayal of the evil taxidermist as a modern Cruella De Vil. 

Hugh drags up as a wacky cleaning lady as he and Paddington look for clues and then head to the Natural History Museum - this is one night at the Museum not to miss! A Film of The Year for me then! 

Vile Bodies

A few more literary adaptations - Evelyn Waugh this time, Waugh has now been filmed almost as much as E.M. Forster!



BRIDESHEAD REVISITED – I recorded this 2008 version out of curiousity last week but then decided I did not need to see it, but then I wondered just how bad it could be, so it certainly made for fascinating viewing. The main question though is: Why? Why bother to remake a classic and fillet it down to a 2 hour running time? The bare bones of the story are there but so many characters (like Anthony Blanche and Mr Samgrass) are just glossed over that it makes no sense. We still have Castle Howard though. A few lines of the original pop up here and there, like Carla’s line on how charming the English are with their male romances – Greta Scacchi is effective here. There is no point in making comparisons with 1981 the 11 hour BBC version. I often complain about movies being over-lit but this one seems curiously underlit with lots of interiors looking very gloomy if not almost dark.

Matthew Goode (glimpsed as the dead lover in A SINGLE MAN) is the rather dull Charles Ryder while Ben Whishaw (acclaimed for his Hamlet on stage) makes for a rather petulant, camp schoolboy Sebastian, certainly not as fascinating as Anthony Andrews in the original BBC production. All the subtlety of the original has been removed – Emma Thompson’s Lady Marchmain is just a dragon lady (without any of the subtlety of Claire Bloom's original) – she gets one good moment though when she turns her thwarted rage and withering disdain on Charles, and then a bit later we are told she has died, as though her character has been dispensed with. Despite the occasional nude swim there seems to be nothing going on between the boys and Hayley Attwell is simply not charismatic enough for Julia Flyte. Scripted by Andrew Davies and directed by Julian Jarrold. It reminded me of that dreadful 2005 film PRIDE & PREJUDICE by Joe Wright, again with the story simplified and streamlined and utterly without merit. I threw my disk of that in the bin, but at least didn’t purchase this BRIDESHEAD!

BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS – A much better Waugh adaptation (from his “Vile Bodies”) and as scripted and directed by Stephen Fry in 2003, this is delicious entertainment with just the right touch. Add in a whole roll-call of thespians and nice period detail and it all works a treat. We are back in the 1930s again as James McAvoy as the gossip columnist Mr Chatterbox works for newspaper magnate Dan Ackroyd. Mr Chatterbox is banned from Lady Metroland’s party but sneaks in and files a full report on their cocaine-fuelled existence before gassing himself. Stephen Campbell Moore (THE HISTORY BOYS) is a replacement Mr Chatterbox while he tries to retrieve his manuscript and woo Emily Mortimer. The cast is a dream: David Tennant, Jim Broadbent, John Mills [sniffing cocaine in probably his last screen appearance], Peter O’Toole, Harriet Walter, Imelda Staunton and wonderful Julia McKenzie as Lottie Crump, the landlady always trying to get guests to pay their bill. Even the small parts are perfect like Bruno Lastra as the very camp waiter. There are also Stockard Channing as the evangelist, Michael Sheen, Margaret Tyzack and others, and again the bright young things of the 1930s have to face World War II. I enjoyed it hugely. "Vile Bodies" is classic Waugh and as not well known as "Brideshead" liberties could be taken (I dimly recall a BBC production with Vivien Pickles as Lottie). Can we ever get to see that '68 film of another Waugh: DECLINE AND FALL, and of course Tony Richardson's THE LOVED ONE? - that A HANDFUL OF DUST was well done too.