You ain’t seen nothing till you’ve seen an English girl drink*

My diary notes for this week include an interesting theatre trip and a selection of movies

The Lehman Trilogy

This week's theatre trip took us to a matinee of The Lehman Trilogy, which I missed first time around.  At nearly three and a half hours long (although with 2 intervals) this is a bit of a marathon, but it actually didn’t feel like that, in fact the last act felt a bit rushed in the end.  

A great revolving set with a cast of three embodying all of the characters with just a change of physicality and voice, and a live pianist to accompany the action and set the mood.   This history of a family and brief history of the growth of America and capitalism at the same time,  was really interesting and enjoyable, particularly in walking us through the journey from middle men to traders to the consumerism bit where they were lending people money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need. The tone was a bit elegiac and I would have liked a bit more anger at the increasing hucksterish-ness, particularly after the last Lehman died,  but overall, a worthwhile afternoon,

I hadn’t actually been in this theatre before and built in the seventies it had kept that throwback feel with all of the exposed shuttered concrete on display. As with many theatres of whatever age though,  the queue for the ladies was shocking at both intervals, such that men were commenting on how appalling it was as they walked past to and from their queue free loos.  Interesting that the call for gender neutral toilets is  getting more widespread - it was certainly mentioned more than once this afternoon and not all by me - the sooner the better please, so that we can shorten the time it takes to pee and still get an icecream too! 

 Eaten by Lions 

I streamed this sweet little British comedy drama road trip movie about a boy who goes to find his father.  The two brothers, played by Antonio Aakeel and Jack Carroll do a great job in catching that scratchy but loving sibling relationship, and Asim Chaudhry as the manchild father is both annoying and sweet. Great supporting cast too, including Vicki Pepperdine, Kevin Eldon and Johnny Vegas.  

Close

A beautiful and moving film set in the Dutch countryside about the pains of young adolescence and the challenges of growing into masculinity, seen though the eyes of two young boys.  Gorgeous but also sad, currently streaming on Mubi  

Good

I had already seen this at the theatre but went again anyway to the local NT live screening.  It's interesting how it gives a different dimension in the cinema.  Lots more closeups which were even more huge because the screening was almost sold out and so we ended up in the front row.  That meant that there was a lot more subtlety in expression to be seen.  Still the same powerful play, this time I took away more thought about the way it is easier to live in a nice fantasy world and pretend everything is going to be fine when, clearly, it isn't.  I think I'm a bit guilty of that... the demonisation of asylum seekers or anyone 'woke' enough to care about others or the environment, alongside the normalisation of bigotry and victim blaming.   I do call it out, but not sure that's enough given the awful things happening around us .  

Aside from the themes, there was a mini documentary in the interval about C.P. Taylor's life and work, and one thing I found really interesting was the bit of video where Taylor explains his interest in musical counterpoint, which gave me a new insight into the structure of the play as well.  Wonderful play and production, lots of heavy stuff to think about as a result

* Apropos of nothing ‘You ain't seen nothing till you've seen an English girl drink' is my lyric of the week.  It's from Mermaids by Florence and the Machine and it just made me laugh