Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

This play starts with what initally appears to be a game of chance as Cate Blanchett or Nina Hoss get to choose on the flip of a coin which of them will play Electra/Elisabeth.  On the night I attended, Nina Hoss was Electra and Cate Blanchett was Clytemnestra/Alma.  I really enjoyed the first half,  which takes us through a mother/daughter battle, as Electra tries to understand the horrendous thing her mother has done.  On a bare stage, with just steps, the performances of both leads were excellent , and I really  enjoyed the interplay between the two leads.  Violent and vibrant, this had me on the edge of my seat, and not just because I had someone with a big head in front of me as always.  There's no interval, so we get a few minutes of visible set change and character resets as the two leads transform into their roles  for Persona, in the second half of the play, something, which now I think about it, makes a lot of sense as we are going to di...

Tip Toe - I had been putting this off because I knew it was going to be a hard watch.  The performances are all great and the message is heartfelt and one that needs to be heard although I suspect the people who need to hear it won’t be watching or listening.  David Morrisey plays Clive, the bigoted neighbour who Leo (Alan Cumming)  is convinced has a good heart.  Leo is an optimistic out and proud neighbour who chooses not to compromise with bigotry, which usually works until it doesn't.  In this time of increasing bigotry and aggression towards people who are different in any way, this was both scary and depressing,  particularly the approach taken by people who choose to hide by aping the people who would abuse them. David Morrissey does a great job of repressed anger and I found him terrifying on many occasions.  Similarly Alan Cumming as Leo is fantastic as the in-your-face loud and sure of himself man, deliberately building himself up and trying...

Adults:  I just caught up with this comedy after getting loads of recommendations.  I thought it was going to be Friends-lite, and it sort of started off that way but then it becomes its own thing, and it’s great.  Sweet and funny, with a mix of the odd curly-toes cringy laugh, but also a lot that comes from character, interspersed with the occasional mic-drop funny.  I love the development of  characters especially in season 2, where they all have their moments, and there is subtle slow burn yearning going on too.  As each episode is just over 20 minutes I ended up binging it in just a few evenings.  I’m assuming they are aiming for a season 3 but it would be ok if it ended where it is I think ( TV series streaming on Disney+) Colin from Accounts:    People have been recommending this Australian romcom/drama to me for years, and I finally got around to watching it.  It’s an intelligent, sharp, and emotionally satisfying story named afte...

The summer is always weird for telly as there’s a lot more to do outside.  But I did watch a couple of things. Ride or Die: Another women led action adventure, with cast, production and writing all covered, and I’m here for it..  With the magnificent Hannah Waddingham as an assassin and Octavia Spencer as her best friend, this is a lot of fun as the duo run rings around the Albanian mob with the support of a couple of green flag men in secondary roles.  I love the middle aged female friendship being displayed here, but it’s also great that women can be proper baddies and not just in a girlie way.  Some of the plot and dialogue is a bit iffy, but this is funny and engaging, and generally a cut above the majority of action adventures so I definitely recommend. (TV series streaming on Prime) Silo: series 3 of this sci-fi dystopian book adaptation has been drip fed over the past few weeks.  Rebecca Ferguson is still fab, and it is still largely sticking to the boo...

Unusually, this was on at my local multiplex.  There is still something rotten in Elsinore, but this time Elsinore is a dodgy property company in London.  This is a new and pretty stark reworking of Hamlet, with Riz Ahmed as the prince, the heir to a modern shady business empire with hints of Succession. Loads of the language is ditched, and many characters and scenes are condensed or thrown out.  This could be bad, and it took me a few minutes to get my bearings, but actually this is really good.   Stripped back, but with gorgeous cinematography, a lot of this is set at night and with fast cars in the city with glamour and seediness next to each other.  Riz Ahmed is a convincing Hamlet, struggling with what is the right thing to do. Polonius (Timothy Spall) is simply nasty in this and Ophelia (Morfydd Clark) is still important but the mad scene is missing, something I am pretty pleased about as I always struggle with it. I really enjoyed the way that the 'To be...

Television Plur1bus  - Series 1 has now come to an end and I have found it absolutely gripping.  It takes its time to let things come to light, and I love that the heroes of this piece are not superficially likeable.  Instead they are awkward, and difficult to work with, but that also means they are admirable in understanding and following their own moral compass even if it makes them unpopular.  Carol (Rhea Seehorn) is a divisive figure as she is so difficult, but I love her, and she makes the blandness of the mindvirus folk stand out in sharp relief.   There's plenty of topical stuff being talked about here, a critique on  groupthink, what fascism looks like and in the final episode we get to see with Carol that this is also a abusive relationship with the Others, showing a caring face while doing harm.  In the season finale she finally meets up with Manousos (Carlos Manuel Vesga) who is equally difficult and I think this will be a wonderful par...

Hamnet - my first proper film of the festival this year, on a Monday morning, so not particularly auspicious.  But we had seen a production of Hamlet on the preceeding Friday, so were nicely primed.  Hamlet is hands down my favourite play ever, and I really loved Maggie O'Farrell's novel on which the film is based, directed by Chloe Zhao of Nomadland fame.  The story imagines how the death of Shakespeare's son Hamnet led to the creation of the play Hamlet.  That sounds simple, but along the way it muses over the way that life and art are wrapped together, one feeding the other in a continuous loop.   The novel tells the story largely through the interior lives of the characters, and so I wasn't at all sure how that would be managed.  It was managed by ditching that altogether and having fantastic actors to bring that to us without words,  Jessie Buckley is absolutely the centre of the film , but Paul Mescal brings his fullest and best game to this...

The Hack - A highly accessible, if far too long, account of the hacking scandal illustrating the web of back scratching, corruption and illegal activity held in place with fear over many years.  It’s a depressing story, and unfortunately a complicated one due to the web of connections and cover-ups that needed to be exposed.  But it’s told with verve, using the same approach as The Big Short , simplifying with explanations direct to camera by our narrator and guide, David Tennant as the journalist Nick Davies who over many years doggedly hunted this story down for The Guardian . I fear nothing much has changed, and in fact it may well have accelerated the mistrust of all journalism, including the good and honourable ones, and the turning to online ‘experts’ instead.  The text at the end explaining what happened next was both damning and depressing  But even so, it is worth a watch to remind ourselves of what happened and is maybe still happening. ( Series, ITV and ...