Some Highlights of 2009 (updated)

Cultural Highlight: my sister Catherine's wedding
I'm biased here of course, but the selection of music was excellent, performed by members of Essex Concert Band and Colchester Choral Society, beautifully complimenting the occasion.

Musical Moment of 2009 (excluding the above)
Susan Boyle's appearance on Britain's Got Talent, triumphantly puncturing the general snobbbishness in the music business, reminding us all that singing should be about singing and not about looks.

Theatrical Highlight of 2009: Depot
For the best, and the worst of reasons.

Most Memorable Sporting Moment:
Norwich City 1 Colchester United 7 - though you'd expect me to say England winning the Ashes.

Favourite Film of the Year: Star Trek
Not a particularly brilliant film actually, but the opening scene had more excitement than most of the Star Wars prequels, and in my opinion this is the one film that comes closest to capturing the spirit of the original TV series.

Curiosity of the Year:
Anthony Gormley's One and Other at Trafalgar Square












I'm only sorry I wasn't involved in it myself.

Worst Moment of 2009: Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time

Good Things: 18

Boots!

(the footwear that is, not the chemist)

Particularly the ones with strong grips to deal with all the ice and snow, because boy have they been needed at the moment.

"Page the Oracle"

That used to be the slogan of ITV's teletext service, which has now passed the way of all things non-digital. I can't help wondering how unnecessary a loss such a useful and entertaining information service this is. In its heyday, there would be frequent occasions when I would turn on the television just to look at the Ceefax/Oracle pages rather than the programmes.

I can remember first looking at Oracle 30 years ago in 1979, when TV strikes were about, but in between the periods off-air we occasionally got snatches of this exciting new ASCII coloured screen with a "Reveal" button for various answers to questions or (more often than not) jokes - back in the days of the new fangled "Teletext Television Set". Nowadays that term itself is now default, and defunct. The digital box and the in-built digital channels will soon rule the roost, though they have their own hang-ups too, and have generally not been as reliable as Teletext was.

Natalie Portman in 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' ....!

.....so it says according to Variety magazine.

With a title like that, I shall have to see it once out of pride (being a fan of Natalie's.) If I see it twice, I'll probably have my prejudices. And to see it a third time, I will probably have to become a zombie.

Berlin (BBC documentary)

Before heading on a trip to Vienna last month, I came upon this compelling documentary series telling me about a Berlin that I can relate to more than the popular image of the pre-WWII Weimar Berlin (with its high life and cosmopolitan decadence), or the Berlin of the Cold War (with the Wall dividing East and West.)

Journalist Matt Frei, I gradually realised, is German-born, and looks at the city from a refreshingly different home-grown angle, and though I feel his outlook on the Berlin of the 1930's strays towards the negative, as a local I would think he's entitled to that.

Remember the dead, but don't disregard the living

The time of year has come round again for Remembrance Sunday, so another round of poppies has been distributed. Personally I wonder that it's just becoming a political fashion accessory - that is just as quickly removed from most lapels after the event; I'm occasionally asked when a family anniversary comes around connected with war (not in November), "why are you wearing a poppy?"

Why not?

Remembrance of wars past (and wars still taking place, alas) should be constant in the mind, but the commemoration itself is for the weekend of Remembrance Day. Remember our wars then, and not have them rammed down our throats every day (on the news or in the form of Security messages "for our safety" in shops and stations.)

In all truth, November 11th should permanently be a national holiday of Remembrance, regardless of what day of the week it happens to fall. It would be an appropriate gesture to those who died for freedom, for us to give up one day of our lives for the loss of theirs.

Only then can an entire globe's grief and gratitude be truly assimilated.

Was it wise to give the BNP the "Oxygen of Publicity"?

Of course not, but it was a no-win situation for the BBC in some ways - except their ratings.

I'd never heard of the National Front (as they were once called) because they were originally banned from the British media; such a suffocation was highly successful and put them in their rightful place. In their "new" form as the British National Party, they have risen to the heights of two MEP's, which was the basis for the BBC's justification in inviting leader Nick Griffin onto tonight's Question Time; broadcast from Shepherd's Bush in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham - an "ethnic borough" composed of blacks and Indians in the words of the egregious Mr. Griffin.

Unfortunately, he has a point when he says it was something of a lynch mob, and David Dimbleby's behaviour - as the sixth panelist in effect - did not help matters, and distracted from the more important issue of immigration into this country, and what an increasing amount of xenophobia there still is around.

Such an exhibition of protest against a clearly fascist organisation on the programme was heartfelt and unanimous, but the very fact that this subject is being discussed on the airwaves and the Internet like this is helping BNP subscriptions enormously. They want Nick Griffin to be seen as a victim - but battles for democracy and truth always have always had victims of some kind. This is one victim for which there should be no pity.

Going to the Depot

If we are to believe The Sun newspaper to be any sort of political swingometer, then I suppose it would seem that Gordon Brown is pretty well bound for the depot now, which is just where I was last night together with a few dozen other lucky and bewildered souls in the Mercury Theatre Company's 10th anniversary production.

In a typically audacious move, the company have moved outside the confines of the regular theatre and staged an art installation-cum-theatrical presentation of certain events in Colchester's history, turning the old Magdalen Street bus (and tram) depot into a mini-asylum, with audience "inmates" incorporated into the performance area in prison-like jackets and caps (mine was hopelessly small), just a breathing distance from the actors themselves - it's perhaps the one time I'll ever actually work "with" the Mercury Theatre, such was the level of audience and cast integration in the round.

The plot as such is a series of often stylised vignettes (with one recurring sub-plot about a missing child in red, reminiscent of Schindler's List and Don't Look Now), but beautifully lit and boldly staged, even though the acoustics are necessarily bad and the references to Colchester's history are often obscure. A booklet issued at the end - not the beginning - of the show only partly tries to explain things.

Some have found it brilliant, others deeply pretentious. I found it just a little obscure, but with vivid moments (such as being ushered through an area re-creating Severalls Mental Home with one of the characters being given EST), and it's perhaps also the first time when I've walked out of a play onto the streets with the effect of stepping from one frying pan into another.

We see September 11th everywhere

The morning of September the 10th, 2009: whilst sitting in the office, casually chewing on a pack of Munchies, as I tear back the wrapper during the course of the morning, the pattern it was developing seemed to resemble that of the smoke billowing from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

Read into it what you will (as I did at the time), but it seemed a spooky piece of symbolism.

Come Back Round the Horne

A pleasant weekend with a friend of mine over from Worcestershire Robert ("Bob") Cole, who came along to check out Colchester once again, and to see Round the Horne at the Mercury Theatre, in a touring production performing two radio broadcasts of the original classic radio series, notable for certain outre elements such as the two gay (in both the old and new sense of the word) characters Julian and Sandy, played of course in the original by such icons as Kenneth Horne, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and of course, Kenneth Williams. The actors given the unenviable task of emulating their 1950's counterparts I thought were very good vocal and facial imitations of the originals, in particular Robin Sebastian as Williams bringing out not only the great man's range of bizarre and wonderful characters but also his sharp sense of improvised repartee with the audience.

I found it not terribly dissimilar to recent radio broadcasts in the theatre that I've attended (such as I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue), and a pleasant evocation of the era in which it was broadcast, complete with lyrical and entertaining musical interludes from 'Not The Fraser Hayes Four'.

A slightly more peculiar slice of comedy nostalgia was to be found in a rare DVD collection of Come Back Mrs. Noah, a sci-fi comedy written by Jeremy Lloyd and David set in a satirical 2050 drawing upon 1970's influences such as Nationwide (aka. "Farandwide" presented by Gorden Kaye) and the British trade surplus, etc.

Unusually for Lloyd and Croft, CBMN is not a situation comedy as such but an ongoing story in 6 chapters. I watched the series in baited anticipation of whether Mrs N. would ever get back home to Earth - sadly, the resolution is not a satisfying one. A pity in a way, because with the range of characters and actors on display, there was something to be made from their interaction, especially as they are all pleasantly older and less "sexy" than they certainly would be today if - perish the thought - the series were ever remade (British class distinction is also quickly established even in outer space between officers and underlings), rather than focusing all the time on silly props and even sillier jokes that usually involve Mollie Sugden in uncomfortable positions.

The fifth episode ("The Housing Problem") is quite promising and for me the most enjoyable, where the members of Britannia 7 try to rehabilitate themselves with a simulated version of life back on Earth by inviting each other to tea, with mechanised butler and maid robots (played by Christopher Mitchell and Vicki Michelle), and underlining the fact that good science fiction is not really about faraway worlds, but in essence a window and a reflection on our own.

In all truth, this is a series that would normally have never got past the pilot episode - but with all its credentials, the BBC gave it the green light probably as an act of blind faith. Like The Goodies and many other 70's comedy, it remains a show locked in its own time.

70 Years On

I woke this morning, September 3rd 2009, rather earlier than hoped, to a violently windy atmosphere outside. September 3rd 1939 was also apparently a rather stormy night across Britain, the evening that Neville Chamberlain made his fateful speech. For Poland, it was already two days into a nightmare that lasted not just for the next six years but also through six decades.

In a sense, the Second World War was the Fifty Years war, inasmuch as its repercussions were to have a lasting effect until 1989, when Stalin's occupation of East Berlin (as reprisal for Hitler's invasion of Russia) came to an end with the breaking of the Berlin Wall, and all the subsequent oppressions of Communism and the Eastern Bloc.

Many wars have come and gone (and some are still very much ongoing), but across the globe we learnt most of our lessons the hard way from World War II. Please God, we may never have to learn them so grimly again.

"The only guarantor of independence [in journalism] is profit."

I am so repulsed by this statement by James Murdoch (following in his father's footsteps in gunning for the "state-sponsored" BBC), but couldn't think of a way to riposte, until now.

All I can say is, if the BBC is so "sinister" and state-funded, how come his sniping lecture has received such excellent coverage on the BBC? Would he have received anything like as much coverage on the News International channels, had he been a jealous BBC executive talking about Sky News?

Shamefully, many of the newspapers (even the non-Murdoch owned ones) have also rubbed their hands in anticipation at this speech, all jealous of the BBC's online news service that is funded through the license fee - which I fear will become obsolete in the years to come.

The day we lose good news through market forces, is the day we begin to lose our freedom.

Ashes to Ashes

20 years ago in 1989, I lay upstairs in bed asleep whilst Australia regained the Ashes, winning the Fourth Test at Old Trafford. The reason for my convalescence that afternoon was that I was working for British Telecom at the time, on the night shift for their communications computer department (as part of a work placement at college that summer).

20 years later, on another warm August afternoon, I lay on that same bed, as it seemed to be the only sensible place to be, having sat in the sun for the last four days at another cricket match (between Essex and Surrey at Castle Park). What with all that was going on at The Oval in the Fifth Test, to have walked away from the radio this afternoon would have been hazardous, especially if I'd missed anything.

So I lay there, whilst Strauss, Broad, Swann, Flintoff and Co. finally saw off the battling Australians to win the Ashes in a highly charged atmosphere. A small note might be made here, amongst the euphoria of English victory, for the very well behaved Australian contingent of fans throughout the summer - four years ago in 2005 the Aussies thought to bring over their own answer to England's "Barmy Army" which was raucous and just a little annoying - this year however their band of travelling faithful were very well behaved, appreciative and supportive of their team, and a credit to their country. I'm only sorry for them that they came all this way to end in defeat.

But going back to that day in August 1989 brought back some poignant memories (see also Batman blog), and overlooking other Ashes series wins since then, such as the miracle of 2005, this Sunday afternoon was a conclusive case of what goes around also comes around.


"When we were bad we were very very bad, when we were good we were good enough."
- Andrew Strauss, England captain.

Bobby's beat

I could eulogise about his glory years as arguably England and Ipswich Town's greatest manager (although there's someone called Ramsey whom could also lay claim to that), but my one quintessential image I have of Bobby Robson is sitting on the bench at the 1990 World Cup Semi-Final against West Germany, and the look of apoplectic regret as he witnessed his side just being edged out of the competition on penalties, and the denial of the chance for revenge against Argentina in the Final. In a very British way, that summed up the man and his no-nonsense love of football and love of life.

In one of those "remember where you were when you heard the news" moments, I sat at work today and saw the news that Sir Bobby had died after his long battle with cancer, and instinctively looked out through the window with that same expression of apoplectic acceptance of his in 1990.

We Will Remember Them

The last survivor of the First World War in Britain has died (see article). Now an entire generation of this nation's finest has truly given its life for future generations.

War is still War

It's sad but perhaps vilifying to hear that Britain has now lost more troops in the war in Afghanistan than in Iraq. If only because, in the first place, the war against terror was against the Taliban and not Saddam Hussain.

The failure of the Soviet Union to conquer the area (after nearly a decade of trying) is a telling reminder of the difficult job still in hand - it should also be noted that the Afghans received American support in that particular struggle.

Happy July 4th America

For the first time since September 11th 2001, the Statue of Liberty is fully open to the public once again.

Where engines go to die

A recent sad sight at Ipswich railway station just lately had been an old class 47 diesel engine, that was in too bad a condition to be moved away from the sidings, so it had become something of a permanent fixture.

Finally however the engineers came along to attach it to a carrier, and trundled it off to Felixstowe where it was then taken to be scrapped. Here's some pictures of it being sent on its final journey:

www.milepost91.co.uk/47370-leaves-ipswich

Has Jesus died?

No, Michael Jackson has.

I actually have a DVD of all of Jackson's smash hit videos, from the 70s onwards (the main reason was to watch John Landis's pop video Thriller.) He wrote and performed some agreeable tunes in his day, but as time went on he went increasingly out of touch with reality, and no-one seems to want to observe what a very strange man he was.

It must be something indeed for Newsnight to devote an entire programme to him.

The Empire of Cricket Strikes Back

This excellent BBC2 series (Sunday evenings) takes a long overdue look at the history of the game and the reason it has such an appeal particularly in the former colonies. England, the West Indies and Australia all have a fascinating history in the appeal of the game, and how it has helped to cross class divides or in some cases widen them.

Whilst I'm not sure that fitting in very recent cricket history to fit in with the wider historical picture is particularly suitable, it's nonetheless well worth a watch. Of those episodes coming up, the histories of Pakistan and South African cricket are bound to be interesting.

The Fearless Leader speaks!

In an interview I heard on Radio 4 this morning, David Cameron spoke of how constituents ought to be given the right to vote out their representative in Parliament (in the old days it used to be called a General Election) if they were dissatisfied with his/her conduct in cases such as the recent expenses scandal.

As two random(!) examples, he cited Alistair Darling or Gordon Brown.

Educating Rita

Chameleons Web. Act I 82. Act II 68m.

A Liverpudlian haidresser wants to improve her mind by taking an OU English course.
Willy Russell's modernised socio-political take on Pygmalion is as much about the flaws of its Henry Higgins figure (played by Dave King with a brilliantly understated air of disillusionment), as its Eliza Dolittle: the life-loving, motormouth, initially chalk-and-cheese figure of Susan (aka. "Rita"), equally well played by the always technically excellent Suzanne Bailey - who here handles the complexities of a Liverpudlian accent (and slight upperclass variations) with considerable aplomb. As a potentially long, episodic two-hander Malcolm Kimmance's production never lags, and although the costume changes are a little sparse, this is a splendidly accomplished, intriguingly designed (making intimate use of a double-sided Headgate stage) and very well acted version of a popular crowd-pleaser, another feather in the cap for the emerging Chameleons Web group.

Let He Who is Without Sleaze...

There's been a lot of slightly sanctimonious stuff in the Media lately about MP's expenses, when I think it's fair to say that screwing the system is an activity not just confined to politics. The principal leader of this moral crusade seems to be The Daily Telegraph - whose owner was the corrupt Conrad Black.

In many cases these politicians or ministers seem to have making the most of the perks that they thought were freely available to them. Politics is a dirty game, but it should have its compensations - or it used to. I suppose there is the view that as representatives of the people, they should be examined to scrutiny greater than for other professions. But I still wonder how much of the furore is distracting from the more important business of world affairs.

I also wonder how far this is going to spread. Just imagine how much would come out if, for instance, there was a similar expose of Hollywood stars or film producers who'd lapped up the complimentaries and over-indulged themselves for their own personal gain.

Silent Heaven

It's rare to be able to get the chance to see silent films nowadays, particularly in their original setting with live musical accompaniment. I've had the extreme good fortune to have seen two in the last seven days. Starting off with Salome, a very fragrant and curiously unique Biblical epic, starring the lesbian Russian star Alla Nazimova in the title role, directed by her homosexual husband Charles Bryant (in a "lavender marriage" as it was once dubbed by the press), and the production is very opulent to look at, if mostly intended to be in awe of the enigmatic Ms. Nazimova, who does a snappy dance when she gets round to it. It was nice to hear the splendid organ accompaniment by Donald Mackenzie, using the "The Duchess" Odeon Leicester Square instrument for its original purpose.

Then on Friday as part of the "Electric Silents" film weekend at the Electric Palace in Harwich, I managed to squeeze in A Cottage on Dartmoor, which belies the notion that Britain - and Anthony Asquith - could only make conservative dramas. A quite simple but boldly made thriller (similar in plot to later films such as Ealing's It Always Rains on Sunday), using a mostly European cast, in the days when film was a universal language. I found it powerful, beautifully photographed, and quite moving at times. On the piano of the cinema was Stephen Horne, giving it the proper atmosphere. The most amusing moment was when the musical accompaniment to a silent film (in the Electric Palace as well as on screen) stops because a "talkie" is about to start, and shows all the problems audiences had to adapt to the new medium when it was first introduced in 1927.

R.I.P. Bea Arthur: You know you're a Star Wars Fanatic when...2

... you hear about the sad loss of Beatrice Arthur this weekend; the first thing I associated her with was not The Golden Girls, but her barmaid in The Star Wars Holiday Special!

Things to do: 2.

A steam excursion.

Ideally from one of the London main termini. I'm sorry I missed the Oliver Cromwell making another nostalgic trip through Colchester yesterday, on its old East Anglian run.

Here it is departing from Colchester in 2008.

They've Fixed it for Jim

Well, another football season is mercifully almost over, but the real action seems to be taking place off the pitch. Over at Southampton their financial worries with a Partner Company going into administration have led to them being given a 10 point penalty and probable relegation (the Football Association really ought to be more in tune with this economic recession), just like for poor old Luton. And rather closer to home, there's a rough, tough new kid on the block in Town.

I remember walking with Jim Magilton into the Regent Theatre in Ipswich once, when he was taking his children to see Brian Blessed in Peter Pan. His tenure as Ipswich manager was never particularly fruitful, and the performances on the pitch were often uneven, but the standard of football that I saw was often very good, and he now may well be the last of the old guard.

It must be the first time that an Ipswich manager has been sacked only two days after WINNING a big derby game. That 3-2 win over Norwich has ultimately done no good for anybody, except I suppose the extreme wing of the "Blue Army" for whom nothing matters except beating Norwich. After witnessing the general bloodthirstiness and antipathy in East Anglia that day, I'm not sure I want to see too many more local derbies.

The overbearing influence of Ipswich's curiously reclusive new "Emperor" Marcus Evans has now made due effect, with the appointment of Britain's Olympic team manager Simon Clegg, no less, as chief executive - and as if that wasn't enough, Mr. Evans has instructed Mr. Clegg to sack Magilton and bring in Roy Keane - who has gone into his new job with typical Bull-in-a-China-Shop gusto.
There's a lot of greed around in football nowadays, but I hoped it would never extend to Ipswich Town.

RIP Alf Ramsey and the good old John Cobbold days.

Hillsborough and the Hatters

Watching the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show from 1980 on DVD, I was reminded that Eric Morecambe's beloved Luton Town are now a non-league club, after failing to beat Chesterfield at Kenilworth Road.

Their departure from the Football League comes two days before the 20th anniversary of arguably football's greatest recent tragedy. The death of 96 Liverpool fans at the FA Cup semi-Final at Sheffield Wednesday's home ground was initially declared by the more sensationalist media as an act of hooliganism (4 years after the Heysel Stadium disaster which also involved Liverpool fans), but was later declared by the Taylor Enquiry to be a failure of the police to control the situation.

The whole deep and sorry tragedy of Hillsborough brings to my mind the sheer folly and rashness of human behaviour at times; too often the police always take the blame for being unable to control a mob, and Liverpudlians likewise were equally dismayed (and still are) by the suggestion that they alone were the cause of their own fans' deaths. I suspect both aspects were partially true that day.

A watershed in Association Football history, it led thankfully to the elimination of "anti-hooligan" perimeter fencing (the true killer at Hillsborough) and terracing (including the legendary "Kop" terrace at Anfield) and one of the more positive aspects of the aftermath of Hillsborough was the decision to stage the FA Cup Final at Wembley (which Liverpool won in emotional circumstances) against close neighbours Everton with both sets of fans mixing freely together in the stands, and none of the segregation that usually creates tribal antipathy and sometimes extreme violence.

It's a trend which sadly hasn't caught on since (and it should), but what has is the whole commercial boom that football has become with the advent of sophisticated all-seater stadia - that Hillsborough indirectly helped to bring about. The game went up-market, and has now become one of this country's biggest economies.

And poor Luton Town have had to suffer by it, with their 30-point penalty at the beginning of the season (for "financial irregularities") - too great an obstacle for them to overcome. One can't help feeling that a top flight Premiership club would never dare receive such a harsh punishment. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Luton did at least avert financial disaster last season (despite the worst that the FA could do to them), thanks to a lucrative FA Cup Fourth Round replay against Premiership opponents: Liverpool.

You know you're a Star Wars fanatic when...

You hear news about the G20 Summit at London Excel, and your first thought is that it was also the venue for SW Celebration Europe in 2007.

Good Things:17: Second-Hand Bookshops

They struggle to make ends meet nowadays (with amazon.co.uk for competition), but I love strolling through those musty surroundings of undiscovered literary treasures. It's like the end scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I'm also reminded more and more nowadays of the film Fahrenheit 451, where there are scenes of immersed private libraries - one character treasures her literature so much that she would rather go up in smoke with them, than to live in a world without books.

Goodbye to Natasha

That the loss of Natasha Richardson is a tragedy goes without saying, but I'm also reminded of a time when her husband Liam Neeson had a motorbike accident in 2000, for which Mrs. Neeson kept him off the vehicle from then on, to prevent any fatal repetition. Sadly the fates were unable to allow Liam to do the same for his wife, and I pity him as much as anyone.

In some ways, I think she was a better actress than her mother Vanessa. That's how much of a loss she is to the acting profession.

Sad reflections are also due for the jaded life of Jade Goody.

To both ladies, this link is suitably dedicated: Cabaret title song

A good neighbour: Rosalie Miles

It's funny the things you learn about people you used to know in your own back yard. Just a few doors down Granville Road lived Rosalie, who was, as the Clacton and Frinton Gazette says, a figure locally often seen walking her two dogs through the nearby Recreation Ground, with the replacement electronic voicebox for her lost larynx. I always found her amiable whenever I saw her - although I confess in later years I was often too shy to chat because of her Dalek-like voice!

The Broader perspective

The unprecedented terrorist attack on a cricket team in Pakistan has prompted an equally outspoken response from the ICC Test Match referee, Chris Broad, who returned from the cancelled Test Series fuming at the lack of "top level" security promised by the Pakistanis towards the visiting Sri Lankan team and the match officials. It's a sad and inevitable reflection of the climate in that country at the moment that the terrorists were allowed to just walk away and disappear without the authorities being able to track them down. It may be the last international sporting event in Pakistan for some considerable time.

In the war of words however, the Pakistan Cricket Board have spoken out against Mr. Broad's criticisms: six policemen have been killed in the ongoing battle, and "top level" security can only go so far when a war zone is suddenly involved, as was the case near the Gadaffi Stadium (unfortunately but appropriately named) in Lahore.

I can't help wondering if history still rankles with the PCB; back in 1987, during the controversial England tour of Pakistan (when Mike Gatting came to blows with umpire Shakoor Rana), Chris Broad refused to leave the crease after being "dismissed" by the Pakistani umpire during the First Test that troubled autumn - at the Gadaffi Stadium, Lahore.

Three Tall Tales - and all true

Either the Media know something that the rest of us don't, or there's been a tremendous fashion just lately for Margaret Thatcher tributes or programmes about her legacy (30 years after she first came to power). A few months back there was The Long Road to Finchley with Andrea Riseborough (whom I saw in the English Civil War drama The Devil's Whore recently, reminding me in some ways of Kate Winslet) as the young Margaret Roberts, and now we've had Lindsay Duncan in Margaret, an account of the Caesar-like conspiracies that led to her downfall on 22nd November 1990.

I was fearing a Tory-biased sympathetic portrayal, but this was offset by an extraordinary chalk-white appearance to Lindsay Duncan's face (her husband Denis is played by "Emperor Palpatine" himself, Ian McDiarmid!) and the halls of No. 10 Downing Street as represented here have never looked so cold and foreboding.

In amidst all this, I also saw Ian Amos's production of Three Tall Women at the Headgate Theatre, Edward Albee's autobiographical 1994 account of the troubled relationship with his (adoptive) mother, as played here by the ever reliable Sara Green. The first act follows a relatively conventional path, with the 91-year old character's Alzheimers, but in the second act, the three main actresses (SG, Maggie Brush and Charlotte Cocks) all become various stages of this woman's life - together with a very neat stage trick of having two "Sara Greens" on stage - with the younger version dressed as an elegant, attractive 1930s girl, intermingling with her later self in the 1960s and 1990s respectively.

The three actresses are very deliberately contrasting in style, and all perform well. At various points in the play the youngest one says to the eldest one: "I will never become you."

I wonder if both Margaret Roberts in The Long Walk to Finchley and Lindsay Duncan's Margaret would both be inclined to say that to the real Baroness Thatcher.

Cultural Highlights of the Year

With Oscar Fever all over the place at the moment, here's a different kind of award that I'd like to share with you.

In the BBC's Late Review (aka. Newsnight Review) the regular reviewers at the end of each year would be asked for their cultural highlight of the year - their choices were often varied, eclectic and sometimes unusual: Tom Paulin in 1997 for example selected the speech given by Earl Spencer at the funeral for his sister Princess Diana.

The idea set me thinking of whichever cultural event or landmark was the one (or more) that made the most vivid impression on me each year - some are sport-related, others a little more obscure such as amateur plays I've been involved in, and in the case of the early 1990's working back, a certain amount of scratching my memory banks was required; dangerous, because nostalgia can give one a better impression of the year than the actual immediacy of the time does.

Here they are, roughly from remembered years:

1975: going to school at St. Joseph's RC, Aylesbury
1976: family holiday at Paignton
1976/77: The Nativity Play - I played my namesake patron saint
1978: Star Wars (surprise, surprise...)
1979: Superman The Movie
1980: The Empire Strikes Back
1981: Ipswich Town's UEFA Cup winning season
1982: holiday in Hastings
1983: Essex v. Middlesex: Benson and Hedges Cup Final at Lord's
1984: Tour of Wembley Stadium
1985: The death of Jason Ellis & Bradford City FC fire
1986: "Kids Aid" at St. Benedict's School
1987: The Mission & Return of the Jedi (video)
1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989: breaking of the Berlin Wall & Dead Poets Society
1990: England v. India - First Test at Lord's & resignation of Margaret Thatcher
1991: Return to Ypres & 75 Not Out
1992: JFK
1993: Jurassic Park
1994: Star Wars Trilogy Day (Elstree) & Cabaret (Harlequin Productions - Walton-on-Naze)
1995: Nasty Neighbours & Countdown (featuring Teresa Sales)
1996: Brighton Beach Memoirs
1997: Eating Avocado & Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions & Hobson's Choice & The Merchant of Venice
1998: John Williams in concert: Barbican Centre
1999: Teresa Sales in Talking Heads: Cream Cracker Under the Settee
2000: Napoleon
2001: The Herbal Bed
2002: Miss Julie
2003: Russian Ark
2004: The Passion of the Christ
2005: Revenge of the Sith & One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Making Waves)
2006: Journey's End & I Have Been Here Before
2007: Alone It Stands & King Lear (Headgate Theatre)

For cultural highlight(s) of 2008, see previous blog.

Now There's Something You Don't See Too Often...2

Unpretentious adverts.


(I'm not expecting any freebies from Nationwide for this.)

Oscar material

If Kate Winslet does have the good fortune to win the Oscar for Best Actress for The Reader, she may do well to acknowledge Ricky Gervais in the acceptance speech. For it was Gervais, in his comedy series Extras, who cast her in a guest appearance (as herself) playing a nun in a World War II film, who is doing the role only for the purpose of winning an award. "Nuns, suffering, Holocaust...definite Oscar", she quips at one point.

And now unnervingly, she is winning awards left right and centre for playing a German Concentration Camp guard - during the Holocaust. The recognition won't be undeserved, as she's always worked jolly hard in her other (perhaps better) films. I particularly enjoyed her performance in the bleak Jude, she was the youthful spirit and joy of Iris, and even the trashy Titanic has its good moments.

So often, relatively inferior films win awards usually because of the subject matter or the fashion.
Uncle Oscar often has a funny way of rewarding his children.

Snowed under....(?!)

The United Kingdom defied the Luftwaffe in 1940, kept Napoleon and many others at bay, and was at the centre of an Empire over which the sun would never set. As an island, she has enjoyed a moderate climate at best, and hardly suffers from extreme weather.

How is it then, in face of so much past triumph in adversity, that the people of this nation in February 2009 stand around like sheep because of a little snowfall.

Most of the snow around the country has already melted, but that hasn't deterred most schools from prematurely cancelling lessons and businesses from ceasing trading, and unforgivably, the London buses (pioneers in transport in their heyday) chose not to run.

In days gone by we just mucked in and carried on, but complacency and too much familiarisation with mild winters has left most people taking the easy way out, and others moaning about the bad weather. I personally love the sight of the snow, and how it is such a great leveller at slowing the pace of life down to a more manageable level. The only drawback is that it leads later on to ice, and the slush - which has already materialized from the minor thaw-out this afternoon.

Oh to be in England, now that winter's here...

Take Hart

There have been a spate of sad deaths lately, from the wonderfully laconic John Mortimer to the brilliant, panther-like villain of many a film (including the Star Trek and Naked Gun

series), Ricardo Montalban. But my heart sank the most when I heard about the death of Tony Hart at the weekend. I think for many young artists of the time, his children's TV programme Take Hart introduced the genius of drawing to a whole younger generation. This, coupled also with excellent use of the medium - such as overhead cameras to capture his work in progress. A spin-off from the children's TV series Vision On, it more than held its own, and the cluster of work that children would send in to "The Gallery" was testament to the programme's popularity. Its success led to other incidentals being thrown in, such as the slightly awkward comedy sidekick Mr. Bennett, and best of all, the animated plasticine character Morf (the creation of one of the Aardman Studio's maestros, Peter Lord), residing in a pencil case on the artist's table, with whom Mr. Hart interacted beautifully, even though it was all put together in the editing room of course. To be honest, I think my first immediate reaction when I heard of his passing was the sadness that there wouldn't be any Morf & Chas anymore. In reality of course, Tony Hart had retired from television presenting some years before - whereas Morf on the other hand has since been very much in the public conscience. Along with Rolf Harris in the 1970's, a pivotal figure in the world of popular television art, done in a fun and brilliantly accessible manner. We shall miss him.

Some Highlights of 2008

Cultural Highlight of the Year: Oh What a Lovely War - Headgate Theatre


Favourite Play of 2008 (as audience): Someone Who'll Watch Over Me

Favourite Films: Lust, Caution and WALL-E

Favourite TV/Radio: all the tribute programmes to Humphrey Lyttelton, both before and after his death in April 2008.

Favourite TV ad: Actimel, starring Bobby Charlton.

Favourite Music of 2008: Mahler's 5th Symphony, at St. Paul's Cathedral (right).

Favourite Books: I don't generally catch up with the latest novels, but I've been continuing my reading of Winston Churchill's History of the Second World War, of which Volumes 3 & 4 covering Dunkirk, The Blitz, the Battle of Britain and Russia, made for compelling reading.

Wittiest Review of the Year: Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian, on The Incredible Hulk.

Worst Cultural Experience of 2008: Probably the furore about Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross (especially the BBC's handling of it).
Having to sit through the overrated Dark Knight for a turgid 2 and a half hours wasn't as bad as Wanted (below).

Great publicity photo, shame about the film.