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.