musings

A sprinkling of silly gimmicks including a Domino’s pizza box, hand held desk fans and such like fail to lift the stodgy, leaden, inanimate production of Carmen now showing at the Lowry in Salford.

If you want a modern take on Bizet’s 19th century tale of steamy sexuality, jealousy, and violence check out instead Carlos Saura’s 1983 film which (like Karel Reisz’ The French Leuitenant’s Woman) tells a story within a story.

It’s 12 hours since I watched Animal Kingdom. A small whisky and a night’s sleep have helped restore my pulse rate but I don’t know if somewhere in my brain one or two of the dwindling stock of precious cells have turned a funny colour and permanently ceased to communicate with the others.

Don’t misunderstand me – this film is

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Our local cinema has survived on a shoestring for years. The films it shows are the usual mainstream Hollywood fare, the ambience is comfortable, the prices cheaper than the multiplex barn down the road. Yet it rarely manages to attract more than twenty or thirty customers per night.

Imagine my surprise therefore when

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Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre have chosen Harold Brighouse’s Zack as their Christmas offering. I went to see it on Monday and discovered there’s a reason why I had heard of Brighouse’s classic Hobson’s Choice but not this one.

I actually nodded off in the first half. Then in the interval I spotted no less than three local celebs – Jimi ‘Coronation Street’ Harkishin; Vicky ‘ex-Coronation Street’ Binns and Jason ‘concentrate on my family and tour commitments’ Manford.

All the excitement must have woken me up because I found myself conscious for the second half. It’s a mildly entertaining play. Quaint, inoffensive, sentimental stuff but a bit ho-hum. More bric-a-brac than antique.

Which left me wondering why, out of a virtually limitless choice of plays, this one was picked. OK it’s by a local playwright. But does the Royal Exchange audience not have the stomach for anything more challenging or exciting?

A sweet, funny Australian animation written and directed by Adam Elliot. Apparently based on the true story of an eight year old Australian girl and her penpal in New York – a man in his mid forties with Asberger’s syndrome.

Max knew nothing about love. It was as foreign to him as scuba diving.

The talented Philip Seymour Hoffman does an excellent job as the voice of Max, with Toni Collette as the voice of Mary Daisy Dinkle. Barry Humphries takes a break from his alter ego Edna Everage to narrate this touching tale.

It has the look of an Aardman film, but for some reason the majority of scenes are a monochrome gunmetal with spot colour – a pompom or a tongue for example. In some ways this matches the sombre tone of the drama – two sad and lonely people for whom flashes of joy are fleeting and elusive.

Fortunately, any feelings of deprivation engendered by this meanness with colour, are compensated by the joyous and amusing script. It gives a sympathetic insight into the experience of those for whom the world is a scary, confusing and threatening place, and offers a lot of wisdom for us all.

The story of a strike by women at Ford’s Dagenham, UK plant in the late 1970′s.

There’s hardly a face you won’t recognise in this British movie, but Miranda Richardson steals the show as Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity Barbara Castle. John Sessions misses the mark as Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and Bob Hoskins as union representative Bernie Passingham (in the film Albert Passingham) is devoid of pace and energy.

The whole movie chugs on too long in what sets out to be a breezy romp through recent history. There’s too much extraneous detail and not enough character development. Consequently there’s no emotional build-up to the women’s triumph. The audience should be punching the air (or at least have goosebumps) at this point in the story.

Better than the last British comedy effort I watched (the dismal Tamara Drewe) but not as entertaining as it could have been.

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest was Manchester Library Theatre’s first ever production in 1952. And it will be the last – in its current home at least. The building is closing for renovation, and the theatre will not have a new permanent home for three or four years.

Unlike the Royal Exchange’s flaccid Blithe Spirit at Christmas, this Library company production is a cracker, bringing alive Wilde’s witty social observations with pace, timing and verve.

It runs until 3 July and tickets are selling out fast.

I went to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland last night at Cineworld. The reek of ripoff popcorn fills the nostrils as you walk in. The magic of cinema weaves its spell before you have taken your seat, for you feel instantly transported to an airport departure hall right there in the foyer. A cavernous carpeted barn full of queuing people.

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