It’s a play about contacting those who have ‘passed over’, but this production manages to suck all the life out of Coward’s farce and spit out a lifeless corpse. At the Royal Exchange I have sometimes felt detached when watching from seats high up in the auditorium, but even after we moved to the stalls at the interval I literally nodded off despite being a few metres from the action.
I say action, but actor Milo Twomey as Mr Condomine chooses to deliver his lines like a sergeant major – arms by his sides and rooted to the spot most of the time. On the other hand, the maid’s part was over-acted to the point of annoyance. Annette Badland as eccentric medium Madame Arcati shows how it should be done, although her diction was a little indistinct towards the end – a fault which fellow Coronation Street actor Suranne Jones displayed from time to time as Mrs Condomine.
One turkey to avoid this Christmas.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer for England who is stepping down in May 2010, has issued a self-contradictory message on children and alcohol.
Parents who allow their children alcohol at home may be increasing the chances of future drinking problems, he claims. Sir Liam described the idea of a glass of watered-down wine for a child as a “middle-class obsession”, whilst also declaring as scientific fact the idea that “a lack of parental supervision, exposing children to drink-fuelled events and failing to engage with them as they grow up are the root causes from which our country’s serious alcohol problem has developed.”
Well, which is it?
… more →
Somebody recently asked me why I drive an automatic car. It’s a strange question, to me. A bit like asking why I have a colour TV.
The roads would be safer if all vehicles were automatic, of course. No risk of stalling half way out of a junction. No need to take one hand off the steering wheel all the time. More attention available to deal with hazards and to control the speed and direction of the vehicle.
… more →
On 31 October 2003 I was one of 10,000 spectators who waited patiently in the cold at Manchester Airport to watch Concorde G-BOAC land for the very last time.
Today I went on a Technical Tour of that same aeroplane which, after five years standing out in the open, is now housed in the Concorde Centre. (Whilst this purpose built hangar protects the iconic plane from the wind and rain, it is unheated. The seven of us on our tour were bitterly cold for most of the 90 minute experience. If you are considering a tour, wait until spring!)
… more →
You know how it is. You are trying to watch TV, but there’s a car alarm going off outside. Try as you might, you can’t ignore it. Your viewing is spoiled.
It’s the same with Lone Scherfig’s An Education except it comes with its own built-in annoying, insistent wee waah: ‘She’s too old for the part … She’s too old for the part … She’s too old for the part …’
Carey Mulligan is seven years older than her character. Now, seven years might be close enough not to matter when playing a mature adult, but Jenny is supposed to be 16. And Mulligan is just not a convincing teenage schoolgirl.
There are many other irritations besides this mis-casting. Peter Sarsgaard plays David. He’s supposed to be a suave, manipulative older man. Trouble is, there’s no grit, no edge, no menace. David and Jenny just moon at each other like they are the same age, and such is the softness of his demeanour, it is hard to accept that this man is a self-serving immoral (heterosexual) hedonist.
The period detailing is good (the film is set in the early 1960′s) but it is too flat, lacking depth and dramatic involvement, and is over-long.
I am not a big fan of Roald Dahl, but – thanks largely to the talents of Johnny Depp – I did enjoy Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
So I went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox tonight partly on the strength of that experience, and partly because it features so many A-list voiceovers.
The trouble is,
… more →
The family opposite had a Sky TV dish installed this morning. I watched as the engineer got ready to mount the satellite dish up on the wall. If he had been preparing to enter the core of a nuclear reactor he couldn’t have had more safety equipment.
With hard hat, goggles, mask, earplugs and gloves he drilled a hole in the wall and fitted a metal eye. This was just to lash the ladder. Then he donned a safety harness and clipped himself onto the ladder. Climbing all of two metres he drilled the wall and attached the dish.
After completing the installation he stood back, admired his work and smoked a cigarette.
We have been getting used to our new central heating system since the controls were all wired in a fortnight ago. I took a wrench to the hall radiator valve and adjusted it right down, which has solved the issue of a hot hall triggering the new wall thermostat and consequently preventing the boiler from warming the rooms.
I thought that was the end of our problems, but
… more →
We had a new gas boiler installed today. The old Vulcan it replaced was simple and reliable but it sent a lot of heat up the flue (more on the flue later). It also heated up the cellar which did at least give us a laundry drying room.
The hot water storage cylinder in the loft also got replaced – with one encased in foam lagging so we no longer have to have a pile of old blankets and duvets on top of it.
The flue was attached to the back of the house and ran right up beyond the eaves. Being made of asbestos,
… more →
How time flies. I returned to Gibraltar today, some 44 years 33 days since my last visit. I was on my way to a university friends reunion in Medina Sidonia, Spain.
The Rock looms majestically as you step off the aeroplane, just as the warmth hits your skin. A heart-lifting double whammy; a confusing, delightful product of air travel. This place is only 2½ hours from gloomy Manchester!
… more →
Bookmark with:
What are these?