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Post by jek on Apr 17, 2024 19:48:29 GMT
Just saw 'Sometimes I think about dying' starring Daisy Ridley. It was a Picturehouse Preview (previously free, now £1). It was better than the two star Guardian review led me to expect. It feels like a filmed American short story. Nothing much happens but there are some profound moments and Ridley was excellent. The quality of the light in the film is also very pleasing.
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Post by jek on Apr 13, 2024 14:24:03 GMT
I belatedly went on a day trip to Chichester yesterday to see the Pallant House exhibition of the works of John Craxton. The exhibition finishes on Sunday 21st April - meaning that there is only a week left to see it. There are some lovely things in the exhibition, including some of the designs and preparatory work that Craxton did for Frederick Ashton's Daphnis and Chloe in 1951. There is also a short video showing the preparations for the revival of the work in 2004. It's worth a look if you are anywhere near Sussex.
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Post by jek on Apr 11, 2024 13:23:37 GMT
showgirl How I wish I could explain the ending of Evil is Not Enough! There were seven of us in the screening we attended (and we were a party of three) and there was some discussion as we emerged as to what it meant. General consensus was that nobody had a clue but it was a beautiful ride to get there! My son has been playing the soundtrack pretty much non-stop since seeing the film. I haven't seen the director's earlier Drive My Car but I am planning to rectify that. I'm disappointed that the Teachers' Lounge isn't coming to my local Picturehouse and so I may not get to see it any time soon.
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Post by jek on Apr 11, 2024 12:53:22 GMT
I have just received an email with the trailer for the Buddha of Suburbia. Really surprised to see that it is two and a half hours long without an interval. I know that is only the length of many films (and shorter, for example, than Oppenheimer) but it does feel like a long time without a break in a theatre. And I would have thought that the RSC would have wanted the interval bar takings.
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Post by jek on Apr 7, 2024 16:06:10 GMT
I also have tickets for this. I am looking forward to seeing Jamael Westman who I remember seeing in the first month of Hamilton (my then teenage daughter begged me to get tickets for her and her friend!) I remember seeing him a little while later in the audience of a proms concert and getting the feeling that he was a well grounded young man who hadn't let the attention go to his head. Nice to see him doing well.
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Post by jek on Apr 7, 2024 12:22:25 GMT
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Post by jek on Apr 6, 2024 7:43:44 GMT
These days Mark Lawson reviews for The Tablet, the Catholic weekly journal (he started his career at another Catholic paper, the Universe, so there is some symmetry in this). I have a subscription for academic research purposes. His review of this is headed 'Closing night beckons. A production not long for this world or good for the theatre'. It describes Smith as 'magnetically watchable in anything' but says that 'at every level, Smith deserves better'. In particular he says that Wainwright has written two operas and that his 'eccentric libretto......might have passed in the Linbury Studio at Covent Garden, but lands awkwardly in a populist genre prioritising rhyme and rhythm'.
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Post by jek on Mar 30, 2024 14:59:59 GMT
I have just booked a midweek matinee for this (one of only a couple of remaining seats for that performance). I am very happy - not just because I so loved Gemma Whelan in Balenciaga (her command of languages to be able to perform in this is clearly very good). But also because I had no idea that there was an over sixties discount at the National for midweek matinees. My £50 seat was in fact £36. Getting old is no fun so I take my victories where I can!
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Post by jek on Mar 25, 2024 13:13:11 GMT
I haven't booked for this - I feel like I've had enough Brontes - but I am tempted purely because of Gemma Whelan. She is excellent in the Spanish TV series Balenciaga (on Disney plus) as the journalist who secures an interview with the reclusive fashion designer. She was just as good in Gentleman Jack. So I may cave in and book.
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Post by jek on Mar 24, 2024 21:52:52 GMT
Anyone looking for a good New York movie look no further than Robot Dreams - the Oscar nominated animation about a dog and his robot. It's set in 1980s New York which is lovingly rendered (there is even a glimpse of the Twin Towers). It's about loneliness and love and loss and while it's fine for children it has much wider appeal than that. You will - however - be left with an earworm of September by Earth Wind and Fire!
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Post by jek on Mar 17, 2024 14:40:09 GMT
Of course Nye is heading off to Cardiff. So maybe this could head to somewhere in/near Mansfield. The audience reaction would be interesting.
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Post by jek on Mar 16, 2024 10:37:04 GMT
Saw this last night and thought it was good in parts. Some of the 'episodes' are better than others - a bit more of the Dennis Potter influenced bits would have helped - or maybe that's just because I am old enough to remember the first broadcasts of The Singing Detective and Blue Remembered Hills. I also - given that one of my sons was in it - inevitably thought of the London Olympics opening ceremony (all those swirling beds and nurses) and all that hope and expectation there was around that. My husband and I first met over 30 years ago when we were studying for PhDs in Labour History/Politics and so the subject matter of Nye is right up our street. It was good to be reminded of (and no doubt for many in the audience introduced to) just how much opposition the BMA put up to the founding of the National Health Service. It was also good on the pragmatism/compromises necessary to get things done in politics. Good use of video too. But it was a bit long. Good that it is going to Wales.
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Post by jek on Mar 12, 2024 9:08:07 GMT
I once saw her present a fashion show at Liberty's - the London store. I was a teenager (obsessed with Liberty silks and soon to become a textiles student) and it was - shall we say - a bewildering performance.
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Post by jek on Mar 11, 2024 11:54:47 GMT
Finland have clearly gone for the batsh*t approach with Windows95man.
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Post by jek on Mar 11, 2024 9:48:37 GMT
I got tickets for Till The Stars Come Down for last Monday via Friday Rush - side high chair seats in the circle (restricted view, but in reality not very restricted). On opting for the Monday performance I joined the queue at somewhere in the 30s. I didn't realise that there were separate queues depending on which performance you chose - I thought that was just a way in and that you could then choose different performances. I didn't try moving around as Monday was the day which suited us. So much of where you get in is clearly down to luck. So all I can do is wish you the best of luck when you try this week.
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Post by jek on Mar 10, 2024 22:56:08 GMT
Another vote for the Barbican. I particularly like the doors at the ends of each row and how they all shut in a choreographed manner at the start of the performance.
I also like Sadler's Wells with its very good sightlines. Having said that I was there this afternoon for the New York City Ballet and the auditorium was uncomfortably hot.
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Post by jek on Mar 9, 2024 9:14:58 GMT
Reading the reviews this sounds like a good fit for my local theatre, Stratford East, a venue which is mentioned in the Guardian piece because of its current production of The Big Life. Roy Williams certainly has a longstanding relationship with the Theatre Royal. But I'm sure other theatres would also be appropriate.
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Post by jek on Mar 6, 2024 15:59:28 GMT
A national theatre skills centre sounds good. I guess this may be akin to the sort of thing that the Royal Opera House have out at Thurrock. Doubling the number of apprenticeships can only be a good thing - they seem harder to get on to than prestigious university courses.
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Post by jek on Mar 6, 2024 10:03:52 GMT
Given it is a GCSE set text this must have good prospects. I remember my daughter's school group being taken from East London to Cambridge for a performance when they were studying it.
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Post by jek on Mar 5, 2024 8:44:43 GMT
sherbetlemon We had Friday Rush tickets for this last night. We were in the restricted view side circle seats - Row P - and they were fine. Miss a view of the odd bit but not much at all - and you can certainly still get the gist of what's happening. For a tenner they are a very good deal for an enjoyable night at the theatre.
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Post by jek on Mar 3, 2024 22:13:04 GMT
I saw this tonight in a packed Barbican showing and very much enjoyed it. There's a lot of Fellini about it - we were talking quite a bit about that on the way home. It also seems to me to be a profoundly religious film - though having been brought up very seriously Roman Catholic I probably see that in many things (don't get me started on Wings of Desire!) For women of my age it is a joy to see Isabella Rossellini having the time of her life in this and other roles. It is full of the most glorious looking people - Josh O'Connor's character points out a wonderful profile in an early scene and you can't help noticing so many others as the film progresses. Highly recommend it.
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Post by jek on Mar 3, 2024 11:40:49 GMT
Anyone looking for this week's episode (the penultimate one, episode 9) don't panic! The translator has posted that she is off to the Emirates Stadium today and so won't be posting the subtitled version until late tomorrow. Similarly next week's will be later than usual as it is shown live and subtitling that is more complicated.
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Post by jek on Mar 1, 2024 13:50:05 GMT
Thanks max. One of my great regrets is that I never recorded my maternal grandad who died aged 100 in 1992 and was a lifelong Eastender. He had spent most of his adult life - after years in the Merchant Navy - as a street trader in Club Row - initally dealing in caged birds (his Bethnal Green flat was full of them) and once that became illegal in TV's which he reconditioned for sale (causing many fires in his flat in the process). He had an almost Edwardian turn of phrase saying, for example, 'presently' rather than 'later'. I spent a lot of time caring for him in his dying days and so had ample opportunity to whip out a tape recorder but never did. I know precisely what you mean about Wesker and Kops (so sad to read of the latter's death last week). Another good example of that accent was the late, lamented historian of the East End Bill Fishman who was wonderfully encouraging to me when I was a politics PhD student. I was always more of a smoked salmon beigel fan than salt beef but I still miss Blooms whenever I am in Whitechapel! I will definitely try to see this production if it gets a new life.
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Post by jek on Mar 1, 2024 10:46:58 GMT
I grew up just off Cable Stree in the 1960s and 70s. I come from an Irish Catholic family who came over in the late 1930s to work at the Ford car factory in Dagenham and became very involved in trade union activism (my aunt was one of the women who struck for equal pay and every so often archival footage of her turns up on TV). My dad left Fords to become a burglar alarm mechanic and his patch was the then very Jewish Whitechapel with its fabric wholesalers and jewellers. I grew up going out with my dad on his rounds and was possibly the only Catholic girl in Stepney who had a set of honorary Jewish uncles. My mum had, as a girl, lit many Sabbath fires for Jewish people for whom that was forbidden. Even in the 1970s the events in Cable Street were starting to be celebrated. So this should be right up my street (quite literally!) But the trailer is giving me Lionel Bart Blitz! vibes, which is not a good thing. If it goes on to a new life I will chance it as the Mark Lawson review suggests it moves on from 'Mockney', but I will steel myself for the bits that are pure 'diamond geezer'.
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Post by jek on Feb 26, 2024 9:46:03 GMT
Went to see The Taste of Things at the Barbican Cinema yesterday. It is very beautiful and will make viewers very hungry, but it is very slow. Someone in our row had a long, noisy sleep during an extended section of the two and a quarters hour of the film and I doubt that he missed any plot. Juliette Binoche is only a year younger than me but I'd put her at 15 year's younger - she just glows. The costumes in the film are a triumph - I had itchy fingers wanting to touch all that linen. I suppose the closest it is to another film is Babette's Feast but I'd say that that earlier film has more plot and a more overt philosophical underpinning. Interestingly the night before I had watched the excellent Society of the Snow on Netflix. That, of course, is a film about the absence of food. I remember when details of the accident emerged, back in the 1970s. Being a young Roman Catholic at the time, the fact that the rugby team were Catholic and had an extended theological debate about the rights and wrongs of their survival tactics was made much of in church debates. There have been so many retellings of the story in all sorts of media but I thought this particular version was very well done.
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Post by jek on Feb 24, 2024 9:42:37 GMT
We very much enjoyed this last night. We were in the £20 seats in the second from back row of the circle (I can't cope with the leg room in the front row stalls anymore). It reminded me a lot of 1930s paintings by English painters such as Bernard Fleetwood-Walker. I have to admit that - as a bit of a fan - I would have liked some more Nico Muhly music but what was there served the action well. It was slightly elegiac, rather like his music for the BBC adaptation of Howard's End. Excellent performances all round. It's interesting how something that we perceive as cosy (I'm thinking here also of those books published by Virago and Persephone presses) can have quite the bite and insight. My husband and I have only been together for 32 years (and married for less than one) but that complicated relationship with adult children is something I know a bit about!
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Post by jek on Feb 22, 2024 16:53:21 GMT
maggiem As I posted above Mooorfields have said that I am not a candidate for surgery at the moment. I guess they have to manage their waiting lists. I am sure that at some point I shall enjoy all the advantages that cataract removal can bring. I hear so many good reports. The man who repairs my sewing machine (and so does detailed, close work) can wax lyrical at length about the bliss of being glasses free for so many activities. It is so wonderful that such surgery has become so straightforward and routine.
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Post by jek on Feb 21, 2024 22:13:24 GMT
Jon There is certainly plenty of swearing but it doesn't quite reach Malcolm Tucker's creative, operatic heights. In our family (working class Irish/EastEnders) swearing is basically punctuation. Hope you enjoy the film.
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Post by jek on Feb 21, 2024 9:50:01 GMT
amyja89 To be fair there were other people in the audience clearly really enjoying it, but it was a definite 2/3 star at best from my 22 year old daughter and I. I only read the one star Guardian review (from when it was on at the Toronto film festival last year) after I came back from the film and found it had some very real truths in it. I'm sure you'll find something to enjoy in it - spotting all the well known British actors in small parts is fun - but my expectations based on the trailer were for so much more, especially given the calibre of the cast.
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Post by jek on Feb 20, 2024 22:06:38 GMT
I saw Wicked Little Letters tonight and was glad not to have paid for it - it was a free preview. Some of our best actors faced with a not very funny script. A shame as the story is an interesting one.
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