I thought that The Hummingbird Saint would be a trashy, throwaway crime read, so I was pleased when it turned out to be none of those things - despite the fact it says 'Crime Fiction' on the back there's not a detective to be seen. Instead this is the story of Mark, who we encounter on his way to an unnamed central American country to try and cheat Benjamin Sword Hoppner, a millionaire pornographer, out of some of his fortune. He meets another couple of chancers and they agree to team up to try to get the money - Mark wants £200,000 for his son's future.
In an intriguing first couple of chapters there are many questions left unanswered - about Mark's motives, his curious past (why is he scared to be around children?), his new companion Freddy, the chance encounter later with another companion Alice, and her new 'husband'... Macdonald really drew me in, and then managed to keep me interested all through the book.
Hoppner, the Hugh-Hefner-like philanthropist who has built a community in the middle of the jungle, is a mysterious figure who is trying to play God and create a utopian society. His method of determining who should get some of his funds is to subject candidates to hypnosis and test their morality - if they fail they have to agree to suicide, or they'll be euthanised anyway. Throwing up interesting questions of morality alongside an energetic thriller, this strangely titled book (it doesn't really refer to anything much aside from a casual mention of hummingbirds once or twice) kept me enthralled all through my recent trip to Amsterdam.
We have a friend who is currently a pupil in a barrister's chambers and she hates Silk and it's portrayal of the profession. She's too close to it though, whereas I can suspend my disbelief - clearly I know that dozy Nick would never be accepted as a pupil as I know the volume of work and effort my friend put in in order to get the pupillage - and enjoy the show for what it was - a damn good drama! It was the combination of Rupert Penry-Jones (Clive) and Maxine Peake (Marta) that drew me in, along with the knowledge that the creator also wrote the unfairly forgotten North Square, set in a similar world on Channel 4 many years ago, and it was the intrigue and the enjoyability factor that kept me watching.
Although at times I was utterly lost in the procedures of barristers, solicitors and courts, I could follow the cases and cheer Martha on, and boo Clive as necessary. Peake - the best thing in Deep Blue Sea - had a bit of an odd accent, sort of half posh, half working class, and Penry-Jones needed a hair cut, but these are minor, aesthetic issues in a polished production. The stories themselves involved some interesting moral dilemmas to ponder, as Martha served as defendant for some dubious customers - sometimes it was difficult to see how her winning could be good for anyone. It stopped things being simplistic and black-and-white and added to my interest in the show.
I don't watch that many wildlife documentaries, but I was drawn to Madagascar, a three-parter narrated by Sir David Attenborough, for the sheer variety of nature that exists on this African island. The show was pretty amazing, looking gorgeous and full of lots of nuggets of information. There were also a heck of a lot of lemurs! Every other piece featured a lemur. Or a chameleon. They're native to Madagascar you see, and no where else. There were many animals featured that can be found no where else on Earth, outside of zoos.
The extremes of parched, desert-like areas, mountainous climbs and sheer rock faces present thrilling filmmaking and I really enjoyed the 'how they did that' 10 minute segments that end each episode. They're almost as interesting as the animals contained within! Attenborough lends so much gravitas to these programmes, and although he clearly didn't put the time into this as his other series, only appearing on camera to top and tail the series, his narration is always welcome.
... don't say it didn't cos it did. A bit of a random Charlie Brooker series this, tucked away on BBC4 with little fanfare. It was an entertaining show, that raised many laughs, as Brooker poked fun at some of the things TV has done over the years as well as serving as a potted history of a couple of genres. There's not much more to be said other than it was a fun and diverting half hour every week. I'd watch another series.
The Killing is quite possibly the best drama ever to be shown on British TV, so it's a little odd that the whole thing is Danish in origin! Featuring one single murder investigation, following the death of young Nanna Birk Larsen, the show has kept us riveted for the last 10 weeks - I'm so glad the BBC has been showing them in double bills to allow us to watch one episode after another.
The cast are uniformly excellent, and from one scene to another my favourite changes, and then changes again, from the stoic, gum-chewing, jumper-wearing police heroine Sara Lund, to the heartbreaking eyes of Pernille Birk Larsen, the grieving mother or Theis Birk Larsen the troubled father, both of whom hold so much simmering beneath the surface and say so much with their faces. Lund's begrudging partner Jan Meyer is gleefully grumpy, but as he learns to respect Lund and her methods, he thaws and becomes a really likable character, so when his time in the story comes so suddenly it's a massive shock, and I didn't believe it at all!
And then there's the other half of the story, following the mayoral campaign of Troels Hartman who becomes embroiled in the murder investigation at various points, along with his sneaky sidekicks Rie and Morten. Oh and the wonderful Bremer, current mayor and possessor of flexible morals. While this half of the story perhaps didn't have the same emotional punch as the investigation, except where the two intertwined (which was most of the time), it was still a thrilling watch.
As new evidence came to the fore, each episode, which more or less followed a 24 hour period each, threw up new suspects in the case. Red herrings, lies and suspicion abounded, while Lund and co all kept it real and had a distinctly 'un-Hollywood' approach to police work. So much worked unspoken, with not a boring second to be found. Revelations worked, characters acted within the bounds of their emotions and did things you didn't want them to do but knew they would.
I'm going to avoid the American remake, it just can't be this good. I think one of the reason's it's great is that the actors are unfamiliar, thus it is much easier to suspend disbelief and 'forget' these characters aren't real and lose yourself in their lives. The Killing ranks in my top 10 best shows, and it is with feverish anticipation that I look forward to the second series on BBC4 later in the year.
I had booked three tickets for Joseph, ostensibly for my sister's birthday, and I was taking Mum along too. And then Julia got a better offer from Enrique Iglesias so Andrew came along instead, a little reluctantly hence he wasn't going to go originally. I was also a little hesitant, not being very familiar with the musical and worrying it might all be a little earnest. We'd both really enjoyed watching the BBC1 Any Dream Will Do search for Joseph though, and were familiar with the show's only named star, Keith Jack, so we went in expecting something good but unspectacular.
I'm happy to say that my doubts were dispelled pretty early into the show - it turned out to be a very funny, upbeat, joyful production. Although I'm unfamiliar with Joseph, I could tell that this version had been updated and 'tampered with' to appeal to a wider audience, and to keep things fresh. I can see how a straight adaptation of the show would be worthy and possibly a bit boring - Joseph himself is a bit of a cock to start with, he could have continued to be - but some off the wall choices of dance numbers and costumes turned the whole into a pretty crazy dream.
For Mother's day this year I planned ahead from October last year and secured tickets to the very popular Calendar Girls play, based on the film, based on the real-life story of the WI from Cracoe who created a nude calendar to raise funds for leukemia research following the death of a member's husband. My Mum and Dad (who came along too, even though it's not Father's day) both know several of the real 'calendar girls' and they were both eager to see the play. I'd seen the movie and enjoyed it, while Andrew came to it fresh. All 4 of us, with various levels of investment in the story, came away very happy - the play's hilarious, touching and a lot of fun.
It was one of the starriest casts I've ever seen on a stage - Bernie Nolan, Lynda Bellingham, Trudie Goodwin, Lisa Riley, Gwen Taylor, Jennifer Ellison, Ruth Madoc, Joe McGann, Bruno Langley, and Diana Moran and Danielle Lineker - to name but 9 people I recognised and 2 who I've got a passing knowledge of. It wasn't until the break between acts that I realised who was playing the lead role, that of Annie the bereaved widow, none other than Trudie 'June from The Bill / mother of Le Roux' Goodwin, who looked utterly different with long blonde hair. She was great - in fact I couldn't pick fault with any of the casting, but I would single out Bellingham as the star of the show with some of the best lines. Lisa Riley was surprisingly funny too.
I'll keep this brief, because I am very disappointed in the result. The last two series were presented by Steve Jones and Claudia Winkleman, whereas the magic Winkleman has been replaced by bland One Show sofa jockey Alex Jones, and the last two series were won by genuinely funny, entertaining performances. This series was won by some bloke from Emmerdale and a comedian (in the words of Harry Hill: 'Never 'eard of 'em!') who did a tap dance number that was dull. But that's the voting British public for you - look how they screwed up the last general election...
The real highlights of this series were Lulu as a gangsta rapper; Katie Price (yes, Jordan) dressed as a man dressed as a woman, with a very entertaining intro video - 'I'm vacuous'; robbed-Russell Kane dancing Crazy in Love as Beyoncé; a hilarious Jared Christmas as Madonna in Hung Up; and Ade Edmondson's lovely Dying Swan, with pan-wielding cameo by Rik Mayall. These were all hilarious and worthy winners. Let's hope Let's Dance returns to the heights of last years next time.
I could tell that Vernon God Little was a Booker prize winner, it has that 'worthy' feel about it. The first-person narration by the 16 year old titular protagonist, accused of assisting in the massacre of 16 schoolmates in a small Texas town, felt like a sort of fusion between The Catcher in the Rye (not a good comparison, I found the book and it's lead Holden Caulfield in accessible and unsympathetic) and We Need To Talk About Kevin (which had a mystery surrounding a school shooting, and was excellent).
The further through the book I got, the less like Catcher it felt and the more I liked it. Vernon is clearly a troubled young man, having witnessed the aftermath of the massacre at the hands of his friend Jesus, he is later accused of complicity and arrested. He flees to Mexico, stopping on the way to see the girl of his dreams who subsequently acts as a honey trap resulting in Vernon's trial and incarceration on Death Row. Wrapped around this are various grotesque characters, such as Vernon's seemingly uncaring, self-involved mother, a whole collection of people named 'Gurie' and a villain in the form of Lally, a wannabe media mogul who becomes massive off the back of the national tragedy in Martirio.
I suppose the book is a critique on America, and especially on the way that everything now has a media spin - Vernon's trial is filmed live while he has a button he can press to recant at any moment, Death Row killings become like a Big Brother phone-vote for the public to choose who goes under the needle next. DBC Pierre paints a skewed version of reality (TV) and poor Vernon is lost amongst it. He's an angry kid, but not unsympathetically so like Caulfield before him - he learns from events, and he gets swept all with them too, falling victim to the honey trap. I really liked the way everything tied up nice and neatly at the end, and the element of mystery - did Vernon really have nothing to do with the killings? - was effective.
Season 2 of Weeds picked up where season 1 left off and took the show to another level of brilliant. Mary-Louise Parker's Nancy, mother of Silas and Shane, continues to grow her business, and moves into growing weed to sell, cutting out middle-woman Heylia. She and her ragtag group of 'business partners' had me laughing, wincing in pain (as Andy gets two toes bitten off by a dog) and eager to see more.
Parker continues the brittle, slightly wooden-but mostly kooky and it works style that she perfected in The West Wing, and she's flawless at delivering awkward dialogue - such as trying to discourage Shane from putting his 'used' socks down the toilet. Hunter Parrish, playing her older son, didn't get much to do this series really, although his deaf girlfriend had a pregancy scare, but he did spend time with his top off so I was happy. Elizabeth Perkins is Weeds hidden weapon, so deliciously bitter as cancer-sufferer and general all round bitch Celia, who competes with hilarious Doug for a place on the city council - and then tries to clean up the drugs in Agrestic.
The main dramatic thread this season came from Nancy falling for a DEA agent, marrying him so he can't testify against her, and then everything going sour when she finds it's too soon after her first husband's death for her to move on. This all leads to a pulse-quickening final episode which has Nancy staring down the barrels of a myriad guns, Silas about to be arrested with a trunk full of weed, and Shane being driven away by a mental Zooey Deshanel. It's all I can do to stop watching Season 3 straight away - it is sat on my shelf - but Season 4 is not out yet in an affordable way so I'll wait until I can see a few more in a row.
Watching Gentlemen Prefer Blondes the other week made me want to revisit some excellent classic comedy movies, and so we watched To Be or Not to Be, a 1942 comedy that is set in German-occupied Poland and features people dressed as Nazis and Hitler for comedic effect. Now at this point the war was still raging, so the timing of the film is surprising and potentially shocking. And indeed, the film was heavily criticised on release as being too soon, too crude. I think if I was watching in 1942 I might feel the same, but from the comfort of 2011 the movie can be seen as the comedy masterpiece it really is.
Featuring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny as a husband and wife acting couple, the film involves espionage and intrigue and Benny's actor dressing up as various Nazi sympathisers. Aside from being uproariously funny in places, the movie is also surprisingly dramatic and does not take the mickey out of the war or belittle the lives lost, rather it is a comedy that, in a similar way to the musical Springtime for Hitler in The Producers, spears the ridiculousness of Hitler and the cult around him.
Packed with great one liners, such as an actor dressed as Adolf entering a room to say 'Heil myself', and funny performances all round, To Be or Not to Be is a bona fide masterpiece.
Our first of 7 booked visits to the WYP this year coincided with their 21st birthday, so ticket prices were the same as they were in 1990, which meant we saw The Deep Blue Sea for about a fiver. I didn't know anything of the play other than it starred Maxine Peake (who we're currently enjoying in Silk) and would be cheap on this night.
It turns out that the play is about a woman who at the beginning has failed to kill herself, seemingly because she's so miserable, yet she's loved by her estranged husband, her new boyfriend, and she loves them both too. To be perfectly honest, I thought the character needed a good slap. Peake played the lead well and with a slight sympathetic air, but I think she was let down by the writing which never really explained what was so bad in her life that would drive her to kill herself.
There were a couple of good characters, the German physician from upstairs being the best, and he had some amusing lines too in a play that leant more towards the (melo)dramatic. Despite the strong performances from the 8 strong cast, I must say that I'm glad the tickets were cheap as The Deep Blue Sea (she's caught between it and the Devil apparently) didn't float my boat.
One of the best series I've watched this year was on ITV1 - my world is spinning on its axis. Since I'm a bit of a cultural snob, I generally find most programmes the channel puts out pretty terrible and lowest-common-denominator. So I was intrigued by Marchlands mainly by the interesting cast, which included Tessa Peake-Jones, Anne Reid, Alex Kingston, Denis Lawson, Jodie Whittaker and Dean Andrews - none of whom are 'TV a-listers' but all bring something special to a role.
Marchlands' central conceit was telling a story in the same house of the title, set across 1968, 1987 and 2010, with three different families caught up in the story of Alice, a little girl who drowned in 1968. The earlier segments dealt with the aftermath of the death and her mother Ruth's refusal to believe that she simply ran off and drowned. In the eighties, my favourite segments with Kingston and Andrews, were a little lighter in tone - although filmed with a warm glow in comparison to the stark 2010 scenes - and involved the couple's young daughter making friends with Alice's ghost. Then in 2010 a young couple move into the house, with the woman pregnant and experiencing odd poltergeist-type activity, the husband grew up in the area, and Ruth returns to find out once and for all what happened to Alice.
The Great Crime of Grapplewick is the 2nd novel in The Eric Sykes Compendium, although it's chronologically the first, from 1984. I'm struggling to find information online of all the books written by Sykes, so maybe it's just these three novels and his excellent biography If I Don't Write It Nobody Else Will (wonderful title too).
I read UFOs Are Coming Wednesday some time ago, and to be honest it wasn't as good as I was expecting and I'm hard pressed to remember anything about it now. I've come away from Grapplewick more satisfied (although the copy in the book is riddled with appalling spelling mistakes). Set in the fictious northern town of Grapplewick (as UFOs..., from 1995, was), it follows nearly released prisoner Terence and his bumbling Irish sidekick Rembrandt as they initially try to find the elusive Helliwell, and then plot a robbery. Peopled with funny characters, from the incompetent fire brigade, who trade bits of kit and their antique fire engine for new instruments for their band, to the hopeless town council, headed by mayor and fire chief Mr Thurk, the story ambles along nicely.
Wryly amusing rather than gut-wrenchingly hilarious, Sykes depicts a sleepy little post-WW2 town with style, and makes the characters believably dim while also fairly farcical. There is some romanticism of the period and the simpler life, as evidenced by the somewhat downbeat epilogue that sees high rise flats erected, destroying the community spirit of the post war years. A nice diversion from the usual grisly thrillers I tend to go for.
Another one from my piles of thrillers, Fox Evil has been sat on the shelf for years in seems. I polished this off in a week, and although I thought it was very strong to begin with, I was less satisfied as it reached it's conclusion - this could be down to the vile cold that has been swamping me for the last couple of days though, fogging my head a bit.
The novel is set in a small Dorset village, Shenstead, where a group of travellers turns up one Boxing Day. What follows is an interesting character piece that predominantly follows the mystery of Colonel Lockyer-Fox's wife's death some months earlier, the paternity of the Colonel's new-found grandaughter Nancy, and the identity of the title character Fox Evil - a sadistic, criminally-minded stranger who seems to be orchestrating events.
Told on the whole over the one Boxing Day, events seem to unravel in real time and Walters fleshes out each of the characters in this tiny village, and the travellers too. I thought I knew who Fox Evil was, but when his real identity was revealed it was a bit of a let down. Walters constructs a realistic community and packs the novel full of drama and intrigue yet there's something about it towards the end that lost my interest.
Hollywood actress Jane Russell died recently, so I decided we should revisit the only film I've seen her in, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a comedy-musical in which she co-starred with Marilyn Monroe. I enjoyed it first time round and I enjoyed again on a rewatch. Lorelei (Monroe) and Dorothy (Russell) are a pair of showgirls - thus likely to burst into song at any moment - and while Lorelei loves a man with money, Dorothy's eye is caught by good-looking men and isn't so materialistic.
Dorothy chaperones Lorelei on a boat across the Atlantic, where Lorelei is to marry her weedy-but-rich fiancé, and during the trip Ernie Malone (Elliott Reid) is sent by her future father-in-law to spy on her and prove that she's a gold-digger. Farce and musical numbers ensue, and naturally Dorothy falls for the private detective. Monroe does good work making Lorelei into a sympathetic character, not just a money-grabbing hussy - rather she's a sweet-natured, dim girl who explains at movie's end that while money doesn't attract her to a man, it certainly helps, in the same way that men are attracted to pretty girls.
The star of the movie for me isn't Monroe, though she is very good, it's Russell. She's sassy, witty and has a great voice, and her character is more savvy and cynical. She also does a mean Marilyn Monroe impression when Dorothy disguises herself as Lorelei at movie's end during an odd courtroom scene.
The musical numbers are all top notch, memorable songs and influential dance routines - see Monroe's 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend' and compare it with Madonna's 'Material Girl' video. The other songs - 'When Love Goes Wrong', 'A Little Girl From Little Rock', 'Bye Bye Baby' and 'Anyone Here For Love?', featuring a lot of men in pants - are all good fun and the whole is a very funny slice of old Hollywood glamour.
In my quest to read those books that have been sitting on my shelf for far too long I picked up Talking Cock: A Celebration of Man and his Manhood. Written by comedian Richard Herring after a show of the same name, I found that once I'd started I couldn't put this book down! That's not just because the subject matter is fascinating, it's because Herring's writing is hilarious, literally laugh-out-loud funny, it had me in stitches. It's not just a bunch of 'knob gags' though, rather an interesting insight into 'man's best friend' and his relationship with it.
Using a home-made online questionnaire to solicit opinions from men and women about penises, asking questions about the size, use of and satisfaction with it, among other things, along with copious research into scientific and cultural writings on the subject, Herring provides a thought-provoking treatise on the cock. He looks at the penis and it's treatment through history, he looks at the medical, scientific parts of it, examines circumcision, considers masturbation and sex, and everything else inbetween.
What could have been a crude endeavour with no real substance turns out to be one of the funniest and most informative books I've read on any subject. If only all non-fiction was this entertaining! I'm a bit nervous about searching for the picture to accompany the article though, typing 'Talking Cock' into Google could throw up some interesting suggestions.
