Month: February 2024

Two Sisters

15/02/24

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

As the title suggests, there’s more than a nod to Chekhov in David Greig’s new play, Two Sisters, currently premiering at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre, where he’s also artistic director. And it’s not all about the gun…

That’s not to say that this is an adaptation; it’s not. The plot, structure and cast of characters are very different. And yet it is, despite all that, a cleverly updated version of the same idea, embracing the Russian’s major themes – suffering, love, longing, change – and distilling his bitter humour and nihilistic worldview into something immediately recognisable to a modern audience.

Emma (Jess Hardwick) is a corporate lawyer, married to a hotshot businessman with his own plane. She’s also pregnant and sees her impending motherhood as some kind of deadline: if she can’t pen a novel before the baby’s born, then it will be too late. With this in mind, she books herself a caravan at the holiday park she used to visit with her family as a child. A whole week to herself, reminiscing and writing. What could be more perfect?

But she’s reckoned without her flaky older sister, Amy (Shauna Macdonald), who’s always ricocheting from one crisis to another. This time, her long-suffering husband has caught her shagging the plumber, so she’s come to cry on Emma’s shoulder. 

And rekindle an old flame…

Directed by Wils Wilson, this is a slow-paced piece, reflecting the characters’ inertia. The chorus of teenagers embodies this listlessness too, at once pulsing with life and stymied by lethargy. They hang around the park, aloof and watchful. Nothing escapes their attention. It all matters too much, and yet it doesn’t matter at all.

Macdonald and Hardwick are a charismatic duo, the former’s sharp edges and barely-suppressed longing contrasting perfectly with the latter’s languid determination. Their relationship feels real and convincing. 

Lisbeth Burian’s wonderful set is like a brutal mirror, emphasising the grottiness of the seaside resort, with its peeling edges, dingy caravans and rusting climbing frame. Emma might be blind to the park’s fatal decline, indulging in nostalgia-fuelled fantasies of restoration, but we in the audience are all too aware that it is a lost cause. 

There are a few false notes. I find myself distracted by Lance (Erik Olsson)’s assertion that he’s only ever left Fife to visit Ibiza, when he clearly has a Swedish accent. I wonder too why Amy’s been sleeping in her car when she’s got a job in television; surely she can afford a hotel? These are minor points, but they snag, pulling me out of the drama. I also think that the fourth-wall-breaking teenage chorus could be given more to do; the play comes to life whenever they’re involved.

In true Chekhovian spirit, there is no easy take-home message here; the characters are not gifted with a happy ending, and the threads are not neatly tied. Instead we’re left with a sense of  melancholy. “Our life is not ended yet. We shall live! The music is so happy, so joyful, and it seems as though in a little while we shall know what we are living for, why we are suffering… If we only knew – if we only knew!”

4 stars

Susan Singfield

The Iron Claw

14/02/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

As I sit watching this film unfold, I can’t help picturing writer/director Sean Durkin’s hopeful pitch to a room full of potential financiers.

“So Sean, what’s this film about?”

“It’s about the world of wrestling – and it’s inspired by a real-life family drama. Oh, and it will star Zac Efron. You know, from High School Musical?”

Whatever those execs pictured in that moment, I’m pretty sure it was nothing like The Iron Claw, but – trust me – the resulting movie is about a hundred times better than it could ever sound as a pitch. If you have expectations, prepare to adjust them.

We first meet the Von Erich clan in the 1970s, when they are conducting their lucrative tag-wrestling partnership and going from strength to strength under the tutelage of their father, Fritz (Holt McCallany), a veritable toxic stew of a man. Fritz thinks nothing of flinging his boys headlong into the wrestling life, even those who are not cut out for it. The Von Erichs have the physiques of Greek gods and the hairstyles to match and, as all-American boys, they do whatever Daddy says, getting little in the way of guidance from their mom, Doris (Maura Tierny), who seems mostly preoccupied with putting gargantuan amounts of carbs on the table.

The oldest (surviving) boy is Kevin (Efron), who, though built like the proverbial stone sewage outlet, somehow manages to maintain his good humour even when being passed over in favour of one of his younger siblings. These include human chameleon Harris Dickinson as David, whose good looks and articulacy make him an ideal frontman and Kerry (Jeremy Allan White), whose dream of throwing the discus at the 1980 Moscow Olympics are scuppered when America withdraws for political reasons. And then there’s young Mike (Stanley Simons), a gentle, optimistic teenager who hankers after a career as a musician – until Fritz derides this as a pipe dream and demands he become a wrestler like his brothers…

As you might expect, the Von Erichs come in for more than their fair share of tragedy; indeed, their story is so overloaded with the stuff that Durkin has removed some of the bleaker occurrences and completely eliminated one member of the clan – Chris, if you’re wondering – arguing that there’s only so much misery an audience can endure in a two-hour cinema visit. Put it this way: if this was fiction, nobody would believe that one relatively small bunch of people could possibly encounter so many slings and arrows in their journey through life. Little wonder that rumours of a ‘Von Erich curse’ proliferated as the family was hit with one terrible disaster after another.

Don’t get me wrong, The Iron Claw (named for Fritz’s signature technique) isn’t one endless blub-fest. Indeed, Durkin ensures that there’s plenty here to lift the mood as the action unfolds. There’s a wonderfully cheesy evocation of the 70s and 80s, with an upbeat soundtrack comprising some of the biggest rock songs of the era, and there’s a whole raft of superb performances from the ensemble cast. Lily James, in a change from her usual ‘middle-class posh girl’ roles, delivers what may be a career-best performance as Kevin’s vivacious and resourceful partner, Pam. And there’s a delightful cameo from Aaron Dean Eisenberg as motor-mouthed wrestling champion, Ric Flair, who comes across as a nasty piece of work on TV, but is revealed to be a nice guy when he’s allowed to be himself.

I was warned to bring some Kleenex to this, but though I’m often shocked by the constant barrage of bad luck the family encounters, I remain resolutely dry eyed throughout. But maybe that’s just me. The Iron Claw is a brilliantly-nuanced story that looks at the toxic nature of the wrestling industry, skilfully eviscerates it and reveals the genuine humanity that lurks behind all that pantomime posturing. 

And it’s clear from the word go which member of the family is chiefly responsible for all that heartbreak.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

The Taming of the Shrew

09/02/24

Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s hard to believe it’s five years since we saw EUSC’s last version of The Taming of the Shrew; it feels much more recent. Directed by Tilly Botsford, it was a marked success.

Any notion we have that it might be too soon for the student company to revisit this controversial play is soon dispelled when we realise how very different this interpretation is. Director Minna Gillett’s gender-swapped adaptation cleverly unearths the humour, reminding us that it was always intended to be a comedy, just like the fabulous 10 Things I Hate About You, which Gillett cites as inspiration.

Of course, the central relationship between ‘Petruchia’ (Maria Wollgast) and ‘Kit’ (Ted Ackery) is irredeemably toxic – she bullies and gaslights him into submission – but it doesn’t feel as problematic as the Petruchio/Kat pairing: Petruchia doesn’t have the weight of an entire patriarchal system behind her, and Kit isn’t institutionally broken. It’s still horrible on a personal level, less so on a political one.

Usually, the shrew is the lead role but here the tamer takes centre stage, and Wollgast shines as the suitor, oozing charisma as she struts and frets her hour upon the stage. Ted Ackery clearly relishes his turn as the brattish Kit, imbuing him with a surly teenage petulance and playing up the comic elements. Fraser Murray (as Tranio) has the house in stitches, while Anna Yarwood (as Grumia) and Juliet Gentle (as Biondella) both prove excellent clowns. Indeed, the whole company performs well; there is no weak link here.

The set, designed by Émilie Noël, is suitably fresh and contemporary, and impressively professional. In fact, everything about this show feels right. Gillett has got to the very heart of the piece, nimbly side-stepping or overturning all the problematic aspects in a simple, unfussy way.

This Shrew is a triumph.

4.6 stars

Susan Singfield

Argylle

07/02/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

There’s a lot riding on Argylle. An expensive co-production between Paramount and Apple, with a cast of A-listers to die for, Matthew Vaughn’s high concept spy spoof is a valiant attempt to restore his box office fortunes after his last project, The King’s Man, pretty much sank without trace. But the new film has already opened to dismal advance reviews of the one and two star variety. Can it really be that bad?

It doesn’t help that at Edinburgh’s Cineworld, it can only be viewed in expensive special formats not covered by an Unlimited card. My gruelling session at the dentist’s this morning precludes me from being thrown around in a 4DX chair, so I opt for IMAX and settle down to watch – with the other four customers. Word has clearly got around.

Welcome to the world of best-selling novelist, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), one of those annoying writers whose every publication is greeted with rampant adulation – and who has an irritating habit of reading the end of her latest books at launches, which is wrong on just about every level.

In her head, her titular spy hero, Argylle, is played by smooth, handsome Henry Cavill, so imagine her surprise when she climbs aboard a train to visit her parents and finds herself sitting opposite genuine spy, Aidan (Sam Rockwell). He’s more unkempt than his fictional counterpart, but just as deadly when push comes to shove, as it soon does. Aidan reveals that the plots of Ellie’s books are so near to actual real life happenings, that an evil cabal of terrorists are determined to take her out.

Ellie (and her cat, Alfie) follow Aiden into a dizzy world of punch ups, shoot outs and explosions. The plot is so ridiculously complex, it doesn’t bear scrutiny but – largely due to the fabulous chemistry between Dallas Howard and Rockwell – I find myself going along with it. There’s a jaw-dropping revelation every ten minutes or so (nobody is who you think they are, and sometimes they’re not who they think they are either) and Vaughn has the good sense to keep his foot on the accelerator so we don’t waste too much time pondering the stupidity of much of what’s happening.

It’s almost worth the price of admission for a delightful, extended ‘guns and gas masks’ dance sequence, which would have provided the perfect climax, but is almost immediately undermined by another lengthy set-piece that follows hard on its heels and doesn’t quite measure up to the one we’ve just seen.

In the end, Argylle is a little too overstuffed for comfort and I can’t help feeling that thirty minutes could be excised from this to deliver a leaner, meaner version that would play more effectively. That said, I have a good time with this.

Those who like post-credit sequences will probably be as baffled by the one we’re offered as I am. Something to do with The Kingsmen franchise? I give up.

If you enjoy high concept movies, you might care to give this one a whirl. At least you won’t be bored. But be warned, you’ll need to suspend your disbelief.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney

American Fiction

03/02/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

If these first few weeks are anything to go by, 2024 is going to be a good year for film. Cord Jefferson’s debut feature is a long way from your typical bums-on-seats blockbuster, but the cinema is hearteningly busy tonight. We’re in for a treat.

American Fiction is a clever, cerebral film, exploring the reductive nature of the Black stories that are promoted by white-controlled media. Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a Black writer and professor, earning more from teaching than he does from his highbrow books. But in a brilliantly satirical scene, we see his white students complaining that he is making them uncomfortable by explicitly referring to the racist language deployed by the period authors they’re studying. When his white bosses back them up, Monk bristles: he isn’t the sort to back down easily. Before long, he’s been practically ordered to ‘take a break’, and so he heads reluctantly to Boston for a long overdue visit to his family, his employment status decidedly shaky. Is this what happens to Black people when they don’t comply with liberal white people’s notions of how to address racism? Wow.

To add to Monk’s woes, his agent (John Ortiz), calls to say that his latest manuscript hasn’t found a buyer. “It’s not Black enough,” Arthur tells him. “What does that mean?” asks Monk, although he knows exactly what it means. It means that his literary novels don’t conform to the blaxploitation model that white people like to indulge in; it isn’t anything like Sintara Golden’s runaway bestseller, We’s Lives in da Ghetto. As a fawning TV interviewer heaps praise on Golden (Issa Rae), Wright imbues Monk with an understated and entirely credible fury. In Bialystock-Blum mode, he pseudonymously dashes off a ridiculous pastiche of a Black novel and then watches incredulously as it become a huge success. He’d like to take the opportunity to go public and make his point – but his mom (Leslie Uggams) is sick, and someone has to pay for her care…

This well-written and often laugh-out-loud funny script, based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, deftly punctures the self-aggrandising nature of allyship, as white people vie to show off their woke credentials, often at the expense of the actual Black people sitting next to them. It’s also a beautifully-observed depiction of complex family dynamics, as Monk and his doctor siblings (Tracee Ellis Ross and Sterling K Brown) struggle to deal with their fractured relationships and their mother’s decline. It’s bold, intelligent – and also very accessible. The fourth-wall-breaking final ten minutes are especially audacious, but the entire two-hour run is a joy to behold.

Both thoughtful and thought-provoking, American Fiction is an impressive piece of work, deftly straddling the highbrow/lowbrow chasm that so infuriates its protagonist.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

The House

03/02/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Imagine if you will a Punch and Judy show, elevated to the very peak of its puppetry potential – where, in an incredibly complex set, a whole cast of brilliantly-sculpted characters caper and bicker with all the subtleties of human comedians – and you’ve pretty much got what Sofie Krog Teater’s The House is all about. Appearing at the Traverse Theatre as part of the Manipulate Festival, this has a sold-out crowd screeching with laughter as it rockets to an uproarious conclusion.

We are told first of how a house can speak of what has happened within its walls, and then we’re shown the titular abode, an old crematorium. It’s been owned for years by an old woman who now lies in a four-poster bed up in the top bedroom, rapidly approaching her demise. Her nephew, Henry (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Stan Laurel), and his wife, Cora ( a cigarette constantly jutting from her mouth), run the business on her behalf. Cora knows that there’s a will that names them as their great aunt’s successors and she’s gleefully counting the days to the big payoff. But at the last minute, a lawyer is summoned and an important change is made…

Cora is intent on keeping the house for herself – and only the old woman’s faithful dog stands between her and justice.

I know that puppeteers Sofie Krog and David Faraco are concealed within that miniature house somewhere, because I definitely saw them climb inside it at the beginning. And I know they must be operating everything that happens, but the illusion is so brilliantly engineered, I forget about them completely as they unleash one ingeniously conceived bout of slapstick after another.

The puppets themselves are wonderful little creations, so full of character and nuance that they almost come alive as they scamper from room to room, trying to outwit each other. Everything about this performance – the lighting, the music, the props – is exquisite and I love the piece’s grisly sense of humour, its celebration of the darkness of the human soul. Oh, and did I mention that the house can revolve, to show us an entirely different view of what’s happening within?

If you haven’t managed to catch Sofie Krog Teater on this visit, do keep an eye out for them in future. This unique show offers a touch of genius that will brighten the day of anyone lucky enough to see it.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

The Color Purple

01/02/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Not so much an adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel (or Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film, for that matter), this ambitious production is based on the Broadway musical which first got to strut its stuff in the early 2000s and has gone through several iterations since. Inevitably, much of the novel’s more hard-hitting elements have been sanded and burnished for consumption by a mass audience.

Directed by Blitz Bazawule, with music composed by Kris Bowers, the result is a film that occasionally bursts into exuberant, joyful life but just as often feels bowdlerised as it struggles to make a song and dance about incidents that don’t quite fit the medium.

We first meet Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) when she’s a teenager, pregnant with her second child – by her father, Alfonso (Deon Cole). Mpasi brilliantly portrays Celie’s loneliness and distress, especially when, as he did with the previous baby, Alfonso takes the infant away from Celie without any explanation. Shortly thereafter, he offers her up as a bride to the heinous ‘Mister’ (Colman Domingo), a musician of sorts who has several motherless kids to care for in his ramshackle home down by the swamp. He needs somebody to get the place in shape and, if Celie is slow in following his orders, he’s all too ready to let his fists do the talking. Colman too, is utterly convincing as a man who’s never had his authority challenged by anyone.

Celie sets to work, determined to look after her new ‘family’ but when her beloved sister, Nettie (Halle Bailey), turns up saying that Alfonso has been making moves on her, Celie begs Mister to allow Nettie to move in with them. He agrees and inevitably, it isn’t long before he attempts to sexually assault her. When she dares to hit back, he throws her out of the house telling her never to return – and Celie has nobody to fight her corner.

The years move inexorably on – a scene where Celie views the changing seasons through the windows of the house as she ages is brilliantly handled. Celie (now played by Fantasia Barrino) has become inured to her own suffering, but redemption arrives in the form of vivacious blues singer, Shug Avery (Taraji B Henson), the woman who Mister reveres above all others and whom he’ll go to any lengths to please. When Celie and Shug form an unlikely alliance, it’s clear that change is in the air…

To give The Color Purple its due, Bazawule brings a whole host of invention to the difficult task of directing this piece, constantly exploring different approaches to a complex project. Cinematographer Dan Lautsen makes everything look luminous and remarkable and I particularly love a fantasy sequence set on a huge gramophone turntable. For me, the film is at its most successful during the big, ensemble pieces with scores of dancers whirling and leaping to vibrant, blues-inflected songs. I should also mention Danielle Brooks’ remarkable performance as Sophia, a powerful and assertive woman, eventually brought to heel by the injustice of the age. Brooks brings genuine verve to her portrayal and the scenes where she languishes in a prison cell provide the film’s most heartbreaking moments.

The relationship between Celie and Shug has been not so much downplayed as eradicated. In the book, it’s explicitly sexual; here it amounts to a quick snog in the cinema and a few meaningful looks, which I think speaks volumes about what makes contemporary American audiences uncomfortable. Why the subject of rape is deemed acceptable for depiction but a concensual lesbian relationship isn’t remains something of a head scrambler. Go figure.

The story’s conclusion, where everybody gathers to let bygones be bygones, feels every bit as unlikely as it did in the original story and, if I’m honest, it’s in this sequence where it all gets a little too schmaltzy for my liking. 

So, once again, here is another of those curate’s egg productions (a phrase I use far too often). It’s good in parts (sometimes very good) but elsewhere, I find the ingredients a little too bland for my taste.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney

How To Have Sex

31/01/24

Mubi

Molly Manning Walker’s debut film comes screeching onto the screen like, well, a trio of teenage girls. Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake) have just finished their GCSEs and now they’re in Malia, buoyant, excited and ready to cut loose. They’re looking at seven days of sheer, unadulterated hedonism. And, as Skye keeps reminding her, Tara needs to seize the opportunity to lose her virginity.

At its heart, How to Have Sex is about peer pressure. The holiday resort’s formulaic enforced ‘fun’ doesn’t leave much space for dissent, especially when you’re sixteen and desperate to fit in. The girls really enjoy their first night, getting drunk, doing bad karaoke and eating cheesy chips, but the following morning, hungover, Skye puts the kibosh on all that. “We’re not going to get laid if we stick together all the time,” she says.

And from then on, Tara stumbles, adrift.

McKenna-Bruce is perfectly cast as Tara: all big eyes and yearning, wanting to find her place in the world. Meanwhile, Peake deftly captures Skye’s insecurity-turned-meanness, while Lewis shines as the only one of the three who is at ease with herself: unlike her friends, she knows who she is and what she wants. She’s got the grades, the career plan – and she’s comfortable with her sexuality, enjoying her holiday fling with Paige (Laura Ambler), their next-door neighbour at the hotel.

Paige’s room-mates are Badger (Shaun Thomas) and Paddy (Samuel Bottomley). There’s an unmistakable spark of attraction between Tara and Badger, but they’re both quite shy and soft underneath their brash surfaces – and swept along by the pressure to conform. They’d clearly like to be together but instead, hyped up by a baying nightclub mob, he goes onstage for an unsatisfactory public blow job, while she endures a miserable first shag with Paddy.

Molly Manning Walker convincingly evokes the teenage experience, and I especially like Tara’s palpable sense of not fitting in, not being able to enjoy herself in the same way as the others appear to be doing. Despite its in-your-face appearance, the film is actually pretty nuanced, the emotional and social complexity acknowledged and explored.

My only bugbear is a petty one: why are they talking about “getting ten As” when GCSEs have been graded by number since 2019?

Nitpicks aside, How to Have Sex is a sweeter, more engaging and thought-provoking film than its name and cover-image might suggest. Much like its characters.

If, like us, you missed this movie’s fleeting cinema release, you’ll be pleased to know that you can now catch it on Mubi.

4 stars

Susan Singfield