System Crasher

18/04/20

Curzon Home Cinema

Here’s a tip for you: don’t watch this film if you’re in the mood for a bit of light entertainment to help you while away a locked-down evening. Also, don’t watch it if you’re up for something sad but ultimately up-lifting. In fact, don’t watch it at all unless you’re prepared to spend a couple of hours feeling horrible and helpless, sobbing intermittently, furious about the way we let down our most vulnerable kids.

And nine-year-old Benni (Helena Zengel) is very vulnerable. Traumatised in her infant years, she is bursting with rage. Her social worker, Frau Bafané (Gabriela Maria Schmeide), is running out of options. Benni has been expelled from so many group homes there’s nowhere left to try. All she wants is to go back to her mama (Lisa Hagmeister), but that’s not possible. Not when mama’s abusive boyfriend is there; not when mama fails every time to prioritise her daughter.

It’s utterly, devastatingly, heartbreaking. I don’t remember when I last cried so much. Zengel’s performance is extraordinary. Her Benni is a desperate child, who just needs someone to love her. But she’s so damaged, so violent and so destructive that not many adults can cope with her. Sometimes it seems like a breakthrough might be possible: there’s a string of well-meaning professionals such as her school escort, Micha (Albrecht Schuch), who go out on a limb to try to help. But three weeks’ respite in the woods isn’t a permanent home; a friendly mentor is no replacement for a family; they can never give enough. And Benni’s yearning is so vast it’s all-consuming. Everyone wants to make things better but no one knows what to do.

The film is German, so the social care set-up is different from ours here in the UK. But the inadequacy of a bureaucratic system to address the needs of a wounded child is all too recognisable. The team around Benni are decent, dedicated folk, their anguish as palpable as hers as each of their efforts fails.

Writer/director Nora Fingscheidt has crafted System Crasher to perfection, depicting Benni’s calamitous story in unflinching detail. I especially like the razor-sharp flickers of flashback we are shown whenever Benni begins to freak out, brief glimpses into the suffering that has shaped her blighted life. I like the colours too: a light-saturated palette that seems to suggest brighter possibilities.

Sadly, for Benni, such possibilities are only dreams. This is truly a modern tragedy.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Treasure Island

16/04/20

National Theatre Live

Treasure Island is one of those stories I know without knowing. Despite being an ardent bookworm as a child, I never read past the first couple of chapters of Robert Louis Stevenson’s seminal text. I’ve never watched a film version all the way through either. I’m not sure why; maybe I just didn’t think that seafaring adventures were for me. And yet, of course, I know the characters, the plot, the tropes – because every pirate cliché emanates from this book.

So now’s the time for me to see it through, via the National Theatre’s free YouTube screening, available until next week. I settle on the sofa next to my husband, who hands me a glass of wine. So I’m relatively happy, although I can’t refrain from grumbling, ‘It’s not the same as actually being out.‘ It’s not, obviously. But, for now, it’s what we have.

This is a sprightly production, and a lot of fun to watch. Bryony Lavery’s script is fleet of foot, and Polly Findlay’s direction lively and light, although there’s more than a hint of darkness here.

Patsy Ferran is a female Jim – a Jemima – whose encounter with Bill Bones (Aidan Kelly) at her grandma’s inn leads her into piratic escapades. Before long, she’s left granny far behind, and is employed as a cabin-girl on the Hispaniola, learning to read the stars while befriending the dark-hearted Long John Silver (Arthur Darvill), as they sail forth in search of Captain Flint’s buried treasure. Betrayal and misadventure follow, of course, as do enlightenment and redemption. It’s never less than an exciting ride.

Ferran’s is a beguiling performance; indeed, the whole production charms. Joshua James’ Benn Gunn is bewitching, his conversations with himself simultaneously enervating and captivating; it’s a clever portrayal.The swordplay sequences, choreographed by Bret Yount, are bold and athletic. And Lizzie Clachan’s design shows us the boat as a living, breathing organism, exposing the metaphor of the island’s tunnels as Jim’s inner self, her conscience and her soul.

Whether Treasure Island is an old favourite or unexplored territory, this is certainly a piece of theatre that everyone can enjoy.

4.2 stars

Susan Singfield

 

Giri/Haji

15/04/20

Netflix

The lockdown continues and we’re scratching around for new sources of entertainment. We don’t usually review television series, but a vague tip-off via Facebook alerts us to this strange hybrid, a compelling blend of Tokyo/London crime-thriller/character drama. It failed to connect with large audiences on its initial release, but is now available to watch on Netflix.

Maybe the title doesn’t help. Giri/Haji (which translates as the dull-sounding Duty/Shame) also boasts subtitles for much of its content and, as we all know, that can be enough to frighten off large sections of the viewing public. But here’s the rub. Giri/Haji is one of the best TV series we’ve seen in a very long time, and we’re soon hooked, bingeing on all eight episodes in just a few days.

The action begins in Tokyo, where world-weary Detective Kenzo Mori (Takehiro Hira) is horrified to learn that a recent Yakuza-style killing in London may have been perpetrated by his younger brother, Yuto (Yōsuke Kubozuka), missing-presumed-dead after some misadventures in his home city. The murder victim is the nephew of a powerful Yakuza leader and the ensuing fallout threatens to cause a war between the different factions of Tokyo’s organised crime network.

Kenzo is dispatched to London to find his brother, but soon falls into the orbit of lonely detective, Sarah Weitzmann (Kelly McDonald), who is ostracised from her colleagues. Then Kenzo’s troubled teenage daughter, Taki (Aoi Okuyama), follows him to London and… you know what? It’s pointless to say much more about the plot because it’s very complicated and will probably put off as many people as it entices. But let me assure you, over eight episodes, everything ties together beautifully.

What Giri/Haji has to offer in abundance is a whole bunch of surprises, incidents you really won’t see coming. Writer Joe Barton clearly delights in pulling the rug from under his viewers’ feet, something he does with considerable skill. You thought the details on a  character were a bit sketchy? Well, hang on, in a later episode, there’ll be a deep dive that will take you back for a more in-depth look at him/her. You thought you had that other character well and truly nailed? Think again!

The other unexpected delight is how funny much of this is. Take Soho-based rent boy, Rodney (Will Sharpe), for instance, who can’t seem to open his mouth without unleashing an onslaught of invective-littered hilarity. Likewise, hardened criminal Abbot (Charlie Creed Miles) somehow manages to generate genuine threat whilst effortlessly dispensing corking one-liners. Even minor characters, people we only see once, for goodness sake, are gifted with fabulous lines of dialogue. And don’t go thinking that this is just a chuckle-fest, because the next thing you know, a Yakuza is being made to chop off one of his own fingers in unflinching detail.

There’s much more to commend this series: the animated introductions, the clever allusions to the way in which seemingly unconnected events can impact on each other, even when they happen thousands of miles apart and, in the final episode, a high action shoot-out that eerily metamorphoses into a Frantic Assembly-style dance number without pausing to take a breath. It’s a dangerous, audacious gambit that probably shouldn’t work – but absolutely does, big time.

For whatever reason it first failed to find its audience, Giri/Haji is right there, right now, ready to be explored at the touch of a button. If you’re too late for iPlayer, it will be on Netflix from Friday. Let’s face it, in the current situation, we can’t really argue that we haven’t got time…can we?

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Red Joan

11/04/20

Netflix

We missed Red Joan at the cinema, so tonight, searching Netflix, we’re pleased to see it’s now available to watch at home. Sadly, despite having Trevor Nunn at the helm and Dame Judi in the lead role, it’s a bit of a disappointment.

Actually, the disappointment is partly because of the Dame. Not that she puts a foot wrong, of course, just that she’s not given anywhere to put her feet at all. She has almost nothing to do.

Red Joan is very loosely based on the true story of Melita Norwood, a cold war spy whose crimes only came to light in the 1990s, when she was an old woman. Here, in a script by Lindsay Shapero based on a novel by Jennie Rooney, Norwood is reimagined as Joan, a Cambridge physics student, who falls for the glamour of the communist set, before landing a graduate job working on the H bomb. Dench plays Old Joan, an eighty-year-old woman living a quiet suburban life, whose sudden arrest is a shock to everyone around her, not least her barrister son, Nick (Ben Miles). But, as her interrogator (Nina Sosanya) barks questions at her, Dench’s role mainly consists of listening impassively, then twisting her lips and saying, ‘Well…’

And then, each time, we’re into flashback territory, and the real lead role is clearly Young Joan, played with aplomb by Sophie Cookson, who is clearly destined for major stardom. But not only is this a criminal waste of Dench’s talent, the repetitive structure makes the film feel lumpen and heavy.

It’s nicely acted by all concerned, and the period details are lovingly realised. There are some interesting moral questions raised; it’s a very watchable movie. But, overall, Red Joan doesn’t quite cut it. It’s not sharp enough, not bold enough. Perhaps it’s just too much of a compromise: too far removed from the real story to have any heft, Norwood’s less palatable tale neutered to make Joan’s actions more morally acceptable.

There’s a better way to tell this tale.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

Iphigenia in Splott

10/04/20

Digital Theatre

Cursed with one of the most outlandish titles in recent history, Iphigenia in Splott, a raucous monologue written by Gary Owen and performed by Sophie Melville, offers a loose reworking of the classic Greek myth of Iphigenia, relocated to the town of Splott (yes, it’s a real place!) just south of Cardiff. I can only take it on trust that the equally outlandish accent employed throughout is an accurate one. (As a native of Wales, I think I’m allowed to say that.)

Melville plays Effie, a local girl who lives her life with the volume turned all the way up to eleven. Too much booze, too much sex, too much vomiting – it’s her way of coping with boredom in a town where most of the stores and places of entertainment have been shut down or burned down, and where redemption can only be found at the bottom of an ice bucket full of vodka. Or is there more than that?

Effie experiences something suspiciously like a revelation when she encounters ex-soldier Lee at a local bar and plunges headlong into a no-holds barred one-night-stand with him. Effie is suddenly, hopelessly in love and, for the first time in years, she glimpses some genuine hope. Is she being wildly optimistic when she dares to dream of a bright new future? 

Melville puts in a stellar performance here, spitting out her vehement, invective-splattered worldview with dazzling aplomb. It’s the kind of performance you’d expect to see at the Edinburgh Fringe, an hour’s worth of explosive drama that holds you in its vice-like grip from start to finish. And, towards the end, it becomes more than just Effie’s caustic point of view. Owen cleverly opens it out into a searing condemnation of current political thinking. The result is a powerful call to arms, a plea for politicians to consider the struggling strata of society that has been increasingly marginalised over the years.

The original Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, was sacrificed to ensure the success of the men who governed her. Effie too, in her own way, becomes a sacrificial victim of those who have devastated both our health service and the everyday aspirations of the working class.

This is bleak but compelling, a piece that speaks its mind and takes no prisoners.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

 

When Marnie Was There

09/04/20

Netflix

We’re continuing our Ghibli odyssey, courtesy of Netflix, and tonight’s selection is 2014’s whimsical When Marnie Was There. Adapted from Joan G Robinson’s 1967 Norfolk-based novel, Keiko Niwa’s script moves the action to a small Japanese coastal town, where asthmatic twelve-year-old Anna is sent for a summer of clean air and recuperation.

Anna (Sara Takatsuki) is a troubled kid: fostered because her parents are dead; socially awkward and unpopular at school; good at art but too self-conscious to let anyone see her work; habitually tongue-tied, but volatile – so that, when she does speak, it’s usually in anger. A holiday in the countryside with the kindly Oiwas (Susumu Terajima and Toshie Negishi) is just what she needs, for her mental as well as her physical health.

On a solitary walk in the marshland, Anna spots a derelict mansion, and feels strangely drawn to the place. There, she meets Marnie (Kasumi Arimura), a mysterious blonde girl, who lives in the house with her parents and servants. The friendship that develops is fierce, intense – and, at Marnie’s insistence, secret. Anna becomes obsessed; her feelings for Marnie are all-consuming. But not everything is as it seems…

When Marnie Was There is as beautifully crafted as you’d expect from this deservedly renowned studio: the drawings are delicate and sumptuous and full of emotion. The images of water and food are particularly lush, the latter almost making my mouth water.

And if the story is light and the revelations predictable, it’s nonetheless charming and very well told.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

The Habit of Art

07/04/20

Original Theatre Company

In the normal run of things we would have been seeing this at the King’s Theatre just a few days ago, and basing our review around that performance. But these are very far from normal times and, consequently, this revival of Alan Bennett’s 2009 production, directed by Philip Franks, can now be accessed directly from The Original Theatre Company’s website for just a few pounds.

Ostensibly a play about the odd friendship between WH Auden (Matthew Kelly) and Benjamin Britten (David Yelland), The Habit of Art is made more interesting by allowing the audience to be observers at a rehearsal for the play, taking place in a scruffy church hall. We are afforded an insider’s view complete with all the mistakes, digressions and conflicts that exist in such situations. In effect, each actor is portraying not just the character they embody in the biographical play, but also the actor who portrays that character – which probably makes this sound a lot more complicated than it actually is. Don’t worry, the metatheatre all falls into place.

Auden, in the latter years of his career, has been reduced to living in rooms at his college in Oxford, where he meets occasional friends and regularly entertains rent boys, who supply him with his daily bout of fellatio. He is unexpectedly visited by his biographer, Humphrey Carpenter (whom he briefly mistakes for that day’s supplier of sexual favours), and later by Britten, whom Benjamin hasn’t seen for thirty years and is keen to discuss his latest project, a planned adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. (Mann, incidentally, was Auden’s Father-in-law.)

Bennett has a lot of fun dealing with the subject of homosexuality, still illegal in the 1970s when this play is set, and the secret that drove these two great artists. Auden talks much about the titular habit – how creative minds are constantly disposed to creating work, long after any real need to do so has vanished from their lives, and the moment when he seizes upon the desperate hope that Britten is thinking of offering him a collaboration is the play’s pivotal scene. Both Kelly and Yelland offer assured performances, and they are well supported by Veronica Roberts as the ever capable stage manager, Kay, and by John Wark as Donald, who can’t quite rid himself of the notion that, in playing Humphrey Carpenter, he’s actually nothing but a ‘device.’

This witty and engaging performance, even when condensed onto our tiny screen at home, is worth seeking out, but it makes me long to have seen it in the theatre, where it really belongs. Still, interested parties will find it at www.originaltheatre.com

4 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Much Ado About Nothing

04/04/20

Digital Theatre

It’s the casting that initially draws us to this one. I mean, David Tennant and Catherine Tate? In a Shakespeare comedy? Intriguing, right? And here it is on Digital Theatre, filmed live at the Wyndham, London, in 2011, the perfect choice for a locked-in Saturday night.

Robert Delamere’s production cannily sets the antics in 1980s Gibraltar. Post Falklands war, there’s a celebratory air about the place with swaggering white-uniformed naval officers coming ashore to interact with the sun bathing locals. Claudio (Tom Bateman) has his sights set on Hero (Sarah McRae), whom he wishes to marry, but fellow officer Benedick (Tennant), a proud bachelor boy, is insistent that he will never ever go down the marriage path. He and the equally sarcastic Beatrice (Tate) already have a well established enmity towards each other, but when Benedick’s friends set up a scheme to convince him that Beatrice is secretly smitten by him, the couple’s adversarial history goes straight out of the window and something suspiciously like true love begins to bloom…

Much Ado About Nothing is a Shakespeare play I barely know – and let’s be honest, on the page his comedies can come across as a bit on the dull side. So this is something of a revelation – indeed, it has to be one of the funniest adaptations of the bard I can remember seeing. Most of the laughs are generated by the caustic interplay between Benedick and Beatrice – and even if Tate occasionally looks as though she’s about to ask Tennant if she’s bovvered, I have to admit that she handles her role with consummate skill. Tennant too, is superb, his comic timing impeccable. 

But it’s more than just a double act. The design is spectacular, with the regular use of a revolving stage showing us the action from a continually changing perspective. The scene where Benedick spies on his gossiping friends whilst becoming messily entangled with a decorating table is just inspired, and Beatrice too gets a similar scene where, caught up on a workman’s harness, she is hauled into the air, flailing helplessly around while her co-stars struggle to make themselves heard over the audience’s laughter.

I also love the masked disco, where the play’s characters, dressed as various 80s celebrities – Adam Ant, India Jones, Miss Piggy! –  dance around,, occasionally breaking off into little huddles to further develop the story. And yes, the story is a bewilderingly frivolous one, with characters playing complicated tricks on each other for no convincing reason, but it hardly matters. Two hours and forty one minutes whizz by like magic.

This is a superb slice of comic theatre that should please ardent Shakespearos and the lead couple’s sizeable fan bases alike. Interested parties will find it at digitaltheatre.com 

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

 

The Peanut Butter Falcon
Dakota Johnson and Shia LeBeouf star in ‘The Peanut Butter Falcon.’ (Roadside Attractions)

03/04/20

Curzon Home Cinema

One of the most interesting actorly transformations of recent years is the one undertaken by Shia LaBeouf. Formally regarded as a bit of a twonk about town, he recently delivered the excellent Honey Boy, the film he wrote whilst undergoing rehab – and now here’s another winner, in the shape of The Peanut Butter Falcon, an appealing buddy movie set in the wetlands of North Carolina, though in this case, the writing duties are handled by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz, who also co-direct,

La Beouf plays Tyler, who – since the death of his much-loved older brother – is eking a precarious living as a crab fisherman. Tyler isn’t too fussy about occasionally robbing the traps of his more successful neighbours and this inevitably leads him into violent conflict with them. He’s soon obliged to go on the run from those he has crossed swords with.

But his escape bid coincides with that of runaway, Zak (Zack Gottsagen), who has managed to escape from the care home where he has been unfairly sequestered for far too long. Zak is a young man with Downs Syndrome.  There’s nobody else prepared to take charge of him, but he is understandably bewildered to be locked up with old age pensioners like his friend, Carl (Bruce Dern). Zak is also obsessed with a series of old videos featuring his longtime wrestling hero, Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Hayden Church), and he’s determined to make his way to the man’s ‘wrestling school’ to meet him in person.

At first Tyler and Zak make for uncomfortable travelling companions but, as they progress across the waterlogged landscapes of their homeland, an appealing ‘chalk and cheese’ friendship begins to develop. It’s not long before Tyler is fuelling Zak’s ambition to be a professional wrestler, even coming up with the titular nickname for his intended career. But somebody is looking for Zak. Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), the carer formally charged with looking after him, has been told, in no uncertain terms, to find him and bring him back to face further incarceration…

This is a charming and affectionate film, which, though it occasionally strays uncomfortably close to schmaltz, nonetheless carries its powerful central message with considerable aplomb. Gottsagen is an assured performer and so is La Beouf, for that matter, though his deep Southern-fried accent occasionally has me wishing that Curzon Home Cinema offered the option of subtitles for English language features (something they’re still working on).

Niggles aside, this is a delightful, heartwarming tale. We missed it’s recent cinematic release and here’s a welcome opportunity to catch up with it.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

One Man, Two Guvnors

02/04/20

National Theatre Live

Recordings of live theatre are the closest we can get to the real thing right now. It’s not the same, of course, especially not as an iMac is the largest screen we have. But it’s a whole lot better than nothing and, like thousands of others, we’re sitting on our sofa at 7pm tonight, ready to take advantage of the first of the National Theatre’s free YouTube screenings, a welcome Corona-distraction if ever there was one.

It’s One Man, Two Guvnors this evening, which we saw at The Lowry back in 2011 and thoroughly enjoyed. And it’s long enough ago for us to relish the chance to see it again, to retain an element of surprise at the humour, to have forgotten the punchlines to the jokes.

James Corden is magnificent in the lead role (the ‘one man’ of the title, Francis Henshall); it’s easy to see why his performance was so lauded, earning him a coveted Tony award. He’s brimming with talent, and I’ll never understand why he’s anathema to so many people. I defy them to watch this and remain unimpressed.

Based on Goldoni’s eighteenth century play, The Servant of Two Masters, Richard Bean’s farcical script transposes the action to 1960s Brighton, where Henshall finds himself doubly employed, acting as ‘minder’ not only to Stanley Stubbers (Oliver Chris), but also to Roscoe Crabbe (Jemima Rooper) – a situation made more complex by the fact that Stubbers is in hiding after murdering one… ahem… Roscoe Crabbe. Hapless Henshall tries to juggle the two jobs and fails at every turn. It’s ridiculous, nonsensical stuff – and I love every minute.

Nicholas Hytner’s direction is spot on, and the skiffle band covering the scene transitions is a lovely idea that pays real dividends. But it’s Cal McCrystal’s choreography of the physical comedy that really stands out, a dynamic blend of clowning and drama that ensures there’s never a dull moment. The storyline is pretty slight, but holds up for three hours because of the vitality of the performances.

One Man, Two Guvnors is available on the National Theatre’s YouTube channel until next Thursday, the 9th April, when Jane Eyre will take its place.

Don’t miss the chance to see it. After all, what else have you got to do?

5 stars

Susan Singfield