Hedda Gabler

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10/04/15

Lyceum, Edinburgh

Edinburgh’s Lyceum is a beautiful Victorian theatre, and a delightful place to visit in its own right; it’s hard to imagine anyone could be unimpressed by the perfectly preserved intricacies of its decor; the sumptuous blues, golds and reds, redolent of old-fashioned luxury. It’s lovely.

If this, along with the choice of an Ibsen piece, suggests a staid, old-fashioned production, then nothing could be further from the truth. This version of Hedda Gabler (adapted by Richard Eyre and directed by Amanda Gaughan) is vivacious and sprightly; as fast and funny as it is heartbreaking and tragic. Nicola Daley, as Hedda, is never less than utterly engaging; she clearly revels in the role, and captures perfectly the awful attractiveness of Hedda’s reckless malevolence. By the end, we feel sorry for Hedda, but we never lose sight of how dangerous she is.

The supporting cast is strong too: I love Sally Edwards’ Aunt Juju – a real Miss Bates of a character – as irritating and vapid as she is charming and kind; Benny Young, as Judge Brack, oozes sly debauchery concealed beneath a layer of respectability so thin that only Juju is taken in. Jade Williams convinces as the outwardly naive – but ultimately hard-headed – Thea, and Jack Tarlton’s swaggering energy makes Loevborg’s wild dissolution a physical, menacing thing.

The set is marvellous too: the light, fresh, open design makes for a queasy juxtaposition with the suffocation Hedda feels in her home, her marriage, her social class. It underscores the point for us that poor George will never be able to give her what she needs; no open window will ever offer enough air.

I loved this play. I can’t fault it. I’m still thinking about the characters twenty-four hours later, contemplating their behaviours and their fates. A fabulous piece of theatre.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut

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09/04/15

Thirty three years ago, as a raw recruit with Piccadilly Radio, I was sent to review Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The film was far from perfect (a Chandleresque voiceover by Harrison Ford, one of the chief offenders) but nevertheless, it blew me away. I couldn’t remember seeing a more credible vision of the future. Since then, Scott has revisited the film several times, trimming it, tuning it, reworking certain scenes with new technology as it became available. This version, originally released in 1992, now receives another showing on the big screen and if ever there was a film that deserved to be viewed that way, this is the one. Scott’s dystopic vision of Los Angeles in 2019 is a twelve course feast for the senses – a world dominated by acid rain, Japanese technology and endless adverts for Coca Cola. The visual effects are quite extraordinary (all the more so when you consider that this was before the days of CGI), but they don’t dominate proceedings, while Vangelis’s pulsing electronic score makes a perfect marriage with the onscreen action.

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a Blade Runner, a man charged with the tricky task of hunting down and eliminating rogue Replicants (incredibly realistic androids, generally used as workers on off-world colonies.) Four particularly resourceful Replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) are hiding out in Los Angeles and Deckard is recruited by his old boss to hunt them down. Visiting the Tyrell Corporation, who manufacture the replicants, he meets Rachael (Sean Young) an intelligent young woman who it seems, might not be quite as human as she appears…

In futuristic movies, it’s always fascinating to see how many unlikely predictions are made. In 2019, apparently, Deckard is still reading old fashioned newspapers and loading printed snapshots into what looks like a CD deck (though he can admittedly do amazing things once they’re in there). Meanwhile, people are zooming around in flying cars! But this matters not. The film goes deeper than most sci fi stories to ask some challenging questions. Does artificial life have as much right to exist as the creatures that have created it? And do those creators have the right to take that life away, when the creation fails to meet their expectations? The final sequences in J.S. Sebastian’s toy shop/apartment in ‘The Bradbury Building’ build to a compelling conclusion and Hauer has never been as enigmatic as he is here.  Blade Runner is serious film-making on a grandiose scale. Scott has made many films since, but this will probably remain his undisputed masterpiece. It’s stood the test of time and passed with flying colours.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Kampung Ali, Fountainbridge, Edinburgh

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08/04/15

Looking for somewhere with an incredible sense of style? Maybe Kampung Ali isn’t for you. The decor is, at best, functional and the huge mural on the back wall, which depicts an eastern city at night, complete with twinkling neon lights is, dare I say it? A bit kitsch. Maybe you’re looking for somewhere with an extensive wine list? Again, you won’t find it here. The house white is a chardonnay and at a push, they’ll drag out a glass of rosé sauvignon blanc that tastes as though it was originally opened to celebrate the marriage of Charles and Diana – though beer lovers will fare rather better with a bottle of Tiger. But if you’re looking for superb Malaysian cuisine offered at great value prices, well then, that’s a different matter entirely.

We began with two classic starters. The Vegetarian Spring Rolls were light, flakey and delicately spiced, one of the best versions of this dish I’ve ever tried. The the Satay Chicken Skewers came immersed in a thick and tangy peanut sauce, that was finger-lickingly good. Both portions were on the generous side (those with faint appetites may want to share a starter.)  The main courses were equally stunning. I had Crispy Pork with Noodles, which had a clean, pleasing flavour spiced with lemongrass and chilli, just enough to make the taste buds tingle, but not too overpowering. Susan opted for King Prawn with Noodles, a big hearty bowl of fishy goodness, swimming in a broth that was fierce but satisfyingly sweetened with coconut milk. No diner at Kampung Ali can afford to miss out on a bowl of their Coconut Rice  which is light, sticky and fragrant.

A meal for two with drinks came in at £36, which in the City Centre, can only be viewed as exceptional value. So, come to Kampung Ali. Ignore the decor. Sit down and take your taste buds for a brisk trot around the park. You won’t be disappointed.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

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05/03/15

In 2011, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel made the cinema industry sit up and take notice. Here was a modestly budgeted film that raked in a hefty profit, but more significantly, it took it from the kind of mature audience that cinema usually fails to attract (i.e. not just 12 year old boys). So it was inevitable that sooner, rather than later, there’d be a sequel. And here it is, complete with a title that sounds worryingly like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It should be remembered that the original film was based on a rather good source novel by Deborah Moggach. This one appears to be an original screenplay, if by original, you mean borrowing an idea that famously appeared in an episode of Fawlty Towers. The kindest thing you can say about it, is that it’s a curate’s egg of a film, good in parts but those parts are few and far between.

Sonny (Dev Patel) is soon to marry his fiancé, Sunaina (Tina Desai), but first he plans to expand his operation by opening a second hotel and at the film’s inception, has gone to America to seek finance. In this enterprise he’s aided by the caustic Mrs Donnelly (Maggie Smith) her character slightly diluted from her original bitchy incarnation, but nonetheless still awarded most of the funniest lines. Meanwhile the usual suspects from Marigold 1 parade around having affairs with each other (Celia Imrie’s character, Madge, appears to have turned into a borderline good time girl,) while Evelyn (Judy Dench) and Douglas (Bill Nighi) are still failing to connect, even when it’s perfectly clear that the two of them are simply made for each other. Into this hotbed of geriatric passion wanders Guy Chambers (Richard Gere) who might or might not, be the hotel inspector who can grant Sonny’s expansion plan. Before you can say, ‘Basil Fawlty,’ Guy has the hots for Sonny’s widowed mother and much (alleged) hilarity ensues. The problem is, that this is all so obvious, it might as well have been performed as a series of semaphore manoeuvres. A last minute ‘twist’ fails to offer any surprises whatsoever. And what’s happened to Sonny’s character? In Marigold 1, he was charming in a bumbling, hapless sort of way, but here he’s a car crash of a person who can’t open his mouth without offending everybody in the vicinity.

On one hand, TSBEMH deserves respect for daring to portray senior citizens as genuine characters with real lives and real concerns; on the other hand, points must be deducted for its outdated portrayal of India as a country that has somehow never escaped the bonds of colonialism. The first film managed to skirt skilfully around these issues, but this time it just wades on in, seemingly without thinking. The climactic wedding features lots of dancing and larking about, but also comes with a large dollop of sentimentality, which once again, the first film was careful to avoid.

So, second best by name and certainly second best by nature. Ideally, the film makers should have gratefully accepted their groundbreaking hit and moved on to another idea, but of course, the movie business will always respond to a hit by throwing more money in it’s general direction. Can we ‘look forward’ to The Third and Final Exotic Marigold Hotel? God, I hope not.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

Brassica Grill – Shaw Road, Heaton Moor

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02/03/15

Brassica is housed in what used to be a popular Spanish restaurant in the Heatons, La Casona. Under the guidance of acclaimed Chef, Paul Faulkner, it’s already acquired an avid following and on the Thursday night we attended, was filled with a lively crowd of hungry diners. When we’d phoned to book, we were told yes, the restaurant could accommodate us at our chosen time, but apologised in advance that they’d have to give us a ‘slightly inferior’ table. (The table was perfectly acceptable, but I liked the attention to detail.) The ambience in Brassica is pleasantly austere, quite a change from its more flamboyant Spanish origins. We decided to try the set menu, (two courses for £14, three for £17). We both ordered the same starter, a Venison Scotch Egg with Pickled Celery, Beetroot and Apple Chutney. This was superb, the spicy meat coated with a crispy outer layer and the egg caught just at the right point, the yolk soft and full-flavoured. The tangy accompaniment was just enough to set it off.

So far so good, but then the main courses arrived and were perhaps not quite so successful. I went for the Fish Pie, which was pleasant enough if a little watery. Served in a tin dish, it resembled decent pub grub, but was not up to the standard of that incredible starter – and the accompanying broccoli spears were limp and unspectacular. Susan opted for the ‘Blade of Beef with Carrots, Wild Garlic and Creamed Potato. The description prompted us to expect a thin slice of meat, but instead she was served a cake-shaped serving of pulled beef, which was flavoursome but disappointingly greasy. The carrots and potato elements were nicely done. Again, it wasn’t bad, but nowhere near as assured as what had gone before.

We decided to go a la carte for the sweet (there was a choice of just three desserts on the set menu, none of which really appealed.) Susan ordered a Raspberry Soufflé served with Vanilla Ice Cream and I went for a real old school dessert, Treacle Tart and Custard. Soufflés are notoriously difficult to pull off, but this one was perfection, light, fluffy with a refreshingly tart flavour. The treacle tart was a sweet bombshell, stickily encased in thick vanilla custard. In both cases, the plates were virtually licked clean.

So, great marks for the start and end, but not so much for the middle. On the Moor, of course, the restaurant to beat is Steve Pilling’s Damson, which time and again pulls off note-perfect courses with aplomb.To be fair, Brassica isn’t a million miles away from rivalling it, but may require a little more attention on those main courses.

4.1 stars

Philip Caveney

Anna Karenina

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24/03/15

Royal Exchange, Manchester

Tolstoy’s classic tale of blighted love gets a stripped-down, eclectic interpretation at the Exchange, replete with multi-ethnic casting and a selection of accents that range from deepest cockney to broad Scottish. Adapted by Jo Clifford, this co-production with the West Yorkshire Playhouse casts Oblonsky (Ryan Early) as the play’s occasional narrator. Rakish and dissolute though he may be, (Early’s playful performance is one of the production’s strongest cards) he’s also the only character here who actually seems to be enjoying himself. Elsewhere all is woe and misery.

Anna (Ony Uhiara) is a faithful and dutiful wife, happy with her marriage to the older Karenin (Jonathan Keeble) until she sets eyes upon the dashing Count Vronsky (Robert Gilbert), the moment accentuated by the use of a dazzling spotlight beamed in from outside the performing area. She embarks on an affair which will have catastrophic consequences for her and those around her. Production designer Joanna Scotcher has chosen a minimalistic set, through which run a set of train tracks along which a pair of tables are pushed backwards and forwards across a central pit of earth. Through the course of the action, the latter is used to represent the earthy attributes of the likeable but muddled Levin (John Cummins), the grubby stigma attached to a married woman carrying on so brazenly and it even provides the opportunity for Karenin to (quite literally) sling some mud at his unfaithful wife. It could be argued that this symbolism is somewhat overused (and it must have been a nightmare for the play’s costume department!) but it would have been nice to see a couple of bigger set-pieces along the way – the death by train that kicks proceedings off is criminally understated and the famous horse race that is the story’s centrepiece requires all our powers of imagination to envisage.

That said, this is an accessible production of what can, in the wrong hands, be a rather ponderous story. Clifford’s skilful script clearly delineates the various strands of the tale and over the space of nearly three hours, proceedings never lose pace. It’s interesting to note that six members of the same cast will be taking on the Bruntwood Prize-winning play The Rolling Stone from Tuesday 21st of April.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Two Days, One Night

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21/03/15

The French are renowned for their light and frivolous comedies, but Two Days, One Night is a drab and realistic look at the ravages of austerity and there’s frankly not a smile to be seen. Marion Cotillard plays Sandra, a young Belgian mother who after a short absence from the factory where she’s employed (largely because of suffering from depression) finds herself in the invidious position of having to persuade her eighteen colleagues to vote for her to stay in her job, knowing that to do so means they each have to give up a promised €1000 bonus.

The cameras follow Sandra as she trudges desperately around a succession of locations, pleading her cause and being met with reactions ranging from sympathy to the threat of violence. The directors, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne keep everything simple and ultra-realistic while Cotillard’s vulnerable performance will have you rooting for her to succeed. Were this a Hollywood movie, we all know how the story would end but this is reality and it’s to the Dardenne’s credit (they also scripted the movie) that they manage to pull together a conclusion that manages to be both realistic and positive.

Well worth checking out on the smaller screen.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Beating McEnroe

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27/03/15

The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

We enter the theatre to find a bearded man dressed in a tennis headband and a towelling bathrobe. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor silently contemplating a pile of tennis balls. As the crowd continues to shuffle to their seats, he starts to throw the balls to people and urges them to throw them back. Then, once everyone is assembled, he gets us all to chant some kind of repetitive mantra.The man is Jamie Wood and the show is Beating McEnroe, a monologue about the infamous Wimbledon showdown between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe in 1980. It’s also about how the young Jamie came to terms with always being whupped at tennis by his older brother. It’s about hero worship and the awful realisation that one day, all heroes must inevitably be bested, often by people who don’t seem to deserve the acclaim. Along the way there’s some slapstick, some dancing and some very funny visual jokes. Wood’s charming persona allows him to effortlessly manipulate the audience into helping him out, acting as his umpires, his ball boys and girls even at one point impersonating him (nice one Susan!) and his big brother. This is interactive theatre at its best and while it’s undeniably a piece of fluff, it’s fluff that’s performed with great skill and a disarming lightness of touch – enough to earn it a nomination for a Total Theatre Award at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

I had the task of tying a carton of table salt to Jamie’s head, which might sound decidedly odd, but which resulted in the funniest visual gag of the night. I felt as though somehow I had contributed to the evening and left feeling rather pleased with myself. We caught this performance at the end of it’s run at the Traverse, but those seeking a genuinely entertaining night at the theatre could do a lot worse than booking to see this at the Lowry in Salford where it plays for just one night on Saturday 28th of March. You’ll believe a man can become a human tennis ball!

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Chappie

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18/03/15

Few directors have made such a triumphant cinematic debut as South African,Neill Blomkamp. His first feature District 9 was an assured production, a canny blend of science fiction and social commentary, that blasted his career into the stratosphere. His next offering, Elysium was rather less successful but nonetheless, very watchable, even when it suggested that a human being could undergo drastic bodily surgery without bothering to remove his T-shirt. Chappie, however, is a real dog’s dinner of a film. Not only is it incredibly derivative (it comes across as an unwieldy amalgam of Robocop and Short Circuit) it features clumsy scripting and some pretty terrible performances in key roles.

In a futuristic Johannesburg, everyday policing is carried out by ‘Scouts,’ humanoid robots, capable of making their own decisions. They are the brainchild of Deon (Dev Patel) a nerdy worker in a giant corporation who dreams of one day creating a true AI – a robot capable of independent thought and the appreciation of art and music. This idea is pooh poohed by Deon’s workmanlike boss, Michelle (Sigourney Weaver, with very little to do but sit behind a desk and look stern.) Deon’s success is also envied  by his macho associate, Vincent (Hugh Jackman), who has his own law enforcement project waiting in the wings and doesn’t mind taking a few shortcuts. When Deon runs some unauthorised experiments on a damaged Scout, the result is Chappie, (voiced by Blomkamp regular, Sharlto Copley) but things become complicated when Deon and his creation are kidnapped by a couple of local hoodlums, Ninja and Yolandi, who want to use the robot for their own nefarious purposes. They set about teaching Chappie how to be bad…

As in his previous films, Blomkamp is great at achieving a credible look in his futuristic world and the motion capture work employed here is of the very highest quality, so it’s a shame that the same care and attention hasn’t been lavished upon a credible script. Events pile haphazardly one on top of the other, but seem to follow no discernible logic, while the aforementioned Ninja and Yolandi are portrayed by a couple of South African rappers (they haven’t even bothered to change their names) who between them display the acting skills of… well, a couple of South African rappers. Frankly, they stink up the screen, which drives a fatal nail through the heart of the film.

The word is out that Blomkamp’s next project will be part of the Alien franchise, but he’ll have to work very hard indeed to rise above the scrappy disappointment that is Chappie. What a shame.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Still Alice

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16/3/15

Still Alice is of course, the film that secured Julianne Moore a well-deserved Oscar and this tale of a fifty year old Professor of Linguistics, struck down by Early Onset Alzheimers, becomes even more poignant with the news that writer/co-director Richard Glatzer, died just two days after the Oscar ceremony. (He suffered from the rare but equally debilitating condition ALS.) The film is surprisingly understated, avoiding the excesses of so many other medical issue dramas and it could be argued that it cuts away before things get too messy, but the enterprise is held together by Moore’s extraordinary performance, which instills a kind of creeping terror in the viewer; we’ve all experienced many of the  problems she encounters here. Who hasn’t found themselves walking into a room and then drawing a blank as to why we’ve gone there? Could what we’ve dismissed as mere absent-mindedness be something more sinister?

We first encounter the eponymous Alice at a University lecture where she momentarily forgets what she’s about to say. A little later whilst jogging around her hometown, she suddenly discovers that she doesn’t recognise her surroundings, even though she’s right outside the University where she works. (This scene is terrifying.) Alice’s husband and fellow academic, John (Alec Baldwin – don’t be afraid, he’s quite good in this) tries to do what’s best for his wife, but the demands of his own career cause complications and there are more of those too for Alice’s children, when it transpires that the rare type of Alzheimer’s she’s suffering from is familial – it can be passed on to them. This is devastating news for eldest daughter Anna (Kate Bosworth) who is trying to start a family of her own, while flakey youngest daughter, Lydia (Kristen Stewart) ironically manages to grow closer to her mother as her condition advances. From here, we witness the gradual disintegration of Alice’s life as with each successive day, a little more of her memory is eroded and irrevocably lost.

Still Alice isn’t a great film – indeed, with a lesser performance at it’s core, it could easily have stumbled and fallen, but it does have Moore’s intelligent and heartfelt input and that’s enough to kick it out of the stadium. I was warned that I would need a box of Kleenex for this one, but though I sat there consumed with dread throughout (my own Mother suffered with Alzheimer’s for the last ten years of her life) I managed to stay resolutely dry eyed  – a testament, I think, to the fact that the story never panders to histrionics and presents a realistic portrayal of an illness that surely does require more research and investment than it’s currently receiving. Worth seeing? Yes, but mostly for Julianne Moore at the top of her game.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney