Simon Cowell

The End We Start From

21/01/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The End We Start From – with a screenplay by Alice Birch based on the novel by Megan Hunter – comprises two distinct stories in a single telling. On the surface, we have the literal tale of an apocalyptic flood rendering much of the UK uninhabitable. Underneath, there is a metaphorical account of a new mother drowning under pressure.

Directed by Mahalia Belo and starring Jodie Comer, the allegory is not subtle. As the Woman takes a bath and caresses her heavily-pregnant belly, the camera inverts: her whole world is about to be turned upside down; as the Woman’s water breaks, so the flood smashes through her kitchen window, engulfing her and changing everything. She’s nameless, billed only as ‘Woman’; she is clearly supposed to be an archetype, a universal Everymother.

But it doesn’t need to be subtle. This works.

Comer is luminous; she has that elusive quality we used to call the ‘X’ factor until the phrase was hijacked by Simon Cowell’s karaoke nights. The camera loves her, and she is a truly talented actor. The supporting cast (especially Joel Fry as her partner and Katherine Waterston as her friend) are great, but there’s no doubting whose movie this is. Comer imbues the Woman with a strong, relatable character, fighting for survival against the odds.

Birch’s script is spare and under-stated – and therefore terrifyingly believable. This isn’t a Zombie flick, where everyone suddenly becomes feral, but the prospects are just as bleak; this climate disaster is devastating but credibly so. People are flooded out of their homes so they take to their cars in search of somewhere safe. Before long, the roads are blocked; towns and villages on higher ground close ranks, scared of sharing and losing what they have. Shelters are set up, but spaces are limited. In the midst of all this is the Woman, wide-eyed with the shock of having just given birth, frightened for herself and for her baby. And desperate people do desperate things…

Belo’s low-key direction cleverly magnifies this awful plausibility. She never lingers on the violence we know is out there, its menace amplified by the fact it’s just out of sight. The aftermath of a broken, waterlogged London emerging from the storm is especially affecting. The tempestuous weather – beautifully, even languorously, shot by Suzie Lavelle – feels like a warning, a case of ‘when’, not ‘if’. We can almost feel the strength of nature and our powerlessness against it.

Indeed, emerging from the cinema into the wild wind and rain of Storm Isha, the storyline seems scarily prescient as we battle our way home.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

Lena

10/08/23

Assembly George Square (Gordon Aikman Theatre), Edinburgh

Back in the olden days before there was The X Factor or Britain’s Got Talent, a certain presenter by the name of Hughie Green was the Simon Cowell of his day, fronting a shonky TV show called Opportunity Knocks. It was avidly watched, every week, by up to twenty million viewers.

I’m actually old enough to recall the fateful night in 1974 when opportunity knocked for Lena Zavaroni, a precocious nine-year-old from the Isle of Bute. She strode on to that little stage and sang a totally inappropriate song in a voice that could just as well have come from a seasoned veteran. British audiences were both shocked and delighted… and the votes flooded in.

The rest, of course, is tragedy. Lena was catapulted headlong into overnight fame, but was persuaded to move away from her parents’ council house in Scotland to live in London with her manager, Dorothy Soloman (Helen Logan). There she was groomed – there’s no more appropriate word for what happened to her – for stardom. After five consecutive wins on Opportunity Knocks, she was politely asked to step aside and then went on to tour the world. But you can’t separate a young child from her parents without dire consequences further down the road. Her father, Victor (Alan McHugh), and her mother, Hilda (Julie Coombe), could only look on in horror as their daughter’s world began to disintegrate around her….

In Tim Whitnall’s play, Lena’s story is recounted by none other than Hughie Green himself (the usual note-perfect impersonation by Jon Culshaw), while Erin Armstrong plays Lena, from childhood right up to her tragic demise at the age of thirty-five, somehow convincing us she can be all those ages without any prosthetics. Here too, a real character is uncannily recreated, complete with those cheesy costumes and that big, BIG voice. The production details have the ring of authenticity – there’s even a clap-o-meter! And if the character of Dorothy Solomon occasionally veers uncomfortably close to pantomine, well, no matter, every fairy tale must have a villain to hiss.

Lena captures an incredible true story, and I have to confess I appear to have something in my eyes as it approaches its inevitable, heartbreaking conclusion.

We’d like to think that it couldn’t possibly happen in this day and age, but a glance at the latest headlines is enough to confirm that, when it comes to the way we treat celebrities, we don’t appear to have learned anything at all.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney