The Witches - 2023 - The National Theatre's Olivier Theatre

 The Witches – Seen at The National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre – Saturday 25^th November, 2023.

Roald Dahl has always juxtaposed the magical with the macabre; the sweet with the sinister. Stage adaptations of popular films and established source material are currently at the absolute epicentre of populist, commercial theatre. Whether it’s everyone’s favourite nanny being a blessing in disguise in Mrs. Doubtfire, or Marty zooming Back To The Future – to seminal effect.

   Now, the National Theatre stages a truly spectacular, brand-new musical version of Dahl’s The Witches for its annual yuletide programming - a customarily subversive allegory on mortality, potions, mice, and hotel conventions with ulterior motives.

  Director Lynsey Turner (returning to The National after supernaturality of a more occult tone in The Crucible), stuns with an absolutely superb, simply dazzling production. It expertly combines visual aplomb, with Lucy Kirkwood’s endlessly inventive book – which references everything from selfies to Lynx Africa!

  These contemporary touchstones are nicely balanced with always honouring the fantastical subgenre of witchcraft’s far more traditional origins too - not least aesthetically. Lizzie Clachan’s terrific sets, begin in full Tim Burton-esque gothic mode: insidiously twisting trees – complete with seamlessly incorporated video projection. Dave Malloy’s lyrics even acknowledge these archetypal conventions in the opening number: ‘Everyone knows what a witch looks like!’. The colossal Olivier Theatre, is perfectly suited to encapsulate it all too – it’s mounted on such an ambitious scope and scale; the effect is awe-inspiring.

The colour palette softens in the second half in favour of pastels, as we relocate to The Hotel Magnificent – where we meet gluttonous, upper-class posh boy Bruno Jenkins. His snobbery at the exasperation of staying in rather more provincial surroundings than he’s accustomed, is hilarious: ‘Where’s the single malt?!’. The show is completely stolen here by the exceptional William Skinner – who is gifted an entire top hat-and-tails-style number all to himself, on the joys of a whole panoply of confectionary, with the ensemble dressed as giant cupcakes. ‘Sweets, chocolate and great big toffee / Maltesers and Revels / Every flavour ‘cept the coffee!’ – such witty lyricism, delivered with boundless, full-tilt brio by the revelatory Skinner!

 

Katherine Kingsley is also brilliant as The Grand-High Witch, striking exactly the correct mixture between gleefully evil and very funny. Marvel at the atmospheric, magical trickery, revealing the true appearance of the titular clan. Beneath the leader’s veneer of ruthless, sophisticated glamour, lurks a corrosive mask, akin to a rotten apple - thanks to astoundingly clever illusionary effects. While there are certainly several of these darker moments, it’s never too scary – and will utterly captivate anyone from 8 to 80. Even the hot-button topic of audience etiquette is hilariously satirised. At one point, the fourth wall is suddenly broken, as Kingsley challenges an unsuspecting member of the audience, spotlit for using their mobile phone. Ingeniously, it’s not initially clear whether this self-referential nod is supposed to be a deliberate part of the show – as she declares with acerbic, Transylvanian sneer: ‘You’re at The National Theatre for god’s sake! Everyone’s having a wonderful time!’ – and we are. One of her standout songs, Wouldn’t it Be Nice, alludes to how much better it would be, to eschew all children and their perpetual demands: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice / Just to have a little break'... This induced much identificatory laughter from the parents in the audience!

 

It’s just one of many moments, in a production that constantly surprises, not only with its astonishing technical innovation, but also the sheer audaciousness of Kirkwood’s writing, despite the pace dropping ever so slightly towards the end.  

  Curiously, thus far, its only had an 11-week run in-house, without an announcement of a West End transfer, which is unthinkable - when the quality is this incomparable. It’s fully deserving of being a mainstay, both in the West End and on tour, for many years, and is, for me, the undisputed – best show of 2023!

 

Rating: * * * * * 

The Last Tourist (2021) Reviewed: Friday, 1st July, 2022.

 James Burgess - The Last Tourist (2021) Dir: Tyson Sadler – International Distributor: Utopia – Running Time: 100 mins.

1^st July, 2022.

If you’ve turned on the news within the last few months, you don’t have to channel-hop too long before encountering yet another hot-button story: the latest round of airport chaos, due to horrendous queues at security, and a woefully understaffed amount of personnel.

 It’s one of several all-too familiar scenarios, covered in director Tyson Sadler and producer and contributor Bruce Poon-Tip’s, absolutely fascinating, ever-timely, excellent and unbelievably powerful chronicling of the – at present - very conflicted and deeply pressurised, tourism industry.

Not at all shying away from potential pitfalls as well as timeless glories of holidaymakers experiences, it’s essentially doubling up as both a twin-edged cautionary tale, as well as vitally important testament, to customer responsibility; showcasing and foregrounding a rich compendium of cultures, people, community and commerce – and above all the urgent need for a mutually established dialogue of respect, balance, sustainable intervention, and all of the inhabitant’s welfare - in the face of a great, and far too frequent variety of adversity.

  From the stunning island vistas of Thailand’s pearlescent, azure waters of Koh Phangan – turned effervescently on its head as the sun sets, for its annual whirligig Full-Moon Party – to India’s desolation of great poverty – it’s a superbly constructed, visual tour-de-force – running its own absolutely crucial, uniquely inimitable gamut - between tourism’s various facets of celebration, tribulation and isolation.

    What’s particularly striking throughout this unbelievably astutely executed documentary; is the sheer scale of the global outreach of the travel and tourism industry itself.

Once March 2020’s global pandemic hit; what once served as a colossal source of international revenue was gone. Documentary’s use of found footage succeeds in immersing the audience within the bigger picture with an immediacy that narrative fiction can never hope to replicate. Brilliant panoramic graphics, illustrate virtual maps, cataclysmically changed irrevocably, by the fact that profit margins were instantly eradicated, substituted for even greater infrastructural losses, which preceded to shut down an entirely international industry, overnight.

  Special mention should also go to cinematographer Stephen Chandler Whitehead, who captured over 400 hours of footage with stunning high-definition cameras. The results are simply incomparable.

It’s the incidental imagery that endures the most; those unexpectedly mundane, peppered moments of gentle humour. A favourite is a produce salesman on a moped, who, in transporting just a few too many bananas, comically topples over - as do his deliveries – all in the name of enthusiastic dedication!

  The elephants are the undisputed stars of this particular show, both figuratively and in a way that is shockingly literal. Documented in conditions of both magisterial tranquillity and unbearably abusive hardship – all for the function of supposed ‘entertainment’. These segments of overt animal cruelty are especially affecting, and often extremely difficult to watch. But, that just makes them all the more necessary, because most mass audiences, simply might not know this unacceptable maltreatment exists, whether it be animal, child or the wider human populace.

What’s so interesting, is that it seeks to shine a light on those unsung heroes within tourism - from underpaid waitressing staff, to native loom-weavers. Thankfully, documentaries as great as this, don’t only raise awareness, but by extension, act as a positive force for change – without ever resorting to a lecture.

Inventive shot selection, ranges from voyeuristically high-angled, parasol-strewn beaches, bathed in perpetual custard-bowl-yellow sunshine, to milk-white waterfalls discovered within pockets of near-complete isolation. Chandler Whitehead’s image is always pin-sharp in its clarity - and uncompromisingly clear in its cultural, social and economic messaging. Meaning, messaging that’s not just framed in the form of social media – although its dominance of democratisation is shown too – to fantastic effect. The ubiquitous bubble of instantaneously obtaining affirmation; through the snapshot of a photograph, or the millennial Insta-generation’s unrelenting appetite for self-documenting a ‘like-and-subscribe’ culture - could potentially, be doing tourism as much disservice, as favour. ‘Has travel lost the plot a little?’ one contributor asks. ‘Are we going on holiday, just to take that one perfect shot?’ another poses, presciently.

 Already winning deserving accolades, including The Grand Jury Prize at The 2021 Calgary Film Festival, it deserve as widely theatrical and cinematic a release as it can. These stunning locations really do need to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

Throughout, it proves terrifically to achieve the very rarest of plaudits for a documentary: never taking sides. It neither idolises, nor is detrimental to, its often hard-hitting subject matter. Never feeling like a didactic diatribe, it is instead a sumptuously hypnotic, assuredly comprehensive treatise, on the constantly juxtaposed antithesis between leisure, pleasure, legality, entertainment, economy, preserved connectivity and the immeasurable value of just how far simple acts of kindness can reach, within our often fractured, but also globally enriched - sense of community.

 Travelers changing their collective mindset in order to treat other cultures with mutually professional respect, is this piece’s core value – and it’s beautifully distilled both in its visual language and it’s vocalised opinion. ‘Travellers are pollinators. Travel shouldn’t just be about you, but about what you can offer’. Insightful quotes such as these, sum up this film’s essence, perfectly. Charting an emotional trajectory from unspoiled paradise to polluted chimera, it’s impactfully strong lesson, remains one of balancing the quests for optimum user-experience, sustainability and accountability – with an aim for these to co-exist as harmoniously as possible.

The soundtrack also helps greatly, with Heidi Webster’s hopeful end credits parable: Wander, adding to the concluding, but rarely conclusive, sense of optimism.

Long may documentary; a fascinatingly difficult and vastly underappreciated genre - continue to help tourism, by not least making many more films every bit as brilliant, necessary and memorable as this one.

 

   Rating: * * * *

Diana (2013)

 September 2013

Cert: 12A / 113 mins.

It’s the near-impossible task of double-Oscar-Nominated actress Naomi Watts to portray Princess Diana. There’s a deep level of strong, opinionated controversy surrounding this movie and its been almost universally critically panned – but when you judge it on its own terms – not in terms of dismissing it for its inaccuracies, and such woefully clichéd dialogue, it’s still a very singular, powerful and memorable character study.

 

Naomi Watts (it was Jessica Chastain originally, but scheduling conflicts for Zero Dark Thirty reportedly intervened), is very good as Diana, in a hugely emotional, uncanny performance; worthy of an Oscar, despite its terrible critical reception, and at best, middling to moderate box office. Watts is particularly good at conveying the brittle, edgy more erratically impulsive side to Diana’s immense humanity – as an incalculably famous figure, under immeasurable scrutiny, quietly containing wells of subtle restraint. 

 

I was far less enamoured with the love story that seemed put-upon, outdated and uninteresting. What was absolutely fascinating to me though, were two other elements: the scenes with her public appearances, speeches, and beautiful locations and costumes – all elegantly designed by production designer Kave Quinn.

 

Particularly striking, are these elaborately reconstructed scenes which are now iconic, such as the infamous (and subsequently disgraced), Martin Bashir interview, staged paparazzi photography of Diana sitting on the edge of the diving board on the yacht, or, most chillingly, the cinematographically rich very first shot is an eerily panoramic one; of hurried night-time preparation, in that fateful hotel in Paris. Director of the much-acclaimed Downfall, Oliver Herschbeigel, increases the level of atmosphere tenfold, by ominously getting rid of almost all the sound completely, as, crucially, she seems to stop, considering staying, leaving us with a rotoscopic backwards pan, and only a muffled, relentless humdrum; it succeeds in a relentlessness of intensity, of what it must be like to be the hounded subject of endless tabloid flashbulbs – even on a shopping trip which descends into utter chaos.

 

As with Thomas Newman’s score for The Iron Lady, this score by David Holmes is simple and urgent, when it suddenly emerges in desperate bursts.

 

Rating:  * * *

 

2022 Awards Season

There’s a rich, exciting and extremely versatile slate of films this year – it’s certainly a more mainstream crop than last year’s muted, movement-conscious affair, whose BAFTA members snubbed everyone from Gary Oldman to David Fincher – I’ll never understand what they had against the magnificent Mank.

This year there’s the divisive but incredibly sharp Don’t Look Up, Del Toro’s magnificent referential noir pulp Nightmare Alley, Aaron Sorkin’s languid but terrific and very underrated Lucille Ball biopic, Being The Ricardos, with Nicole Kidman’s committed (if not entirely aesthetically uncanny; or nearly as hilarious as the real Lucille was), and Javier Bardem magnificent as her increasingly persecuted husband and collaborator Desi Arnez. Both are Oscar nominated – neither will win – the film proving either critically divisive or just middling. There are two more excellent powerhouse performances, from Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield in the beautifully costumed, fascinating vitally beguiling, and equally divisive The Eyes Of Tammy Faye. There’s also Wes Anderson’s delightful ode to anthropological journalism, in the idiosyncratic oddity that is The French Dispatch. It seems didactic to say, but it once again exercises a truly unique clockwork precision, that is inimitably him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though inexplicably not nominated for playing Tammy’s morally duplicitous husband Jim Bakker, Garfield is also a little bit of an outsider’s favourite, to win the best actor Oscar on 27^th March, for his full throttle performance as creative whirlwind Jonathan Larson in Lin Manual Miranda’s musical on Netflix: Tick, Tick, Boom.

I’ll discuss who might win, who should’ve been nominated - and the reasoning behind Hollywood’s biggest night’s continuing decline in popularity, both critically and with its viewership.

 

 

Supporting Actress – The 3 That Got Away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Matrix Resurrections and Eternals – The snubbed blockbusters.

Artemis Fowl Review

Sir Kenneth Branagh is becoming increasingly versatile and mainstream with each film he directs. Somewhat unexpectedly, he directed the first Thor film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2011 (until you realize, Norse mythology of course, can be treated as sharing deep Shakespearian links). He then adapted arguably Christie’s most famous Poirot novel, in his opulently mounted, star-studded version of 2017’s Murder On The Orient Express – playing the exuberantly moustached detective himself.

Now, comes the much delayed, big-screen version of Eoin Colfer’s bestselling young-adult novels. ‘Big-screen’ remains mere wish-fulfilment though - sprinkled in hope by the fairies that populate the narrative’s magical worlds. Branagh’s multi-million-dollar, long gestating project has very sadly been somewhat downgraded to only ever existing through those much-maligned streaming platforms – or, to exercise specificity – the new platform on the evermore competitive block – Disney Plus.

It is such a pity, because its exactly the sort of ambitious, fantastical, blockbusting fare that belongs squarely in the multiplex, instead of within the confines of four corners of ever-decreasing screen-sizes.

  Young Artemis Fowl, is introduced to an entire underground populace of fairies, goblins and giants etc, after his father (another soulfully earnest turn from Colin Farrell) is captured by a faceless, raspy-voiced culprit. Naturally, our titular protagonist is forced to personify the figure of unlikely hero.

  It’s hugely enjoyable, very much in that glossily sheened mould of Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids, Anthony Horowitz’s Stormbreaker, a child-palatable version of Matthew Vaughn’s decidedly more adult Kingsman franchise, and a touch of a certain Harry Potter.

  It’s in the supporting roles that the casting choices really shine. Dame Judi Dench’s Commander Root, head elf of Magical Law Enforcement strides onto screen in lime suit and goggled visor with a growly: ‘Top o’ the Mornin’ Cornish accent. It seeks to act as further proof, not that any were needed, that Dench is still finding completely refreshing roles, well into her eighth decade.

Josh Gad, similarly, takes on somewhat of a departure, as Mulch Diggums (a fantasy name for a character, if ever there was one), a giant whose motivations are somewhat ambiguous.

Jake Davies, terrific as the corrupted son and brother in the second series of BBC One’s The Missing, is one of our very best young actors, and here has a small role as one of those lime-suited elves under Dench’s command.

  Jim Clay’s sumptuous production design, and Sammy Sheldon’s costumes, ensure great detail and intricacy is given to every set and character; from Fowl Manor’s gold-encrusted chandeliers, to an entire underwater colony of creatures and security divisions.

  Of course, a cliff-hanger ending sets up an inevitable franchise. There are eight novels in total, so there’s plenty of scope for further instalments.

   The comparatively short running time of 95 minutes jams a lot in, but it’s vibrant, sincere, colourful fun - and a refreshing change for Branagh. I just hope any sequels are released cinematically – which is exactly where they should be.

Rating: * * * 

Vox Lux

Distributor: Curzon

Starring: Natalie Portman, Raffey Cassidy, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, Stacy Martin, Micheal Richardson & Christopher Abbott.

Running Time: 114 Mins

Seen At: HOME, Manchester, Wednesday, 8^th May, 2019.

Brady Corbet, today’s American equivalent of the British ‘angry young men’ of the sixties, frequently played troubled, broken souls as an actor. None more so than the best friend of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s conflicted hustler in Gregg Araki’s uncompromisingly punishing Mysterious Skin. After turning director with 2015’s Childhood Of A Leader, there’s a synchronised irony to the fact that his terrific, absorbing follow-up, Vox Lux, could’ve not only so easily been quite literally dubbed that ‘difficult second album’ directorially, but is a deceptively profound piece, plunged headlong into the strangest and most instantaneous of zeitgeists: that of celebrity. It brilliantly and very topically foregrounds our current preoccupations with fame, validation and the distortion of truth at any cost. Infinitely timely, without hammering its politic stance home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, as filmmakers such as Harmony Korine or enfante terrible Xavier Dolan could’ve done - it’s a chilly, expertly framed, gloriously uncompromising expose, as understated as it is unapologetically exaggerated - caught in the beautifully constructed, hyperbolic whirligig of consumerist pressure.

There’s a bold, Herrmann-esque, lyrically hallucinogenic score, the last from the late Scott Walker, who’s Vertigo-inducing, pounding, swooningly romanticised strings don’t feel a bit out of place, even in today’s aural landscape.

Opening in an act of stark, shocking style, when a 1999 high school is subjected to a horrendous shooting, with hauntingly indirect echoes of Columbine, which injures the shy Celeste (brilliantly played in teenage form by Raffey Cassidy, so striking in Tomorrowland and Killing Of A Sacred Deer). At the community’s candlelit vigil, she channels the collective mourning into an Adele-style pop-anthem, Wrapped Up, which unexpectedly goes global, turning her into an overnight star.

Taken begrudgingly under the wing of Jude Law’s washed-up music producer (Law’s best performance since 2012’s Anna Karenina), Cassidy’s fantastically assured, yet glassy-eyed demeanour, illustrates Celeste’s descension into someone already slightly jaded by a meteoric rise to fame. There’s a brilliant scene where she’s drawn into a vacuous evening liaison with a disinterested rock-band frontman (Micheal Richardson, grandson to Vanessa Redgrave) while they listen to her self-penned singles in the background.

 Fast-forward twenty years to the present, and Celeste (who’s own daughter is also played by Cassidy), has now transfigured into a Bolan-like, unstable pre-millennial, courted by somewhat inevitable controversy. A glam-rock, quasi-Gaga figure, all peroxide purple quiff and temper tantrum, now played with barnstorming fearlessness by a career-best Natalie Portman, giving an absolute powerhouse performance of self-disillusionment. Her adult Celeste has lost that innocuous sheen of innocence, and Portman’s portrayal is deliciously mannered: twitchy, inflected and drug-addled. It’s the type of no-holds-barred, glorious star-turn, you so rarely see now, one which Academy votes should plump for in next year’s awards season - but probably won’t. She hides behind the high-street celebrity’s customarily eponymous dark sunglasses, to escape the perpetual scrum of press intrusion, and faces off mercilessly in a milkshake bar, against a fan who asks for a selfie, during a fractured attempt at mother/daughter bonding.

There’s a refreshingly minimalist approach to today’s wholly distracting spin-cycle of technology. Corbet doesn’t resort to citing mention of apps, filters or dreaded tweets that all-too often pop up on-screen - dating it immediately. Lol Crawley’s voyeuristic, constantly ominous cinematography, is almost reminiscent of Kubrick at times: static, singular shots, choosing to focus - in faux pop-documentary style - on one perspective, namely Celeste’s – always resisting rebelliously to cut to wide, never revealing the full picture.

Its thematic daring, in tackling an eclectic playlist of terrorism, pop, fame and politics, is handled every bit as delicately as Celeste’s fragile psyche. She holds the ISIS-like, publicity-seeking organisation to account at a press conference, and is in the grip of an electrically charged interview with a journalist (a cameo from the wonderfully unassuming Christopher Abbott, currently wowing as Yoyo, the lead in Catch-22).

She’s also in the frenzied midst of an exhaustive live tour of insistent ‘rebirth’. While approaching meltdown in her dressing room, condemning (punctuated between banshee wails) at being: ‘Treated like she’s not a person’ – you realize just how accurately acute the film must be in chronicling the transient, ever-fluctuating trajectory of celebrity. The tour’s grand-standing crowd-pleasers are written by a similarly unconventional iconoclast - Sia.

 As the astonishing final scenes inside a huge arena arrive, with Portman decked-out in glitter and sequins, still tinged with that ever-present hollow strive for adoration, at too high a price, Corbet’s propulsive vision and verve plays out in the metronome of memory rather like the ultra-digitised career its anti-protagonist longs for: streamed on an endless loop, polarising, a deliberately acquired taste, but one you just can’t stop watching.



Rating: * * * * *

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Thor: Ragnarok, 12A, 130 mins. Marvel.

Thor, the chiselled, hammer-welding God Of Thunder of Avengers fame, has now had three standalone films (I use the term ‘standalone’ loosely - it’s now  beyond expected that several ‘Easter Eggs’ - hidden clues occur, both throughout and after the end credits, including appearances by characters crossing-over both films and cinematic universes).

Thanks largely to another of these, namely the Guardians Of The Galaxy, not only do the characters venture into the stratosphere of the intergalactic, but the tone of this particular Thor film is as smartly cynical and quick-witted as anything in the Marvel canon.

This tongue-in-cheek direction starts immediately, and it’s clearly a deliberate change not just because of Guardians’ colossal commercial success, but also one which Chris Hemsworth clearly enjoys. Thor, as with Captain America alongside him, has previously been a rather intentionally stolid, monotone, straight-laced figure of patriarchal honour and order. Here, he exercises previously untapped comedic potential. He’s kidnapped and taken to a planet which transports him to a kaleidoscope-esque planet via an ode to the opening chimes of Pure Imagination.

That’s not the only unusual musical choice employed by antipodean director Taika Watiti, highly regarded for smaller, independent projects. The opening track, heard repeatedly during epic, slow-mo staged battles, is Robert Plant’s Immigrant Song.

However, it’s in the supporting performances that this one really shows its strengths. Cate Blanchett stars as the gleefully slinky Hela sister (yes, sister) to Thor and Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. ‘I’m not a queen, or a monster - I’m the Goddess Of Death! What were you the God of again?’. Next to Catwoman, she’s posited as one of the first principal female franchise villains - and has great fun. Mark Ruffalo is terrific as the green, not so mean Hulk, and Jeff Goldblum laconically plays The Grandmaster as only he can.

All these retro pop-references and back-and-forth banter is all well and good, but I wonder whether these lighter group of Marvel rag-tag high-jinks are simply becoming extremely entertaining, by now very well-worn parodies of themselves - so much so that Saturday Night Live may soon be saved the trouble.


Rating * * *