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Monthly culture: July 2019
03JUL19: Spiderman: Far From Home, Greenwich Odeon
My third favourite Marvel film this year :) There were some fun bits, including EDITH; some nitpicks, incuding the presence of Scotch guards rather than Beefeaters at the Tower of London; and a surprise sighting of the very nice Prague hotel at which I attended a conference last year. I spent quite a bit of this film thinking that Nick Fury was out of character. Relatedly, the post-credits scene is a real game-changer.
20JUL19: The Dead Don't Die, Greenwich Picturehouse
Incredibly self-referential and rather melancholy ('no, really, a film about polar fracking and revenants is melancholy?' I hear you cry) with an excellent soundtrack, a who's-who cast, Tilda Swinton (always worth watching though her role here is more than usually opaque) and a plot that fades away rather than burning out. I did wonder if this would have made more sense without the preliminary wine, but am assured that it would not.
Guardian review
16-21JUL19: La Belle Helene (Offenbach), Blackheath Halls
Sadly, I did not actually get to see this. But I was in it, part of the chorus, and it's consumed a great deal of my energy for the last two months. Immense fun, hard work, something I had never done, and glorious music.
Don't take my word for it:
★★★★ Observer review
★★★★★ Classical Source review
25JUL19: Noises Off (Frayn), Lyric Hammersmith
Farce for farce' sake with Meera Syal and a cast who manage split-second timing, the deadly art of non-verbal acting, and a freshness to dialogue that was premiered in the early Eighties. I laughed out loud a lot. Again, very self-referential, but with fewer dead bodies and more excellent lines ("You're here!" "Yes, every word!"). Reminded me horribly of mid-Seventies British TV. But in a good way.
WhatsOnStage review here
27JUL19: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (Lloyd-Webber/Rice), London Palladium
Possibly the most expensive per-minute entertainment of the year It's under 2 hours even with interval), but thoroughly enjoyable even when things were Not As We Remembered Them. I went with C, who also sang this at school way way back manycenturies years ago, and who also remembers all the words. Some parts were absolutely spectacular, notably Jason Donovan's Pharoah in his gilded, hieroglyphed palace with the dancing Anubis statues and, for finale, a Horus statue playing guitar; others were ... differently good. (I am not sure I approve of having a child play Potiphar.) Sheridan Smith is astonishingly versatile (she sang Jacob, the Jailer, and Potiphar's wife, as well as the Narrator); the set and costume design is marvellous, and indeed of many colours; the stars were six-pointed, and the camels three-wheeled. (A win all round on the livestock front: the ram's "You said it was only dressing up!" got huge applause, as did the sheep on skateboards.) I found Joseph (newcomer Jac Yarrow) occasionally spluttery, but he managed the role quite adequately.
My third favourite Marvel film this year :) There were some fun bits, including EDITH; some nitpicks, incuding the presence of Scotch guards rather than Beefeaters at the Tower of London; and a surprise sighting of the very nice Prague hotel at which I attended a conference last year. I spent quite a bit of this film thinking that Nick Fury was out of character. Relatedly, the post-credits scene is a real game-changer.
20JUL19: The Dead Don't Die, Greenwich Picturehouse
Incredibly self-referential and rather melancholy ('no, really, a film about polar fracking and revenants is melancholy?' I hear you cry) with an excellent soundtrack, a who's-who cast, Tilda Swinton (always worth watching though her role here is more than usually opaque) and a plot that fades away rather than burning out. I did wonder if this would have made more sense without the preliminary wine, but am assured that it would not.
Guardian review
16-21JUL19: La Belle Helene (Offenbach), Blackheath Halls
Sadly, I did not actually get to see this. But I was in it, part of the chorus, and it's consumed a great deal of my energy for the last two months. Immense fun, hard work, something I had never done, and glorious music.
Don't take my word for it:
★★★★ Observer review
★★★★★ Classical Source review
25JUL19: Noises Off (Frayn), Lyric Hammersmith
Farce for farce' sake with Meera Syal and a cast who manage split-second timing, the deadly art of non-verbal acting, and a freshness to dialogue that was premiered in the early Eighties. I laughed out loud a lot. Again, very self-referential, but with fewer dead bodies and more excellent lines ("You're here!" "Yes, every word!"). Reminded me horribly of mid-Seventies British TV. But in a good way.
WhatsOnStage review here
27JUL19: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (Lloyd-Webber/Rice), London Palladium
Possibly the most expensive per-minute entertainment of the year It's under 2 hours even with interval), but thoroughly enjoyable even when things were Not As We Remembered Them. I went with C, who also sang this at school way way back many
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