Continuing on from our previous Wednesday Play, we have another Noël Coward comedy – Present Laughter. A semi-autobiographical work that heteronormalised many of the relationships in Coward’s life, it was first staged in 1942 and follows a few days in the life of light comedy actor Gary Essendine (then played by Coward) as he prepares to tour Africa. Along the way, Garry has to deal with women who want to seduce him, placate his long-suffering secretary and his estranged wife, cope with a crazed young playwright, and overcome his mid-life crisis.
There are, of course, many ways to film the play and in 1981, the BBC took the most literal route possible, filming Alan Strachan’s production at the Vaudeville Theatre in London. Starring Donald Sinden as Essendine, as well as Dinah Sheridan, Gwen Watford and Elizabeth Counsell, it also gave a young Belinda Lang (Dear John, 2point4 Children, Alleyn Mysteries, Second Thoughts, Bust, The Bretts) one of her earliest roles as a groupie of Essendine and featured as the crazed young playwright a certain Julian Fellowes, who would of course go on to become a playwright in real-life and eventually give us that little heard of series Downton Abbey. I’m not completely convinced the initial scenes of the actors arriving at the theatre are 100% genuine, but YMMV.
Arrow and The Flash have been building up quite a roster of superheroes (and supervillains) over their runs – to the extent that a spin-off featuring a whole bevy of those characters is already in the works. Now, as a promo for both series, the producers of the show have put together a sort of ‘What if’ Fight Club featuring most of them. So brace yourself to see what would happen if Arrow, Black Canary, Arsenal, The Flash, Atom, Ra’s Al Ghul, the Dark Archer, Reverse Flash, Firestorm, Captain Cold and Heat Wave all ended up in a fight. I’m not convinced by some of the results, but hey, it’s only make-believe, right?
It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.
I’ve been away for a fortnight, so that means there’s a fair bit to cover this time round, including (gasp!) some new shows. But first, movies.
The Raid 2 (2014) (Netflix)
Sequel to the brilliantly kinetic The Raid, in which the cream of Indonesian martial arts talent kicked arse in a variety of amazingly choreographed scenes, photographed beautifully by Welsh director Gareth Evans. This time, hero Rama, rather than fight his way up a building, instead has to go undercover with a crime family, first in prison, then in Indonesia at large, as the young son tries to take over the empire from his dad by stirring up trouble with his Japanese rivals.
Unfortunately, compared to the brilliant original, The Raid 2 is a somewhat dull affair for most of the first half, as Evans makes the mistake of trying to give us story and acting, rather than fists and kicks to the head. Everything starts to crank up nicely towards the end, though, with Evans giving us some beautifully shot scenes and the various martial artists do some death-defying tricks. However, everyone’s ability to survive multiple machete strikes starts to get more than a tad improbable at times.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012) (Netflix)
Kathryn Bigelow’s dramatisation of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, with Jessica Chastain the driven CIA analyst on a decade-long quest to catch the al Qaeda head. Again, a slow starter with years going by with nothing much happening. It’s only once Chastain makes the right connections that things begin to crank up, with Bigelow lending Seal Team Six her Oscar-winning action skills at the end. The movie is thankfully jingoism- and hyperbole-free, giving us a thoughtful CIA trying to do its best against near impossible odds, with no sci-fi weapons to help out. But weirdly, in retrospect, the movie feels more like a trial run for later Marvel movies, with Seal Team Six seemingly recruiting largely from SHIELD (Callan Mulvey, Frank Grillo) and Guardians of the Galaxy (Chris Pratt). There’s also the mysterious cameo by The Barrowman himself.
After the jump, tele, including first tries of American Odyssey, Olympus, Thunderbirds are Go! and Daredevil, as well as look at the regulars: 12 Monkeys, The Americans, American Crime, Arrow, The Blacklist, Community,The Doctor Blake Mysteries,The Flash, Forever, Fortitude, House of Cards, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, One Big Happy, The Returned and Vikings. I’m giving up on not one, not two but three of those – which do you reckon they’ll be?
And no, I haven’t watched last night’s Game of Thrones yet, so no spoilers.
