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.
Well, I’ve not quite caught up with my backlog. Nearly, but not quite. To be fair, the deluge of new shows has continued and this week I’ve already dealt with the first episode of American Crime and Powers, not to mention the first three of Secrets and Lies. But I’ve had to put on the backburner for a couple of days at least the first two episodes of A&E’s The Returned, a remake of Canal+’s Les Revenants, as well as E!’s first foray last night into insulting the British scripted programming, The Royals. I’ve also had to hold off starting on both the third season of House of Cards and Netflix’s new Tina Fey sitcom The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. But I will get round to all of them, I promise.
After the jump then, the regulars and the new regulars including 12 Monkeys, 19-2, The Americans, American Crime, Banshee, The Blacklist, Dig, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Fortitude, Gallipoli, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and Vikings. One of them has been promoted to ‘recommended’ status and one of them narrowly avoided demotion – which ones do you think they were?
But I’ve also watched a couple of movies and been to the theatre!
The Producers (touring production, Bromley Churchill Theatre)
Musical adaptation of the Mel Brooks movie classic, in which theatrical producer Zero Mostel discovered from accountant Gene Wilder that he could make a fortune from a flop, and the duo conspired to put on the worst play imaginable: Springtime For Hitler. This touring production sees Cory English take on the Zero Mostel role, Jason Manford take on Wilder’s, with Phill Jupitus, Louise Spence and David Bedella rounding off the rest of the cast. Despite Manford, Jupitus and Spence being the big names, it’s English who’s the film’s focus and who gets the lion’s share of the work, the others getting surprisingly little to do. But the cast itself, right down to the dancers, are all uniformly excellent, even if Manford spends a little too much time in the first half trying to copy Wilder’s vocal patterns rather than giving his own interpretation. Not quite as funny as the original film, and with too many songs for its own good, it’s nevertheless a top notch night out.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014) (iTunes)
Catness is out with the resistance in the third part of the series, which dials back in the action in favour of lots of propaganda videos, as each side tries to out PR the other in the ongoing civil war. It’s all a bit bleak and miserable actually, with very little respite from the darkness, making it the hardest watch of the series so far.
Divergent (2004) (iTunes)
More young adult, post-apocalyptic misery. To maintain peace and prosperity, society gets divided into factions following a terrible war and just as with Harry Potter’s sorting hat, everyone gets sorted into factions that suit their personalities. Except Shailene Woodley’s Tris is ‘Divergent’ and could belong to any number of factions, so picks ‘Dauntless’. Unfortunately, the ‘Erudites’ don’t like that, because they have a naughty scheme up their sleeves that the Divergents could ruin.
Very much a watered down Hunger Games, with flimsy logic and a thinly veiled metaphor for High School life (are you a nerd, a jock, on the debate team, a wallflower or are you really just such an individual?) meshed poorly with a very sub-Equilibrium post-apocalyptic background and fight scenes and a Twilight-style ‘special’ heroine whom everyone is after because she’s so special, yet simultaneously special. All the same, it’s actually enjoyable enough stuff, with some darkish moments, a plucky heroine, Theo James (Golden Boy, Bedlam) almost summoning up a personality for a change and Ashley Judd getting to use her Missing training for all of five minutes.
Chris Johnson and Megan Dodds join ABC’s Runner, Marin Hinkle joins ABC’s The King of 7B, Chaz Lamar Shepherd to be a regular on Fox’s Fantasy Life, Morgan Krantz to be a regular on CBS’s The Half of It
It’s another quiet week in DC land, with once again only Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Three and Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman giving us new stories and/or appearances by the Amazon princess. Sensation Comics gives us a one-issue battle between Diana and a dragon, but could someone else be behind it all?
Meanwhile, over on Injustice, it’s a momentous issue, because it marks the end of both the current storyline and Year Three altogether! How will we all cope until Year Four starts, I wonder?
How about with this video of Wonder Woman kicking everyone’s head in on the video game – it amounts to the same thing and is a tad more edifying, too.
Funny, isn’t it, how Greek tragedy has trends? After all, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Euripides et al all died two and a half millennia ago. Yet there are very definite trends in which Greek tragedies still gets performed – at least in London.
Yesterday, for example, the Almeida unveiled its year-long Greek tragedy season. Whoopee! Good news for all us who like Greek tragedies. Except…
…far be it from me to complain, as this isn’t exactly a commonplace event, and perhaps I should be grateful for whatever comes my way, but let’s have a look at what’s being performed.
29 May to 18 July: Aeschylus’s The Oresteia, with Lia Williams as Clytemnestra
23 July to 19 September: Euripides’ The Bacchae, with Ben Whishaw as Dionysus
25 September to 14 November: Euripides’ Medea, with Kate Fleetwood as Medea
Lovely plays, obviously. And yet, in February alone, we had two versions of The Bacchae performed at the Bloomsbury Theatre and Theatro Technis. Last year, saw both the National and Riverside Studios putting on versions of Medea. And a little before that, Riverside also put on The Oresteia, which will also be produced by The Globe this summer.
This repetition isn’t isolated to the Almeida’s offerings, either. This month, the Barbican is hosting Juliette Binoche in a version of Sophocles’ Antigone, which BBC Four are going to broadcast as part of its forthcoming ’The Age of Heroes’ season. But you can also see a different version tonight at the Westminster Arts Library.
On top of that, Antigone, of course, was the National’s last Greek tragedy before Medea and – you guessed it – was also performed at Riverside Studios the same year. Meanwhile, KCL’s Greek play this year was Aristophanes’ The Clouds, which was performed at the Bloomsbury last year.
So quite a lot of Greek tragedy (and comedy) going on, but lots of the same Greek tragedies. Lots of the same Greek tragedies that people think have bearing on modern times. So lots of Medea – an obvious feminist work to start with with apparently one that can be made more feminist each time – but very little Ion and the nature of obedience to the gods; plenty of condensed down Oresteia, discussing the nature of revenge and justice, very little of the ‘historical’ Seven Against Thebes.
To a certain extent, the problem is similar to that of deciding which Shakespeare play to perform: you can usually do well commercially with a Lear or a Hamlet, and there’s many an actor willing to take on the Bard in those plays; trying to find someone interested in either watching or starring in Pericles and Timon of Athens is a much harder job.
All the same, it’s been a while since we’ve had the always popular Oedipus Rex, the engaging and comedic Helen, the always-relevant The Trojan Women or even an Iphigenia, either at Aulis or Tauris. So come on theatres, give us a little variety, please!
Until then, feel free to enjoy the stunning Elektra (Ηλέκτρα), directed by Mihalis Kakogiannis (Zorba the Greek).
