February at the BFI

23 December 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Time for our regular round-up of tele events at the BFI. February has a big TV season as well as a Q&A, so get your desk planner out now:

  • 5th: Law & Order: UK preview + Q&A with Chris Chibnall, Ben Daniels and Freema Agyeman
  • 23rd: Is Art Necessary? + Five Revolutionary Painters: Goya: Part of the Celebration of Kenneth Clark season
  • 26th: Picasso at the Tate + An Edwardian Childhood: Part of the Celebration of Kenneth Clark season

The season, TX in Ten: An Examination of Live TV Drama, is pretty long so I’m sticking it in its own section:

  • 2nd: Timeshift: Live on the Night + Monitor: Making The Bedmakers: Two documentaries about live television. Includes a Q&A with Timeshift director Bob Bayly following the screening
  • 2nd: It Is Midnight, Dr Schweitzer: The oldest surviving single TV drama. Stars Andre Morell and directed by Rudolph Cartier
  • 6th: Dixon of Dock Green: Roaring Boy + Z Cars: A Man Like Yourself
  • 6th: The Bill + debate: The live 20th anniversary episode of The Bill. The debate, chaired by Kwame Kwei Armah, will include Brian Blessed, Lisa Maxwell, David Rose and Sue Mather
  • 10th: The Quatermass Experiment (1953) + Timeshift: The Nigel Kneale Interviews: The two surviving episodes of the original version of The Quatermass Experiment, and a documentary about Quatermass writer Nigel Kneale. Followed by…
  • 10th: The Quatermass Experiment (2005) + Q&A: The BBC4 remake featuring Mark Gatiss and David Tennant. Followed by a Q&A with director Sam Miller
  • 12th: Live from Pebble Mill: The Battle of Waterloo and Redundant! Or the Wife’s Revenge: The second play, by Fay Weldon, sees the lights fail during the performance, yet the actors carry on anyway.
  • 12th: Armchair Theatre: A Night Out: Stars Tom Bell. Followed by a panel discussion including Susannah York and Billie Whitelaw
  • 16th: Armchair Theatre: Lena, O My Lena + Live from Pebble Mill: Cargo Kings
  • 16th: Armchair Theatre: The Emperor Jones + A Liverpool Nativity
  • 18th: Television Playhouse: Promenade + Live from Pebble Mill: Night Kids
  • 24th: Two episodes of Coronation Street, including the live 40th anniversary special. Also includes a clip from the only surviving episode of The Grove Family
  • 25th: Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps + panel discussion: The live episode of the show followed by a discussion including Will Mellor, Graham Duff and Stephen McCrum (exec producer, BBC Comedy)

Members’ priority postal booking opens 2 January
Members’ online and phone booking opens 8 January
Public booking opens 12 January

As always, visit the BFI web site for more details

Tuesday’s end of year news

23 December 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Daily News will return on Monday 5th January 2009. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Film

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Theatre reviews

Review: Rob Brydon on tour

22 December 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Rob Brydon

Where: Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff
When: 7.30pm. Monday December 8th 2008
How long: Two hours with a 20-minute interval following the warm-up
How much: £20 I think

Well, the public have demanded it and only two weeks after the run finished, I’m reviewing Rob Brydon’s stand-up act at the Wales Millennium Centre – Jerry Sadowicz tomorrow for those who voted for that review.

I’m a responsive blogger, me.

Continue reading “Review: Rob Brydon on tour”

The CarusometerA Carusometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: Leverage

22 December 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Time for a third-episode verdict on TNT’s Leverage then. After a good start, the show has continued to maintain its relatively high standards. Episode two tried to go for a slightly harder edge, with an Iraq veteran being cheated out of his rehabilitation money by government contractors and crooked politicians.

Episode three went with something a little more personal and more interesting, with Christian Kane’s character returning home to Kentucky to deal with a racehorse owner who kills horses for the insurance money. High mark of the overly complicated episode is the introduction of the show’s Professor Moriarty: fellow insurance investigator Mark Sheppard (BSG, The X-Files, Bionic Woman, etc), who’s scheduled to appear in at least five episodes. Sheppard is adept at the cons and investigations as Hutton but is on the right (?) side of the law, and makes an interesting addition to a show that was in slight danger of repetition and losing tension in the long run.

Most of my initial criticisms remain: it’s not very hard hitting, the cons are easy to spot a mile off and there’s a fair bit of duff acting. Add to that Gina Bellman’s less than outstanding attempts at accents, a decreasing amount of the character interplay from the pilot and the fact that most of the cons have relied on something being obviously switched at the last moment. It’s also not especially memorable, so you never really remember the cleverness of the cons or much of the plot in the same way as you do with Ocean’s 11, say. 

But it’s still very fun to watch. The cast are all pretty charismatic and there’s an intriguing randomness and weirdness to its sense of humour (one character has a fear of horses because "they murder clowns" and there’s a flashback to Kane being tortured because he wouldn’t reveal the location of a monkey, for example). 

Worth watching if you want some diverting, not too heavy entertainment of an evening. 

Carusometer rating: 2
Predictions: Should last at least season