Oh dear.  It’s not a great year, is it?

Nine nominations for best film and none of them were;

• Drive – The Best US movie I’ve seen this year
• Senna – The Best documentary I’ve seen this year, and not even a nomination for best documentary (or for Project Nim)
• A Separation.  The best film I’ve seen this year, although it does get, and must surely win, best foreign movie and remarkably it has broken out with a best Screenplay nomination.  Why not best movie then?

Instead we are left with;

• The Artist – nice but ridiculously overrated
• Hugo – often derided by the critics but leads the way with 12 nominations overall
• The Tree of Life – Great in parts, abysmal in others
• War Horse – after initial good noises largely slagged off in the press and written of as sentimental tosh.
• The Descendants.  Will see it next week when it opens.  Sounds like a good movie that’s nothing more than that.
• The Help.  Oh please.
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Not much to go on this one but it’s a surprise choice and a 25/1 outsider.
• Midnight in Paris.  A return to form by Woody but has largely sentimental and fairly forgettable by all accounts.
• Money ball.  A baseball movie.  Enough said?

If I was pushed to vote I’d say The Tree of Life (because I haven’t seen The Descendants yet).

It won’t win.

At least the lousy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy didn’t make it (12 BAFTA’s, I ask you) and Gary Oldman might as well save the air fare because he ain’t got a chance against Clooney for best actor.

The Davenport Brothers was a famous theatrical illusions act at the turn of the 20th century, The Age of Reason, in which Victorian and Edwardian audiences were fascinated by the meeting of magic and science,.

Academics were obsessed by the Brothers’ apparent ability to bring real spirits into public spaces and marveled at their act.

Spiritualism flourished at this time because science was moving forward rapidly but so much remained unexplained that much seemed inexplicable and hence, magic.

Into this world then came doubters, challengers and researchers, keen to test whether or not what the Davenports achieved on stage was indeed magic or pure trickery.

It’s in this context that writers and director, Candice Edmunds, Jamie Harrison and Peter Arnott set up an imaginary test for the brothers and their showy front man (Mr Fay played brilliantly by Gavin Mitchell).  The audience, members of a society, are invited to attend the “test” by aristocrat Lady Noyes-Wooodhull (Anita Vetesse)  and thrown into the mysteries of the Davenports and their magical Spirit Box which dominates the stage and becomes one of the most versatile props you’ll see in many a year in the theatre.

In demonstrating their abilities their back story emerges (completely fictitious) of extreme family abuse, a horrific father (also played superbly by Gareth Mitchell), a drug addled mother (Vetesse)  and a cherished sister (Kirsty Stuart in a stripped back role) who passes away and enters the spirit world.

It all adds up to a smorgasbord of trickery (no it’s not, it’s magic .Ed) brilliant lighting effects, episodic story telling in often chilling vignettes and laugh out loud humour.

The Davenport Brothers are played by real life brothers Ryan and Scott Fletcher and are often at their best when saying nothing.  Their entrance like the sisters in Kubrick’s The Shining is both disconcerting and humorous at the same time, their performances good throughout.

52 people have signed secrecy clauses to bring this show to the stage because throughout it is peppered with magical happenings, some quite epic, some fairly obvious trickery and it holds the audience rapt from start to finish.

It’s a genuinely original theatrical experience that will, I believe, develop strongly as the run goes on – one technical glitch in Act Two caused a few skipped heart beats but was expertly overcome – and the cast seemed not quite settled into their roles on an opening night that relied as much on technical perfection as acting.  With that out of the way we can expect more relaxed performances and a rabble rousing show that will surely have the audience on their feet (like they very nearly were last night).

I’d love to tell you more, but as the writers request in the programme notes, and I massively paraphrase “let’s not give it all away – leave the mystery and the story untainted by review and let theatre goers find out for themselves the rich delights of the world of the Infamous Brother Davenport.”

And so I do.

Over to you.

It’s a remarkable achievement for a singer who has, in that period, become nothing short of a national treasure.

OK, I know a lot of us are sick to death of her, but not me.  I think it’s fully deserving of the 3.84 million units it has shifted in the UK (17m worldwide) especially as it has been without the help of Simon Cowell and on an independent label; XL records.

There’s a scene early in Shame where Michael Fassbender languorously wanders, completely naked, through his flat and stands at the toilet before slowly micturating as we watch voyeauristically.  It sums the film up.  Pish.

Hunger, McQueen’s debut,  was my movie of 2008.  McQueen and Fassbender pulled off a coup with a brilliantly thought provoking and totally engaging story about Bobby Sands and the dirty protests in the Maze prison in Belfast.  It was a horrifying journey to hell and back with a miraculous central peformance by Fassbender.

This movie attempts to do something similiar, performance wise at least, by stripping Fassbender back literally to his skin.

It’s a story about unsaid things.  Clearly Fassbender and his sister (Sissy, played by Carey Mulligan) have a past that has severely damaged them emotionally and their onscreen relationship hints, at times, of near incestual closeness but this is kept at bay by extreme aggression to each other.

Sissy is a self harmer, Fassbender a sex addict.  Neither evoke any sympathy whatsoever, because McQueen has set out to make a movie that moves glacially and observes the action with a remoteness and aloofness that is chilling and utterly unengaging.

The truth is, this is a self absorbed piece of film making that leaves one cold, in fact, pretty bored actually.

It’s unsympathetic stance towards the central characters actually ends up with you not caring by the end.

A cold, uninvolving self indulgence of a movie that I’d recommend avoiding.

I’ve loved his collaborations with Isobel Campbell.  But this is the business.

Best Bass riff I’ve heard since Aisha by by Death In Vegas featuring Iggy Pop.

A classic.

I wish I was called Aisha.  I’d play this every time I walked into a room.

And yes, sigh, we know Buffalo Bill was still on stage in those days.

London is 7,903 miles North East of the Falkland Islands.

Buenos Aeres is 946 miles South West of The Falklands.

Approximately one eighth of the distance.

But today David Fucking Cameron had the temerity to accuse Argentina of attempting Colonialism towards The Falklands (Malvinas).

Colonialism, for the record, is definesd as…The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

What the Fuck is he talking about?

We colonised the Falklands many years ago and the Argies have always claimed it is in their territory.  Well a factor of 8 says they are more entitled to colonise the place than we are.

I’d say.

What a fucking prick.

This was the one that jumped out.

Now, I know I’ll be 50 in four months time but could I not at least get over the line before the bum police start checking me out?

I’m off to the Lyceum for the first read through of the script for “of Mice and men:”.  John Steinbeck’s classic.

Very excited.

It comes to the theatre in mid- February and here is the synopsis as posted by The Lyceum…

Armed with nothing but hope, and the dream of one day living and working on their own land, George and his childishly innocent companion Lennie start work on a ranch.

New friendships are made and at first life looks good, until gentle Lennie, unaware of his own immense strength, unwittingly shatters their dreams in one disturbingly tragic act.

This is theatre at its most powerful.

Cast:

George…………………William Ash
Lennie………………….Steve Jackson
Candy………………….Peter Kelly
The Boss/Whit………Greg Powrie
Curley………………….Garry Collins
Curley’s Wife………..Melody Grove
Slim……………………..Liam Brennan
Carlson………………..Mark McDonnell
Crooks…………………John Macaulay

.

It’s an astounding vocal trickery  game really that has to be read out loud.

A wonderful celebration of the English language.  Enjoy.

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.
After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!