No Shit Sherlock

Turn off your 'phones and your computers, ignore your loved ones, do whatever you have to do to ensure yourself an uninterrupted hour's viewing of BBC1's Sherlock Holmes on Sunday. It's the best tv drama I've seen in ages, aeons, and any other word you can think of that means a very long time indeed.

The brains behind the modernistation of Jekyll and Hyde last year have scored another winner with their modern day version of the classic Conan Doyle character, and unlike any other version I've seen, it actually makes me want to go back and read the original novels.

It's stuffed full of marvellous actors, the wonderfully named Benedict Cumberbatch (I know, sounds like a vicar from a Jane Austen novel, doesn't he?), Martin Freeman, and the woefully underused Una Stubbs does a comic turn as the duo's landlady. Not to mention Rupert Graves as the clueless Inspector Le Strade, and last week's villain, the lovely Phil Davis.

All the cast, but especially Freeman and Cumberbatch, play with an energy that shows they know this is the good shit. It's good to see Freeman play an everyman with a bit of an edge for a change, with his portrayal of the grumpy, post traumatic stress suffering Dr. Watson, and Cumberbatch is a revelation. I last saw him as a nerdy IT genius in some nonsense about government surveillance and a rampant man made virus, on BBC1 last year. But his sociopathic Sherlock, with flowing Byronesque coiffure, is knee weakeningly hot stuff. He could show Luther a thing or two about deduction...

The pace is fast and assured, with fantastic hurdy gurdy accompanying music that evokes Victorian London. There are new televisual touches too, with text messages and Holmes' deductive reasoning displayed on the screen for the viewer to share. There's even a website, www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk which is worth a look.

My only concern (a minor one after just one episode) is that all the flash and swagger overtakes the plots, this Sherlock needs a challenge, and stories that unfurl over two or three episodes, not the detective story equivalent of a Guardian quick crossword.

But all in all, my brain fizzed with ideas and energy after watching this show, the way it does when inspired by television/cinematic fabulousness (so not too often then...). As I said at the start, don't miss it, you'll be amply rewarded. It's elementary, my dears.

Corsica

It's surprising how much French you can learn watching a footy match with a French commentary. Our arrival in Corsica for our summer holiday coincided with the World Cup final, in front of which we collapsed with a bottle of local plonk. Additions to my vocab included 'contre attaque' (counter attack), 'un frappe' (a shot on goal) and 'hors jeu' (offside). Unfortunately none of these proved particularly useful during the rest of the week.

Corsica is a gorgeous island, with masses of lovely sandy beaches, clear seas and stunning mountains, all of which we thoroughly enjoyed. It was surprisingly green, with trees and flowers everywhere. Meadows are covered with what is known as the Maquis, a pungent mixture of wild herbs including rosemary and oregano. Corsica also the birth place of Napoleon Bonaparte, but apart from a few plastic statues at the airport and a Rue Bonaparte in a town we visited, this didn't seem to be particularly celebrated.

Highlights of the hol included a boat trip to a blue grotto, a welcome refuge from the heat of the day, and a walk in the Col de Bavela, a mountain pass with awe inspiring views, including the Bavela Needles, granite formations which do indeed look like needles. I was also dragged around the Corsican version of Stonehenge, at place called Filitosa where prehistoric menhirs have been excavated and are now on display. They are alleged to have faces but they looked more like giant phalluses to me. But the place did have an eerie vibe, enhanced by the orchestral music piped out around the site.

We were there for Bastille day, and joined the locals of Porte Vecchio in celebrating, by wandering around the pavement cafes and bars, listening to bad live music and not watching fireworks (scroll right to the bottom of this page to see a photo) . We joined hundreds of others waiting down by the harbour for the firework display, which despite much tooting of boat horns, did not materialise. We learned later that there'd been a fire nearby which had demanded the services of the local fire engines, which presumably resulted in the fireworks being called off.

And what was my holiday reading? Well, I entertained myself on the beach with Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, which has been out a while in hardback but has only recently been issued in paperback. It was an ok holiday read, despite being 400 and odd pages I whizzed through it due to the very large print. It's undemanding enough, if depressing, featuring as its main location Highgate cemetery, and various ghosts, including one of a kitten which I found very upsetting. I don't think it's a patch on The Time Traveler's Wife, either in terms of the plot or the depth of the characterisation. Must be hard to follow up such a world wide best selling smash though, let's hope I get to find that out for myself one day...

Beating Berlusconi

Oh dear, I'm slipping. Almost a week has gone by since I saw the production I'm about to review and I haven't got round to writing about it...it's certainly not a reflection on the quality of the play, it's probably the heat. Speaking of which, a boiling hot evening is probably not the best time to visit an un air conditioned fringe venue, but we tried not to let that ruin our enjoyment of Beating Berlusconi, which is quite simply the funniest thing I've seen on stage since I went to see Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, and I don't think the latter were even trying to be funny...

Beating Berlusconi is based on the true story of a Liverpool fan who blagged his way to the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul (where we of course won on penalties). But the play is so much more than that; it's like a distillation of finest scouse spirit, comprising elements of politics and humour along with the footy. It describes the life of a fan, viewed through the lens of his football club, taking in the historical milestones such as Heysel and Hillsborough along the way.

It brought back so many memories of living in Liverpool, and visiting Anfield, an awareness of that intense tribal loyalty, to which I wanted to belong but didn't really feel entitled to (having been born 20 odd miles away). It took me right back to Liverpool in the 80s, when the city was a last bastion against Thatcherism, and a beacon of hope and humour. I think scousers invented and lived the idea that politics is personal way before any feminist theorists, in Liverpool, it doesn't matter what your status, politics is the bread of daily life. I remembered the garden festival, and actually heckling Margaret Thatcher, who unfortunately chose to visit the same day.

And for anyone who loathes united and that scottish prat, there is a fantastic scene at Manchester Airport, where the scouse hoards depart for the final, and while waiting for their flights mercilessly bombard the mancunian security stafff with jokes about united, ferguson, and all things Manchester in general.

And all this is delivered by just one actor...name of Paul Duckworth according to my quick google search, who has the most mobile and emotive face I've every seen. He single handedly portrayed a huge variety of characters, including the protagonist's wife, his two best mates, his dad, not to mention the aforementioned Manc airport staff. Duckworth's energy is awesome, by the end of the first act his shirt was soaked with sweat, and the one he changed it for at the interval was equally drenched by the end of the evening. He delivered humour, energy, anger and pathos.

The play has now finished its run at the King's Head in Islington, but do google it and go and see it if it comes on again, or is playing elsewhere. More fun than the Liverbirds, Bread and Brookie combined.

I'm also thinking of instituting an award, the Brew Award, for those who introduce me to worthwhile artistic and cultural experiences. So the initial Brew award goes to my mate Ali, who saw this, got the tickets and generally organised me into going to see it. Nice one!

Girls Night Out

Apologies for the gap since my last posting, but I've been in Cornwall with my family for a week, and I had no experiences that seemed suitable for this blog. Except for the jolly nice cream teas, but really how much can you say about scones, clotted cream and jam?

This week, I had a truly girly night out, to watch Sex and the City 2 with a couple of (female) friends. Afterwards we retired to a bijou French restaurant in Islington to drink kir royales (they didn't do Cosmopolitans) and pick over the carcass of the movie, which was interesting as we'd all 'read' the film slightly differently, of which more later.

As for me, I didn't expect to be challenged by this film. I thought I might fume and swear a bit, but didn't expect to be confronted with my own ageism. When Samantha "rocks" a dress meant for a far more youthful fashion victim, I inwardly cheered (although I hadn't particularly thought of the dress as too young until a spectacularly tactless sales assistant said so). But there was a ghastly scene early on, at the wedding of Carrie and Charlotte's BGFs (Best Gay Friends), where Liza Minelli, whose face is now only partly mobile, appears as the cabaret (see what I did there?), singing Beyonce's All the Single Ladies. I found this genuinely frightening, and queasily reminiscent of the Rocky Horror Show. The assembled nearest and dearest, cavorting away to various gay anthems, looked more like a Halloween party than wedding guests.

When the 4 ladies are together, it becomes obvious how hard they have to work to look even 75% as good as they used to, and somehow that striving lacks dignity. I think it's the trying so hard to defeat, even ignore, the ageing process, that made me uncomfortable. Surely there must be good stuff about getting older, or we'd all top ourselves around our 30th birthday.

The 4some seem so cool and sophisticated, when on their own New York turf, but pick them up and plonk them down elsewhere, as this movie does, transplanting them to Abu Dhabi, they seem alienated from themselves and, especially in a scene in the souk, where they are confronted by an angry bunch of men, like silly schoolgirls. You can take the girl out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the girl.

But back to our discussion in the restaurant, what we all agreed on was that, from being one of the strongest characters, Samantha was positioned in this film as a bit of a sad old slapper. She is given very Samantha-esque moments, such as rocking the aforementioned dress, but this is then undermined by having Miley Cyrus turn up at the same premiere in the same dress. Or by showing her maintaining her impressive libido despite the menopause, yet also showing her defending her sexual behaviour to hotel security staff, with her usually immaculate makeup smudged and her hair dishevelled. Then when a condom slips out of her passport onto the table, the hotel manager's face looks more like it was a cockroach lying there, and Samantha looks unusually shame faced. And by the way, would a woman who beat breast cancer, and dealt with hot flushes during her treatment, plus the loss of her hair, ,really make such a fuss about the menopause?

So what worked? Well, as in the series it was the celebration, and the validation of women's friendships. Hurray for women who don't break dates with their female friends to go out for dinner with men, hurray for women who go on holidays with their friends, even though they have children and spouses. This was underlined a little too heavily when the NY 4, fleeing the angry men in the souk, are rescued by a group of veiled and robed women, who, as they reveal, are sisters under their robes, united with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda in their love of haute couture.

I tried to think of other films/tv series that are similarly built on this idea of female friendships, and I could only come up with The Golden Girls, remember them? Similar types appear in the 2 series- Blanche the faded Southern Belle is an older Samantha, and there was a dippy uptight one who was a bit like Charlotte. I would love to go and see Sex and the City 25, in a couple of decades time, featuring the "girls" dealing with really being old. I wonder what they'd be like?

the unbearable clumsiness of being

One way to survive in this world with your self-esteem intact is to have an imaginary, idealised version of yourself firmly implanted in your head. If you don't like your size, or shape, imagine yourself how you truly want to be as you go about your daily life. Sometimes I think we do this unconsciously, when I catch a glimpse of myself in a random mirror or shop window, it takes a moment to really recognise that person.

My idealised self is graceful and elegant, gliding through the world without the least bump or bruise. It's been a very clumsy week for me. Last Tuesday I was getting off the top deck of the bus early in the morning, not really paying much attention as I was chatting to a colleague, when I heard this grunt of protest behind me. I turned to find that, as I'd let go of one of the bus's poles, my hand had smacked into the back of an elderly man's head, knocking his headphones askew. He was quite rightly red with outrage. The next day, in a small and overcrowded meeting room I managed to walk right into a shelf protruding from the wall. I've walked into the bed twice, I have matching bruises on my shins. But my nadir came on Saturday. Iwas at my mate's house, and she, foolishly perhaps, asked me to pour the tea. It came out in a dribble from the spout of the teapot. So I shook the pot and jiggled it around, until the leaves blocking the spout cleared, and the tea fountained everywhere, saturating the place mates and spoiling the polish on her wooden table.

Some of these incidents can be explained by my physique, I'm tall, with long limbs and big hands and feet, so there's quite a lot of me to fit into spaces that often aren't ideal for a person my size. I also have shocking spatial awareness and no sense of depth, or any of the dimensions at all really. This is one of the reasons I gave up driving; I was a menace when trying to get through parked cars against oncoming traffic, I could never tell if there was room. I lost a number of wing mirrors doing this until I gave it up as a bad job.

But some accidents, such as the teapot fiasco, could happen to anyone yet always seem to happen to me. Sometimes I think the world of inanimate objects is out to get me...

Women beware women

Lovely lovely National Theatre! It's not just the great plays, but the whole experience of the place is thoroughly pleasurable. There's the spacious, lounge-like foyer, where you can have a pre play drink or meal, while listening to a live band (incidentally, the bands are usually jazzy, and pretty good, and you can just wander in from the Southbank to listen, if you so desire). And, unlike most of the West End theatres I've visited, there's loads of loos! The Olivier theatre, with it's revolving stage and seats offering excellent views, is a delight. We had seats in the stalls where it felt like we were right in the action, for only £15. I wonder if this is all deliberate to put you in a mellow, receptive frame of mind for seeing a play...

And what of the play? Well, Women Beware Women, written by Thomas Middleton, a contemporary of Shakespeare, is surprisingly bold in the themes it covers: incest, greed, corruption and rape. The director, Marianne Elliott, has chosen to do a modern dress version, set in the 1950s. When I've seen plays of this period set in the modern era, it's always emphasised in some way an aspect of the text, eg Kevin Spacey's Richard II, featuring modern media, underlined that rulers only rule through selling themselves well to those who support them. But with this, it wasn't obvious why Elliott had chosen the 50s, in fact we ended up having an interesting discussion about this with a complete stranger during the interval visit to the aforementioned loos. I could only think it was because of the familiar 50s theme of the glorification of a woman's role at home gave a twist to the female roles in this play, particularly that of Bianca, who is a runaway bride kept under lock and key while her young spouse is away working, until she, unluckliy for all, catches the eye of Florence's lascivious Duke, who then exercises his power to have her for his own. Also, in the pre sexual revolution 50s marriage was ostensibly the way of fulfillment for men and women, while all the time all and sundry were shagging their brains out with anyone and everyone, as long as it remained secret (or so I'm told by those who were there). And it was the era of cool modern jazz and sophistication, so this staging of the play borrows the feeling of a cocktail lounge with some superb accompanying live jazz. The musicians gallery was just alongside us and it was fascinating to watch them at work, as completetly a part of the play as the actors were.

One of the pleasure of the theatre is seeing actors who are familiar from countless appearances in tv drama and films really flexing their acting muscles in challenging roles. Harriet Walters is one such, a face you know you've seen somewhere before. She's utterly mesmerising as the manipulative Livia, a woman so corrupted by life in Florence's high society, that she arranges the incestuous seduction of her niece, Isabella, not to mention the rape and subsequent fall of Bianca. She's like the Marquise de Merteuil from Dangerous Liaisons but to the power of 10. There is a crucial scene, where Livia plays chess with Bianca's mother-in-law, to distract her from protecting the vulnerable young girl, and the game is not only a symbol for the power play going on throughout the play, but the bawdy double meanings of many of the lines give away the moral vacuum at the heart of this society.

Like most tragedies of the period that I've seen or read, morality wins out and all the wrongdoers are slain, the stage is strewn with bodies at the end. The only main character left standing is the boring but virtuous cardinal. But this is rescued from farce by its hallucinatory setting, which is compelling to watch. I'd definitely recommend you to get a ticket before this ends next month, and enjoy a very theatrical night out.

The art of blogging

The brew has been up and running a while now, and much to my surprise, people have started making requests/suggestions for content. One friend said she'd like it if the Brew included "random waffling- but it has to be funny", instead of just reviews; another felt I should update it more often; and another thought I should complete the personal profile. My first response to these requests was "Bugger off- this is MY blog" but then my essentially pleasant and reasonable nature reasserted itself and I thought, "Well, if they're actually taking the time to read it, maybe I should try to accommodate them. So I will attempt humorous waffling, and update more frequently (BTW, a heads up, I'm going to see Women Beware Women at the National Theatre on Weds so I'll be updating about that on Friday. Side bar- "Heads up" is a phrase I seem to have acquired recently, I think from US tv shows, but I quite like it and can't think of a Brit equivalent, what do other people think?) I may or may not do the profile thingy, not keen on those. They remind me of those awful questions you get asked sometimes in job interviews, where they say "tell me about yourself" which is supposed to make you relax and ease into interview mode, but actually just winds me up cos how am I supposed to convey the richness of my life in 30 seconds, and why does it matter anyway when what they really want to know is can I do the job?
I think I'm more in the mood for a rant than a waffle. I've been feeling really grumpy for several days, I blame Luther. Let me vent my spleen. I never thought I'd be turning into Mary Whitehouse, but really I was outraged by last Tuesday's episode of Luther on BBC1. I've been giving Luther a go, cos of Idris Elba, who is in The Wire. I've been having a love affair with The Wire on DVD, (Martin too, it's been a kind of menage a trois). But Luther has been a HUGE disappointment and a waste of the 3hrs I've invested in it so far. Not only has it got crappy storylines, and dreadful dialogue, but otherwise excellent actors (Paul McGann, Saskia Reeves) are miscast, and deliver their lines with an air of "How the hell did I end up in this shite?".
But this week, the show went too far. The crappy storyline was about an occultist bookseller/serial killer who abducted women and tortured them horribly. I can't remember the actor's name, but the serial killer was played by this Welsh guy, who always plays intellectual, creepy psychopaths (no, it isn't Anthony Hopkins). He played an ancient vampire in Being Human.
Anyhow, one particular scene focused on a bound and gagged women, alive and terrified inside a chest freezer, whilst alongside her the serial killer drinks a glass of what the viewer is meant to assume is her blood. Showing an image like this was so unnecessary to the story line, and could've been done in much subtler ways, and I had to wonder at the director's/writer's motivation at including this scene. Where they trying to appeal to the sensation starved and gore hungry among us? Are they trying to frighten women by saying look what monsters lurk in the shadows, waiting for you? Or do they themselves enjoy these images? Is violence against women so completely commonplace and acceptable nowadays that it can appear unquestionned on prime time tv? Imagine the furore if it had featured an animal undergoing such abuse.

Since I was little, and ran out of a cinema in tears when a horse got hurt in a scene in a Herbie film, people have tried to console me by saying "Don't get upset, it's not real". But the problem is, it is real. Ok, they're actors, it's synthetic blood and the woman in the chest freezer probably climbed out and went home for her tea, feeling like she'd done a good day's work. But the image is real, and now indelibly drawn in my mind. Plus there are real women out there who are kept imprisoned and tortured by psychopaths, whose suffering is trivialised by programmes like this. Years ago, I read this book called Less than Zero, by Brett Easton Ellis, and I HATED it. The people in it were so numbed by wealth and privilege, and by having it all at a young age, that they could only get their kicks by causing extreme pain and violence to others. When I look around and see the routine violence and cruelty that feature so strongly in what passes for culture these days, I feel like I'm living in the world of Less than Zero, and I don't like it one bloody bit.