Review of New US House of Cards (1st 2 episodes)

Big shoes to fill

When I tweeted a few months ago that the late Ian Richardson was the greatest actor who ever lived by a comfortable margin, I was only being slightly hyperbolic. I had the pleasure of seeing this fine actor on stage on 2 occasions before his death in 2007, and he also had a sizeable number of film credits to his name (e.g. Man of La Mancha, Brazil and...er...102 Dalmatians).

But few would deny that Commander Richardson's finest work (he was given a CBE but, outrageously, never knighted) was on TV. His performance as Bill Haydon in the original Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy stood out as perhaps the best of an impressive roster of performances from some of the best actors in the UK at the time, and his portrayal of Dr Joseph Bell, the real life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, in Murder Rooms in the early 2000s nicely bridged the gap between the demise of Jeremy Brett and the arrival on the scene of Benedict Cumberbatch, silly hair notwithstanding (although it was not the silliest hair he ever sported on screen, see here and here for definitive proof). 

Even these performances, however, pale next to the performance he will always be remembered for, that of the diabolically machiavellian politician Francis Urquhart ("FU" for short) in House of Cards, one of the greatest political shows ever made. The show would doubtless have become a classic whenever it was shown, but the first episode happened to screen just days after Margaret Thatcher was toppled from power after 11 years in Number 10, back in 1990. Given that the makers could not possibly have known this when filming it, there is no doubt that they got lucky - witness this opening scene!

The remake

When I heard that they were remaking the show for US audiences, in spite of my fascination with US politics (hell, my first official date with the lovely lady who is now my wife was spent watching the November midterm elections back in 2006), my heart sank. Why the US feels the need constantly to remake great shows from abroad I have no idea, but isn't it slightly insulting to their intelligence to assume that US audiences won't watch the original versions just because they might, for example, be in a foreign language? (I'm actually talking more about things like The Killing now...whilst I do occasionally have problems making myself understood across the pond, I acknowledge that we do share a common language with our American cousins, and any communication problems which may arise mainly stem from my being incredibly mumbly and incoherent!) 

After my initial feelings of "oh Lord, why don't they just leave it alone" had subsided, I set to thinking about how they would remake the show if they were going to do it properly. Of course the key thing to get right is the casting of the central character. That was what worried me most. After having a long think about who could possibly fill Ian Richardson's sizeable shoes, I managed to come up with a measly 2 names. And as Vincent Price is even "deader" than Richardson, my conclusion was that "if they can't get Spacey, they're stuffed". Having now attended a Q&A about the show, it transpires that the producers and David Fincher were thinking exactly the same thing. 

Luckily, they did get him, and a stuffing was narrowly avoided. In fact, the more I heard online about the show, the more I started to reconsider my original feelings of scepticism, and by the time I was alerted to the fact that tickets were on sale to a world premiere screening of the first two episodes in the Odeon, Leicester Square (seeing Lester Burnham in Leicester Square, no less) followed by a Q&A with stars Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Kate Mara, director David Fincher (sadly he only directed these two episodes), writer Beau Willimon (who is a genius, but looks about 12) and writer of the original novel, Lord Michael Dobbs - I was downright excited, and snapped them up! 

After all, it was my first premiere and thus my first opportunity to strut the red carpet like an overexcited peacock, although my companions and I were stalled by some beefy security guards in mid strut...for some reason the big stars didn't want us to invade their photo opportunities - to which all I can say is ha (please note that "me" is not me at all but my wife!):

I know that it looks as though Spacey is coming over to pull the red rug from under us by the way, but sadly we did not get a chance to have a chat with him, friendly or otherwise!

Musings on political drama generally

Essentially political dramas fall into four distinct categories:

1) Politicians are brilliant, super intelligent, hard working public servants with a nice line in very fast, witty banter - e.g. The West Wing.

2) Politicians are decent people who generally try to do the right thing, but politics is hard, there are no easy answers, and they often get it wrong and have to make messy compromises - e.g. Danish TV series Borgen.

3) Politicians are generally self serving and a bit crap, and are constantly being manipulated by their civil servants - e.g. Yes Minister, the Thick of It.

4) Politicians are TOTAL BASTARDS.

I suspect that the truth lies somewhere between (2) and (3), but why let truth get in the way of a good story? And in any event, which political shows work, and which ones don't, tends to depend on the political culture of the country in which they are shown. House of Cards, needless to say, nestles comfortably into the fourth category, and my impression is that the US public, increasingly frustrated by the relentless partisanship of Washington politics, is ready for a show of this nature. In fact my suspicion (guided mainly, as is so often the case, by "what my wife says") is that the one the US would struggle with is category (3), not category (4). 

In contrast, coming from the UK I can confidently say that a West Wing equivalent wouldn't work over here - the idea of British politicians being that brilliant would make us all laugh (having said that, there is a strong West Wing following in the UK, even though the majority of the show was on during the era of Bush 43, a president not known for his razor sharp intellect, so we are obviously more willing to give overseas politicians the benefit of the doubt). 

Review of the Show

So now, dear readers, that you have scrolled down past all that semi-tangential nonsense, what you are all waiting to hear is the answer to the key question "IS IT ANY GOOD?" Well, I have three answers for you - the short answer, the long answer, and the evasive answer.

Evasive Answer

You might very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment.

Short Answer

Actually I could comment, in fact doing so was originally the whole point of this post, and the answer is yes.

Long Answer

They get it. They really do. I am already so hooked that I am going to have to get myself Netflix now, just so that I can download all 13 episodes of the first season and watch them over the course of a weekend. And I must have seen the original series five or six times, which means that I have a better idea of how it is likely to pan out than most people do (I am hoping that they might throw a few surprises in, but, without wanting to give away too many spoilers, I am also hoping they use the ending from the UK TV series, and not the book ending, which I suspect even Michael Dobbs would now admit is a bit of a cop out). 

The basic outline of the plot so far is very similar to the UK series. New Prime Minister/President has just been elected. Crafty Chief Whip/House Majority Whip Francis Urquhart/Frank Underwood is passed over for the job he wants in the new administration (in the new version he is denied the job of Secretary of State) and vows revenge, egged on by his even more ruthless wife, and starts undermining the administration and turning its members against each other whilst appearing scrupulously loyal to his boss. These episodes are focussing on the confirmation process of the new administration, so although the timing is not as impeccable as that of the original series was, President Obama's recent difficulties in this regard do make it at least somewhat timely. 

Meanwhile, of course, lots of people are having sex with each other, mostly extramarital. Episode 2 contains probably the worst declaration of love I have ever heard one person give another - you will enjoy it if your sense of humour is sufficiently scatological!

Most of the rest of the cast are essentially pawns in Urquhart/Underwood's cunning plan, including an idealistic and ambitious young female journalist (Samantha Harker as "Mattie Storin" in the original version, Kate Mara as "Zoe Barnes" in this version) and a loose cannon PR consultant/Congressman with problems with drugs and (in common with most of the characters) keeping his trousers fastened whilst in other people's bedrooms (Miles Anderson as "Roger O'Neill" in the original version, Corey Stoll as "Peter Russo" in this version). Having 26 episodes to really flesh things out will really help - the original ran for only 12 episodes in total, including the two inferior but still very watchable sequels To Play the King and The Final Cut (they won't be able to remake To Play The King, of course, one of the many unfortunate unintended consequences of our American cousins getting rid of the monarchy was that they have now senselessly deprived themselves of some damn good TV!)

So turning to the differences, then - it is already clear that Frank Underwood is a slightly different breed of monster than Richardson's Francis Urquhart was. Whilst Urquhart was smooth and serpentine, Spacey's Frank Underwood is slightly more of a brutish alligator. Whilst Urquhart was a superciluous "posh Scot", Underwood has a lovely South Carolina drawl, and is a bit more down to earth. For example he likes to get up and eat a rack of ribs at 7:30 in the morning, and he works out on a rowing machine (albeit after much henpecking from Mrs Underwood) - neither of which Francis Urquhart would have been seen dead doing. Sadly there is a shortage of the Shakespearian ad-libbing that Ian Richardson did so well (so far, at least), which is a shame, as Spacey, like Richardson, is an accomplished Shakespearian actor. I had the pleasure of seeing him as Richard III at the Old Vic in 2011 and it was one of the best performances I have ever seen, period. 

The politics are also very different. Whilst Urquhart was a traditional right wing conservative, Underwood is actually a Democrat this time round. This surprised me...in Hollywood, aren't Republicans always the bad guys? One wonders whether Spacey, himself a well known Democrat supporter, took the producers aside at one point and said "Look, I don't mind the blackmail, the adultery, the murder and suchlike fun and games, but I draw the line at playing a Republican!" 

From what I have seen so far, as far as Underwood appears to have any ideological beliefs at all, he seems to a be fairly centrist moderate, and is certainly contemptuous of the impractical left wing of the party, but even there, his contempt seems to spring from the fact that he knows what they are trying to do can't actually be done, rather than from anything more ideological. You get the impression that he doesn't really believe in anything at all except that he should be in charge. 

In my view this is actually a good choice. The problems I had with the two "sequels" to the British version was that the makers, no doubt riding the anti-Tory wave of sentiment in the mid nineties, seemed to be giving the impression that Urquhart was actually a bad Prime Minister as well as a bad man, whereas what made the first series so interesting was that although he was clearly a "bad egg", he was clearly so much more capable (and charming) than his peers, and patently the best man for the job. By taking the character's ideology out of the equation, the US version will hopefully be able to avoid alienating its likely audience and can potentially push the "evil guy but great politician" angle more easily (I don't know if that is the road they will go down, but I do hope so). 

Having said that, the essence of the character is, of course, the same: both incarnations are clever, ruthless, charming and willing to do absolutely anything and screw over anyone on their path to power. The asides to the camera are still in place - we, the audience, are his co-conspirators, and whilst we are appalled by his actions, once again we find ourselves enjoying the consequences of those actions at the same time and "rooting for the bad guy". 

In this version, even more than in the original, whilst Underwood is clearly a villain, there are no real heroes. The President and the members of his administration are so obviously shallow and out of their depth that we find ourselves enjoying their discomfort even though objectively they are not really bad enough to deserve to suffer the way they do. 

Even journalist Zoe Barnes, played brilliantly by Kate Mara, who is the nearest the show has to a heroine is, quite frankly, a bit of a bitch (she casually tells a fellow journalist who is lusting after her at one point that "If I wanted to f*** you, you'd know!") Interestingly enough, she already has enough information after the two episodes I saw to know what Underwood is up to (although he is still shamelessly manipulating her). This is quite a big shift from the original, where Mattie Storin was unaware of Urquhart's true nature until the very end - it will be interesting to see how that pans out and what she finds out in subsequent episodes (and when). 

Robin Wright as Claire Underwood is a revelation. While Diane Fletcher was great as her equivalent number in the original version, she was very much a background figure - Wright is getting more of a chance to really shine. Let's just say that she is no Princess Buttercup here, but a full blown Lady Macbeth - put in charge of a charity! With predictably scary consequences. Another interesting thing about the show is that while Mrs Urquhart/Underwood is clearly Lady Macbeth, her husband is not Macbeth at all, he's Richard III. Which makes much more sense as a pairing, if you think about it... no wonder Lady M went mad, being married to a man who needs half an hour of soliloquising even to psych himself up into committing a straightforward murder! As I mentioned above, Spacey has recently played Richard III, and, like Richardson, he clearly understands the parallels between the two characters, as there were some striking similarities between his two performances (in particular his wry looks of frustration at the audience every once in a while). 

The script is really excellent. The famous line "You might very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment" does feature in both episodes - I can't say I was overwhelmed by Spacey's delivery of that particular line, but to be honest that's because Ian Richardson so owns the line that anyone else saying it just feels wrong  (just as Alan Rickman is a marvellous actor, but it just felt wrong to cast him as Marvin the Paranoid Android in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie simply because he wasn't original Marvin Stephen Moore!) But who cares, when there are plenty of other fabulous lines peppered throughout the script that Spacey really relishes (did I mention how fantastic his South Carolina drawl is?), for example "I love my wife more than a shark loves blood!" Or, more accurately: "bluuuurd"! Having heard Spacey pronounce the "h" in the word "whale" I will never again say the word any other way!

The Q&A

Sadly the wider audience were not allowed to ask questions - Michael Dobbs himself acted as David Dimbleby, but he carried it off with aplomb and much (well deserved) backslapping all round. Spacey was dominant, of course, and in his element - very interesting but very sweary, dropping the f bomb as if there was no tomorrow (so much so that I was half expecting him to conclude his opening speech with "You might think that but I don't give a f***" rather than quoting the actual line). 

Robin Wright announced that she was "not really political" (meaning that being married to the ultimate political windbag Sean Penn must have been even more appalling for her than I had previously supposed)! Comparative newcomer Kate Mara was very sweet and seemed a little overwhelmed by the proceedings. And Sir George Young, the real Chief Whip (Urquhart's job in the original series), turned out to be in the audience, and briefly muscled in on the Q&A, protesting that the Whips are really a very mild mannered bunch of tea-totallers who would blanch at dropping the "drat" bomb, let alone anything stronger. This probably explains why the current government keeps getting itself into so much trouble!

No spoilers were dished out about the remainder of the series (apart from the obvious revelation that the relationship with Underwood and Zoe Barnes was unlikely to remain strictly platonic for long). But in less than 2 weeks, Netflix will have all the answers. Can't wait!

What to do when you meet a politician

It appears from looking at my blog stats that my US audience is almost as large as my UK one, so to my American readers I am going to make an admission. It is true - Britain really IS a small island!

The scene in the Simpsons in which the then Prime Minister Tony Blair was found greeting all UK visitors at the airport (to which Homer responds "Wow - I can't believe we just met Mr Bean!") might just be a slight exaggeration. However, if we take a celebrity at random....say, Hugh Grant:

• my sister and her friends once mobbed him on a golf course in St Andrews (she is still the proud possessor of a photo of three very excited eighteen year old girls beaming delightedly while a distinctly middle aged looking Hugh grins sheepishly in the background like their slightly overfriendly uncle, equipped with a suitably pervy baseball cap);
• one of my friends is regularly overtaken by him whilst jogging near her home; and
• another of my friends once attended a "surprise birthday party" for him despite never having met him before (maybe he was the surprise). Said birthday party consisted of watching three episodes of the In Betweeners in a tiny cinema in Soho. A better way to celebrate turning fifty two (yes...he really is that old) I cannot imagine. 

The upshot of this is that in the UK, especially in London, it is not uncommon to come across famous people on a regular basis, and this also extends to the realm of politics. Whilst in America even lesser presidential primary candidates get their own security teams (forcing Rick Santorum to use protection for the first time at the age of 54), here in the UK they tend to just wander round looking rather ordinary. 

Dave

I can report, for example, that I am at least half an inch taller than David Cameron, our current prime minister, who I was studiously ignored by when I made my first (and, hopefully for the British public's sake, my last) visit to 10 Downing Street a month or so ago for a reception in honour of the Spirit of London Awards, which is an annual ceremony at which awards are presented to young people for their talent in the arts, media, sport, campaigning and education. I was invited along in my capacity as a charitable trustee with some connection to this event.

Big Dave breezed into the room about halfway through the reception, fresh from having addressed the House of Commons about the Leveson Report (and looking surprisingly composed under the circumstances - however my plot to steal his copy of the Report just so that I could spend the next two weeks watching him squirm whilst pretending he had read it was sadly unsuccessful). As he entered, pretty much everyone else in the room suddenly cut off the conversations they had been having with dull fellows like me, and started circling The Big Man like vultures circling a freshly bloodied corpse (not a bad analogy, actually). 

My talons were sadly not sharp enough to allow me to get to the front of the queue, and before I managed to get in so much as an "All right, Dave" in the style of Trigger from Only Fools and Horses, he had already smoothly small talked his way through the room and across to the podium where he made a short speech, which, despite lacking any Winnie the Pooh references (please see below), which means that he will only, at best, ever be the second coolest PM I have seen in person, was quite well received, apart from a gratuitous reference to the Big Society which received the silent chorus of eye rolling it so richly deserved. 

Vince

But to be honest it is probably for the best that I did not get a chance to speak to Mr Cameron, as I had neglected to prepare any particularly pithy or witty conversation openers for the great man to respond to, and I fear that it would have come off as an unfortunate reprise of the occasion on which my friend Eddie and I had a somewhat awkward meeting with Business Secretary Vince Cable, then the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman, in the bar of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 2006. 

Vince had just given a pretty interesting address to the Trinity Hall Politics Society and had obviously decided that it would be good to follow it up with a quiet pint, a notion that was quickly spoiled by two slightly star struck students (yes...I was star struck by Vince Cable, I do indeed need to get out more) loping up to him and saying "Hello Dr Cable". His face rapidly went from: 

• incredulity (how can they have recognised me. I don't understand...I'm wearing my hat! My hat makes me invisible! Damn these crafty Cambridge students, they have penetrated my cunning disguise);
• terror (this is it...I'm going to die, aren't I!);
• relief (OK, maybe I might get out of this alive, maybe they're just two students wanting to congratulate me on my speech);
• panic (I have nothing to say to them...why won't they leave me alone?);
• more panic (the bar lady is scowling at me); and
• more relief (phew, she scowls at everyone...she seems to particularly hate that ginger bloke, I wonder why).

We quickly realised that neither of us could think of anything more to say to him (intelligent or otherwise) at that point and we moved on, leaving him whimpering into his pint and clutching his hat tightly around his ears.

 

Trish

Distressing though this encounter unquestionably was, I can still happily say that Vince is not the politician I have terrified most. I was holidaying with my wife Julie in Cornwall a few years ago, and on our first night in Penzance we found a nice looking restaurant for dinner. At one of the other tables was sitting a middle aged lady who seemed oddly familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place her. She looked as though she might be one of my friends' mums, but I couldn't think of whose mum she would be. 

So I did what any sensible person would do in those circumstances. I decided to stare at her like a beady eyed hawk until I could work out who she was. I tried to do it as surreptitiously as possible, but my idea of surreptitious was clearly not the same as hers, as she quickly started to look more and more agitated for reasons which I could not fathom. It was only when I was about to leave the restaurant, having enjoyed my dinner far more than she probably did, that it struck me that she looked uncannily like Patricia Hewitt, the former Labour Health Secretary, who I had in fact seen in person once before, at a recording of Question Time. 

I don't suppose she recognised me, although Charles Kennedy (former Lib Dem leader who seems to have done the job more effectively despite apparently having been drunk for most of his seven years as leader than any of his successors has managed sober) who had also been on the Question Time panel, and who had leered at me cheerfully when he saw me kissing Julie, might have done (never let it be said that I don't know how to show a girl a good time...mind you, this is coming from a man who chose Borat as our first "date movie")! But poor Patricia had ruffled a fair few feathers as Health Secretary and she obviously thought I was a disgruntled doctor out for revenge. To this day she is probably still having nightmares about being hunted by a ginger Dr Shipman with a Cornish accent.

Jack

I am usually much better at politician spotting than I was that night. Indeed this skill does not desert me even when I am abroad. For example when I was in Rome in 2007 I spotted former Tory leadership contender and cabinet minister Michael Portillo walking past me, clearly also on holiday. Sadly he rounded a corner before I could point him out to Julie, much to her frustration. However, later that afternoon she got her chance to demonstrate that she was able to find her own politicians, thank you very much, when she saw a familiar face at a Metro station, turned to me triumphantly, and announced loudly "that's Jack Straw". 

Unfortunately (a) it turned out his face was not as familiar as all that, and (b) "Jack" was the only other person who heard her apart from me. Evidently a bit of a politics geek himself (or perhaps excited at the thought of finally having found his long lost twin brother), the bogus Jack started frantically looking around to see if he could spot the real Jack, only to find that the only Demon Headmaster lookalike on the platform was himself.   

John

Big Dave was not the first Prime Minister I have had the pleasure of sharing a room with. Another of my more exciting early dates with Julie involved going to the recording of a BBC Radio 4 programme which invited celebrities to come in and read out some of their favourite poetry. The two celebrities for this edition were John Major and sitcom legend Richard Briers. Julie, having grown up with some awareness of British politics but somewhat removed from it on the other side of the Atlantic, seems as a girl to have got the idea into her head that Mr Major was some sort of sinister bogeyman who probably lived under the bed, ate children and dressed up as grandma in his spare time. In fairness, my awareness of US politics at that stage of my development was significantly weaker (for some reason as a boy I had got it into my head that Ronald Reagan looked a bit like a bearded elderly tramp, an image which it took some years and several history lessons to shake off).

Because of Julie's misconceptions, she was somewhat surprised to be greeted by the sight of a tall, grey, amiable looking (and surprisingly imposing) middle aged man who proceeded to charm his audience with his  gentle voiced delivery of various poems, most of which incidentally appear to have come from Winnie the Pooh. No doubt these charming stories involving "a bear of very little brain" brought back fond memories of some of the people he came across during his illustrious(ish) political career. Ironically Richard Briers turned out to be a thoroughly malevolent psychopath ("listen to my poems or I'll break your f***ing legs, you got me?")

Conclusion

So, to sum up, if you do have an encounter with a politician, what is the best way to respond? Here are a few hints:

1. If they are at a restaurant, they probably don't want to talk to you, so it's best to leave them alone.
2. If they are at a bar, they might be eager to chat (I had a very pleasant conversation with former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind at the Cambridge Union, and remember coming away thinking that he would probably make quite a good Prime Minister but would never make it because of the dandruff). However if they are wearing a hat, again, it is best to avoid them like the plague.
3. If lost for a conversation starter, in my experience politicians tend to have surprisingly good taste in poetry.

Happy New Year!

Review of "The Hobbit: A Long Expected Journey"

I have a confession to make: I am Bilbo Baggins. That may be a strange statement for a tall lanky shoe-wearing ginger man to make, but the truth is in spite of the differences in height and foot-hairiness between Bilbo and myself, he is probably the literary character I have always empathised with the most ever since I first read the book in the late 1980s (yes, I have been waiting for this film for a very long time indeed!) Whilst his wimpier nephew Frodo seems to spend the entirety of the Lord of the Rings trilogy wandering around finding ingenious new ways of getting himself stabbed, Bilbo, the ultimate bookish underdog turned unlikely hero of the hour, actually makes himself vaguely useful on his quest, more than earning his share of the dragon's treasure at the end of the day.

Moreover, if there was  Guinness Book of Records category for the tallest person ever to play Bilbo Baggins, I would probably win it. Although I was never a member of the Cambridge University Tolkien Society (I am only willing to allow my geekiness to get to a certain level) I did join forces with them when I took on four roles for the Cambridge University Tolkien Society's Charity Reading of the script of the BBC Radio 4 Adaptation of Lord of the Rings at Borders bookstore in Cambridge (sadly now closed for reasons which I can assure you are not connected to the quality of my performance) back in 2004.

I also played Gaffer Gamgee, in spite of the fact that at one point the two characters appeared in the same scene, meaning that any innocent customers walking into the bookshop at that point, hoping for a quiet afternoon of browsing, would have instead been greeted with the baffling sight of me wielding a microphone and interacting with myself in two different accents. Probably not the strangest thing I did during my university career, but it's up there!

In short, I am a fan, and feel extremely protective of all things Tolkien. Which means that I was getting increasingly concerned by the mixed nature of the reviews of the first in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, especially the complaints about the slow pace, not least because Julie and I had inadvertently booked a 10pm showing of the film last night after a long and tiring week at work, rather than the 8pm showing we had thought we were booking. Having waited the better part of a quarter of a century for this cinematic spectacle, was there a chance that I was going to end up falling asleep in the middle of it? This did happen to me fairly recently in the Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood (although that was in the middle of the afternoon, but I had better say no more about that cinematic travesty, even though I am sure Russell, being an amiable chap, would take the criticism in good spirit!)

As it turned out, there was no need for a power nap, even during the Rivendell scenes. I think the negative focus of a lot of the reviews stemmed from the fact that many critics were expecting a classic epic "magnificent octopus" (as Baldrick would put it) on the same level as Lord of the Rings. Quite why they had set their expectations so high is a mystery to me, bearing in mind how previous franchises that have sought to resurrect themselves after a gap of a decade or more (which is probably a fairer standard by which to judge the film) have fared. True, James Bond has managed to successfully reinvent himself twice now, but the longest period we have ever had between Bond films is six years.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is not quite as good as any of Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. However, it is significantly better than any of the three Star Wars prequels, Terminator 3 or 4, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Bollocks, Richard Lester's Return of the Musketeers, whatever the name of that Brandon Routh Superman film was, or even The Godfather part III. Jackson managed to recapture the spirit of the previous films far more successfully after a gap of eleven years than the Wachowski Brothers managed with the Matrix after just four. And I absolutely loved it, in spite of its flaws.

Getting the negative stuff out of the way first, I will say that I will not be watching the next two films in 3D, nor will I be watching this one in 3D again. It added nothing, it irritated my eyes, and New Zealand/Middle Earth is just as attractive in 2D. I didn't see the film in 48 frames per second so can't comment on that, but I have to say that the number of different formats in which one can watch the film is now verging on the ridiculous (although my attempt to find a cinema that was showing it as a black and white silent movie with a smell-o-vision option was unsuccessful!)

The second major criticism of the film has been its length, and I do wonder whether instead of releasing an Extended Edition of the film on DVD as per the LOTR films it might be worth Jackson thinking about releasing a truncated version! When answering questions about the upcoming LOTR films back in 1999, Jackson commented that his rule was that every scene had to advance the plot in some way. It is something he seems to have since forgotten. Let's put it this way, if he was making LOTR now, he would not only have included Tom Bombadil, but would have included ten minutes of flashbacks to explain where he got his inspiration for his "brilliant" songs and rhymes (no doubt the track title for that scene on the DVD would have been "A Shortcut to Mushrooms"). I actually think that two films might have been the better way forward, and not just because I now have to wait another year to see my favourite character from the book (apart from Bilbo) - Beorn, the bear man (to be played by the suitably big, hairy and Swedish Mikael Persbrandt).

True, the Hobbit is shorter than any of the LOTR films, but it has more padding, only some of which really adds anything to the story. The Erebor-based prologue does a good job of setting the scene, and the new wizard Radagast the Brown manages to just about stay on the right side of that very thin line between eccentric and annoying, partly because former Dr Who Doctor Sylvester McCoy plays him with such enthusiasm. But then again, with a sledge driven by giant CGI rabbits (which Tolkien forgot to mention) as a prop, who wouldn't be enthusiastic? If David Tennant is starting to get sick of doing those godawful Virgin Media ads, he may be reassured by the fact that it could be worse, bearing in mind that McCoy appears to have spent the twenty odd years since he left the show living in the woods being crapped on by owls.

But the whole sub-plot involving Azog, an albino orc with a hook for an arm (Middle Earth's answer to Abu Hamza) could quite easily have been dropped, although I did enjoy Barry Humphries as the Goblin King. Yes, that's right, Dame Edna Everage is playing the Goblin King, although in fact he is more like Sir Les Patterson reincarnated as a giant, angry scrotum. And whilst Elijah Wood's cameo as Frodo is fun, it is screaming out as being something that would have been better saved up for the DVD edition.

Plus I think that Jackson has become overreliant on CGI this time round. Surprisingly for someone who is such a big fan of Ray Harryhausen, Jackson seems to have forgotten that CGI is not the only instrument in the filmmaking toolbox. The most profound thing that Simon Pegg has ever tweeted (ok...possibly the only profound thing that Simon Pegg has ever tweeted) was when he was talking about showing his daughter the Empire Strikes Back. It was the first time she had ever seen a puppet, non-CGI Yoda, and her immediate reaction was "oh...he's real"). Take as another example this scene from Jason and the Argonauts. This could be done more realistically today (as much as a fight involving skeletons can ever be described as realistic), but would it be as much fun?

But enough griping. I was transported back into Middle Earth, and quite frankly I loved almost every minute of it. Starting with the performances, I find it difficult to find fault with any of them. I had been touting Martin Freeman as the perfect younger Bilbo for almost a decade before he actually got cast, and I can totally understand why Jackson decided to reschedule filming to accommodate Freeman so that he could take time off to film the second series of BBC's Sherlock (as a devoted fan of both Sherlock Holmes and Tolkien, I am almost in despair that I will have to wait another whole year before seeing Martin Freeman's Bilbo interact with his Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch as the sinister dragon, Smaug).

Freeman is far better suited to this role than he was to Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, partly because to my mind no-one could ever displace Simon Jones in that role in my book, whilst although I loved Ian Holm as Bilbo in LOTR, he is not the only actor who has previously played the role well (and no, I am not thinking of me here, I actually had in mind Paul Daneman, who played him in the BBC Radio 4 version of the Hobbit, opposite the fantastically named and wonderfully malevolent looking Francis de Wolff as Smaug). Bilbo not only needed to be a good actor who could handle both comedy and drama (Freeman is gifted with a naturally funny face) but also needed to be able to pass for a young Ian Holm. The only other actor I can think of who might have managed it is Paul Giamatti.

I was a little more sceptical when I heard about Richard Armitage being cast as Thorin, the leader of the unruly pack of dwarves who accompany Bilbo on his quest (the handsome leading man was a fan favourite to be cast in the films, but most people were expecting him to be playing Bard the Bowman, rather than a character who, in his last cinematic incarnation, looked like this). Whilst the Lord of the Rings cast ended up being pretty much ideal, give or take an unnecessarily camp elf or two, having heard more since about who had previously been offered roles in the films (Nicolas Cage was offered Aragorn, which would have been about on a par with casting Ronnie Corbett as James Bond or Bruce Forsyth as the Godfather), I have come to the conclusion that this may have been due as much to luck as anything else.

I had always imagined Thorin as older and sturdier, and it seems that original director Guillermo Del Toro was thinking more along my lines, having been considering Ian McShane and even the legendary Brian Blessed for the role (Blessed seems to have been born to play Tolkienic roles, but the only one he has played to date is, aptly enough bearing in mind his bombastic style, Farmer Giles of Ham!) It is a shame we will probably never see Del Toro's vision of Middle Earth, but I suspect that if he had stayed on as director the critics would have been lamenting the fact that Jackson didn't come back. Truth to tell, my ideal Hobbit movie would have been made in the 1980s and directed by Terry Gilliam or Rob Reiner, but we can't always have what we want!

But of course both Guillermo and I probably underestimate the proportion of LOTR's audience that was made up of swooning teenage girls desperate for another shot of Orlando Bloom surfing down the trunk of an Oliphant, and they needed to have someone good looking to keep them occupied until Bloom's return (a new still of Legolas from the next film has been released, which suggests that elves, whilst blessed with the gift of eternal life, are truly crap when it comes to Movember). Fortunately Armitage, as well as being a bit of a moody, broody hunk, is also a very fine actor (if eerily similar to LOTR's Sean Bean in his acting style - which is appropriate, since he is fulfilling a similar function in the new trilogy, as the token suspicious, morally ambiguous chuffer with the northern accent which every Tolkien adaptation needs). Armitage perfectly captures the essence of Thorin's personality (he is essentially the fantasy equivalent of the teacher who is assigned to play the role of bad cop on school trips and remind the children that they are "not there to have fun"!)

The rest of the dwarves do not get quite as much time for character development, although they provide much of the film's humour (the tone is markedly lighter this time round and the humour works better than in LOTR, in that Jackson finds other ways to relieve the tension without having to rely on dwarf burping every single time) and the scene with the dwarves invading Bilbo's home is genuinely hilarious - amazingly, the dwarves song about destroying Bilbo's crockery from the book actually makes it into the movie. In fairness Jackson does do better than Tolkien in differentiating the dwarves.

There's Balin, the gnarled, cautious one, played deftly by Ken Stott, exactly how I always imagined the character. Stott, who is evidently enjoying taking a break from playing VERY VERY ANGRY COPS, at times seems to be channeling the spirit of Finlay Currie, who played a lot of parts like this in 1950s epics and would no doubt have taken on this role in the Ray Harryhausen version (don't know who would have played Thorin, when I started thinking about it I couldn't get past the idea of Robert Newton lamenting the loss of the Aaaarghkenstone).

There are the younger, cheeky ones (Fili and Kili, filling in for Merry and Pippin).

There's the twinkly Irish one (Bofur, played James Nesbitt - presumably part leprechaun).

And I particularly liked the fussy, camomile tea loving, lettuce chomping one (Dori, played by Mark Hadlow).

The rest get less of a chance to stand out, but as there are thirteen of them that is not surprising, and they were never all going to be iconic movie characters in the way that all of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring were.

I would have liked to see more of the "fat dwarf", Bombur (aka Obelix), who I don't think got a single line. And while I am on the subject, I have never been one to plead anti-ginger prejudice at the drop of a hat, but I would just like to point out the following:

• literary characters who are described as red haired in the book but aren't in the film version: Edward Cullen in Twilight, Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades of Grey film (if Eddie Redmayne is cast, as rumoured);
• literary characters who aren't described as red haired in the book but are in the film version: Bombur.

I am not sure we ginger folk are getting the better side of that deal!

There are also plenty of actors making a welcome return from LOTR. Ian McKellen is clearly relishing being back as Gandalf the Grey (scruffier, wilier and more fun than Gandalf the White). Andy Serkis' scenes as Gollum are very true to the book and are a particular highlight of the second half of the film. Seeing him again was like coming across an old friend (which probably says a lot about the company I keep). And it was nice to see returns from Hugo Weaving (Elrond - less of a stroppybottom than he was in LOTR), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel - still an insufferable know it all telepath) and Christopher Lee (Saruman - already a bit of a sarcastic so-and-so but not yet the thoroughly evil old bastard he turns into later).

Howard Shore returns to do the score, which is terrific (at least as good as LOTR's was). Fortunately Peter Jackson seems to have resisted the urge to include this little gem from Leonard Nimoy on the soundtrack (a perfect illustration of why Vulcans should avoid going into popular music). I would have bought the soundtrack even if I had hated the movie - the dwarves "Far over the Misty Mountains Cold" is a haunting highlight. 

To sum up then, this is a very good film indeed. And in there somewhere, there is a great film. Imagine if Wizard of Oz had been released with all of the scenes which were actually in the film included, but with another hour of additional material including flashbacks, sub-plots, an extra wizard and a secondary villain. This is how The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey feels. Everything that is in the books (the bits with the dwarves at Bag End, Gollum, the trolls) are done exactly the way that I would have wanted. The additional stuff dilutes it a bit, but doesn't go as far as taking away the magic altogether. Peter Jackson ignoring the basic rules of filmmaking still makes a far better film than most filmmakers who adhere to it rigorously. If you didn't enjoy LOTR, you will hate this. If you did enjoy LOTR, you will find a lot more to love than to hate. Being back in Middle Earth is great. Can't wait for that pesky dragon to show up in 2013.

Review of Skyfall, or "You Only Live Thrice"

Perverse though it may sound, part of me actually wanted to dislike this film. Bearing in mind what a massive Bond fan I am, add this to the shameful dearth of decent Bond films over the last fifteen years, and the fact that such an opinion would have put me in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with the Guardian, you may think that I have gone slightly mad by making such an admission. But the truth is that I have always held some controversial views when it comes to the world's greatest spy. For example:

• Roger Moore is a bit of a legend;
• Sheriff J W Pepper in Live and Let Die is hilarious;
• Goldeneye (although easily the best of the Brosnan era) isn't nearly as good as everyone thinks it is;
• Never Say Never Again was the best Bond movie of the 1980s (for example look at this amazing video game sequence...unfortunately I think their estimate of how much Spain was worth was eerily prescient). This was in spite of the best efforts of a young Rowan Atkinson, who had clearly not yet finished his training at clown school when he made the film, to ruin the whole thing with his 2 minute cameo. Watch Sean Connery's face during their scenes together. He is clearly giving serious thought to the prospect of repeatedly clubbing the rubber faced young goon round the back of the head with a golf club; and
• A View to a Kill was the second best Bond movie of the 1980s, even though the quiche baking, Werthers Originals chewing Roger Moore was so creaky by the time he made it that he would have been thrown out of the Expendables (or, if I am being brutally honest, the cast of Last of the Summer Wine) for being too decrepit.

My reason for hoping to dislike the film was that having long had the ambition of dusting off/resuscitating my dormant blog with a review (or rather a series of loosely connected tangential ramblings cunningly disguised as a review...which I promise will remain more or less spoiler free) of Skyfall, I thought that having a controversial take on the film might increase my readership more than if I simply went with the flow of extremely positive reviews. 

Besides, I did not want to be in the position of prematurely shooting my mouth off with fulsome praise and then changing my mind a few months down the line, as has so often happened to me in the past with Mr Bond. I vividly remember coming out of The World is Not Enough when I was fifteen and confidently declaring it the best Bond film ever made. But then again I think it is fair to say that back in those days I was not the sophisticated connisseur of cinema than I am today, as is evidenced by the fact that I went to see Will Smith's Wild Wild West (a film that I think is nowadays only shown in North Korean prisons as a form of torture) in the cinema...twice. 

Unfortunately my view of the film, which for once I am pretty confident that I won't row back from on a second viewing, is disappointingly conventional, although I think that some of the more hyperbolic comments from journalists might be overegging the cake somewhat, having recently encountered articles with titles such as "Is this the best Bond film ever?" (no, although it's probably in the top 5), "Has Daniel Craig eclipsed Sean Connery as 007?" (no, but he's now a solid and comfortable second...sorry Rog, Pierce, Tim and....well, I don't think any apology to George is really necessary, at least not until he apologises to me for the quality of his performance) "Is Javier Bardem the best Bond villain ever?" (actually...he might be). 

Skyfall is terrific, a high octane, witty, sophisticated blast from the pre-credits sequence to the very last scene (which the fans of "Classic Bond" will adore btw). The film opens in Istanbul, with a fantastic chase sequence complete with entertaining running commentary by Naomie Harris as Bond's fellow field agent Eve, who is communicating with M and co at MI6 HQ throughout the chase: "yes...007 is now chasing the assassin across the roofs of Istanbul with a motorbike...now he's ridden the motorbike off a bridge and onto the roof of a moving train (as one does)...yup, and now he's torn the train in half with a massive digger".

Then of course Bond is shot, marking the second time in the franchise's fifty year history that our hero is seemingly bumped off before the opening credits. This time, however, unlike in You Only Live Twice, he actually takes a bit of time to recover from what to most people would constitute quite a serious injury, amusing himself with bumming around in bars playing drinking games involving scorpions and watching Huw Edwards on the telly. You can tell he's supposed to be out of condition because he stops shaving, a state of affairs which persists for an unnerving amount of the film's hefty running time (come on man, you're James Bond, not Rab C Nesbitt).

Adele's "Skyfall" is a worthy addition to the canon of Bond's opening credit songs, even though it does seem to have been composed by Vitalstatistix the Gaul (special thanks are due to Shappi Khorsandi here, from whose cradle I snatched that joke before it was even twenty four hours old). After the drab excuses for music that we unfortunate viewers have been forced to endure in recent years (Madonna's Die Another Day is so ghastly that it could be used to curdle milk, while I can't even remember the theme to Quantum of Solace, as it was so instantly forgettable that I have managed to half persuade myself that it was in fact set to the theme tune for Dawn French's "Murder Most Horrid", with the words "Quantum of Solace" being substituted for "Murder Most Horrid", obviously), my expectations were not high, but it certainly holds its own with some of the classics of the Connery/Moore eras.

The plot is more focussed on MI6 and its personnel themselves than any of the films have been before, with Judi Dench, having come more and more into her own as M over the years with an increasingly meaty role in the proceedings as befits an actress of her status, taking centre stage as never before. This time the hitherto infallible spymistress is in deep trouble, having lost a hard drive with the names and secret identities of undercover agents around the world. Enquiries have been set up, and M is being urged to take early retirement by Mallory, who is played by a terrific Ralph Fiennes, mastering the admittedly somewhat predictable transition during the film from "stuffed shirt bureaucrat" to "a bit of a legend" (the one that pretty much all of Jack Bauer's bosses went through at some point during the series, usually over the course of a couple of hours) with characteristic aplomb - I especially enjoyed one particularly scathing putdown to Helen McCrory's smug, pen pushing minister, the smoothest and politest variation of "shut the f**k up" that I have heard for a long while. It has fallen into the hands of former agent turned full blown psycho Silva (Bardem, sporting a set of false teeth so disgusting that even my late grandfather would have been appalled), who has taken over a deserted island off the coast of Shanghai. 

Silva means business, MI6 is blown up, Q branch (now run by a mellifluous voiced Ben Whishaw, channelling the spirit of Moss from the IT Crowd) is forced to relocate, and Bond sobers up and gets himself back on the case. Having a Q who is significantly younger than Bond is a new direction for the series, but it works, especially in the context of one of the film's core themes, namely "is there a place for old fashioned field agents like Bond in the 21st century world of sophisticated IT"...you may be able to guess what conclusion the film comes to on this. The first encounter between Bond and Q is extremely entertaining, with both Craig and Whishaw enjoying some nice one liners involving exploding pens and the like (you can tell the poor little lamb hasn't been working there very long in that he actually asks Bond to bring back his equipment undamaged...obviously the late Desmond Llewelyn's handover notes left something to be desired).

One liners, and wit in general, is something Skyfall has in spades, which is most welcome. I am not suggesting that the franchise should return to the double taking pigeon shenanigans of the Moore era, but after the gloomy, Bournesque tone of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, a lighter touch was clearly required. Sam Mendes and the writers clearly have a better sense of what Bond is than the franchise's creative teams have had for a while. Don't get me wrong, I liked Casino Royale and thought it was exactly the breath of fresh air that the franchise needed at the time (it's just a shame that it was followed up by the turgid blast of public lavatory stench that was Quantum of Solace). I just thought that it might have been nice if Craig cracked a smile every once in a while. He's not Jack Bauer, after all, dammit! Craig may be the first Bond since Connery who looks like he could actually handle himself in a fight, and I think it's no bad thing that he has chosen to emphasise the thuggish bruiser side of Bond rather than the debonair louche aspect that Moore and Brosnan chose to emphasise, but he can DO humour, albeit perhaps not quite as well as Sean or Roger. It's just than up until now, the writers haven't really let him. 

But it's not just him. The film has unquestionably got the most talented cast ever gathered together for a Bond film (the possible exception being the original 1967 Casino Royale, which nevertheless ended up being one of the most garishly edited train wrecks ever committed to celluloid). Ironically though, it is not Craig, Bardem, Fiennes, Dench, Harris, Whishaw or Albert Finney who has the best line in the film, although all of them get at least a couple of zingers. No, for my money, the best line is saved up for a random old geezer watching Bond leap onto the back of a moving tube train during a particularly exhilarating chase sequence. "He's in a hurry to go home" he remarks to his wife.

And interestingly enough Bond does go home soon enough, taking his old Aston Martin (which got a massive cheer at the cinema) and heading north for the film's climax (think Home Alone cross-bred with Monarch of the Glen, directed by Michael Bay) set in the Bond family's ancestral Scottish home, which is, of course, called "Skyfall". In JB's absence the old pile has been looked after by an elderly, bearded, sarcastic scottish retainer, Kincade. Kincade is in fact played by the fabulous Albert Finney, but I rather shushpect that the role was offered to shomeone elshe firsht. We can only dream of how amazing that would have been, but if you can't get Connery, who better to hire instead than the man who once interrogated him in Murder on the Orient Express (I suspect that the antipathy between Finney's Poirot and Connery's Colonel Arbuthnot in that film had less to do with the murdered man in the next cabin and more to do with straightforward moustache envy!)

I will give no more away about how the film ends, but although it stays true to the series formula, unusually for Bond, there is more than one surprise in store. The whole thing from beginning to end feels like a Bond film made by Bond fans, for Bond fans. I don't mean that it is inaccessible to newcomers to the franchise, but it shows an understanding of the character's history which delighted me. I think that the Broccolis could do worse than lock Sam Mendes in for another few films, and Craig certainly has enough vim and verve in him for at least another two or three films (he may be craggy faced but he still has a few years in him before he turns into Sid James). His banter with Naomie Harris' Eve is particularly sparkling (the other Bond girl, Berenice Marlohe, was also perfectly fine but somewhat underused...to be honest at some points in the film I felt that the "real" Bond girl was Dame Judi). 

Particular praise has to be reserved for Javier Bardem's villain though. The last few Bond villains have been lacklustre, to say the least. C'mon, Oddjob used to kill people with a steel rimmed bowler hat, Jaws used to bite people to death with his steel teeth and Le Chiffre...cries blood. Not quite in the same league, is it? Nor was Jonathan Pryce's slightly less evil version of Rupert Murdoch in Tomorrow Never Dies or that Korean bloke who plastic surgerifies himself into Toby Stephens in the risible Die Another Day. But Bardem as Silva is a revelation, playing a hypnotically charismatic, wickedly funny and extremely complex chessmaster who is constantly at least two steps ahead of Bond for most of the film in the same way that Blofeld and Goldfinger used to be. As viewers, we are simultaneously charmed by him and terrified of him. And he is also outrageously camp, taking the unconventional step of flirting with Bond rather than torturing him. Even more remarkably, Bond responds in kind. "What makes you think this is my first time?" he quips. One can only conclude that the two henchmen in Diamonds are Forever got closer to Bond than we thought. "If at first you don't succeed, Mr Kidd..." "Try, try, try again, Mr Wint!"

The film is not perfect. It is a little overlong for one thing, and for another, where did all that swearing suddenly come from? I am no prude, in fact my main criticism of the fourth Die Hard was that it didn't have enough swearing in it (as an aside, how can they keep making films in that franchise without taking the opportunity to call one of them "Old Habits Die Hard"...perhaps that one could be set in a nunnery with the tagline "Yippee Kiy Yay Mother Superior" and Bruce exchanging quips with rogue nun Miriam Margolyes...I'd watch it). 

But this isn't Die Hard, it's Bond. I don't mind a bit of mild cursing here and there (Timothy Dalton used to snarl "bloody bastards" at random moments every once in a while, it was obviously something he needed to get out of his system and that was fine). I appreciate that it was about time that someone pointed out that Bond is in fact a "jumped up little shit" (because he is), and that Judi Dench dropping the F-bomb is always entertaining. As swearers go Dame Judi is up there with the best of them, and when she really gets going it is almost as good as Angela Lansbury's Tarantino-esque four letter rant in the uncut version of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. If you think Joe Pesci's "You think I'm funny" speech in Goodfellas was well delivered, just imagine Dench doing it. But I grew up watching the Sean/Roger films on ITV on a Sunday afternoon (there's nothing better than a good piece of family entertainment with a nice high bodycount). I just can't see the broadcasters allowing any of the Craig era Bond films to show pre-watershed, which is a shame. Of course this is nothing a bit of clever editing can't sort out (see here how they handled the swearing in The Big Lebowski for TV audiences), and if this is the worst I can find to say about the film I think it is an unequivocal sign of a job well done. I liked it. And I'm glad I liked it!

Right, that is all I have to say on that, but I quite enjoyed writing it, so the blog is officially back up and running. Reviews of The Hobbit and Les Mis will follow in due course, and there will be more posts in between if I can think of anything suitably interesting to ramble on about.

Review of Hamlet/The Iron Lady

What a cultural weekend we have had. Yesterday evening we went to see Michael Sheen star as Hamlet at the Young Vic, then today we went to see Meryl Streep's tour de force as Mrs Thatcher in The Iron Lady at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton. I had always had it in mind to review the two productions together because of the obvious, stark contrast between central characters in each. Hamlet is the ultimate embodiment of indecisiveness, an unlikely hero in so many respects (you can certainly see why he was not made king of Denmark after his father's death but was passed over in favour of his ruthless but effective uncle Claudius).  Hamlet is not a natural leader. As Mitt Romney, the probable Republican nominee for president in this year's elections, has fumed, "We don't want Hamlet in the White House", his target being, of course, President Obama (if he was a true Shakespeare aficionado he might have realised that comparing Vice President Biden to Polonius might have been more apposite). Romney presumably sees himself as more of a courageous, Frenchie-bashing Henry V type, although I have a feeling that he may turn out to be Malvolio instead.

Margaret Thatcher, meanwhile, has faced many criticisms over the years from other parties, hostile foreign leaders and disgruntled members of her own party - but I don't think any of her enemies or opponents would ever have tried that one! As Mrs Thatcher famously said herself, "The lady's not for turning!", an approach aped by Tony Blair a quarter of a century later when he, equally famously, stated that "I've got no reverse gear", (thereby seeking to reassure voters that he was a safe person to have in charge of the nation's well being by...er...comparing oneself to an unroadworthy car). But no political figure in my lifetime, not even Blair, has really been able to compete with Mrs T when it comes to forthrightness and firmness of purpose. One suspects that if our Maggie had found out that Claudius had bumped off her father he would have found himself bludgeoned to death with a blunt handbag by the middle of Act Two.

But actually shoving the two reviews in together is even more fitting than I might have expected, because I essentially ended coming away from both productions with much the same feelings - great acting (and I mean really great), but I wasn't too keen on the area that each of them decided to focus on.

Hamlet, first of all, was set in a mental hospital. I can see why they did it, the idea is superficially quite attractive - madness is one of the central concepts of the play - Hamlet feigns madness (or does he?), Ophelia genuinely goes bonkers, and with Shakespeare being performed so often (and this play more than most) I can understand (although I do not completely agree with it) the desire for directors to try to go for a new take on the play. But ultimately it didn't quite work for me.

However, the director just about got away with it because he resisted the urge to ram it down the audience's throat too much. Julie tells me that she decided to just completely ignore the whole hospital idea and enjoy the play for its own sake - I was not quite able to do that, but the fact that she was able to do so was telling - at the start there was one worrying moment where we both thought that they were going to do the whole play as a "therapy session". Which would have been rubbish (not to mention undynamic). They got a bit more carried away in the second half, with reappearances from Polonius and Ophelia that the Bard (or the Earl of Oxford, if you believe that eminent Elizabethan historian Roland Emmerich) somehow forgot to mention. The scene with Osric, for example, was done with Ophelia's ghost assuming Osric's role - for those amongst my reader(s) who enjoyed Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film of Hamlet - this is essentially the equivalent of Kate Winslet and Robin Williams morphing into one person (which presumably would end up as some sort of bizarre younger south-of-the-border version of Mrs Doubtfire!)

But ultimately it was considerably less annoying than, for example, Rupert Goold's production of Merchant of Venice that we saw in Stratford-upon-Avon last year (set in Vegas, obviously, because Vegas is famous for its problems with anti-semitism!) That production caused Julie and I, for the first time in our lives, to walk out of a stage production at half time, so incensed were we by the ludicrously offensive American stereotypes, the lazy "ooh, what gimmick can we throw at this scene" thinking, and appalling waste of Sir Patrick Stewart's considerable talents. This production avoided such embarrassing lows, but did nevertheless slightly hold back what could have been a superb evening's entertainment bearing in mind the calibre of the cast and director (yes his concept was a bit dodgy but he coaxed wonderful performances from literally everyone in the cast). And the writer was no slouch either.

Michael Sheen is someone I always enjoy watching on film and TV, but those performances are as nothing compared to what he can do on stage. It really is his medium, and he is hypnotically compelling (in terms of sheer stage presence he is in the top three actors I have ever seen in action, along with Peter O'Toole and, interestingly, Martin Shaw). Ideal for the Dane, at the age of 42 he was running out of time to take on the role on stage (he previously did it on radio), so I remain pleased that he decided to join this production whatever its other shortcomings. Veering between being ferociously active and cautiously contemplative (sometimes changing from one to the other every few seconds) he really threw himself into the role with magnificent energy, exploring multiple facets of this endlessly complex role and owning it. He was even better than David Tennant who I saw take on the role a couple of years ago (although to be fairness the good Doctor had a bad back at the time). Sheen also played the Ghost, and, quite frankly, scared the willies out of me.

Powerful and eyecatching though Sheen was, the other actors in the production also got an opportunity to shine, from Sally Dexter's twitchy, vulnerable, pill popping Gertrude to Michael Gould's hilariously befuddled Polonius (one gag, where he presents Laertes with the same jumper worn by Sarah Lund in the Danish series "The Killing" - what with this being Denmark an' all - completely passed me by until Julie pointed it out to me in spite of the fact that we are currently working our way through the series! As Sherlock Holmes famously said "You see, Watson, but you do not observe"!) James Clyde was also a fine Claudius despite one of his finer monologues being stripped out. He is a bastard, but he is not completely without a heart, and his death scene (he goes willingly to be stabbed by Hamlet after realising that he has killed the woman he loves) was subtly effective in a way that Branagh's version, for example, wasn't (DEATH BY CHANDELIER!)

I also liked the sandpit in the second half!

On to The Iron Lady, then, I guess that my main problem with this film was that it just wasn't the film I expected to see, nor was it really the film I wanted to see. For what it's worth, whilst I voted for her party (and I use the phrase "her party" deliberately, as her influence is still very much felt) at the last two elections, I suspect that Lady Thatcher would regard me as one of the "wets". I am not a Thatcherite, but I don't regard her as the root of all evil either (whilst others go for Che Guevara tattoos, if I were forced to get a tattoo of a political figure on my arm I would probably end up going for someone like Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Note to my friends - never let me get that drunk!)

But in going in to see this film, one's political opinions are largely irrelevant. Love her or loathe her (and believe it or not, there are actually a fair number of people who are equivocal about her nowadays, willing to both praise her successes and criticise her failures, something that would have been thought implausible about this highly polarising PM when she was in power), most people would agree about this at least - Margaret Thatcher is a remarkable woman, and there are many extraordinary things about her. My problem with the film is that having dementia is not one of them.

Sadly dementia is an affliction that affects millions of people, in the UK and worldwide, and I have no objections to films being made about it (indeed many great films have been made about it, most of them seemingly starring Jim Broadbent as the sufferer's husband). Nor, provided that the filmmakers did their research properly, do I have a problem with Thatcher being presented in this way, even whilst she is still alive (from what little I know, I suspect that unfortunately if anything her condition may actually be slightly worse now than it is portrayed in the film). Dementia is something that should be addressed, talked about, not swept under the carpet. And I think that this was a convincing, if slightly laboured, portrayal of dementia (although I don't think that it worked particularly well in terms of a cinematic arc - she is seeing Denis, then he is gone, then she spends ages clearing out his closet, then he is back, then he is gone again - I thought it lacked focus).

As ever, Julie put it more brilliantly than I could - with Hamlet she kept thinking "this will be good, I can't wait to see them do it in proper costumes", whilst with The Iron Lady she said it was like watching extracts of a really good film through a window and then missing bits, so never getting a coherent whole.

Anyway, whilst I knew that this sad end to The Lady's career would feature in the film before going to see it, I had not thought that it would be the dominant feature of the film. And it is. Almost half of the film, in fact, with the rest being a breathless paced canter through her career in a series flashbacks, which never pause to cover the various stages of her rise and fall in sufficient detail to satisfy.

I discussed this with my mum on the phone an hour or so ago and she made the extremely cogent point that showing someone "Great" or "Powerful" suffering from this most ordinary of diseases and thereby humanising them is in fact a very valuable exercise. Maybe in wanting a bit more of the "meat" of politics, I am missing the point. I am a bit of a political junkie, perhaps this film is not aimed at me. If it was, it probably would not have done as well as it appears to be doing (the cinema was packed!) Insofar as it does handle the politics, it plays it pretty safe and I would rank it as broadly neutral - she is portrayed as clearly being a remarkable leader but it does also cover her increasingly erratic behaviour in the run up to her fall from power, and also the havoc that resulted from the poll tax. This was probably a wise approach: either a hatchet job or an adulatory paean of praise would have alienated large swathes of the film's potential audience.

Had I been unwisely entrusted with the funds to make this film, I would have focused more on her rise to power - that was the really remarkable story, of how she made it as the first woman to the "top of the pile" not only in the UK but in the whole of the Western world (I haven't checked this btw...do correct me if there were others first!) The story of "The First Woman Prime Minister" would have been something both the Thatcherites and the Thatcher haters could have got behind. And insofar as they cover this aspect, they cover it reasonably well (with some stylish cinematography showing her arrival at the House of Commons, voting in amongst a huge crowd of indistinguishable middle aged grey men in suits). But I was left wanting more. And judging by the comments I overheard on coming out of the cinema, thankfully none of which were "This franchise has really gone downhill now that Robert Downey Jr's not in it!", I was not alone.

Having said that, Meryl Streep was absolutely brilliant (narrowly beating out the marvellous Patricia Hodge in the excellent "Falklands Play" from a few years ago as the best Maggie ever) and certainly Oscar worthy (it would be her third, but her first since 1982 - as one of the best actors/actresses/performers/whatever working in the world if not THE best, I would suggest that it is about time she picked up another one). The rest of the cast was also pretty good, although none of them were quite as close a match for their real life counterpart as she was (I kept forgetting I was not watching the real Maggie tbh). Olivia Colman was superb casting for her daughter Carol (mark my words, she won't just be Sophie from Peep Show for long), and I was particularly pleased to spot our Assistant Vicar from St Paul's Covent Garden (also a very fine bit part actor) as the Speaker of the House of Commons (an avuncular but very left wing fellow, he was probably roped into it because he thought it was the Oliver Stone version that was once mooted!) I am afraid that I let myself down and yelped with excitement when I saw him in the cinema, much to my embarrassment. But then again, it is quite something to know a genuine bona fide film star (and by the standards of my own brief film career, Rev Richard Syms is practically Marlon Brando).

Anyway, enough of this - I am now going to watch the next episode of Sherlock - The Hounds of Baskerville! Let us hope that this will be my first viewing experience of the weekend that is 100% satisfactory.

My top Christmas movie suggestions

We all know that Christmas is a time for giving, spending time with your family, getting uproariously drunk at parties and eating things that you would never normally allow within several square miles of your dinner plate (how many people eat Brussels sprouts at any time other than Christmas? I know someone who knows a Mr Russell Sprout, incidentally, although I could not testify as to whether or not he is small, round, green and slightly smelly).

But it is also a time for watching lots and lots of TV, as the various channels suddenly get in the festive spirit, realise that they have been broadcasting crap for the first 51 weeks of the year and decide that the nation has suffered enough and that they had better pull their respective digits out and broadcast something watchable as a long overdue gift to the great unwashed masses. So they throw all sorts of Christmas goodies at us so that we can't possibly watch everything, not even now that we have the magical invention of BBC iPlayer! So one has to be selective about what the key things are that one simply cannot get through Christmas without watching. So here are mine (was hoping to finish this before Boxing Day, but then you can't have everything). I can't say that I ever get around to watching all of them, but if I haven't had at least two or three then I end up feeling ever so slightly empty no matter how much turkey I have gorged myself on.

1) A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) Directed by Brian Henson

Yes, I know that Alastair Sim's version is often considered to be definitive, and George C Scott, Michael Hordern and Patrick Stewart all have their supporters, but for me the one thing Dickens forgot in writing perhaps the greatest Christmas story of all time (apart from the one about Jesus, obviously) was that a Christmas story really needs frogs, bears, chickens and lines like "Mother always told me. Never eat singing food." Muppets may be a bunch of commies, apparently, but I still love them (besides, if the right has Newt Gingrich, the left should have an amphibian of their own to balance the scales, so why not Kermit?)

A lot of people lament the fact that Michael Caine and Sean Connery never worked together again after The Man Who Would be King, but for me the greater crime is that he hasn't worked with Gonzo again! Caine's career was in the doldrums at this point, the wreckage of Jaws 4 still being fresh in everyone's memory. In fact the part of Scrooge was originally offered to Oscar the Grouch instead (I believe that the phrases "scram", "get lost" and "why don't you go and **** a Snuffleupagus" featured heavily in his response). But Caine actually gives one of the best performances of his career, actually playing it relatively straight (very wisely...there's no point trying to compete with the Muppets...Charles Grodin tried to out ham Miss Piggy in "The Great Muppet Caper" and lived to rue the day), at least until the end when he starts belting out tunes like "With a Thankful Heart" and "The Love is Found" (a song he also performed in a film called Get Carter), making up with enthusiasm for what he lacks in tunefulness.

But enough about Michael Caine - everyone knows that it's the rats who steal the show! While cynical types might feel that it isn't surprising that Scrooge might be a bit grumpy having to share an office with a bunch of rats who sing Carmen Miranda tunes whenever his back is turned, such people are clearly missing the point of the film. Of course the King Rat, as it were, is Rizzo, who, as he freely admits, is just "there for the food", accompanying Charles Dickens around Victorian London (a suspiciously blue and furry Dickens with a nose like Barry Manilow's) as they essentially stalk Scrooge for the whole movie whilst "narrating" the story. Poor Rizzo gets more than he bargains for, as "Mr Dickens" pushes him down chimneys, uses him to wipe a window and generally maltreats him in a manner which is probably an extremely historically accurate portrayal of some of the things "the lower orders" were forced to get up to at the time.

The other Muppet regulars are there in force of course, with Kermit Cratchit, Miss Piggy as Mrs Cratchit (who scoffed all the chestnuts, then?) and Fozzie Bear as Fozziwig (who else)? Particularly enjoyable are Statler and Waldorf as The Marley Brothers (a bit like the Kray Twins if they had been made out of foam). But whilst there is a lot of Muppety fun added to the proceedings, the basic story of the Christmas Carol is still all there underneath, and it is certainly a more faithful version of the tale than some (Ebenezer Scrooge is a duck? Now that's just plain silly!) Funny and touching, there is plenty here for both kids and adults to enjoy. So apologies to Mr Sim (and Mr Duck), but if I was forced to take one version to a desert island, this is the one it would be!

2) The Blue Carbuncle (1984) directed by David Carson

Not strictly a film, this one, only 50 minutes long or so, this is an episode from the first series of Granada's definitive "Sherlock Holmes" series starring Jeremy Brett (an actor otherwise best known for My Fair Lady and being a surrogate father to Martin Clunes...bit of random trivia for you there).

Some swear by Robert Downey Jr's rather dishevelled version of the great sleuth nowadays (and I admit that those films are fun, even though Guy Ritchie's directorial technique is INTENSELY ANNOYING and Downey Jr doesn't seem yet to have discovered that Holmes isn't Captain Jack Sparrow). More discerning folk prefer Benedict Cumberbatch's coldly calculating modern take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ingenious and timeless tales. But for me Jeremy Brett is still THE MAN, with Basil Rathbone (who gets extra kudos for being the only Holmes with the balls to take on the Nazis as well as Moriarty) and Clive Merrison his only serious rivals. Similarly David Burke is my favourite Watson (with his successor Edward Hardwicke, who took over in the later episodes, running him a close second). Burke has the perfect mix of humour and robustness, neither a buffoon like Nigel Bruce nor a superman action hero like Jude Law's incarnation (with Jude Law's Watson in town I am quite mystified as to why people bother getting Downey Jr's Holmes involved in the investigation at all!). And the affectionate chemistry between him and Brett is never more apparent than in this festive edition of the great detective's adventures.

The plot is simple. It is Christmas Eve. The Blue Carbuncle, one of the most valuable diamonds in the world, over which much blood has been spilled over the years, has been stolen. It turns up in the gullet of a goose which, through a series of coincidences, falls into the hands of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes has then to join the dots, by rushing around London, quite literally on a wild goose chase, to work out where the goose came from and how it managed to get a diamond stuck in its digestive system. And he has to do it fast, because the police, as cloddish and wrong headed as ever, have arrested the wrong man, who risks languishing in prison over Christmas unless the real perpetrator can be unmasked. Brett is clearly having the time of his life, playing Holmes like the oddball love child of Alan Rickman and Kenneth Williams, flaring his nostrils, staring around disconcertingly at random and using his magnificently sardonic voice to great effect, smoothly coming out with lines like "I am something of a fowl fancier, you understand", complete with raised eyebrow.

True, the real villain of the piece does turn out to be one of Holmes' least threatening adversaries (a cowardly little shrimp called Ryder, who seems to have difficulty pronouncing his "r"s, yet nevertheless, when presented with the opportunity to use a pseudonym that would enable him to get around this problem as well as maintain his anonymity, he plumps for "Wobinson"!) But then again, this is one of the most light hearted stories in the series, so it doesn't really need a moustache twirling Napoleon of Crime to make it work - in fact Holmes is even able to demonstrate some festive spirit by letting the little creep go before tucking into his turkey.

Co-starring Frank Middlemass as a booze addled academic, this episode is a fast paced and witty blast from beginning to end. Other episodes I would particularly recommend in the series are "The Musgrave Ritual", which is probably objectively the best of the lot, "The Six Napoleons", where the director seems to have given the entire cast carte blanche to try and out-ham each other, with hilarious and often alarming consequences, and "Wisteria Lodge", which is unusual in that it contains a police inspector who is actually quite intelligent and a match for Holmes (an engaging Freddie Jones plays this wily fellow in a manner reminiscent of Robert Newton as Long John Silver, only without bothering with the subtlety and restraint).

3) Die Hard (1988) directed by John McTiernan

Yes it is a Christmas movie and it is perfectly legitimate to include this in a Christmas list! Complaining about this (just because a few people happen to get shot in the head and thrown out of tall buildings) would be like moaning about my inclusion of "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" on my list of favourite WW2 movies just because Angela Lansbury doesn't recreate the opening D-Day landings sequence in "Saving Private Ryan". Die Hard has been much imitated over the years, but never equalled - not even by its sequels, which have all been entertaining (in spite of the fact that Bruce Willis is looking more like John McCain than John McClane nowadays).

Personally I used to do a bit of studying in Senate House Library near Russell Square in London and I always thought that that would be a great building to set a Die Hard style rip off in. The premise: a group of medieval historians gather together for a mulled wine party which gets overrun with terrorists - and only the eminent Henry III scholar Professor Humphrey P Winterbottom, who was in the toilet at the time, can save the day. This role could not, of course, be played by Mr Willis, it would have to be someone like Richard Griffiths (Samuel L Jackson would do at a pinch). It could be titled "Die Learned", and Professor Winterbottom would be roaming around the bookshelves with a machine gun "ho ho ho" and spouting lines like "Musica delenit bestiam feram, mother****er". But until someone takes me up on this idea, Die Hard will remain the best action movie ever made.

Having said that, being of a squeamish disposition, I tend to fast forward over the bit where McClane runs over broken glass. It is a testament to how excellent Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman (the best hero-villain combo in the history of cinema - they really need to act together again) and the host of engaging and interesting supporting characters are that I retain my affection for the movie in spite of that (I have always been very sensitive about my feet!) Nothing quite gets you in the festive spirit like watching Alan Rickman getting pushed off a roof. Which, coincidentally, is precisely what Emma Thompson should have done to him in my next selection...

Love Actually (2003) directed by Richard Curtis

This movie has a lot of detractors. I have even heard whispers from some that they consider it "a bit schmaltzy", presumably because Liam Neeson's stepson manages to get through airport security and peg it halfway across the airport to declare his love to his departing American sweetheart without being shot in the back of the head (the scene where an actual terrorist manages to use this distraction to smuggle through a shoebomb and blow up a plane was deleted from the final cut!) But they are, of course, missing the point. Had Richard Curtis been setting out to create a hard hitting, gritty, Trainspotting-esque "heroin through the eyeballs" kitchen sink drama, then I agree that this film would be regarded as a failure.

But it's a Christmas film, for heaven's sake. It's supposed to be schmaltzy. You're not supposed to think about the fact that Hugh Grant reversing a half century of British foreign policy towards one of our most important allies just because he got a bit hot under the collar when Billy Bob Thornton snogged Martine McCutcheon, far from making him everyone's ideal prime minister, might actually suggest that he is a dangerously unhinged maverick! Although I can't watch the bit with him dancing now without wondering whether David Cameron did the same thing after exercising his veto a few weeks ago. It's feel good, and that's what matters. And it has one of the best British casts ever assembled outside of a Harry Potter movie (no, I'm not actually in this one, although it was filmed during my brief career as a film extra, and one of the  "not quite ginger enough" fellows who I pipped to the post for the role of Charlie Weasley can be spotted standing around in the background looking slightly shifty in the "Office Christmas Party" scene).

I don't think there is a dud storyline throughout, although some might think that Kris Marshall finding himself irresistible to every hot female in Wisconsin might be a little far fetched. Even Keira Knightley is endearing (although whenever I have been watching the film with a girl, the bit where she declares herself to be "quite pretty" in her wedding dress invariably causes the aforesaid female to growl malevolently - although in fact Julie has said that she understood this scene completely once she saw her wedding photos!) The highlights for me were Bill Nighy as crazy old rocker Billy Mack, desperately pushing for a Christmas number one and not caring who he has to shock or outrage in order to get it (robbed of an Oscar nomination, he was), the Colin Firth storyline where he falls in love with his Portugese housekeeper despite their not being able to speak one word of each other's language, and the heartbreaking storyline with Emma Thompson and her philandering husband Alan Rickman which I alluded to above. Although at least he doesn't tell anyone to "shoot the glass" in this film.

Watching Love Actually with an Indian takeaway and some sparkling wine has become a bit of an annual tradition for my wife and I, and I think it is perhaps a sign that we are too familiar with the film that we both got very excited when watching stand up comedy a few years ago when we noticed that one of the comedians was "the DJ with one line at Keira Knightley's wedding".

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) directed by Frank Capra

What to say about this superb film that has not already been said? A box office disappointment at the time, it has since become a classic through the medium of TV. It stars James Stewart (of course) as frustrated banker George Bailey who has never had time to fulfil his dreams. He then has a particularly crappy Christmas Eve, accidentally losing a small fortune thanks to his bumbling Uncle Billy and the evil machinations of the richest man in town, Mr Potter, who shared none of his descendant Harry's endearing characteristics. After throwing a bit of a wobbly, Bailey decides that the only sensible course of action is to throw himself off a bridge. So far, so Christmassy.

Luckily he is rescued by a slightly camp and befuddled angel called Clarence (the brilliant Henry Travers) who transports him to an alternative universe where he never existed, making him realise that he has touched the lives of the people all around him in ways that he did not even realise. He goes back and finds that he has dozens of friends who have come together to sort everything out for him and they all sing in Christmas and live happily ever after. If you think Love Actually is schmaltzy, then perhaps best to give this one a miss, but if you have a soul, watch it now. If you want to know whether they are showing it at Christmas in a particular year, the best thing to do is watch Eastenders. If someone in Eastenders casually mentions that it's on, it won't be. If it's not mentioned, then it will definitely be on!

Others worthy of mention are:

The Great Escape (1963), another Christmas TV classic, because nothing says its Christmas like Richard Attenborough and 49 other POWs being executed in cold blood by the Gestapo (the American stars don't get the same treatment, mind you, not even the ones who aren't playing Americans, like "Australian" James Coburn, who I believe used Dick Van Dyke as his voice coach);

Miracle on 34th Street (1947/1994) - both versions are good, with excellent Santas (Edmund Gwenn and Richard Attenborough, the latter managing to dodge the Gestapo this time, only having to contend with the marginally less obnoxious Mara Wilson); and

A Christmas Toy (1986) - one from Julie's childhood this, with more Muppetesque creatures. Watch it and tell me you don't think Toy Story is a total shameless rip off!

Back in the New Year!

Al