Category: not a book

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Hadestown

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Another week, another theatre review, and given that the Hadestown cast is changing at the end of this week, I would have posted this last weekend, if it wasn’t for the fact that I think more people know about Hadestown than they do The Battle.

Hadestown tells a version of the story of the Ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, with the story transposed to an industrial factory version of the underworld, which Eurydice escapes to because of poverty and hunger. The show has a slightly complicated production history, which included a run at the National Theatre in London in 2018 before it went to Broadway and won the Tony for Best Musical Tony in 2019. It then returned to London in 2024 to take up residence at the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, where it has proved tremendously popular and commanded ticket prices and availability to match.

This explains why I only just managed to go and see it – I go to a lot of shows and I have rules about how much I will spend. I did try for the period the other summer when the original Broadway cast came over here for a limited run ahead of a pro-shoot, but the fans were there quicker than me to the cheap seats, and so it took a good ticket offer before Christmas to get me there (and if I’d realised it was during the Winter Olympic Skating programme I would have picked a different date!) to see what all the fuss is about. I have a mixed record with Best Musical Tony Winners. I tend to prefer the Big and Fun when it comes to musicals and the Tony’s can sometimes go with the Not Big and Fun option. There are a few years when I look at the nominees and I am genuinely torn between which I like more (La Cage aux Folles vs Sunday in the Park With George in 1984, Avenue Q vs Wicked in 2004 – and I still wish I had had the chance to see Hugh Jackman in Boy from Oz) but in the main I am a commercial musical girl except when it comes to Sondheim.

All of which is to say that I can see why people love this (and I know several people who do) but it is not my thing. It is clever and it is well staged, but it is not a Verity Show. Our show was sold out – yes it was half term week, but there were also a few understudies on and it is clearly the sort of show that has a fan base who want to see as many different people in the roles as possible – because they have a loyalty card you can get stamped to get access to special merch. And I respect that, even as it makes me feel super old, because I would absolutely have been in the market for that for We Will Rock You back in the day. I would probably still have my special WWRY merch in a drawer the way I still have my Gaga t-shirt. So all in all very much a Nice To Tick Off The List for me more than anything else. I can confirm that my current count is 29 out of 76 best musicals (with another 3 if you count amateur productions), 22 out of 49 Best Musical Oliviers and I still have another seven (across the two lists some appear on both) that I could tick off if I pull my finger out and get to the long runners in the West End I still haven’t seen. Maybe 2026 is the year…

Have a Great Sunday!

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: The Battle

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A bit of regional theatre for you this week, because for Valentine’s Day we headed to Birmingham to see a new play and it was a lot of fun with a dose of nostalgia attached.

The Battle is a play about the period in 1995 which could possibly be called Peak Britpop, where Oasis and Blur fought it out for the top spot in the singles charts. Britpop was a much larger movement than just these two bands, but the rivalry between them was fierce and really defined the era – Blur, southern and arty and Oasis, Mancunian and unfiltered. Some people will ahve it that you were either one side or the other, but there were plenty who liked both. Matthew Dunster, a former music industry A&R man, has written his first play imagining what was going on behind the scenes of the key moments that people might remember about the feud.

Anyway, this isn’t really a review, because we saw it a few days ahead of press night, and judging from the reviews a few things that we didn’t love may have changed, but is a recommendation because we had such a great time and laughed so hard so much of the time. There are some really good one liners here and some fabulous performances. The names in the cast are Matthew Horne (of Gavin and Stacey fame) as the boss of Blur’s record label, who is excellent whenever you see him but you sort of want more of him, and Louisa Lytton (Eastenders and the Bill) as Noel Gallagher’s girlfriend Meg Matthews, but I thought George Usher as Liam Gallagher (who is making his professional debut in the role) was the standout.

I’m trying not to think about the fact that the 90s are as long ago now as the 60s were back then. Because that is impossible and makes me feel a bit sick. When we saw it, the audience was wearing a lot of Oasis and Blur merch – and a report I saw on the TV earlier this week said that the bars at the theatre had reported near record sales so hopefully it’s doing well with the people who remember it when but I’m hoping it will also find an audience among people who don’t remember the original battle. And that’s because the 1990s seem to be back in fashion at the moment and going through a discovery moment for people who weren’t there at the time, which as someone who does remember particularly the second half of the decade is slightly traumatic.

Anyway, this is on at Birmingham Rep until the 7th March and then moves to Manchester Opera House for a week from 17 March. If you’re near enough by, I think it’s worth a trip.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: H M S Pinafore

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Happy Sunday everyone! Today I’m talking about last week’s theatre trip, but it’s less a review than some thoughts, because this run of the show has now finished – although as it was a re-staging and got excellent reviews, hopefully it’ll be back again in a couple of years.

H M S Pinafore is a comic opera in two acts by Gilbert and Sullivan, and on its debut in 1878 was their first big international success. It tells the story of Captain Corcoran and his daughter Josephine – he wants to marry her off to the First Lord of the Admiralty, she wants to marry a (very) lowly sailor on her father’s ship. Hilarity ensues. And it really does, because this is directed by Cal McCrystal and its original production in 2021 was nominated for the Best Opera Olivier. I’ve popped the trailer in below, because although the footage is from that prior production, it is at least the same actor playing Captain Corcoran and the sets are the same too.

I have not watched a lot of opera, and I went to see this almost entirely because of Cal McCrystal. he directed Spymonkey‘s Cooped, which remains one of of the hardest times I’ve ever laughed, as well as One Man, Two Gu’vnors and the last opera that I saw – my first Gilbert and Sullivan – Iolanthe. And the two G&S productions have some things in common – namely lots of physical comedy, plenty of innuendo and some fun updating to make the references work as topical today (the way they did when it was first put on). This has also got Mel Giedroyc in it, playing two parts and breaking the fourth wall at every available opportunity.

I’m obviously not familiar enough with the original material to tell you exactly how much tinkering has been done, but I liked it and from what I could tell all the people around me did too, and my section seemed to include lots of G&S fans and amateur performers! The orchestra (conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren) sounded incredible and the singing was beautiful. Add in some clever choreography, really well executed and a flock of enormous crinolines and I had a ball. My standout performer was John Savournin as Captain Corcoran – he’s a Gilbert and Sullivan specialist (I saw him in Iolanthe as well) who is clearly having a ball as he delivers the material absolutely beautifully. I would happily have gone back to see it again, and will be watching out for the next Gilbert and Sullivan production – having seen two done by McCrystal, I feel like I should see one that he’s not involved in for contrast if nothing else!

I leave you with a dash of Spymonkey, because this clip never fails to make me laugh. If it wasn’t the Winter Olympics, I’d be getting my Cooped DVD out to watch it again about now, but there’s figure skating tonight (Pairs short programme!) and I’ve got a lot of jobs to do first…

Happy Sunday!

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: America’s Team

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While I am going to be deep in the Winter Olympic Figure Skating Team event this evening, it’s also the Super Bowl tonight, and as you know by now, I’m a bit of a NFL fan. But it’s lucky I’ve got the Olympics to distract me, because once again the Cowboys aren’t in it. It’s been a while now. I’m starting to lose patience, but what can you do they’re my team and you have to stand by them even when they’re playing terribly. But while the Vince Lombardi won’t be heading back to Dallas this year, I thought I’d write about Netflix’s documentary about the Cowboys and the team’s owner Jerry Jones.

The official title for this is America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys, and that’s very much the tone of the doc – this is the story of Jerry’s Cowboys: how he bought them and what he did with them. And it’s quite the ride. Thirty plus years on from the start of the Jerry Jones era it’s easy to forget – or depending on your age not really appreciate what happened in Dallas in the decade from the mid-80s to the mid 90s. And this will give you that – the main focus of the bulk of the episodes is the building of the team that won three Super Bowls in four years and the stories and excesses around it.

The success of this is that its has managed to get pretty much everyone involved in the rise (and fall) who is still alive to take part. And that’s some feat given the feuds and the strong feelings that people have about it all. The Jerry Jones-Jimmy Johnson situation was quite something, for perspective it was only in 2023 that Johnson was inducted into the Cowboys Ring of Honor – nearly 20 years after the three key players of the Super Bowl winning teams that he coached. And they’re all pretty frank too. It’s very warts and all – not just with the backroom staff, but with players admitting their drug use and the special treatment they got from the police. So there’s plenty of salacious stuff in here for the casual view and fan.

The thing that really struck me was that it felt like while the massive success was happening, the players and the organisation didn’t really seem to think it would come to an end – like this is the Cowboys domination era and it will continue. And these things never go on forever in sports – whether it’s Manchester United in football or Ferrari or Red Bull in F1 you can’t stay on top forever no matter how hard you try. I also found it really interesting to help understand some of the decisions that the organisation (well Jerry!) has taken since. Even though the documentary glosses over the last thirty years quite a lot, if you’ve been following the team you can see Jerry trying to recreate the trades or the deals that brought them to that early 90s domination in the hopes that it will bring it back again.

And that explains why fans can get so exasperated with the Cowboys – it’s the most valuable sports franchise in the world according to Forbes (and has been since 2016) but it hasn’t won the SuperBowl or a Conference championship 1995. Jerry is the General Manager of the Cowboys as well as the owner – and that’s not a usual thing. But watching him in this, he’s supremely unbothered by what people think of him – he wants to do it his way or not at all.

This one is on Netflix – if you’re a sports fan it’s an interesting watch but if you’re a casual viewer and only going to watch one documentary about the Cowboys though, it should still be the first season of America’s Sweethearts!

comedy, not a book, streaming

Not a Book: I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not

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Happy Sunday, it’s documentary o’clock again, and this is one that came out around New Year, so I’m even kind of topical for once. Check Me.

I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not is a documentary film exploring the life and career of Chevy Chase. For those who are younger than me: Now in his 80s, Chevy Chase was the breakout star from the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975 and left the show in its second season to go to Hollywood. In the 1980s he was in a string of box office hits – in Caddyshack, three National Lampoon’s Vacation movies and the one I remember being repeated on TV when I was a child: Three Amigos. But as the 90s progressed his movie career stalled out and he only really returned to prominence when he was cast in the sitcom Community in 2009, and then that ended badly. As you can see from the trailer, this has interviews with the man himself, his family, some of his costars and others who have worked with him behind the scenes and a few other famous talking heads.

Now the other thing that you need to know about him is that he’s got a bit of a reputation for being an “asshole”. I read Nick de Semylen’s Wild and Crazy Guys back in 2023 and he didn’t come over as particularly sympathetic in that. And he’s not helping himself out in some of the interviews that he does for this either. There are some glaring absences among the talking heads of people who have worked with him. So he’s not a massively sympathetic figure a lot of the time. But his childhood sounds grim and he’s been married to the same woman for more than 40 years and so that helps soften him a little. And he’s been ill recently – with time in a coma which has left him with some memory loss, which along with the coke addiction may mean that he’s not (always) lying when he says that he doesn’t remember doing or saying what others say he did or said.

This is directed by Marina Zenovich, who also made Lance about Lance Armstrong (which is really good) and Robin Williams: Come Inside my Mind (which I have on my to watch list) as well as other documentaries including two about Roman Polanski and another about Richard Prior. So she has plenty of experience with making films about comedians and it shows because the clips she’s picked of Chevy in his comedy prime are really good. If you weren’t around for his hey day (which I wasn’t) it’s easy to just dismiss him because of the stories about what a nightmare he can be. But he’s hard going when he’s not playing a character. He really is. Just read this New York Times interview he did with Zenovich to promote the documentary if you don’t believe me.

This is on Sky Documentaries and Now TV in the UK and on CNN in the US at the moment. It is due to appear on HBO Max at the end of January

Happy Sunday!

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Death Cap

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Happy Sunday everyone, I’m back with a documentary series for you this week, but just a warning to start with, it may make you wary of eating mushrooms for a while after you eat it!

Has there been a more notorious true crime case in the last five years than the case of the Mushroom Murders in Australia? I’ll wait. Erin Patterson invited four of her in-laws over for lunch and afterwards three of them died and the fourth nearly died. When the investigation started it discovered that the four victims had ingested death cap mushrooms. The story was soon being covered by international media outlets, and when the trial happened this summer there were multiple daily podcasts about the case as well as a huge amount of reporters from around the world covering the case.

This is a three part documentary which explores the investigation and trial and has the advantage of many true crime docs because of all the coverage that this case had. I’m not a big true crime person, but so many of the series that I have watched are reliant on reconstructions. This does not have that issue. There were journalists on the ground from the start, this was clearly in the process of being made during the trial and because it’s so recent the memories of the locals that are interviewed are fresh. It’s so fresh in fact that Erin Patterson’s appeal against her sentence (sorry, spoiler!) was only lodged in November.

For me, the most interesting part of this case was seeing and finding out more about the part of Australia where this happened. Leongatha has a population of less than 6,000. Morwell where the trial took place has around 15,000 residents. They’re both in the Gippsland area of Victoria, which basically looks like beautiful English countryside and not like the desert outback that you so often picture when you think of Australia. And the Paterson case turned the town upside down – firstly because everyone knows everyone there and secondly because of the huge attention it garnered. I watched all three episodes back to back one night in the run up to Christmas and could have watched another hour if there was one. All of which means that I suspect this won’t be the last content about this case I consume, even if I haven’t knowingly eaten mushrooms since!

If you want to watch this, it was made by the Australian streamer Stan and has been sold on to various different streamers in other parts of the world. The trailer I found on YouTube is for CNN and says it’s a CNN Original, but in the UK it’s on Netflix. So you may have to have a little hunt on your local streaming services to find out where this is in your territory.

not a book

Not a Book: Not-Theatre 2026 Lookahead

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This is the very final start of year post, I promise. But after the theatre lookahead yesterday, today there are a few bits and bobs that are happening this year that aren’t plays or musicals that I wanted to mention.

Obviously we are less than a month away now from the Winter Olympics, which are happening in Milan and Cortina. I am very, very excited about this, but at the moment I’m even more excited about the fact that the European Figure Skating Championships is happening in Sheffield this week coming, and even better: I’m going. It is not very often that we get an international figure skating competition here – but when they do come it’s usually in Sheffield and I go! I was at the Grand Prix a couple of years ago, and I was also at the Europeans last time they were here – all the way back in 2012.

Also happening in the UK (but that I don’t have tickets for) this year we have the Commonwealth Games which are back in Glasgow because all the other host options dropped out and the European Athletics Championships which are being held in the UK for the first time, at the Alexandra Stadium where I went to see the Commonwealth Games Athletics four years ago. It’s also the men’s World Cup football this summer which has more countries taking part than ever before and is also being staged across three countries for the first time in the USA, Canada and Mexico. This means that for a few weeks this summer, the nation will be gripped with hope that one of our teams will win. This feeling will be fleeting.

Away from the sport to something else that’s actually in the ticket box and this year I’m finally going to see Rufus Wainwright’s Judy Garland concert. This is based on the 1961 comeback concert series that Garland did. I’ve owned the CD of the Rufus version for about 15 years now, and didn’t think I would ever get the chance to see it live, but to mark the 20th anniversary of his original run of it at Carnegie Hall, he’s doing it at the Royal Albert Hall. For those of you who are counting, this will be my fourth or fifth time seeing Rufus – depending on if you count the two Proms on the same day in 2023 separately or not!

Rufus is actually my only musical event in the box at the moment, because the Boyzone reunion concert is happening on a weekend that really doesn’t work for me (and they didn’t add any other dates beyond the first two) and I’ve already seen Take That more than once. But we don’t have the line up for the Proms this year yet, and that’s often where a lot of my concerts come from. And I’m also eyeing up some comedy. As you may know we are deep in Taskmaster at the moment, and several of the comedians that we have really enjoyed on that are on tour this year and coming near us so bookings are definitely possible!

There are a couple of art exhibitions that I really want to see too. There’s a Seurat exhibition at the Courtauld. I have a real soft spot for Seurat and this is the first dedicated exhibition to him in the UK in 30 years. And looking right ahead to the end of the year there is a Renoir exhibition at the National which also falls squarely into my favourite bits of painting. So I’m already plotting when to go to both of those. This summer National Portrait Gallery has got a Marilyn Monroe exhibition to mark the centenary of her birth. The V&A has got a Wallace and Gromit exhibition coming to the Young V&A and a Schiaparelli one at the main museum. Sidenote: I still haven’t been to the new V&A Storehouse and really want to, but the David Bowie archive is already booked out, so I may wait for some availability there before I go there. Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of his death so combined with the fact that it’s only just gone on sale, I’m not surprised it’s popular!

Have a great Sunday everyone!

theatre

Not a Book: 2026 Theatre Lookahead

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Yes, I know, you thought that I was done with the start of year posts, but no. One of the other things you hear a lot about from me on here is theatre, so here is what’s coming up this year in the theatre.

A view of Shaftesbury Avenue at night

I’m going to start with the things that I’ve already got in the ticket box. Firstly in May I’m off to Essex to see Thespians, Mischief’s first musical. This is set in Ancient Greece and is about the invention of acting and the world’s first play. As you know, I have such a soft spot for Mischief – I wrote about Christmas Carol Goes Wrong just a couple of weeks ago and I’ve seen so much of their other stuff too and I can’t wait to see what they do with a musical.

Also in the (virtual) ticket box is Jesus Christ Superstar. This is a revival and also a restaging – it’s the Regents Park production of a few years ago that I didn’t manage to get to see, but at the London Palladium this summer and starring Sam Ryder as Jesus. This is the last of the Andrew Lloyd Webber mega musicals that I haven’t seen live in the theatre (although I have seen the early 2000s DVD version quite a few times) and although it’s not my favourite musical, after missing out on the hot tickets that were Sunset Boulevard and Evita revivals the last two years this time I’ve decided to go for it!

Talking on missing out and Evita, I’ve already missed out on tickets for the Last Five Years concert perfomances (also at the Palladium) starring Rachel Ziegler and Ben Platt which are happening in March and were gone in the blink of an eye. Even sooner that that though is the Cynthia Erivo one woman Dracula. That starts in early Februrary and is by the same production team who produced the one-woman Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook that won a bunch of Oliviers and Tonys.

We’ve also got the London premiere of John Proctor is the Villain, which I’ve been reading about on the various theatre forums for a couple of years at this point. It’s play about a group of high school students studying Arthur Miller’s The Cruicible and got seven Tony nominations for the Broadway production last year, which starred Sadie Sink. No news on the cast for this transfer at the Royal Court, but it’s a Sonia Friedman production (like Merrily) so it could be pretty good on that front too.

Another Broadway transfer is Beetlejuice, which premiered on Broadway back in 2019 and I suspect would ahve been in London sooner but for the pandemic and all that malarkey. There are quite a few plays transferring into the West End from other theatres too – there’s Shadowlands with Hugh Bonneville, which started at Chichester; Grace Pervades starring Ralph Finnes and Miranda Raison coming in from Bath; and Rosamund Pike in Interalia which is coming in from across the river at the National. Talking of the National, they’ve got a revival of Les Liasions Dangereuses, starring Lesley Manville and Aiden Turner.

And finally I’m totally fascinated to see the revival of Avenue Q. You might remember that I went to one of the anniversary performances in 2024 and although I still adored it and the original cast, there are definitely things that haven’t aged well and I wonder how it will hit for new audiences who haven’t got the fond memories of the original that I do. I haven’t booked yet, but I’ll definitely be there at least once!

Have a great weekend everyone!

film, not a book, streaming, tv

Not a Book: What I watched this Christmas

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Happy Sunday everyone, it’s the last day of the Christmas and New Year holidays and so I thought I’d treat you to a recap of some of the Christmas viewing in my household.

I should start by saying that much sport has been watched, thanks to the Africa Cup of Nations, the Premier League and the NFL. Three months until the motorsport seasons starts again. Which, given the seasons only ended in December this year is altogether too short a break for all the teams and people involved. But that’s a story for another day.

We have also watched an awful lot of Taskmaster. This is because there was a Champion of Champions on this Christmas and I realised that we had only watched two of the seaons that the champions were from. So we’ve now watched all of series 18 and 17 and havr started series 16 which I have definitely seen some of but not all of. Fun fact: This time last year I hadn’t watched any Taskmaster at all, I watched my first ever episodes a year ago next week as it was on in the background when I was visiting my sister and her new baby. And now I have watched rather a lot of episodes just with not a lot of logic or order to them.

BBC Four is often the home of unexpected treats. This year one of them was the John Le Carre night, with a couple of documentaries and the first two episodes of the Alec Guinness adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The whole series is on the iPlayer. In fact there was a bit of a spying theme to some of my watching, because as part of the tribute night to Prunella Scales, BBC Four also showed the TV adaption of Alan Bennett’s play A Question of Attribution about the Soviet spy Sir Anthony Blunt which has a rather scene stealing turn from Scales as Elizabeth II.

Then there was Secrets of the Conclave about the behind the scenes of the real selection of the new Pope – which had a really good selection of talking heads, including the two British Cardinals who were there, one of the American cardinals and Cardinal Tagle who was named as one of the Papabile ahead of the conclave. I definitely got the feeling that one of the reasons the people were so willing to take part in this was because they had thoughts on the movie Conclave and wanted to set the record straight on how it really works – as opposed to how the Robert Harris book and movie say it goes. But that just made it an even more interesting watch.

It was also a particularly good Christmas for movies – especially old favourites. Both Murder on the Orient Expresses (Finney and Branagh) as well the Ustinov Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun for the Agatha Christie fans. There were a string of classic movies including Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much and North by Northwest and Carol Reed’s The Third Man. If you wanted something a bit newer there were some Austen adaptations as we’ve just come past the 200th anniversary – with the Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility and Clueless. I also watched When Harry Met Sally again, because how could I not, especially after the death of Rob Reiner and his wife just a few weeks ago.

And finally, it will not surprise you that I watched Kiss Me Kate again when it was on TV on New Year’s Eve. And I’ve kept it on the box so I can watch it again at a time of need. If you haven’t watched it yet despite this being the third time I’ve written about it, you can find it on the iPlayer for then next year.

Have a great Sunday and I hope you don’t have the return to work horrors ahead of the back to normal tomorrow.

book adjacent, film, streaming

Book Adjacent: Muppet Christmas Carol

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It’s Christmas Day, and I probably should have posted this yesterday because most of the action takes place on Christmas Eve, some of it is on Christmas Day, so I’m going with it. And yes I realise that this my second post about a Christmas Carol adaptation in less than a week but I maintain that this isn’t just the best Muppet Movie, it’s also the best on screen Christmas Carol adaption.

I can’t believe any of you don’t know this, but The Muppet Christmas Carol is the Muppet’s take on Dickens’ classic novel. Michael Caine plays Ebenezer Scrooge, and human actors play his nephew and his nephew’s wife, as well as Scrooge’s former love interest, but every other character in the story is played by a muppet. Kermit is Bob Cratchit, Miss Piggy is his wife, The Great Gonzo is Charles Dickens guiding us through the story, with the help of Rizzo the Rat (“light the lamp not the rat!”).

I think it goes without saying that Michael Caine is brilliant in this. There’s this quote that does the rounds on reddit every year about the movie:

The reason Michael Caine and Tim Curry are so good in their respective Muppet movies is that Michael Caine treats the Muppets as fellow actors, and Tim Curry treats himself as a fellow Muppet.

And it’s right – I’ve seen quotes where he says he treated it like he was acting at the RSC – deadly serious, straight acting. And he clearly loved making it and loves the film – as you can see in this GQ interview from 2016. But as well as Michael Caine being excellent, the Muppets are great and they’re playing characters that aren’t (just) themselves. And there are so many little touches that make it brilliant – like adding a second Marley brother so that they can be played by Stadler and Waldorf, Tiny Tim being Robin the Frog but all the girls being pigs.

So it’s got great acting, but it’s also got songs and a surprising amount of actual Dickens dialogue and it will make you smile what ever time of year you watch it. One of my friends had this on VHS when we were kids and we would watch it maybe every other month when I was over at hers. I think I knew all the words to all the songs and could probably still remember most of them although an extra one has been restored since so I’m not as good on that.

It’s on Disney+ these days, but you can also rent it from other streaming services if you don’t have that one.

Happy Christmas!