Category: not a book

book adjacent, Children's books, film, not a book

Book Adjacent: Bedknobs and Broomsticks

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Angela Lansbury would have been 100 last month, so today I’m talking about one of my favourite childhood movies – Bedknobs and Broomsticks – which had magic and witches and is thus perfect for a post-Halloween autumn afternoon.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is loosely based on two books by Mary Norton, who also wrote the Borrowers books. In this Disney version it’s 1940 and three orphans, Charles, Carrie and Paul, are evacuated to the village of Pepperinge Eye on the Dorset coast where they are billeted with the very reluctant Eglantine Price. They try to run away to London but change their mind when they discover Miss Price is a witch. When they try to blackmail her about this, she turns Paul into a rabbit and says that she’s learning magic to try and help fight the Nazis. When her correspondence course writes to say it’s closing down, they head to London on a flying bed to track down her teacher to try and get the final spell on the course. But it turns out the teacher is Emelius Brown, who is a street magician who has no idea his spell work when it’s Miss Price using them. And that’s only got you to the halfway point. The second half has a trip to a magical island and a Nazi invasion to thwart.

As well as Angela Lansbury as Miss Price, it has David Tomlinson (aka Mr Banks in Mary Poppins) as Emelius Brown, Reginald Owen (Admiral Boom from Poppins) and for Brits of a certain age Bruce Forsyth as a spiv. Like Mary Poppins it has a mix of live action and animation sequences and music by the Sherman Brothers. As is often the case the song that got the Oscar nomination (The Age of Not Believing) is not my favourite in the but Beautiful Briny, Substitutiary Locomotion, The Old Home Guard and the Portobello Road songs are singalong bangers.

Like so many Disney films, it was adapted into a musical a few years back and I saw it on tour in Northampton. That was ok rather than brilliant, it was great to hear the songs from the movie but I didn’t love the new additions and I can see why it never went into the West End. My sister and I recorded this off the TV (one Christmas I think) and watched it in rotation with about four other videos on Saturday nights while we were eating dinner in front of the TV (our weekend treat). Even now if I happened across it on TV on a weekend afternoon I’m pretty sure I would stop and watch it to the end.

Have a great Sunday.

film, not a book

Not a Book: The Sting

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It’s Sunday and I’m back with a film recommendation today. Robert Redford died just over a month ago and this is both my favourite film of his and possibly my favourite heist film too.

The Sting is the story of two professional grifters who team up to try and con a mob boss. The plot is very complicated and I’m not even going to try and explain it more because I’m not sure I can. It’s got twist after twist after twist. Robert Redford is Johnny Hooker who is out for revenge on Lonnegan who has murdered one of his partners. Paul Newman is Henry Gondorff, an older conman who he recruits to help him. Lonnegan is Robert Shaw who you may also have seen in Jaws but also as the Spectre assassin in From Russia With Love. And it’s also the movie that caused a resurgence in Scott Joplin and ragtime music when it came out.

I don’t want to say too much about it all because I don’t want to ruin it. I knew very little about it the first time I watched it and i was on the edge of my seat for a large amount of it not knowing where it was going and how it was going to work out. It’s just so cleverly put together. And the good news is that you can watch the whole thing for free – legally – with ads on YouTube. It’s a perfect Sunday afternoon movie. Enjoy!

film, not a book

Not a Book: Rocky Horror documentary

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Happy Sunday everyone, and I’ve got a new release film for you this week that I went to see yesterday and am posting about straight away beause screenings may be limited and (spoiler) I really liked it and want it to do well.

Strange Journey is a documentary telling the story of Rocky Horror documentary as it went from Upstairs at the Royal Court in London, to the Kings Road in Chelsea, to LA to the big screen and then its transformation into probably the ultimate cult movie. It’s directed by Linus O’Brien who is the son of Rocky creator and original Riff Raff Richard O’Brien and as well as being a history of Rocky, it’s also the story of Richard O’Brien’s own journey with his gender identity. It’s got all the talking heads you could want, as well as Richard O’Brien – singing some of the songs while playing them on guitar at 83! – it has Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Jim Sharman and most importantly Tim Curry. And there’s loads of behind the scenes footage too – it turns out someone had a cine camera behind the scenes of the Rocky movie shoot as well as at some of the early London theatre performances, so you get to see them all in their original incarnations as well as things like watching Curry performing Sweet Transvestite to the movie camera with all the trappings of the set. I’ve put the trailer in here because it gives you a good idea of what you’re in for:

It’s very much a history and appreciation – it’s got Trixie Mattel and Jack Black for talking heads as well as various film academics and shadow cast members talking about the historical significance of the film and the positive effect that it has had on their lives. I really enjoyed it – it brought a tear to my eye more than once and I once again remember that Tim Curry’s Frank N Furter is incredible.

I’m not sure how old I was when I first saw the movie, but I first went to the touring musical when I was in my final year at uni – and came straight out of the early evening show and bought a ticket to see the late show and watched it again from the front row, having spent more of my monthly budget than I intended and then went out to the stage door afterwards (not a very Verity thing to do) and got a picture with David Bedella (an even less Verity thing) which I still have, still think I look goofy in, but still sort of love all the same. So I think I’m the ideal audience member for this, and can’t really work out how it will land if you’re not a Rocky fan. But then it’s a cult of its own really, so hopefully some of the people who go to midnight screenings every week will turn out to see it.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Matchroom

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Happy Sunday everyone, I’m back with a streaming recommendation this week for something that may have gone under your radar, especially if you’re not in the UK.

Matchroom are a sporting event and sports promotion company that was founded by Barry Hearn in the early 1980s. Barry started out in snooker, managing Steve Davis and then moved into snooker promotion founding Matchroom and then taking the company into boxing and darts. Barry’s son Eddie is now in the business with him, and the premise of the series is that you’re getting a look behind the scenes at the company.

Of course it’s not that simple. The subtitle of the show is The Greatest Showmen and Barry and Eddie are very, very aware of the cameras and the storylines, as you might expect for men who work in the world of boxing and also who live in Brentwood, the home of that original British manufactured reality series The Only Way is Essex – and yes, we do get some cutaway shots of the exterior of Sugar Hut just to remind you of that. And don’t forget the Only Fools and Horses call backs just to remind you that they (well Barry) have come from nothing and made it big. Barry is talking about retirement, Eddie is desperate to take over, but there are other options inside the company for Barry than his son, who may be hungrier and scrappier than Eddie.

And it’s full of egos, rivalries and shouting matches. Get Eddie in front of a microphone – at a press conference or in a radio studio and he’ll start an argument with someone. At times he seems like a man who could argue with his own shadow without realising that he is doing it. People say that women are bitchy, but the levels of petty and grudge holding in this are off the scale. I like snooker, I can take or leave darts but boxing is one of the few sports that I don’t watch, so I watched the actual fighting sections through my fingers (or even looking away at some points). But even if you don’t like any of the sports involved, I think it’s pretty worth watching – for the pettiness, but also to spot the bits where something real pokes out from under the puff piece, and to watch Eddie and Barry trying to control their edits – and whether it works!

We watched all six episodes across two and a bit nights – and I would happily watch another series, although given how the fights featured in the series went for the Matchroom stable, Eddie may not be up for series two!

Have a great Sunday.

book adjacent, not a book, theatre

Book Adjacent: Born With Teeth

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It’s Sunday and I’m back again with another theatre post because I cheered myself up about being back in the UK and the terrible weather with a trip to see a play on Tuesday.

Born with Teeth is a play about the relationship between William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. In this European premiere, Will is played by Edward Bluemel and Kit by Ncuti Gatwa. The exact relationship between Marlowe and Shakespeare is a matter of huge scholarly debate, but in this telling the two men are collaborators at the least. Over the course of a tight 90 minutes you see the changing fortunes of the two men as we go from 1591 to 1593. Elizabethan England in this telling is a surveillance state rife with spies, where a playwright can struggle to make enough money to live unless they have a wealthy patron – or a side hustle.

For me, the performances are the star here – I find it hard to work out if the play would actually work anywhere near as well with two different actors. Gatwa and Bluemel play brilliantly off each other, and the similarity in their statures is an asset as the fortunes of the two men change and their relationship develops – there’s no physical dominance in terms of height – it’s all in the performances and charisma.

We saw this on Tuesday, and before we went to Wyndams theatre we spent half an hour people watching at the Noel Coward (which basically backs on to it) where it was the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest, which has transferred in from the National, where Gatwa played Algernon. I love Earnest and was annoyed to have missed out on that one (too slow on the ticket buying front for it to be in my budget) so was keen to see Born With Teeth to see Gatwa and also to see why he might have chosen to do this rather than transfer in with Earnest (Olly Alexander is now playing Earnest, with Stephen Fry as Lady Bracknell instead of Sharon D Clarke) and I can see why this appealed to Gatwa – a two-hander, with plenty of scope to stretch your acting chops, rather than re-visit something you’ve already done. Gatwa was my favourite but I was both pleased and surpirsed to see that Bluemel who I only knew from My Lady Jane (RIP) was so good and so nearly as good as him!

This is on until November 1 – we got a good deal on tickets and it was definitely worth it for the performances. And if you like Shakespearean speculation, go and see this now, because I don’t think it’s something that will work as well without performances as good as these!

audio, not a book

Not a Book: Unicorn Girl

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Happy Sunday everyone, I hope everyone is making the most of the weekend, and that it hasn’t turned too-too cold and wet where you are. I’m back with another podcast today, which is the next series from the presenter of Scamanda, the podcast that inspired the documentary series that featured in a previous Not a Book.

Unicorn Girl is about the rise and fall of Candace Rivera, a divorced single mum in Utah, who built an online community based around her successes as a nurse and a CEO of multi-million dollar companies. But as you can probably guess, all wasn’t quite what she wanted you to think it was. Over the course of nine episodes, Charlie Webster tries to work out what was actually going on and who Candace really was. The first episode of this dropped into the Scamanda feed in mid-August, I listened to it and then went straight over to the Unicorn Girl feed to listen to episode two. And then I got Apple Plus so that I could listen to the rest of the series straight away rather than having to wait for a new episode each week.

Now that was partly because I have poor impulse control, but also because early on Charlie says that there’ll be times when you’re listening when nothing seems to add up, but by the end of the series it will all make sense. And that’s a brave thing to say (in my opinion!) when you’re trying to get people to keep listening, but it also intrigued me. And she’s not wrong. Candace’s con (so to speak) is a lot more complicated than Amanda’s was. In Scamanda, Charlie jumps backwards and forwards in time a bit but Amanda is really just doing the same con more than once. But Candace has got a lot of things going on and is juggling a lot of balls and that all makes it a lot more difficult to follow.

It must be really hard to follow up a series as successful as Scamanda, because so much is depending on finding the right story – the world of podcasts is littered with attempts to follow up something great that haven’t quite come off. It needs to be similar enough that your previous audience will still be interested, but not so similar that it feels like a total retread. And Candace’s story has got a lot going for it on that front, not least interviews with loads of the women who were working for or friends with Candance as well as Candace’s own voice from her social media posts. But there’s just so much going on. However, without wanting to give too much of a spoiler, this has more resolution to it than Scamanda did when I first listened to it (although no more than the documentary series had by the time that it came out).

I hope that doesn’t sound too negative – because make no mistake, I binged this podcast – listening to all nine episodes in less than three days as well as obviously signing up to a subscription service to be able to do that. I do think Scamanda is better, but if you’re interested in the same sort of Utah/Mormon-adjacent/religion-adjacent sort of things that I am (and I’ve written about enough of them at this point) then it’s worth a look. I’ve even held onto this post for a few weeks so that almost all the series is available without having to subscribe to anything! You’re welcome.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Shiny Happy People season 2

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It’s been a couple of years since the first series of Shiny Happy People, which was about the Duggar family and the IBLP, and now there is a second series this time not focusing on the Duggars but on Teen Mania, an evangelical group for teenagers which gained popularity across the US in the early 90s.

This is a three part series that shows how a group that initially presents as a evangelical pep rally for teens that also offers mission trips evolved into a militaristic group of young people being groomed to lay down their lives for Jesus. Yes, you read that right, these teenagers ended up doing military-inspired survival missions and expecting do die in the name of their faith.

And I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t expecting this to get quite so dark when it started with giant stadium rallies for teens with Christian rock music and a pastor riding in on a motorcycle. I’ve watched a lot of documentaries about various Christian movements (and written about them here*) and I thought I knew what I was expecting – but this is something else. This one is less sexual abuse and predation, more straight up abuse and fraud with added fascism and indoctrination. If you remember Generation Joshua from series one, this is like the military wing of that. It’s quite shocking.

But as we seem to be seeing increasing Christian nationalism happening in the USA, this is a really interesting look at how something that starts off seemingly healthy – I can’t imagine many parents objecting to their teens going to a Christian event with their youth group (as opposed say to going to a rock concert on their own), and a mission trip abroad where they’re raising their own money to go might seem like a good opportunity too – can end up in people being dumped a state over from the college they’re at, with no money and no food and told to get back to campus with their giant wooden cross.

This is a three part series – and I watched it back to back one Saturday afternoon while I was doing the ironing. It’s a really well put together watch, with great voices talking about their experiences and solid talking heads.

Shiny Happy People is on Amazon Prime.

*Other religious or religion adjacent documentaries as well as Shiny Happy People series one, the duo of Hillsong documentaries, the two Twin Flames docs, Keep Sweet, Murder Among the Mormons, Unfinished: Short Creek, LulaRich and more tangentially Scamanda who partly used her church for her scam.

audio, not a book

Not a Book: The Plot Thickens

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Happy Sunday everyone, and I’m back with another podcast recommendation for you today. Regular readers will know that I’m really interested in stories of Old Hollywood and the latest series of The Plot Thickens is a really good one of those from an interesting perspective.

The Plot Thickens is TCM’s official podcast, and is now in its sixth season. In previous series host Ben Mankiewicz has looked at director Peter Bogdanovich, the making of the movie Bonfire of the Vanities, the careers of Lucille Ball, Pam Grier and John Ford. But it’s the sixth and most recent season that I really want to talk about because it’s about the making of the movie Cleopatra. Now the production of Cleopatra was legendarily troubled – with budgets ballooning, timelines expanding and stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s scandalous affair.

So what is different about this look at it I hear you say. Well the difference is that Ben Mankiewicz is the nephew of Joseph L Mankiewicz, the legendary writer and director who directed and co-wrote Cleopatra. Ben Mankiewicz has access to the family archive, including his uncle’s diaries and unheard interviews with cast and crew, as well as interviews with film experts. I’ve read about the production of Cleopatra as it has come up in the books about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton that I’ve read, but they’re not really covering the film production itself, more as the catalyst for their love affair. So I learned loads from this, because as well as the production of the film and the difficulties on set, it looks at how the film affected Joseph Mankiewicz. And as a hint: Ben says early on that the family used to joke that Joe’s brother Herman wrote the best movie of all time (Citizen Kane) while Joe directed the worst. It’s also got a lot about the economics of film production and dying days of the old studio system.

All the parts are out now and as well as finding it on all the usual podcast platforms, it’s on YouTube too. And if you want some of my other recommendations for Old Hollywood, I’ve written about a pair of Liz Taylor documentaries, the Liza Minelli documentary, the podcast You Must Remember This, actor memoirs, Judy Garland, books about Hollywood to name just a few.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: The Producers is back

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Happy Sunday everyone and your reminder that if you missed the Menier Chocolate production of The Producers last Christmas, it’s now transferred to the West End and previews started last night (30th August). I’m off to see it again in about ten days time – so I may yet report back on how or whether it has changed a lot in the move from a very small theatre to a bigger one, but in the meantime, here is my review from last winter as well as their performance at West End Live in June.

book adjacent, theatre

Book Adjacent: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

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I’ve got another lovely theatre visit to tell you about this Sunday – but if you want to see it in London, you’ll need to hurry, because it is only on in London until September 7th, then it’s back out on tour around the UK.

I can’t believe there’s many people out here who don’t know the story, but in case you don’t the four Pevensie children have been evacuated to escape World War II and find themselves living in a big house, owned by a professor. In the house there is a wardrobe that leads to the land of Narnia, which the children help free from the tyranny of The White Witch, with the help of Aslan the Lion and some talking animals. This is a really neat and compact adaptation – it’s a tight two hours ten including interval, which considering the 2005 movie was two and a half hours, and the 1988 tv series which I grew up on was 6 parts and nearly three hours in total. It’s still got all the stuff you remember – Mr Tunmus, the Turkish Delight, the Beavers, Father Christmas etc – so you won’t be disappointed on that front, but short enough that children (hopefully) don’t get too fidgety*.

I wouldn’t exactly describe this as a musical, but it has got some songs – wartime inspired in the “real” world and then folky ones in Narnia. The supporting cast are playing the instruments as well as dancing and playing multiple characters so they’re a really talented group. The children near me seemed to find Maugrim (the chief of the secret police) scary, but that was the only bit that seemed to be an issue- and I think the child in question was about five. There are some great bits of stage illusion and puppetry too so it would make a great alternative to a panto if you’re near Salford at Christmas.

Honestly it really flew by and I would totally recommend it, maybe not as a first show for children but certainly as an early theatre experience. It’s got some really clever puppetry and set design to turn a stage into a magical land. I don’t even think you really need to be familiar with the original book to enjoy 5)3 show.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is at Sadlers wells until early September and then it goes back out on tour around the UK. You can find tour dates here.

*the night I was there someone had been giving out bags of popcorn and the noise was insane for the first 20 minutes or so, but there wasn’t any restlessness before the interval.