Category: not a book

film, not a book

Not a Book: The Phoenician Scheme

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Happy Sunday everyone, I hope you’ve all had a good weekend so far, and I’m back with another suggestion of something to watch – this time at the cinemas because it only came out last week.

The Phoenician Scheme is the latest film from Wes Anderson. Written by Anderson and from a story by him and Roman Coppola, it’s a black comedy about a wealthy businessman who appoints his daughter as his heir after the latest of (many) assassination attempts against him sees his plane crash (again). The two of them set off to try and save his latest business venture where they are targeted by more assassins, tycoons and terrorists.

Anderson is known for his distinctive visual style and ensemble casts featuring regular players as well as the dark comedy, nostalgia-inspired worlds and quirkiness. My first Wes Anderson was The Life Aquatic, which I saw at the cinema in my year in France. Now that is not one of his more critically acclaimed movies, but which I really enjoyed – because of that crazy aesthetic and style. I loved Grand Budapest Hotel when that came out and have been to the last couple at the cinema because I like seeing them on the big screen. I’ve never had a bad time watching them – but some of them I think I will definitely watch again when they come around on the TV and others I probably won’t. This one I think is in the former category – whereas Asteroid City is probably the latter. But his films can be a bit of divisive – I’ve put Mark Kermode’s review here because he explains the situation very well.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone.

comedy, not a book

Not a Book: Greg Davies

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So I’m finishing off Brighton/seaside week with one of the other things we did while we were there – which was see Greg Davies’s latest tour: Full Fat Legend. And before I get to that, it should be noted that we saw him in the Brighton Dome – aka the site of Abba’s triumph at Eurovision in 1974. So that was a) very cool and b) also a sign of how much Eurovision has grown because this is a capacity of about 1,500 people – and 30 years on last year’s contest was held in the15,500 capacity Malmo arena that’s the second largest venue in Sweden. Anway, to the comedy…

This is Greg’s first tour in seven years, and while we had definitely seen him before, I can’t tell you if it was that tour, or the one before. But either way, it was a long time ago. And since then Taskmaster has got even bigger (we have done a recent binge) – which I’m assuming is (along with Covid) the reason for the big gap between tours. In Full Fat Legend Greg is telling stories of the things that have happened to him in the last year and I’m not sure how much more than that I can tell you without ruining it, but it’s been *quite* a year.

I laughed so hard I cried my eye make up off and even if I had realised ‘d done that (which I didn’t) I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it without leaving the show, and by the time I did realise I was back at the hotel having walked a mile and a bit though central Brighton and along the seafront with mascara marks all over my cheekbones (how? I don’t know). It got a little bit close to too embarrassing for me to bear, but only very briefly. And it’s a big long set that Greg is doing too – we had a support act who did about 25/30 minutes and then there’s an interval and then it’s 90 minutes of Greg.

We were incredibly lucky to get tickets very last minute – because looking at the tour website writing this, a lot of the venues are a lot bigger and every other date this year is sold out – except for a “last few” for Wembley Arena in June. But the goodness is there are arena dates in March 2026 which have tickets. And so if this sounds like your thing, plan ahead!

Have a great Sunday everyone.

concerts, not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Typsy

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Back at the theatre this week – this time for a one man show. And if you want to see it you’ll have to be fast because it’s a one week run and it ends tonight. Also, it was mostly sold out, so you could be out of luck anyway. But still, here I am, being timely.

Typsy is Trevor Ashley’s latest cabaret show where he’s playing Liza Minnelli – and also Judy Garland, sometimes in the same song. This isn’t limited to songs that you think of as being performed by Liza, it expands out to other musical theatre standards. There are witty lyric changes, chat at the audience between them and plenty of jokes. And I really liked that it’s not just relying on all the old Liza cliches – it’s referencing the newer stuff too – from the documentary, to the appearance on Drag Race to Michael Feinstein. It’s also got a wonderful seven piece band – including what may be the hardest working winds player I have recently seen – swapping between clarinet, two saxophones, flute and piccolo at a rate of knots.

Ashley was recently at the Menier playing Roger de Bris in their wonderful production of The Producers, and is transferring with the cast to the West End for the run this autumn (yes, I’m going again), but that was the first time I had seen him in anything. He’s an Australian and has a string of musical theatre an cabaret credits down there – and that experience really showed in this. I saw it on the first night of the one week run and it felt like he really knew what he was doing and what the plan was. There were a couple of rough edges, but they only made it feel spontaneous and unrehearsed. And the Menier is a really nice space for a show like this – intimate enough that you feel close to the action, but big enough that there’s space for a good sized band and still for a bit of dancing.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see this pop up again somewhere in London – it sold very quickly when it was announced, and Liza-related shows are always popular especially when they’re done well. And this is done well.

Typsy is at the Menier Chocolate Factory until tonight, The Producers is at the Garrick Theatre from September. You can find out more about Trevor Ashley on his website

Exhibitions, not a book

Not a Book: Culture Shift

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We had a lovely day out in London yesterday – with a nice meal and a show but also an unplanned trip to the National Portrait Gallery where we went to their exhibition The Face Magazine: Culture Shift. And I’ve rushed this to the top of the Sunday post list because it’s only got two weeks to go before it closes.

So if you haven’t come across The Face before, it is a culture, fashion and style magazine that was originally from 1980 to 2004 and was revived and relaunched in 2019. I only remember the 1990s onwards era – and even then it’s somewhat hazily because I was a mainstream pop girl, and The Face was very much cooler than I was. But its influence on contemporary culture was huge.

In the 1980s it was the first publication that really covered the Blitz Kids and the club culture that became the New Romantic movement. It wrote about the clubs, the people at the clubs and the fashion that they wore, and then it photographed the bands that came out of it. In the early years the photographers were mainly young and scrappy, often self-taught and just doing what they wanted to without referring to the history or grammar of photography. And so their photos looked different – and they changed what was out there. And then in the 90s they were all about the indie and Britpop groups and they are basically responsible for the career of Kate Moss – she was the face of The Face – as well as launching the careers of tonnes of models and photographers.

This has got a whole load of amazing images along with their backstories and shows why and how the magazine was a disruptor and how it influenced the photography and graphic design of today. If you weren’t around or there it’s hard sometimes to appreciate how different what they were doing was -and if there is a weakness of the exhibition it’s that there are no equivalent images from other magazines to compare The Face’s stuff to because what they were doing then can seem so mainstream for what we see today. But it really wasn’t.

If you get a chance to go and see it before it closes, it is pricey (but what exhibitions aren’t though) but for me it was worth it.

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Scamanda

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I’m back with another documentary this weekend – but this time it’s the documentary version of a podcast that I binged when it came out a couple of years ago.

Scamanda is the story of Amanda C Riley, who was a blogger who documented her cancer journey. She was a wife, a mum and a Christian and raised tens of thousands of dollars from supporters who wanted to help her. Except as you can tell from the title of the podcast and documentary – it was a scam. None of it was real. The four part documentary series digs into her story – what she did, who she conned and how she was found out. The podcast series was eight parts – with another five bonus episodes, so there’s more depth in the original version, although the documentary will bring you more up to date.

As long time readers of the blog will know, I love a podcast and I also love a scam story. I usually prefer my scams to be the large financial, slightly less personal ones, but this is at the intersection of scamming and family blogging so it’s very much in my wheelhouse. And this is a really intriguing scam – partly because why would you doubt someone who says they have cancer – but also how do you fake something like that especially over such an extended period of time?

I binged all four episodes of the new series over a weekend – and I would have watched them quicker if I could, but you know real life is a thing that happens. And I had a pretty similar experience with the podcast when that came out – I binged it across a few days during my commute and my lunchbreak wanderings around central London.

The podcast is on all the usual podcast platforms – but the documentary is on Disney+ in the UK, so if (like me) you rotate your subscription services through you can add this to the list for next time you have an offer!

Happy Sunday everyone.

not a book, streaming, tv

Not A Book: Elizabeth Taylor documentaries

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There have been a couple of documentaries recently about Elizabeth Taylor – and I’ve watched them and I have thoughts! Golden Age and Old Hollywood is one of the areas that I’m always interested in reading about (fiction and non fiction) and watching documentaries about and it was interesting that two big productions about the same person popped up so close to each other at a time when there was no obvious anniversary to explain it.

The two documentaries in question are Elizabeth Taylor: the Lost Tapes and Elizabeth Taylor – Rebel Superstar. The former is an HBO documentary, the latter a three part series executive produced by Kim Kardashian. And given that they’re both about the same person, who only had one life (duh) they both cover fairly similar ground.

Rebel Superstar has more about her later business career and it also has the better talking heads – among them Taylor’s son Chris and granddaughter Naomi, Sharon Stone, Margaret O’Brien, Kim K herself and Paris Jackson (Michael’s daughter) and Joan Collins. And oh my it needs Joan Collins – she’s the only sharp voice in a documentary that is working hard to gloss over a few things and is basically a hagiography, such is the lack of critical voices and mention of less than flattering aspects of Taylor’s personal life.

The Lost Tapes has the advantage of recordings of Liz herself, made in the mid 1960s, which means that this focuses on that era and the time leading up to it and not later. You only get a very short section at the end on everything else – addiction and later marriages are skipped over, although her work in Aids activism at a time when there was a huge amount of stigma is given more of its due. You also get cine footage filmed on set with her by Roddie McDowell where you see her with James Dean, Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson. But the interviewer doesn’t give her a lot of pushback or press her on what she’s saying in the tapes, and again we’re in haigography territory.

Neither of these would have got me writing about them on their own, because it’s not really a recommendation – both lack a bite in slightly different ways. If you’re only going to watch one, I’d make it the Lost Tapes – because it has those recordings of Elizabeth talking about her life and the lovely home movie footage, but neither of them give you the full picture of Taylor’s life. If you go in not knowing anything about her, you could come out missing some of the details – like the fact that both Burton and Taylor were married to other people when they started their relationship, or the entirity of her marriage to Larry Fortensky. But if you’re interested in Hollywood history then they’re worth a watch, but if you are a newbie who wants a more complete picture, you’re probably better with a book – or even her Wikipedia!

If you’re in the UK, Rebel Superstar is on the BBC iPlayer and The Lost Tapes was shown on Sky Documentaries and is now on Now. If you’re elsewhere you’ll have to have a dig around and see which platform or streamer has bought them up.

Have a great Sunday.

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Operation Mincemeat

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It’s Olivier Award Sunday everyone and although I have everything crossed for Simon Lipkin in the Best Actor in a Musical category for his turn as Fagin in Oliver and for Ballet Shoes in some of the other categories, I thought today was a great opportunity for me to talk about last year’s Best New Musical winner Operation Mincemeat, which I saw in the West End in mid-March.

Operation Mincemeat is a comedy musical devised by the group Split Lip, based on a deception operation carried out by British intelligence during World War Two. The Allies want to invade Sicily, but the island is swarming with Nazi troops. So they need to come up with a plan to disguise the invasion plans. There is a five person cast who all play multiple roles across the course of the show, with quick changes coming out of your ears.

This got total rave reviews when it opened – but I’ll admit that their Olivier Award performance left me more confused than enthused. Add in a complicated ticketing policy and it’s taken me a while to get around to it which is a bit of a more fool me situation because it’s so good. It’s funny and clever and it’s going to point out a few issues going on with the plan as well as highlighting some of the people that tend to get forgotten about in the history books.

I saw the new cast – because the original team have just opened the show on Broadway (press night was actually the same week that I went to see it in London) and they’re all giving cracking performances in what must be quite indimisating circumstances- given that the original cast was the four creators and the winner of the Olivier award for best supporting actor for his role in the show.

This has just extended again in London – so there’s plenty of time to go and see it – and as I said they run a range of schemes for tickets. Find the details here.

Operation Mincemeat is at the Fortune Theatre in London

Side note: I thought that this was the only West Emd Theatre I hadn’t been inside – it was previously the home to The Woman in Black for about 30 years and I don’t do horror – but then I realised that I haven’t been to the new Soho Place theatre yet so I haven’t actually completed my set yet. Still at least it’s an excuse to go and see something else…

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Dr. Strangelove

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It’s a theatre in your cinema pick this week – and I actually only saw this yesterday, but because there is a very small window to see these in cinemas I’ve bumped it straight to the top of the list.

This is the stage version of Stanley Kubrick’s movie Dr. Strangelove, with Steve Coogan in the starring role as not one, not two, not three but four different characters. If you haven’t see the original movie, it’s a political satire and very black comedy about nuclear war, when a general goes mad and orders a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union and the efforts to try and stop the attack happening.

It’s been a long time since I saw the movie – when I was at uni I think – but despite the fact that this is set in the Cold War, there’s a lot about this that feels quite applicable to the world we live in today. And the staging is really well done too, with a clever use of screens to create various different things including the iconic big board in the war room. As well as Steve Coogan, this also has Giles Terera who I first saw back in Avenue Q days but has now had a long career with plenty of dramatic roles as well has his Olivier award winning performance in Hamilton.

It’s basically a really solid two and a bit hours of theatre with good performances and a clever adaptation of a movie classic. Definitely worth a look if it’s coming near you.

concerts, not a book

Not a Book: Patti LuPone

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Happy Sunday everyone, and I’m back in the theatre for this week’s post. And I’m writing this a few weeks after the actual concert, but as it was a sold out, one night only type thing, this is more a reflection on a night out than anything else.

Patti LuPone, for those of you who have never come across her, is somewhat of a legend of the theatre. If you’re not a theatre fan, but you are a Marvel fan, you will have recently seen her in Agatha All Along but trust me when I say that she’s Broadway icon. She has three Tony Awards, two Oliviers and a couple of Grammys. She was the original Eva Peron in Evita on Broadway, the original Fantine in Les Miserables when it started at the Barbican and the original Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. She’s played Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, Rose in Gypsy and Joanne in Company. She’s also in her mid-seventies now, so you don’t know how many more chances you’ll get to see her sing live. So of course I bought myself a ticket for this as soon as it went on sale.

Now I saw her do a concert in London more than a decade ago – with Seth Rudetsky playing the piano and in conversation with her and I was interested to see how this show differed from that one. In fact, I still have the set list from that Leicester Square Concert in my phone – where she did the big hits from her career – including for the first time in nearly 20 years some Sunset Boulevard in London (which was a whole thing given how badly that ended) and which I still can’t believe that I was witness to. A Life in Notes does still have songs from the musicals that she’s been in, but is mostly Patti singing songs that are important to her or make her think of a moment in her life. Now some of these were a little obscure for me – and could potentially have used a little more explanation – but I would have paid the whole ticket price just to for the songs from the musicals – which included Some People, On Broadway, Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, I Dreamed a Dream, Anything Goes and The Ladies Who Lunch.

She’s still in great voice – probably in better shape vocally than Bernadette Peters, although you could argue that Bernadette’s voice was quirkier to start with – and when she does talk she’s witty and fun. It was a totally sold out crowd at the Coliseum – more than two and a half thousand of us turned up for it, including a few celebs, although probably not as many as if it hadn’t been the same night as the Baftas. But I spotted her Company co-star Mel Giedroyc in the foyer along with Marianne Elliot. And once again it was a delight to be at a concert where there were no queues for the ladies – although there were for the mens! All in all I had a ball even if it did make me wish she’d do another show in the West End soon.

Happy Sunday – as a treat before I go, here’s a recording (not mine) of the Sunset Boulevard from that 2013 concert. Totes Emosh.

not a book, streaming, theatre, tv

Not a Book: Dancing Back to the Light

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Happy Sunday everyone, I’ve got a documentary recommendation for you this week, and I’ve bumped it to the top of the list because it was only on TV on Friday night – and so it’s on iPlayer now, and it’s important for arts documentaries to get viewing figures for us to get more of them. And this is a really good one.

Steven McRae is a Principal at the Royal Ballet – and in 2019 his Achilles tendon tore in the middle of a performance, leaving him lying on the stage in agony, thinking his career could be over. Dancing Back to the Light is the story of his rehabilitation and return to the stage in 2021. It’s a long and gruelling process, and as well as following him at work in the dance studio and the gym we also see him at home with his wife, herself a retired ballet dancer with the Royal Ballet, and their three young children.

I read a lot of books about ballet dancers when I was a child (and still re-read them now as an adult to be honest) and often wished that I had learned ballet. This will give you an unflinching portrait of the effort and sacrifice that goes into being at the top of your game in the modern ballet world, and how even the best dancers can have bad habits and be powering their way through in unhealthy ways. McRae is Australian and his childhood teacher always had the ambition for him to go to the Royal Ballet school – which seemed out of reach for a kid from a Sydney suburb on the other side of the world But 17 he flew to Switzerland to participate in the Prix de Lausanne and as he tells us in the documentary he won first prize – and a scholarship to the Royal Ballet. As that Instagram caption for the trailer says; he’s also a fabulous tap dancer – this is his tap solo from that competition:

McRae is very articulate and honest about what’s going on inside his head and how he’s had to rebuild the way that he dances and his every day routine as a result of the injury. He’s a dancer who has been incredibly acclaimed for his talent and dancing style – but it’s such hard work to be as good as he is. There are various jobs that I’ve seen described as being like a swan – serene on the surface but pedaling away madly underwater and ballet seems to be very like that – for the three hours of perfection you see on stage, there is untold dedication behind the scenes as well as whatever pain or injury the dancer might be carrying with them on stage at any given time. I think even if you’re not into ballet it’s worth a watch, because like so many documentaries about sports people it shows someone fighting to get back to the peak of their powers to try and make the most of their talent and passion while they can, but also about listening to your body and taking the time you need to do things properly.

If you’re in the UK, you can watch Steven McRae: Dancing Back to the Light on iPlayer here. It’s been broadcast as part of the Arena strand of documentaries. If you’re not in the UK, this has had a cinema release in France, and I’m sure it will be popping up on streaming platforms at some point.