Tag: not a book

books

Coronation

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So, today is the first coronation of a British monarch in my life time and it most of our lifetimes. Everything startedto go a bit coronation crazy in London a few weeks ago and now we’ve got bunting hanging up in various places near my house too. I’m fascinated to see what all this pomp and ceremony looks like in 2023 and how everyone reacts to it.

On the book front, I’ve already done a few posts about the Royals here – but so far King Charles hasn’t really figured in any of them. I did try to come up with some new recommendations for today, but I’ve basically failed miserably. However, I do have some recommendations relating to the previous King Charles. And I’m talking Charles II because I haven’t really read a lot about Charles I because I know how it ends and I’m not up for executions. But if you do want something, Charles Spencer (yes Princess Diana’s brother) has written a book called The Killers of the King about the men who signed Charles I’s death warrants and what impact it had on them and their families which I’ve seen crop up on a lot of lists.

As far as Charles II-related goes, Charles Beauclerk wrote a biography of his ancestress Nell Gwynn, restoration actress and Charles II’s mistress, which I read about 15 years ago and remember as being an interesting look at the royal court and made more interesting by the personal link between the author and the principle characters. It’s in Kindle Unlimited at the moment if you want to take a look. If you want to know what life was like in Restoration Britain, Ian Mortimer has done one of his Time Traveller’s Guide books for the period which I listened to on audiobook and can recommend. On the fiction front, I wrote a BotW post about The Ashes of London, the first in Andrew Taylor’s Marwood and Lovett series which is set in the Restoration and I’ve just finished the latest one (although I haven’t read all of the ones in between) and they are good mystery stories that do a similar sort of thing in the Stuart era that the Matthew Shardlake series does in the Tudor period. There’s also Rose Tremain’s Restoration, which features a nobleman and his ups and downs at court. It was shortlisted for the Booker when it came out – I enjoyed it, but it’s definitely a book you have to concentrate on. There is a sequel – which I have on the shelf but haven’t read yet. Also waiting on the shelf for me to finally get round to is Georgette Heyer‘s Royal Escape – which is about Charles II’s escape from Britain during the civil war (before he was Charles II obviously).

And you can of course read my previous posts about the twentieth century royals about the Jubilee and also royal romances Battle Royal (slightly more tangentially) and the Royal Spyness mysteries.

Happy Saturday everyone.

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Keep Sweet

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I only got two thirds of the way through the first episode of Keep Sweet the first time I tried to watch it – despite thinking I was prepared for how grim that would be given that I’ve read Under The Banner of Heaven and Educated and listened to the whole series of Unfinished: Short Creek. It took nearly nine months for me to come back to it – because if there’s one thing that the second half of 2022 and the start of 2023 has been for me it is a test of my resilience. But I did come back to it, and now I have some thoughts to share.

So Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey is a documentary series about the Fundamentalist Mormon Church, focusing on the rise (and fall) of their leader Warren Jeffs. Now given that I’ve already mentioned several other things based around this group, it may seem odd to describe them as secretive. But they are – and the only reason we know what we do is because of people who have started to speak out after leaving the religion and the court records around the trial of Warren Jeffs.

The FLDS are a polygamist group and there is a lot more to unpack about them than you can fit in one four part documentary series. If you already know a bit about them, you’ll notice that there are some bits missing from this, or that the reality isn’t quite as neat as the documentary makes it seem. But I liked that uses the women who were affected to tell the story and explain what it was like to grow up in a cult, why they believed what they did and how they escaped or broke free. As I mentioned at the start of the post, the first episode is quite grim, but if you can cope with that, it gets easier – or at least you know what you’re dealing with. If you are interested in religion in America, cults or the like, this is probably going to be at least slightly of interest to you if you haven’t already watched it.

That first weekend I started watching it was actually the weekend that it was released, so you you might now have to search for it on Netflix because as we know the algorithm prioritises the new. And there is always something new on Netflix – the latest being a documentary about the Waco Siege, which I will probably also watch at some point.

And before I go – if this is of interest to you as well as the posts I referenced at the top about Educated and Short Creek, I’ve also written about Murder Among the Mormons, The Eyes of Tammy Faye and slightly tangentially Bad Bets and The Cult of We.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

not a book

Not a Book: Private Lives

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This week we’re back in the theatre as we had a wonderful night at Private Lives last weekend and it’s been a while since I talked about a show.

For those who have never come across Noel Coward’s comedy, it is about a divorced couple who meet each other again on their honeymoons with their new spouses. Over the course of three acts you observe their stormy relationship – and the contrast with the people they have chosen for their second attempt at matrimony. At this point I’m going to take the opportunity to quote a bit of Gaudy Night at you, because it sums up the situation nicely, although as you can see Harriet doesn’t fancy a relationship like Elyot and Amanda’s at all – and of course it would be very tiring.

Otherwise one would get the sort of couple one had in Private Lives, who rolled on the floor and hammered one another when they weren’t making love, because they (obviously) had no conventional resources. A vista of crashing boredom, either way.

Gaudy Night, Dorothy L Sayers

In the new production at the Donmar Warehouse, Elyot is played by Stephen Mangan and Amanda by Rachael Stirling and they really do go for each other when they’re not intertwined on the sofa. The physical violence between the couple is the bit that can feel the most dated (it was written in 1930) but if the chemistry between the leads is right, they can carry you through it – you believe in the rollercoaster highs and lows of their relationship. In Stephen Mangan’s hands Elyot is more of a faded charmer with a wicked sense of humour than a dashing rake and Stirling’s Amanda is a woman who is fed up with being expected to stick to the conventions. It’s darker but it’s funny and the ending is brilliant.

It’s been a decade since I last saw Private Lives – that time with Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor (which I enjoyed so much I went a second time with the family)and it’s a lot of fun to see a familiar text being polished up and exhibited afresh. The third act in particular has plenty of opportunities for interpretation. It was Him Indoors’ first time seeing any show more than once and it was fun to hear his thoughts on seeing something done differently. I think he preferred this version – I can’t decide, so maybe I should just go and see it again, again? Extraordinary how potent cheap music is…

Happy Sunday Everyone

not a book, streaming, tv

Not a Book: Our Flag Means Death

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It’s Sunday again and time for me to talk about something that isn’t a book again, and today it’s Our Flag Means Death – which is a comedy series about pirates very loosely based on a real life pirate.

It’s the early Eighteenth Century, and Stede Bonnet is tired of his comfortable life as a husband and father on Barbados and buys a ship and runs off to be a pirate. Except that he’s a really, really bad pirate. Like terrible. He has no aptitude for killing and his ship is outfitted for luxury rather than anything else. When we meet him at the beginning of the series, his crew are so fed up of him that they’re considering mutiny, but decide that he’ll manage to get himself killed soon enough. Except he doesn’t and soon he and his crew come across the notorious pirate Blackbeard, and they make a deal – Blackbeard will help Stede become a better pirate and Stede will teach Blackbeard how to become an aristocrat. Except it’s not as simple as that. Oh and it’s a romantic comedy.

If you’re struggling to get your head around all this, and I’ll admit I’m not doing a very good job of explaining it (luckily the first series came out in the US a year ago, so I’m hoping some of you will already have watched this and have thoughts to share), but you’ve probably spotted Taika Waititi in the trailer, and he’s also an executive producer. So the easy way to describe this is to say think of the same sort of humour as What We Do in the Shadows, but with pirates in the 1700s (and not a mockumentary). The episodes are only 25 minutes long, they’re very easy to binge and if it works for you (and it really works for me!) it will leave you with a big smile on your face.

If you’re in the UK, the first series is available on the BBC iPlayer to watch now. If you’re elsewhere in the world, you’ll need to look for it on a streaming service – probably whatever HBO Max is called in your territory. Series two has finished filming but there’s no news yet on a release date for it.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

announcement, tv

Magpie Murders redux

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It’s Easter weekend everyone and if you’re looking for something to watch – and in the UK – the Magpie Murders is being shown on TV at last. The second episode is on this evening but the whole series is on the iPlayer already. I hadn’t realised this was happening until I saw a trailer for it before Match of the Day last weekend, so apologies for the slightly late notice. I wrote about the adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s book last year when it was on BritBox – you can read that review here.

Have a great weekend everyone.

not a book

Not a Book: Darren Hayes

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You know how there are some songs or albums that can transport you back to a place or a time? Well Darren Hayes does that for me. I’m about to date myself a bit, but Savage Garden were the soundtrack to a lot of my teenage years. Sitting studying in my room, if I wasn’t listening to football commentaries on 5live I was probably listening to their second album, Affirmation.

One of my non-book New Year’s resolutions this year was to take the opportunity to go and do things and not say “maybe one day”. Well this ticket was already in the (virtual) ticket box at the turn of the year, but it is still a part of that. Darren Hayes last toured 13 years ago – and I thought it might never happen again. I have seen him before but was in 2006 – and a lot of things have changed since then – songs that were still new back then are now classics. Or at least I think they are. I bought the ticket months ago when they first went on sale because it’s been so long who knew when there might be another opportunity – his husband may be British but he is an Australian who has lived a lot in LA. Take your chances while you have them. The tour is called Do You Remember and is marking 25 years in music (gulp) and honestly, I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

I was meant to be going with a friend, but tonsillitis meant that I ended up solo, which given how emotional the whole thing made me is probably for the best as he might have wanted to disassociate himself from the snotty mess sitting next to him. I know I’m a crier, and I get emotional when good things happen (from athletes I like winning medals, to being offered a job I want) but this was something else. The best I can describe it is imagine going to see the artist who did your favourite teenage album a couple of decades on and then instead of doing obscure cuts or remixes, they play all your favourites, no messing around with them and sound just as good as they did on the record (but live!) – well this was that for me.

My photos may be pants and part of that is because I was at the top and the back, but it’s mostly because I was enjoying the moment and watching it unfold and I didn’t want to watch it through a phone screen when it was happening in front of me. I made some videos too but they’re even worse because I wasn’t actually watching what I was filming, I was watching the stage!

I have a few more “if not now when” things planned this year and if they come anywhere close to being as good as this, it’s going to be a great year. Now excuse me, I’m off to listen to the Affirmation album again.

Have a great Sunday everyone!

not a book, tv

Not a Book: We Need to Talk About Cosby

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This Sunday, we have another in my occasional series about documentaries.

We need to talk about Cosby is a four part documentary about the US comedian, sitcom star and actor who has faced significant allegations of sexual assault. Directed by the comedian and TV host W Kamau Bell, it looks at Bill Cosby’s career and the allegations made against him, featuring interviews with people who have worked with him, some of the women making allegations against him and also some expert voices. It went out in the US this time last year on Showtime, but has only recently been airing in the UK – hence why I’m talking about it now.

My day job is in news, so I’ve seen the allegations against Bill Cosby play out in the headlines over almost a decade. And before they were made, I had heard of the Cosby Show, although I don’t think I had ever seen an episode. But until I watched this, I wasn’t fully aware of how long and varied his career had been and huge his fame was. And this documentary does that – and made sense of why there were so many and varied reactions to the allegations when they started to emerge.

This is a heavy and serious subject, but Bell has made a very watchable and well put together documentary series. He describes himself as “a child of Bill Cosby” and leads you through the different phases of Cosby’s career, the allegations against him and what the reaction was. The interviews and interviewees are really good and it feels like a solid and well argued piece. Obviously Bill Cosby wasn’t interviewed for this, but the archive material of him that is available adds to the picture that is being built.

The last part of We Need to Talk About Cosby goes out on TV her in the UK tonight tonight – I only set the TiVo to record after the first part had gone out so we watched that on the iPlayer and then realised all four parts were available there and just watched it there. I would say we watched it all in one go – except that we didn’t, we did it over two nights because it was all a bit heavy for one evening (and also it was getting late). If you’re not in the UK, you can find it on streaming – it was on Showtime in the US.

books, not a book

Not a Book: Cabin Pressure

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I went to see John Finnemore try out new material this week for his current Radio Four show, and it reminded me that I haven’t written a proper post about Cabin Pressure, my favourite ever radio sitcom and surely one of the best of the last 20 years (at least). So today I’m righting that wrong.

Cabin Pressure follows the exploits of MJN Air, a charter plane company (“I don’t have an airline. I have one jet. You cannot put one jet in a line. If MJN is anything, it is an air dot.”) and its employees as they fly the world on Gertie (so named for her registration – G-ERTI) on an incredibly tight budget, taking any job to keep the business going. Four people work for the airline – Carolyn the owner and chief stewardess, First Officer Douglas Richardson, Captain Martin Crief and Carolyn’s son Arthur general dogsbody and steward.

The set up is great, the joke count is incredibly high and the cast is amazing – John Finnemore created and wrote it and plays Arthur, but Martin is Benedict Flipping Cumberbatch and Douglas is Roger Allam who has been in all sorts including Game of Thrones and the original Javert in Les Miserables. Oh and in the later series it has Anthony Stuart Head aka Giles from Buffy.

There are 27 episodes each named after a different city and taking you the whole way through the alphabet – the first episode is Abu Dhabi and the final two part special is Zurich (part one and two). I’ve got the giggles just thinking about my favourite bits just writing this post. As I mentioned a few years back in my audiobooks post, we have a habit of listening to these on long drives on holidays. Or at least we did before Him Indoors got into Amelia Peabody! Anyway when we drove past Ottery St Mary on our holiday last month all I needed to to was message my sister a picture of the road sign and the words Weasels King Henry and she replied Hedgehog O’Brien and sometimes all you need is some in-jokes and people to enjoy them with and listen to cabin pressure and you’ll understand too. Last time we were down there we stopped there just so I could have my picture taken with the sign:

And now I’m making about as much sense as Arthur when he’s trying to describe his dad so I should probably stop and tell you that you can get Cabin Pressure on Audible and other audiobook platforms and it’s really worth it. Even the audible sample is funny.

Have a great Sunday.

not a book

Not a Book: Drive to Survive redux

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It’s that time of year again – the new series of Drive to Survive has dropped on Netflix. Almost a year ago, on last season’s release weekend, I wrote about the “documentary” about Formula One and the accusations of Netflixification of my favourite sport. Well, I didn’t watch the end of last year’s season – because I couldn’t bear to watch the controversial ending to the season again, but I’m back watching the new season, once again to see what storylines they’ve picked – and which they haven’t and to see who it deals with the various controversies that hit the sport last year, including but not limited to all the headlines that FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem caused with his various decisions and statements before he decided to take a step back from being directly involved in the sport.

We’re two episodes in as I write this, and not going to lie, it’s tough to watch Lewis Hamilton in the aftermath of losing the 2021 championship and the struggle of the Mercedes team with their new car. However, Haas boss Guenther Steiner remains a delight – and his double act with Ferrari’s Mattea Binotto that opens the series is lovely, although a little bittersweet if you know how the season plays out. The release of the new series has coincided with the testing for the new season which starts next weekend in Bahrain so after a couple of weeks of motorsport deprivation, it’s all roaring back with a vengeance. Great news for petrolheads – but what does it mean for my reading list?! Stay tuned…

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Post Covid theatre

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Writing about Noises Off last week got me thinking about the post-Covid theatre scene and what’s been going on for the last couple of years. I was a big theatre goer before the pandemic and it was one of the things I missed the most, so I was straight back in as soon as I could and I’ve been trying to see as much as I can, but there are definitely some changes – beyond the fact that I changed jobs during the pandemic and work shifts less now which has changed things a bit for me personally.

When the West End first started to reopen, it was mostly just the long runners but it is starting to perk up again now with new stuff coming in – even if it’s revivals or return engagements. I’ve revisited a few of my old favourites, but it’s been quite hard to get good ticket deals, because there weren’t as many shows going – which I’m hoping is because they’ve got lots of demand rather than the fact that the prices are so high now they can afford to not sell as many tickets. Because the prices have gone up, and my ticket budget hasn’t gone up by the same amount.

I saw Sylvia at the Old Vic the other week, which had a run as a work in progress there in 2018 but is now back as a full production – which I think shows you the effect on the time line of shows that the pandemic has had. New musicals often take a couple of years to make it to the West End (if they make it to the West End) because there is a process of workshopping and looking for backers that takes place as well as potentially trying it out out of town. And because everything has been closed, that hasn’t been going on at all. Hopefully we’ll start to get some properly new stuff soon – maybe some of the stuff that was workshopping when everything shut down in 2020 will make it’s way through. So far there have been plenty of plays (particularly plays with small casts) but not so many musicals. The good news is that transfer of the Tony winning Oklahoma revival started its West End transfer this week – after a Young Vic run last year. And it’s definitely encouraging that that Chichester Festival Theatre has announced a full programme for this year this week, including new plays, old plays and a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, which is one of his shows that I haven’t seen so I’m seriously hoping that it is good and gets a London transfer.

Outside the West End though it is still a little slow. I used to see a fair bit of cabaret and comedy in the off-West End scene, and that really hasn’t come back much yet. Whether it’s the fact that the margins are too small, or the venues have closed or even that there aren’t as many people around in London I don’t know, but it’s been a struggle to find stuff that I want to go to so far.

Regional theatre is running on a slower time table too. We used to see quite a bit at our local theatres, but most of what has been coming through so far has been touring productions of shows that we’ve already seen – either in the West end or on previous tours. Northampton’s Royal and Derngate used to be a reasonably big regional production house, but that hasn’t properly come back into gear yet, and the artistic director has announced that he’s leaving this spring, so that may also have put a crimp on things. Fingers crossed that the new artistic director brings as many good productions as the last few have and we’ll see some new shows in Northampton that eventually make their way into the West End or national tours the way they used to.

But there definitely seems to be light at the end of the tunnel at last – and if some more tourists come back to London, maybe we’ll be back to what used to be normal by the end of the summer.