Tag: not a book

not a book

Not a Book: Freddie Mercury

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Oh boy. I’m not even sure I can explain how excited I was about seeing the Freddie Mercury auction exhibition at Sothebys. Honestly. It was the one thing my sister and I wanted to do together this summer and it absolutely was everything we were hoping it would be.

I may have mentioned before that I am a big Queen fan, and I’m also too young (or not old enough?) to remember them when they were still performing. So I’ve done pretty much all of my fandom through the music and the documentaries (and the musical), which meant that when Mary Austen announced that she was selling basically everything Freddie had left her it was a Big Deal. Mary was his girlfriend during the early days of Queen and was one of his closest friends for the rest of his life. And now for about a month, you can go and look at what is up for sale.

I saw the David Bowie is… exhibtion at the V&A back in the day and had always vaguely wondered why there had never been an equivalent exhibition for Queen. This auction sale is the answer: Freddie himself kept hold of all of his stuff- and passed it on to Mary and she’s been looking after it ever since. Things like the jacket from the Bohemian Rhapsody keep when he sings “I see a little silhouetto of a man”:

And basically every other outfit you’ve ever seen him wear on stage, in a video or at a public appearance. The only exceptions I can think of are the yellow jacket from the Wembley 86 tour and the harlequin leotards. But everything else is here. The “prawn” costume from Its a Hard Life, the leather jacket from Radio Gaga, the suits from Barcelona and Great Pretender, the winged cat suits. The cat waistcoat.

And then there’s all the ephemera – white label pressings of singles and albums, hand written lyrics, photographs and contact sheets, the tour handbooks, the paperwork for Live Aid. My sister and I were wandering the the rooms with our mouths hanging open. It’s truly astonishing.

Then there’s the art and furniture. I’m going to predict that this is going to be popular not just with the Queen fans and music collectors but also the art collectors. Freddie was an art and design student and he loved beautiful things and had an eye for it. He was buying pieces from Sothebys himself back in the day. So there’s a Picasso and a Chagal and a wall of Goya drawings. Plus beautiful pieces of Japanese art and so much more. However much they think it’s going to make, I think it’ll be more.

So if you’re in London before the start of September, this is very much worth a visit. And it’s free.

Happy Sunday.

audio, not a book

Not a Book: I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue

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Every now and again I write about a radio programme instead of a film or a show or a TV programme, and this is one of those weeks – although as I went to a recording in a theatre does it also count as a show? Anyway, the new series of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue starts on Radio Four this week, so I get to tell you about my night out watching them record two episodes in my home town back in June.

I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue started in the 1970s as a parody of TV and radio panel games and has been running ever since. My parents were very much Radio Four people – and it was one of the 6.30 in the evening programmes that I started listening to when I was getting ready for bed when I was little (along with Just A Minute and The News Quiz) and I’ve been listening to ever since. There aren’t many of the original panel left now – it’s Jack Dee giving the panel silly things to do instead of Humphrey Littleton for example, but they’ve managed to replace them with people as funny as the originals.

I tried to figure out a way of describing what’s going on, but I couldn’t do it justice, so I’m just going to settle for giving you this clip from One Song to the Tune of Another because it’s always been one of my favourite rounds and it just sums up the whole show:

There are no winners, some of the games make no sense at all (Mornington Crescent for example) and despite the fact that there are singing games there is always at least one panelist who cannot sing at all (at my recording it was Milton Jones). As children we used to play the completely unconnected word game in the back of the car on the way home from after school lessons – with much complaining from my mum as my sister and I descended into lavatorial humour. Basically it’s one of the silliest ways you can spend half an hour and I’m really looking forward to hearing what makes the cut for the broadcast episode as each recording was at least an hour long.

If you’re in the UK you can listen to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue on BBC Radio 4, or on the BBC Sounds app – the Northampton episodes start tomorrow, and several of the episodes in the series are already available. If you’re outside the UK, I’m hoping it appears on Sounds for you – but it may also be on some of the other podcast providers too.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

theatre

Not a Book: A Strange Loop

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This week has seen at the Proms to hear Beethoven and Elgar but also to the Barbican to see a new musical. I have more Proms to come – and they’re one offs – so today we’re talking about A Strange Loop.

A Strange Loop is a musical about a queer black Broadway theatre usher writing a musical about a queer black theatre usher writing a musical. Still with me? Good. Usher’s story is told by him and his six Thoughts, who are the inner voices in his head and also play all the other characters in the play. It’s very meta. It also won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2020 and the Tony for best musical in 2021.

It’s a really powerful piece – and although I wasn’t sure where it was going or how it was going to end, it did come back around (yes, that’s a loop reference!) from a very bleak point about 20 minutes from the end. The music is great – I came out humming some of the songs and the cast are giving stellar performances. It is definitely not a show for younger audiences – there’s a warning that it’s not suitable for under 16s because of the themes it’s dealing with. So I’m not surprised that it’s on a limited run at the Barbican rather than in the West End. It’s definitely worth seeing if you’re a musical fan though – and I’m not sure when it will come around again. And of course there aren’t that many musicals that have won the Pulitzer – it’s the first since Hamilton, and one of only ten total. It runs until September 9.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

film, not a book

Not a Book: Bombshell

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A film this week and one that features Margot Robbie, but sadly not Barbie as I haven’t managed to get to the cinema to see that one yet. I’m sure I will though. Probably not as a double bill with Oppenheimer though because I’m not sure I can cope with Christopher Nolan at the moment.

So this is a dramatised version of true events – and is inspired by the real life sexual harrassment allegations made against Fox News boss Roger Ailes by women who worked there. Nicole Kidman plays Gretchen Carlson, who was the first to sue Ailes and Charlize Theron plays Megyn Kelly, who we see at the start of the film being insulted by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump for asking him about his offensive comments towards women. Margot Robbie plays Kayla, a composite character who is a young journalist who joins the newsroom and faces unwanted attentions fromAiles.

I think whether you followed the story at the time or not this is a compelling look at power dynamics in the work place and the pressures that women can face from men in positions of power. I’m not in the US so I don’t really have enough experience of watching Fox News to comment on how accurate the portrayals of Carlsson and Kelly are – except to say that Charlize Theron is unrecognisable (Him Indoors didn’t realise it was her at all!) but the make up teams won the Oscar and the Bafta for their work – and Theron got an Oscar nomination – as did Margot Robbie.* It is a bit of a tough watch – but it is very good – and if you’re planning on doing some of the other films about famous/powerful men who have faced sexual harassment allegations – like She Said (which I’m waiting to hit the movie channels) then this is definitely one to watch.

And because I hate ending posts on a down note – all the reports that I’ve heard about Barbie so far have been favourable, so I really am going to try and get to see that soon!

Happy Sunday!

They lost to Renee Zellweger’s Judy Garland and Laura Dern in A Marriage Story respectively.

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Muscles and Mayhem

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It’s the summer here and the Formula One and the MotoGP are in their summer breaks, and some of the other linear series that we watch are on their breaks too. So we’ve been hitting the new documentaries on Netflix pretty heavily – because they’ve dropped a couple of really interesting ones in the last few weeks.

I’m dating myself a little when I say that the British version of Gladiators was Saturday night TV viewing for me and my sister. We were firmly on the side of the Gladiators and had our favourites that we wanted to win (Cobra, Jet, Scorpio) and games that we preferred and complained when new ones were introduced from the US version of the show and we saw our favourites (the Wall, Atlaspheres, Hang Tough) less. And in the summer we would sometimes get cross over episodes with the American show – where US winners and Gladiators would compete against their UK equivalents. But that was the only knowledge I had of the US show: big hair and red white and blue costumes showing up very occasionally and games being imported. This Netflix documentary is the story of how the US show came to be and what happened to the Gladiators who were part of it.

As you can probably tell from the trailer there is sex, steroids, injuries, egos and the whole shebang that you might expect from a show that catapulted a group of roided up body builders to instant stardom, but there are a couple of incredible twists to it too that I’m not going to give away here, but if you watch it you’ll know when you get to them! We watched all five episodes back to back across one Saturday night, that’s how much we enjoyed it. Given that Him Indoors and I both watched the UK series (and he may have watched the US one as well on late night TV) I don’t think that we’re in the best position to be able to judge how well it will work for people who haven’t seen any of the TV shows, but if you like behind the scenes or oral history type documentaries about cultural moments it’s definitely worth giving this a go.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

not a book

Not a Book: Tina Turner

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It’s Monaco today and the Indy 500, so there is some motorsport in my plans, but I wanted to spend a bit of time today talking about Tina Turner, who died this week at the age of 83.

Obviously she was a musical legend and had a back catalogue where everyone knows at least three songs, probably half a dozen. But she was almost possibly the most famous domestic abuse survivor in the world after she spoke out about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Ike Turner when they were married. There have been movies and documentaries about what went on – I first stumbled across What’s Love Got to Do With It on late night TV when I was in secondary school – but a couple of years ago Tina herself took part in a documentary so if you’re only going to watch one thing make it that. It’s been back on Sky’s documentary channels already this week – so it should be findable in their on demand system in this country, it’s in HBO’s catalogue in the US. Here’s the trailer:

I’m going to leave you with a link to the first ever Tina Turner song that I heard, which is maybe still my favourite. I mean I love Proud Mary, but River Deep Mountain high is something else. If you’re talking about problematic men, this song has a pair of them – not only is it from the Ike and Tina era, but it’s written and produced by Phil Spector. I love the Wall of Sound sound, but it was hard to listen to for a while. But she still performed it – including at her concerts as well as when she was inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the first time – she was inducted twice once for Ike and Tina and once for her solo work. And Spector died in 2021 (while still serving his sentence for murder) and Ike died in 2007 so that’s made a difference for me too.

Oh I can’t resist it. Have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance too. It has Stevie Wonder playing back up in the band. And she sounds amazing.

Thanks for all the music Ms Turner, you’ll live on through it.

book adjacent, books

Book related: The Three Musketeers

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Let’s start by saying I have a soft spot for adaptations of Alexander Dumas’s band of sword fighting soldiers. I think it probably started with Dogtanian and the Muskerhounds – the original, not the film a couple of years ago and possessor of a deeply catchy theme tune (I’ve put it right at the bottom of the post, press play if you dare) but there have been many others since, including when my favourite skater at the time did a routine to the music from The Man in the Iron Mask to win his Olympic gold! Anyway today we’re talking about the new French movie – the first of a duo.

So they’ve done some… adjustments to the plot of the book, but if you’ve read the book D’Artagnan takes you to roughly the halfway point of the novel in a very easy to enjoy two hour romp. There are sword fights galore along with chivalry and banter and some great stunt work – including a man jumping from one horse to another, which I always love to see.

It’s got a top notch French cast – including Vincent Cassel and Romain Duris among the musketeers and Eva Green as Milady – who spends a lot of time in a huge hat smoking a long stemmed pipe. Iconic stuff. Him Indoors came with me to see it and he described it as “nonsense – but very enjoyable nonsense” and then started to speculate on how the French film industry manages to make such impressive looking movies on such a consistent basis!

If you’re a purist and want something that follows the book completely, this may not work for you – one man left out screening sucking his teeth and telling the usher it wasn’t very accurate – but if you enjoyed the BBC series Musketeers, then I think you’ll like this. We’re definitely going back for part two, which is called Milady, when that arrives here at the end of the year.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

not a book, tv

Not a book: Eurovision II (again!)

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So Eurovision is over for another year. And what a year this has been – having the contest here has been a real experience, even if the UK entry didn’t do very well. But hey, the host often doesn’t do that great. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. It was quite a show though – Liverpool did us proud. I’ve put the winning performance at the bottom in case anyone hasn’t watched yet, but I wanted to highlight my favourite bit of the night: the interval act:

Obviously Liverpool has a great musical heritage, and I loved the way Eurovision paid tribute to that in the most Eurovision way ever. If you haven’t watched it, click play and I defy you to be unmoved by it. I loved all of it – and also that Dadi Freyr finally got to perform on the Eurovision stage having been the favourites to win the 2020 contest that was then cancelled because of Covid and then coming back in 2021 only to be unable to perform on the night because of a Covid case in the group. Honestly just wonderful. The best interval act since Mans and Petra did Love Love Peace Peace.

And the other thing that has come out of this week has been the world getting to see Hannah Waddingham do her thing and just loving her. I’m a big theatre nerd as you all know, and she’s been on my radar for years and years now, but it’s only since Game of Thrones (she’s the shame nun) and Ted Lasso that she’s really hit the big time beyond us theatre nerds. And I love it when a theatre person gets the notice they deserve – see Mark Rylance but in a different way for him of course. Anyway, if you watched Hannah this week and wondered what else she can do, have this video of her performing as part of the cast of Spamalot (along with Tim Curry!) at the Royal Variety performance back in the day.

Anyway, here is this year’s winner:

I don’t love Tattoo the way I loved Euphoria so I’m trying not to be bitter that my favourite didn’t win, but I can’t be too angry about being back in Sweden for the 50th anniversary of Waterloo. And what was my favourite I hear you ask? Well, for once my favourite did rather well – even though as usual it was one of the wilder and more “novelty” songs – no not Croatian Monty Python guys (who threatened to perform naked if they one) but Finland and Cha Cha Cha.

They won the popular vote, but the juries didn’t go for them so we’ll see you in Sweden next year Eurovision fans!

not a book, tv

Not a book: Eurovision

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It’s the start of Eurovision finals week again – except for my friends who are super fans, it’s two weeks this year because they’re already up in Liverpool because this year we have a home Eurovision – sort of. After Ukraine won last year, the UK is hosting the contest because of the war and Liverpool is going all out.

I’m not going to Merseyside, but I am looking forward to seeing all the pictures from the people who are. And my Eurovision season is already underway – the team I was on won a Eurovision quiz a few weeks back, which was very exciting even if I can’t claim that much credit (I only got one question that no one else on the team did!) but I’m not massively across all the songs yet – but that’s what the semi finals are for for me!

If you’re a fan enjoy this week – and let me know your favourite this year in the comments!

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.