"You Never Forget Your First Gig"

This was the headline in this week's Sunday Times. Well, I did forget. I know where it was: Dunmow Village Hall in Essex. During my last year in the sixth form, on Saturday evenings I used to go to Dunmow Jazz Club. I can remember tasting my first lager and lime in the pub before walking across to the packed village hall. There is a piece on the National Jazz Archive about Derek Watson, who ran the club. He mentions that they ran coaches from Braintree, so that must have been how I got there. All the top bands played there: Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Humphrey Littleton, the Dutch Swing College Band, Terry Lightfoot and of course that memorable night for Kenny Ball. (See post 13th November 2020). But which band was first? I cannot guess.

The photo above is the modern-day Dunmow Village Hall, or the Foakes Hall, to give it the proper name. It is now a far superior building to the one I knew in 1962 and 1963. It did open in 1936, so it is the same building. 

5a Napier Road, West Kensington London W14

 

My journey last week that took me past Holland Park made me think about where we used to live in London in the 1950s. The photo above is much better than those I previously saw on the internet. The shop used to be a John Buckle, and we lived in the flat above, as my father managed the much larger John Buckle on Kensington High Street. The door on the far left was our own private entrance to the flat. If you enlarge the photo, you would be able to see the number 5a. What is interesting is that the windows of the flat above the shop seem to be quite new. Just compare them with those below; they are much more like they were when we lived there. 

Although our address was West Kensington, we were on the border of Hammersmith and just across Holland Road from Olympia, so not at all posh. In the other direction was Abbotsbury Road, and that is where the nice property began. All those film stars to whom my father made all those grocery deliveries. I can remember that our flat had a veranda, but it might not have been safe to walk on. There was no heating installed. I cannot remember if there was a gas fire in the living room, but I do remember we did have a paraffin heater and nothing in the bedrooms. It could be quite chilly.

Sight and Sound Magazine - March 2026

 

Editorial - Mike Williams

Mike describes the work that goes into the publicity of a film in awards season. Sometimes they are "live performances playing out across the internet". Mike describes Timothée Chalamet's stunts for Marty Supreme. (I'm giving it a deliberate miss, but that might be my age). He goes on to describe the different campaigns for the leading film, from the restrained 'One Battle After Another' to the excess visibility for Wicked, For Good and everything in between. "Authenticity remains the prize everyone is chasing".

Opening Scenes

The Hungarian director Bella Tarr (no, I had never heard of him) died in January. 

Editor's Choice

One of the six items is a piece about a book called Don't Look Now and Then by John Doherty. Four hundred and twenty-four pages of interviews, recollections, pictures, words from the director and stars. Sounds great. The foreword is by none other than Reece Shearsmith.

In Production

These films include Mikey Madison's new picture, a remake of Masque of the Red Death. (I remember well the Vincent Price film of 1964). Mikey plays twin sisters, and the film also stars Lea Seydoux. Also, the prolific playwright Alice Birch is to direct her first film, Sweetsick, starring Cate Blanchett.

In Conversation

Nothing of interest.

Festival

The UK's largest LGBTQ+ film festival is Flare at 40. 

Reader's Letters

No.

The Long Take    

I now realise that Pamela Hutchinson's regular column is always about something old and something new. So this month it's about Wuthering Heights. First of all about the 1938 Hollywood film directed by William Wyler, where producer Sam Goldwyn replaced him for the ending. Laurence Olivier played Heathcliff. He may have been miscast, but they wanted a well-known Brit. Pamela likes this film but much prefers Andrea Arnold's 2011 version, where Heathcliff is not white. She's not sure about Emeral Fennell's new film but is going to give it a go.

Flick Lit

Nicole Flattery starts with a piece about Flesh, which won David Szalay the Booker Prize in 2025. (Not on my to-read list). The hero is, apparently, irresistible to women. That is a precursor to a similar person in Timothée Chalamet's Marty Supreme (again purposely avoided), which she says is "irreverent, comic and high energy". It takes her on to Philip Roth and about him being Jewish, which mirrors that of Marty. Nicole thinks that Uncut Gems is the least tasteful of films, "more substantial and cohesive" than Marty.

TV Eye

Andrew Male is watching The Lowdown (on Disney+), set in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's created by writer/director Sterlin Harjo, a Native American investigating "the classic narrative beat of Chandlerian crime fiction". It shows how land "ownership was established through murder, deception and the passing of corrupt laws". But in this film, land ownership is not a right but a curse.

An Audience with the Master

James Bell interviews Paul Thomas Anderson following his Oscar nomination for One Battle After Another. There are eleven pages that start with his early films. From the short film The Dirk Diggler Story he made at eighteen through to movies such as Magnolia, Boogie Nights, The Master, Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood and my favourite, Liquorice Pizza. The interview is very revealing. Anderson insists on making his movies on film. They discuss other films such as Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty (1988) and Dr Strangelove (1964). Then about his career and his first film, Hard Eight. All about his influences and then on to his big movies with lots of photos.

Hell and High Water

Mary Hartrod talks to actor and director Kristen Stewart about her first film behind the camera, called The Chronology of Water. She has also adapted the book by Lidia Yuknavitch. A harrowing story that spoke to Stewart: "even my producer tried to dissuade me." I was surprised I had seen so many films in which she appeared: Panic Room (at twelve years old), Personal Shopper, Love Lies Bleeding, Spencer, Cafe Society and Crimes of the Future. There is also a page about her formative cinema influences, including Lynne Ramsay's Morven Callar.

From Brazil with Love

Isabel Stevens talks to director Kleber Mendonca about this film, The Secret Agent. It's set in Rio in 1977 when the country was under a dictatorship. Included in this interview is an upsetting scene in the early part of the film, so I'm not sure I want to see that.

Sonic Boom

Guy Lodge talks to director Oliver Laxe's new film, Sirat. A road movie like no other. A father and son join five ravers on a journey through the deserts of Morocco. It's described as "unconventional". The pounding score might not be for me. 

Shaking it up

Director Mona Fastvold talks to David Thomson about her new film, The Testament of Ann Lee. Apparently it is partly a musical? It is set in late 18th-century upstate New York and the Shaker community there. It's founder was Ann Lee (played by Amanda Seyfried), who died at the age of forty-eight in 1784. It's described as "part speculative biopic, part unabashed musical". Hmm. 

The Hustler

Thomas Flew talks to the director of "Marty Supreme", Josh Safdie. We are in 1950's New York with Timothée Chalamet as a table tennis hustler, of which there seem to be too many scenes for my liking. There are some nice stills from the film, including one set piece in a large bar with something in the middle. Guess what!

Way Down in the Hole

Katie McCabe reviews the new film from Mary Bronstein, her first feature in seventeen years! Oscar-nominated Rose Byrne plays a mother with a poorly child and a collapsing home. Don't you just hate it when a reviewer starts with their own personal history to compare with the movie? Reading about the director, these are films I purposely avoid: "Bronstein had the film's unusual title in mind for twenty years."

REVIEWS

Sound of Falling

Catherine Wheatley calls this German film by Mascha Shilinski "furious and fragmented" ... "a film about the silencing of women", and "it is a difficult watch".

The Testament of Ann Lee

See previous article. Katie McCabe tells us it was shot at the real Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts.

The Secret Agent

Giovanni Marchini Camia is the reviewer. He says the director Kleber Mendonca Filho has "such a confident skill, combined with a richness of the narrative, etc. ... riveting for all of the 160 minutes."

Marty Supreme

I read all of Nicolas Rapolo's full-page review just to see if there was anything to which I could relate. There was not. "Marty's life feels like an all-or-nothing gambit for vindicating success or abject humiliation." I think I'm too old.

A Private Life

Philip Voncannon reviews this small film starring Jodie Foster and Daniel Auteuil. A mainly two-hander that might be OK to watch at home.

Sirat

See the article headed 'Sonic Boom'. Not for me.

Hamlet

A modern version reviewed by Kate Stables that she calls a "lean contemporary psychological thriller". A British Asian family business is at war. It stars Riz Ahmed who is "exciting to watch and completely in control of his material". Must look for the trailer.

If I had legs, I'd kick you.

See the previous article. Nicolas Ropolo again with a long review. See above.

28 Years Later, The Bone Temple

Reviewed by Henry K. Miller. He tells us that star Ralph Fiennes "is a delight". It was shot back-to-back with the previous instalment. See my reviews. Miller invokes Muriel Spark at the end of his review and her book Memento Mori (again, see my review).

DVD and BLU-RAY

The only thing of interest in these six pages is a recent restoration (with added extras) of I Know Where I'm Going (1945). See my post of 17th December 2024.

Books

David Lynch's American Dreamscape: Music, Literature, Cinema.

From the Archive: I'm Not Afraid of Anything

From Sight and Sound Magazine's June 2008 edition comes an interview with Andrzej Wajda, all because there is a BFI retrospective marking ten years from his death.

This Month in ..... 1989

It's the three film reviews that caught my eye. Mississippi Burning (Alan Parker), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodovar) and Paris by Night (David Hare), which stars Charlotte Rampling.

The Garden in February

 

The snowdrops that flowered in January are still going strong. However, the main border below has looked quite bare these last two months. 

The roses have been pruned, but there is still no sign of any new growth. Just the white hyacinth nearby.

I'm not sure where these crocuses came from, but they have added some colour. 

At last, in the final week of February, the daffodils are in flower. 

The wallflowers I planted in pots and around the conservatory have not been a great success. The two below are the best.

The hydrangea next to the roses is growing well. I checked on PlantFinder to make sure that is what it was.

A Day in London Part 2 - Fallen Angels at the Menier Chocolate Factory

 

The combination of a Noel Coward play, Fallen Angels, a visit to a theatre I had never seen before (yes, it is called The Menier Chocolate Factory) and starring Janie Dee, one of my favourite actresses, persuaded me this was something not to miss. The theatre first. The seating was in an L shape, six rows with extremely tight bench seating, so quite cosy. The good thing is that the seating is very steep, so my view in the back row was fantastic. However, the legroom is close to nonexistent, which is OK for comfort because of the steepness but very difficult to get past anybody. One hundred and eighty seats, all with perfect views. 

The stage is fine for this one-set comedy, and below are the stars of the show. On the right is Janie Dee (some posts on this blog), and on the left is Alexandra Gilbreath, whom I should have recognised from lots on TV. They have most of the play to themselves, especially an evening when this meal is bolstered by drink. They are a riot. The dialogue is so fast and furious; it's wonderful. In the middle of the picture is Jane (or Saunders), the maid played by Sarah Twomey. She is absolutely brilliant, although she does have some good lines, and director Christopher Lunscombe pulls out all the stops. 

The three male members of the cast are less visible and all pretty dull. With a running time of over two hours, it was over in a flash. 

The journey to the theatre was interesting. Taking the Underground to Tower Bridge, I was suddenly close to the heart of the City. Lots of tower blocks around, so different from Holland Park and Kensington High Street. I was now south of the river and in enemy territory. 

The journey home was fine, leaving the theatre at 5.15pm, and the train was waiting at Euston. I found a seat before it was standing room only, and I was home before 7pm. What a great day.

Apparently, the theatre is at ground level, tucked away in the huge building below. A tiny door around the side and a cramped area around the bar. Who would have guessed?

A Day in London Part 1 - Wes Anderson: The Archives at the Design Museum, London

 

Not the best time of year for a day in London, especially when it's cloudy and a cold 5°C. But the play I wanted to see had only one date left for a matinee. And an exhibition for one of my favourite movie directors was too good to miss. The Wes Anderson Archives are superb. The images below are a mixture of my photos and stock images. Somehow my camera settings went off the grid in my walk around the first part of the exhibition.

The displays are in the order of his films, starting with Rushmore. I should say that the first things we did see were from his first short film, Bottle Rocket. 

Rushmore (1998)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

 

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

The Darjeeling Limited (2007) 

The Fantastic Mr Fox (2009)

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

The Isle of Dogs (2018)

The French Dispatch (2021) 

Asteroid City (2023)

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

I have to say that the presentation of costumes and so many other objects was exceptional. Those above are just a representation of what is on display.

As for the journey, the train was quite busy, as it was half term. I had to catch the train from Tring, as the Chiltern Line had a bus replacement for part of the route. (Thanks to Alison for the lift, which was fortuitous as the car park was full). The Underground was fine to Holland Park station, so a walk across the park to the Design Museum. I found a seat in the cafe for a nice early lunch. Then a walk back across the park after taking the photo below on Kensington High Street of what was the huge Odeon Kensington and is now fancy apartments. Holland Park was the closest green space when we lived in London. It was strange to see it seventy years later. (See posts on Holland Park). I didn't have time to visit Leighton House that is close by, which used to have a children's library that I'm sure we used in those days, as it was a short walk from our flat. The building has had a major upgrade that I definitely want to see sometime. 

Quillbot for my Blog

 

Ever since Google withdrew the spellchecker for my blog, there must be so many posts that have spelling and grammatical mistakes. (I only used one 'm' in 'grammatical'). I have now found a great spellchecker called QuillBot that also corrects grammar. For example, those words in brackets now have quotation marks around them. It can also add a word if it thinks it needs it.

There is also a way of not just changing individual mistakes, but you can let QuillBot change them all with one click. I wish I had found it sooner.