Lucy, Before I Go To Sleep and A Most Wanted Man

It was good to see a movie written and directed by Luc Besson. Maybe not his best, but Lucy is an enjoyable action thriller with Scarlett Johansson in the title roll. The premise is pretty silly, Lucy endures her brain power being massively increased and eventually relies upon Morgan Freeman as the top Professor in his field to help her make sense of what is happening to her. It enables her to take revenge on those who caused her problem. Johansson is terrific as an action hero and the finale is suitably mind blowing. Good fun.

I described S J Watson's first book as being an unsettling but brilliant read. Before I Go To Sleep has also made for a very decent movie. Fortunately I had forgotten what happens, so I could experience the tension of this nail biting thriller all over again. Adapted and directed by Rowan Joffe, this is a worthy three hander with Nicole Kidman on fine form supported by Colin Firth and Mark Strong. So almost a wholly British mainstream thriller, of which there are too few. We even get the obligatory views of London, this time from the top of Greenwich Park near the Observatory.

Another movie of a book I enjoyed. This time John Le Carre's A Most Wanted Man. This time a largely American cast located to Hamburg and directed by Anton Corbijn. The plot sticks very closely to the book. The only major deviation being instead of it being centred around a 60 year old British banker called Tommy Brue (Willem Defoe sounds German and has a very subsidiary role), this time the lead role is that of a German anti-terrorism boss played majestically by Philip Seymour Hoffman. I guess the movie needed this for it to work on the big screen. Nina Hoss, Robin Wright and Rachel McAdams are all good, but it is Hoffman in one of his last roles that again shows what a great actor he was.

A Midsummer Nights Dream at Aylesbury Waterside

The Globe Theatre touring production of A Midsummer Night's Dream actually came to Aylesbury. This is the only venue after starting at The Rose Theater, Kingston before travelling to Russia and Asia. I don't think I had seen this play since I was young. Maybe it was when I was 13 or 14 when Frankie Howard played Bottom  and Judy Dench was the first fairy at the Old Vic in 1957/8. I cannot be positive this was the production I went to, but seeing the play again was an opportunity that was too good to miss.

The play itself I have always thought to be too flimsy and ridiculous. But there is plenty to enjoy with this production, even down to the set where two columns replicate those at the Globe Theater itself. The ensemble acting is good and the verse (so much verse) is quite clear. The staging is OK, but I had expected more from a top director like Dominic Dromgoole. He should go and watch a Maria Aberg production, although Stratford has the benefit of a thrust stage.

But the biggest thrill for me was when I read in the programme that Jaine Dee would take the parts of Titiana and Hypolyta. She has always been one of my favourite actresses and only this month we had watched the reruns of two feature length P D James murder mysteries from 2003 where she starred alongside Martin Shaw as Adam Dalgleish. She is still the same bubbly actress I remember. Aden Gillet is also fine in a similar dual role of Oberon and Theseus.

The young lovers are OK, but I don't think the dialogue does them any favours. But the stand out performance for me was Molly Logan as Puck. Now here is a very young actress destined for big things despite her tiny stature. Then we come to the comedy. I'm not sure if the whole cast of the clog dancing Mechanicals had changed from the glowing reviews they had from the Globe 2013 production, but these could have been better. The geordie Bottom was a huge disappointment. Pierce Quigly played the part in London, but here Trevor Fox just wasn't good enough. The play within a play at the end was quite funny, but not the riot it could have been. The stage they erect for their performance of Pyranus and Thisby is quite clever with two more but smaller tilting columns. But when the props are funnier than the performers, something is not quite right.

Photos are from the 2013 London cast.

P.S. The funniest bit for me was when the Mechanicals were given their parts for Pyranus and Thisby and Flute (the best of this group played by Steffan Donnelly - another name to watch for) rushes through his whole script by memory instead of waiting for his cue. I'm still chuckling even now. It just seemed a very modern piece of fun. He is told "you speak all your part at once, cues and all".

Firmware - A Mystery?

The Garmin Forerunner 405ctx is a masterpiece of modern technology. There is a plug-in device that transmits all your runs from the "watch" wirelessly to the computer via Garmin Connect. However I hadn't bothered to do that since the first successful upload in March. So when I came to try again, it failed on every attempt. So much for modern technology.

The most annoying aspect is that the Forerunner also started a nasty habit of draining a fully charged battery after only a mile of running. Searching the net for an answer to this problem, someone mentioned "Firmware". Whilst I was waiting during one of the failed attempts at uploading, I happened to remember a note on Garmin Connect about Firmware. I found a link to where you could download the latest Firmware update, but worried that this might compromise all my records.

However I went for it and the download seemed to be OK. Low and behold, the next time I tried to upload my data, it worked first time. So all my runs since December are now on the Garmin website. It did erase all the data on the Forerunner, but hopefully that has also cured the battery problem. We shall see.

But Firmware, what is that? I looked for an answer but I'm still none the wiser. As Alison would say, it's all witchcraft!

Medea - National Theatre Live

My second excursion to the cinema to see a live production direct from The National Theatre. It was the last night of the 2,500 year old play Medea by the Greek play-write Euripides, a tragic story of a woman's revenge. Helen McCrory is absolutely fantastic in the title roll. She seemed subdued when I went to see her in Old Times at The Donmar Warehouse, but here she was the opposite. A woman that was not going to stand by while the husband, for whom she destroyed her family and lived in exile, marries the daughter of a king.

But what impressed me more than anything was this new version written by Ben Power and the direction of Carrie Cracknell. Somehow their production suited a transmission to a cinema far more than the King Lear I saw a short time ago. The set was terrific and the music by Will Gregory and Alison Goldfrapp suited the dark mood. Altogether a staggeringly memorable evening.

New Tricks and The Big Lebowski

Tender Loving Care was the title of Episode 2 of the latest series of New Tricks. When the team go bowling we are treated to a homage to The Big Lebowski and the scene that introduces us to Jesus Quintana. Even down to the hand drier. Unfortunately we don't get the accompaniment of The Gypsy Kings version of Hotel California but an inferior guitar instrumental. Shame.