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TV Review: Silent Witness Series 2

Series 2 of Silent Witness sees the show quickly slip into the patterns that bristle against the limitations of the format, whilst Amanda Burton warms up a little

“If you’re lucky, you’ll get away with a slap on the wrist and a warning not to get too involved in the future”

And so to series 2 of Silent Witness, Nigel McCrery’s forensic pathology drama, and the return of Amanda Burton’s remarkably chilly Sam Ryan. Perhaps wisely, there was a big swerve away from her family drama, the focus shifting more solidly to the numerous work crises passed her way. The only problem there is that the writers were in no way content to let her just be a pathologist. 

“I’m a forensic pathologist. All I’m interested in is the truth”, she cries at one point. But it patently isn’t true, her insistence on playing detective with every single case actually having led to the death of someone innocent last time around (she gets over the trauma of that pretty quickly…) and said behaviour continues apace here, reaching almost parodic levels far too quickly. Continue reading “TV Review: Silent Witness Series 2”

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Film Review: Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans (2019)

With an all-star cast, Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans is a perfectly good piece of family entertainment

“All say yah
Bou-dic-ca”

Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans is my first experience of the multimedia franchise and as a piece of light-hearted entertainment, I thought it was rather good fun. It is especially notable for getting quite the company together to have a rollicking good time of it, Kim Cattrall and Rupert Graves rub shoulders, Sam Spiro pops in for a cameo as do any number of British comics, and no less than Derek Jacobi reprises his (I,) Claudius.

It’s all in aid of a kid-friendly rendition of Boudicca’s rebellion against the Roman rulers, told from the perspective of a dorky Roman kid (Sebastian Croft’s Atti) who finds himself conscripted into the army sent to defend their British territories and Orla (Emilia Jones) a teenage rebel Celt who is determined to be a warrior like her flame-haired rival. And in pairing them up in a rather charming way, it entertains in a pleasingly unexpected way. Continue reading “Film Review: Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans (2019)”

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Review: Once In A Lifetime, Young Vic

“You don’t know anything about anything, George, and if what they say about the movies is true, you’ll go far”

The end of the silent movie era and the arrival of the talkies has proved fertile ground for many a storyteller, not least Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s immortal Singin’ in the Rain, but Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s Once In A Lifetime has a serious claim to being one of the first, premiering as it did in 1930 and its influence is plain to see. It has received major revivals from Trevor Nunn at the RSC (1979) and Edward Hall at the National (2005) and now it is the turn of Richard Jones at the Young Vic, in a production notable for marking the theatrical stage debut of Harry Enfield.

In a new adaptation by Hart’s son Christopher, Once In A Lifetime follows the trials and tribulations of three workaday vaudeville artists from New York who decide to throw in their lot and ship out to Hollywood. With the first ever talking motion picture doing great business, they opt to capitalise on the trend by opening an elocution school to help all those actors who suddenly need to speak on screen but even in its earliest days, the crowded corridors of Tinseltown prove a tough nut to crack with any number of wannabe starlets, studio heads and screenwriters competing for the limelight. Continue reading “Review: Once In A Lifetime, Young Vic”