DVD/150: RICHARD III (Richard LoncraIne, 1995)

Richard Eyre's 1990 RICHARD III at the National Theatre starring Ian McKellen was set in the 1930s, finding a natural setting against the rise of Fascist dictators and five years later, Richard Loncraine based his screen version on this production using an adaptation by himself and McKellen.

As good as McKellen is, eventually he becomes wearing; being so close to the script-writing means few other characters get a look in.

Loncraine's film however is excellent: the action is wonderfully thought through to fit the 1930s concept and the production design and costumes won BAFTAs and were nominated for Oscars.

As I said, it's a struggle for the cast to get round McKellen but there is fine work from Annette Bening as Queen Elizabeth. Maggie Smith as the Duchess of York, Nigel Hawthorne as Clarence, Jim Broadbent as Buckingham, Kristen Scott Thomas as Lady Anne and Adrian Dunbar as Tyrell.

Shelf or charity shop?  Alhough McKellen's Richard is ruling from the DVD limbo of a plastic storage box, it is definitely one to keep for it's ingenuity, dazzling cast and the wonderful location use of Battersea Power Station. St Pancras Station, Brighton Pavillion, Senate House and the former Bankside Power Station, now the Tate Modern building.

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DVD/150: THE DAMNED UNITED (Tom Hooper, 2009)

Before his Best Director Oscar for THE KING'S SPEECH, Tom Hooper directed THE DAMNED UNITED which was sadly forgotten at awards time.

This meant Michael Sheen's extraordinary performance as football coach Brian Clough went unrewarded; inhabiting Clough's needling, sarcastic tone and bantam posture, Sheen is riveting.

Based on the 2006 bestseller, THE DAMNED UNITED focuses on Clough's 44 day tenure as manager of Leeds United in 1974 and the events that led him there.

The film contends that Clough bore a grudge against fellow manager Don Revie from 1968 when Revie's Leeds played at Derby who Clough managed.  Much to Clough's chagrin, Revie ignored him and left afterward.

Sacked from Derby for arguing with the owner, Clough with his close friend and coaching assistant Peter Taylor were hired by Brighton but Clough walked out when offered Revie's job at Leeds.

But mutual distrust between manager and players started the rot...

Shelf or charity shop?  THE DAMNED UNITED scores with Michael Sheen's wonderful Brian Clough, a palpable feeling of place and time, and marvellous teamwork from Timothy Spall as long-suffering Peter Taylor, Stephen Graham and Peter McDonald as the resentful Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles, Henry Goodman and Jim Broadbent as Clough's angry club owners and Colm Meaney as Clough's nemesis Don Revie.  One for the DVD limbo of the plastic storage box.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the Noel Coward Theatre - a Christmas Present from the Past?

As we inched closer to The Big Day it seemed very timely to see Patrick Barlow's new stage version of Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the Noel Coward Theatre.  I must admit that I primarily went to finally have the opportunity to see Jim Broadbent onstage.

It was all a bit of a curate's egg but it was worth it for Broadbent and Samantha Spiro who played several small roles.

Barlow has adapted a fairly traditional retelling of the Dickens classic but his Scrooge when we first see him is not the usual dessicated old misery but a hearty and overbearing money-lender, in line with the now-received idea of heartless bankers.  The play starts with him putting a woman through the mill before she agrees to his exorbitant interest rates.

With that we get to the main story when Scrooge is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his dead business partner Jacob Marley warning him to change his ways or he too will spend the afterlife in misery.  His visits from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future see to it that by Christmas morning he is a changed man.

The whole play takes place within a large toy theatre proscenium arch with two stagehands trundling props into place for the play to continue with the supporting cast of two actors and two actresses playing all the other parts, meeting themselves going off as they are coming on.

Broadbent was as good as I expected him to be and was particularly fine at the end of the play when his bluff and terror gave way to a sweet humility and as I said, of the supporting cast, the standouts were Amelia Bullmore as the ethereal Ghost of Christmas Past and Mrs Cratchitt but in particular Samantha Spiro commanded the stage as the Babs Windsor-style Ghost of Christmas Present among others.  She also gave a very good curtain speech for the St. Martin-In-The-Fields homeless charity.

But the overwhelming cutesy tweeness of the production was a bit unrelenting and the jokey script happily ignored the story's more haunting aspects towards the end which would have helped to vary the tone.