Babs (2017)

It's central construct of playing witness to your own past might be as creaky as the boards the middle-aged Barbara Windsor is treading, and the script has a fair few clunkers, but Babs is mostly saved by some peerless performances that make this a amiable way to pass ninety minutes, but some way off the kind of satisfying success ITV biopics like Jeff Pope's Cilla enjoyed.

Samantha Spiro is effortless as the middle-aged, seemingly washed up Windsor, as you would expect from someone who jokingly admits to having played Windsor for half her life now (she had previously played her at the National in 1998's Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick, reprising the role for the TV adaptation, Cor Blimey, in 2000) but it's Jaime Winstone who really shines here with the role of the young Babs, capturing her sexy look, her defiant pluck and that infamous wiggle and giggle that made her both a national treasure and the wet dream fantasy for many of schoolboy in the 1960s. Neither actress goes for an impersonation, as that wouldn't be enough to sustain a biopic alone, but they capture an essence of the person remarkably well.

They're both nicely supported (ooh-err!) by Nick Moran as Windsor's father, the man whose love she was constantly searching for throughout her life, an unfortunately all too underused Leanne Best as her mother (why give her so little to work with? Best is a brilliant performer who lifts anything she appears in), Luke Allen-Gale as bad boy Ronnie Knight, and the inspired casting of Zoe Wanamaker as Joan Littlewood and a wonderful spot of mimicry from Robin Sebastian as Kenneth Williams. Only Alex MacQueen as Windsor's agent jarred; I know he has his screen persona of the prissy, over-enunciating dullard of dubious sexual orientation, and I have liked him in many other things, but it's the only thing he does in each role he takes and it just doesn't sit well when he's required to act outside of comedy or as something or someone else - look at his ineffectual turn as a political villain in series three of Peaky Blinders, and it's the same here.

When the film actually settles down to focus on Barbara's big break with Littlewood's legendary Theatre Workshop, Babs comes alive, but Tony Jordan's script feels compelled to throw in too many in-jokes (the Dame reference, the Carry On style score) and flat footed references ('you've an offer for a film...the producer is Gerald Thomas' *clunk*) that consistently hold the film back and shy away from the answers it's naturally searching for as the film refuses to pinpoint why it feels Windsor's potential was ultimately as squandered as it was, leading her to throw her lot in with the Carry On team. I also really felt like the whole thing was hampered by the little meta-touch of crowbarring the real Windsor into the film; I'm not so cold-hearted to begrudge her her song at the end (performed to an audience made up of the cast and crew, which was a lovely touch)  but the other two instances in the middle of the film just feel wrong and out of place, threatening to sink the whole affair. On this occasion, less would have been more.

Home Fires Stops Burning

Home Fires, the ITV drama that is the basis of one of my most visited, popular posts has been axed by ITV and will therefore not return for a third series.

Fans of the WWII set series (based on Jam Busters, a factual book concerning the efforts of the Women's Institute on the home front during wartime) are understandably up in arms, especially as series 2's finale which pulled in an impressive 4 million viewers ended on a cliffhanger, and have started a petition which I urge anyone who enjoyed the series to sign.

I must admit the decision to axe programmes lately is becoming an increasingly strange one. The tendency to axe anything that ends on a cliffhanger (The Mill and Atlantis being two that spring to mind) thereby ensuring the series to exist in limbo, never to be resolved, is an especially frustrating one, but this trend to axe shows that are consistently proven to be ratings winners and have national and even international appeal is a particularly strange one. Just last week we were told the BBC had axed Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle despite good audience figures, critical acclaim and several awards and awards nominations to its name (and there's a petition on Change.org to save that too) Home Fires seemed to do very well in the ratings wars and gained an affectionate following in the US too, so why they have chosen to get rid of it is frankly beyond me. Rise of the idiots people, rise of the idiots.

The Outcast (2015)

I don't know why some people (and by some people I mean of course idiots and Tories) complain about the BBC. The BBC make things like last night's The Outcast, and this is a good thing. Protect the BBC so they can bring us more of these things I say. 

Sadie Jones originally wrote The Outcast as a screenplay for a film but, when finding door after door refusing to open, she went away and wrote it as a novel instead. The novel went on to become a bestseller, winning the Costa First Novel prize and a place on the Orange Prize shortlist. Just under a decade later, her intentions for her story has come full circle with this 2 part, 3 hour long BBC adaptation which she penned herself. 

As you probably guessed from my rating and the opening para, this is the type of story that is right up my street. Set in the 1950s, a time when feelings seemed to come under rationing like everything else, its a dark and torrid psychological drama which sees passions rising from beneath the repressed, buttoned down small town post war veneer of respectability. Our hero is Lewis, a damaged individual played by George MacKay) who at the age of ten witnessed his beloved mother's (Hattie Morahan, she of the beautiful eyes) tragic accidental death by drowning. 

This trauma naturally has a profound effect on young Lewis but unfortunately he is a child in a stultifying age where they should be seen and not heard and worse, when emotions should be tamped down and ignored. Satisfyingly, Jones mirrors postwar society as a whole with this personal tragedy because, in a sense, the entire country was suffering from bereavement stresses writ large thanks to the war years, and handling it just as badly. Lewis' attempts to reach out and seek comfort are doomed to failure; his father (Greg Wise) is a cold fish he barely knew, having been robbed of him during the war, and whose answer to the bereavement is to marry in haste - wedding the younger Alice (Jessica Brown Findlay) who is ill equipped to handle the subsequent domestic disharmony which modern society would now call PTSD. There's a lovely scene in the second part that alludes to just how grief stricken his father actually is, witnessing the same hallucinations of his late wife as his son does. The tragedy being of course that he has no idea how to help himself, let alone his son and Lewis is left to flounder, seeking the Oedipal love of older woman who sense his broken state and wish to protect him, and resorting to extreme and graphic acts of self harm.

"I wanted to write about somebody in a group who everyone turns away from," Jones explains, "In the way animals turn away from an injured member of the herd" We see this with the inadequate and unfair way Lewis is handled. He needs love and comfort but he receives punishment, being pushed away until he becomes the outcast of the title, compelled to push back, harder and with damaging irrevocable consequences. The all too few moments of kindness he is shown, from the likes of Julian Wadham's village doctor and an older work colleague played by Jeff Rawle, are extremely palpable and bittersweet, displayed brilliantly by the subtle awed looks upon MacKay's otherwise solemn, stoney features. These gestures are a surprise to him, unexpected, and it's completely heartbreaking.

The Outcast boasts an accomplished cast including the likes of Wise, Brown Findlay, Morahan, Nathaniel Parker, Leanne Best (who I recently saw in Educating Rita at the Liverpool Playhouse and was blown away by) and Joely Richardson's daughter Daisy Bevan, all delivering fine performances but the real stars of the production are MacKay (of course) and Jessica Barden who provide outstanding and emotionally involving studies of two damaged and ill treated youths - each the sign of the freer more open minded time to come with the subsequent decade - both equally brave and resilient despite the cruelties placed upon them. Barden in particular is very impressive here, the diminutive elfin actress is 22 now but plays the character from the ages of 12 to 16 here, her effectiveness with such a challenge reminding me of the late Charlotte Coleman, who would play juvenile roles well into her twenties. Hopefully we'll be seeing more prominent parts for her to come.

Theme Time : Samuel Sim - Home Fires

ITV's new Sunday night period drama is Home Fires, based on the factual book Jambusters: The Story of the Women's Institute in the Second World War by Julie Summers, Home Fires boasts an impeccable cast headed up by Samantha Bond and Francesca Annis and including some of my favourites ladies; Ruth Gemmell, Fenella Woolgar, Claire Rushbrook, Leanne Best and former Rebus star Claire Price. It's written by Simon Block (who gave us Trust a short lived BBC drama from the early 00s which proved to be one of my favourite series at the time) but there's no escaping the fact that a crucial ingredient is missing from this nice looking home made fare. I'll stick with it, it may improve after all, but it's not filling the gap left by the BBC's Sunday night offering Poldark that's for sure!

Still, it does have a wonderful theme tune from the series composer Samuel Sim, featuring the talents of Heather Cairncross, Joanna Forbes L'Estrange, Rachel Weston and Grace Davidson on vocals and on cello; Caroline Dale, clarinet; Chris Richards and flute; Ileana Ruhemann.

It's not on YouTube but is posted to Soundcloud and you can hear it by following the link here

Educating Rita @ The Liverpool Playhouse

In 1980, Will Russell's seminal play about a Liverpudlian housewife who wanted to improve herself, Educating Rita, made its debut and set its leading lady Julie Walters on the road to stardom.

And now, thirty-five years later, Rita returns to Liverpool with this anniversary production at the beautiful Liverpool Playhouse from director Gemma Bodinetz and starring two great alumni's from Merseyside theatre, Leanne Best as Rita and Con O'Neill as her professor, Frank.

I was determined to catch this one, having been a big fan of the play ever since I sat up and watched the film late one night as a teenager. I well recall being so taken with it that I borrowed the text of the play from the library later that week (and, being a bit of a green young boy at the time, I was surprised to find that, on the stage, it consisted of just one set and two characters!) So I booked my ticket well in advance for a matinee this afternoon, bagging myself a front row seat.

Under the astute direction of Bodinetz and with the superb playing of Best and O'Neill, Educating Rita proves itself to be an evergreen piece that can rightly be lauded as one of the best, most popular plays of the last century. A spirited and occasionally electrifying revival, the tone was set as we waited for curtain up with music from the late 1970s and early '80s (including educationally themed tracks like The Boomtown Rats I Don't Like Mondays, Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall Part II and XTC's We're Only Making Plans For Nigel) being piped through before designer Conor Murphy's ominously hanging 'camera obscura' proceeds to show a flurry of archive footage compiled by Jack Offord and accompanied by Peter Coyte's score which again secures what we are subsequently about to see as occurring in the early 1980s. 

The camera obscura then slides up to form the ceiling of the play's sole set; Frank's book lined and well stocked (booze wise) study. It's a great semi-circular set from Murphy that both suggests the vast world Rita wishes to embrace as well as the comfortable rut or prison Frank shelters within and allows the two performers to prowl it and take ownership of it at various key moments. The impressive ceiling/obscura depicts the passing of time showing bright blue skies or crimson red evenings which compliment Mark Doubleday's subtle and assured lighting direction and scene changes. 

I was keen to see what Con O'Neill would do with the role of Frank having been an admirer of the actor for some time. But equally, I was aware that whenever I hear Frank, I hear Michael Caine from the 1983 film version of the play. This did prove a little bit of a problem as, surprising myself by how familiar I am with the text given I estimate a good many years since I last watched the film, I kept pre-empting some dialogue coming up in my head during some scenes. It's obviously a very different performance, but it's one that is just as good and just as right for the play. O'Neill injects a twinkly, often child like glee to Frank's whisky soaked mischief and laconic wit that Caine never truly capitalised upon, making him a touch more spry and impish, but equally he plays the poignancy of the part extremely well. This is especially and subtly touched upon in several costume changes (shout out to Jacquie Davies, costume supervisor here) It's generally a given to see Rita transform from loud and feisty to considered and almost bohemian, but what this production does is reflect Frank's own feelings towards Rita in how he dresses; at the start of the second act for example, when the character eagerly awaits Rita's return from Summer School, O'Neill's Frank is smartly dressed, hair slicked and combed and as bright eyed as an excited child at Christmas. That the Rita returning is no longer his Rita (yet a Rita his imparted knowledge has created) is subsequently depicted by a more dishevelled looking O'Neill at their next meeting. 

The themes of give and take are key to Educating Rita and the two hander approach is perfect for it, allowing both actors the chance to shine as their characters see-saw emotionally in reply to one another. Leanne Best as the titular lead gives an astonishing and cannily superb performance, easily adopting the coarse Liverpool accent and the appearance of the 'cultureless' all bright colours and skin tight trousers, before subtly modifying her playing of the part to reflect each steady step towards freedom and knowledge that Rita undertakes. Like O'Neill, it must be hard to step out from the shadow of Julie Walters but, if anything, Best bests her by presenting a more believably Scouse crimper than Walters managed. It really is a great performance from Best, sparky and sharply timed, she brings the house down on several occasions proving that the city of Liverpool still knows a Rita when they see one. She feels utterly real and authentic to us throughout. But perhaps best of all for Best, she's supported by an incredibly generous and warm O'Neill who, as the stalwart returning to The Playhouse, has nothing to prove.

The play rattles along at a great pace that never once feels like its two hours and received a warm and favourable appreciation from its audience. Like many a matinee audience it was a little predisposed to the grey pound and I found myself sat behind a gaggle of women in their early sixties who chuckled and commented throughout. It's the kind of thing that may normally put me off, but given that Rita is a reflection of just such people I found myself envying their freedom to express in their moment the enjoyment they felt rather than the solitary quiet appreciation I naturally had. Interestingly, the play also brought me up rather short as I realised perhaps how much the young me must have taken from the character of Frank; several of his witticisms, the acerbic nature and his general manner chimed deep within me as I realised I have subconsciously aped and built upon these traits from him over the years to my own personality. It was only when seeing it in the flesh, after some time since I last saw the film, that I realised that to be true. So, just as everyone in Liverpool knows a Rita (including myself) I can perhaps say I know a bit of a Frank when I look in the mirror. Thankfully, I hasten to add, I don't include his alcoholism there!

But the resonant air of the play does not end there; it would be nice to say that the social divisions Russell captured back in 1979 when he first put pen to paper no longer existed now. That we no longer judge people on appearances, accent, education and personal taste. But we do, class and social inequality is writ large once more as recent reports about working class talent disappearing in stage and screen prove with Julie Walters herself remarking that she wouldn't stand a chance starting out now - and let's consider that Rita today would need around £5,000 just to start her OU course! All these things make Educating Rita just as relevant, just as vitally important now as it was thirty five years ago. To paraphrase a moment from Russell's script, we haven't found a better song to sing, we're still singing the same one.

But at least with Educating Rita, its got a bloody good beat.