This is What a Hypocrite Looks Like

I mean, if you weren't convince that this perpetrator of austerity (which has been proven to impact upon women hardest of all) wasn't actually a feminist at all then her decision to award Geoffrey Boycott, a man with a conviction for punching a partner twenty-two times, a knighthood ought to remove you of any doubt that actually Theresa May is what a hypocrite looks like. 

That she followed up one of her last acts as PM, the introduction of a domestic abuse bill (a last ditch attempt to secure some kind of legacy) with an act of disgusting cronyism that affords a wifebeater a knighthood, along with her former advisors and staff Robbie Gibb, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, is utterly sickening and says all that we need to know about this Tory government. 

As for Boycott himself, well his words say it all really. On Radio 4's Today programme Martha Kearney began "The Chief Executive of Women's Aid has said -" to which he interrupted with "I don't give a toss about her, luv. It was 25 years ago" It's also worth remembering that Boycott once remarked that he would have to "black up" to receive a knighthood, arguing that they were handed out to West Indian cricketers "like confetti".  That is most emphatically not what a sporting hero looks like and it certainly shouldn't be what a knight of the realm (if we have to have them) looks like either.

Out On Blue Six: T'Pau: Tribute to the Lionesses

Another major tournament. Another knock out at the semi-final stages. But you know what? We shouldn't be downhearted. We are semi-finalists. We are ranked the third best team in the world. We are England, and the Lionesses did us all proud tonight.

Watching that game, it didn't look anything like the USA were the world number one to me. This wasn't David and Goliath, this was a meeting of equals - if the US didn't expect that, then they had a rude awakening across the 90 minutes. They were scrappy, they were defensive, they were wasting time and they were easily rattled. The final score does not represent this, but it's the truth. The Lionesses may have had trouble (once again) with the final touch, but they played on the attack and, with the offside goal and the missed penalty, they were very unlucky not to win the game. 

Phil Neville rightly paid tribute to the ladies in his post match interview. "I've told them no tears tonight" he said, and we should all take this advice. He said the Lionesses left "their hearts and souls on the pitch" and so, what better song to pay tribute to them all than this track from 1987 and T'Pau...

You did us all proud ladies. Thank you

End Transmission

England V Cameroon and the Liverpool Girl: In Tribute to Alex Greenwood

Wow, what a game there was today. England v Cameroon will go down as one of the most fractious, uncomfortable and downright bizarre games in the tournament with a stroppy Cameroon briefly refusing to play on when two VAR decisions went against them, and playing dirty when they did - one player even violently pushed the frankly ineffectual referee at one point!

Away from the hullabaloo, what's important to remember is that England beat them 3-0. The goal scorers were captain Steph Houghton, the marvel that is Ellen White and Liverpool born left-back Alex Greenwood. 

Alex's sweet sweet goal saw her redeem herself after a poor touch just moments earlier in the second half that very nearly cost England - understandable really, given how the poor behaviour of Cameroon was clearly rattling the Lionesses. I really rate Alex Greenwood and was glad to see her return to Phil Neville's line-up today after sitting out the game against Japan. I don't think she gets the praise she deserves, so here's a track going out just for her - former Icicle Works frontman Ian McNabb's 'Liverpool Girl' from 2004.

Wishing the Lionesses the very best of luck for their next challenge; playing Norway on Thursday evening. C'mon!

Change Perceptions, Not The Game

As regular readers will know, I'm a big fan of women's football. So I'm in my element right now as it's the World Cup in France. The BBC have really gone to town this year, broadcasting games on the prestigious BBC One as opposed to the usual out-of-the-way screenings on just BBC2 or BBC4. This, along with their slogan for their coverage 'Change the Game', suggests that they are heavily committed to giving both the incredible Lionesses representing our country and women's football itself the attention and recognition that both they and it deserves.

Unfortunately, I fear it's a case of changing perceptions that is really required, rather than changing the game. After all, the game is perfect - far better than the men's in fact - so, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. No, what irks me is the lazy stereotypical humour I've heard on the BBC since the tournament commenced. On Mock the Week last week, the panel wondered if, seeing as the England team are called Lionesses, they change the badge on their shirts to incorporate eyelashes. Really, we're still doing that kind of gag? Whilst Romesh Ranganathan on his show The Ranganation joked that no one was watching or indeed interested in the 'scrappy' performance of our ladies. Meanwhile social media is full of Neanderthal blokes 'joking' that these women should be at home making the tea rather than playing football. Even the BBC's main commentator, Jonathan Pearce, couldn't resist referencing England's last World Cup win in 1966 within the opening minute of the very first game.

It has taken the BBC years to wake up to the fact that there's been a steadily growing interest in the women's game. Such a shame that their 'talent' elsewhere haven't realised that fact yet. What's the betting that will change should England continue to do well in the tournament? 

Out On Blue Six: The Clash - Good Luck Lionesses!

I've also been remiss in not mentioning England Lionesses excellent performance thus far in the She Believes Cup out in the US. So far they've won one game (Brazil) and drew another (the US), and tonight they play Japan - which you can watch, from 10pm, on BBC4. I'm hoping for another win and a glorious goal (or goals) from Ellen White, who drew first blood scoring against Brazil last week. 

So here's a suitable track for her and the rest of the squad, to wish them well tonight. The Clash and White Riot!

Good luck ladies!

End Transmission

RIP Gordon Banks

The 1966 World Cup winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks has died at the age of 81.

628 appearances in a fifteen year long football league career, with 73 caps for England. A sportsman and a gentleman. A sporting great.

RIP

Swimming With Men (2018)

Swimming With Men is a film based on the true story of a group of Swedish men who, feeling weighed down by 'the meaningless of life' as only a Scandinavian can, decided to form a synchronised swimming team to give them a new sense of purpose. Ultimately these underdogs competed in a world championship representing their country.

It's the latest comedy film from Oliver Parker, a director who had previously given us ropey sequels like Johnny English: Reborn and cack-handed remakes like St Trinian's and Dad's Army.  Here, Parker's clear intention is to emulate the feelgood factor of The Full Monty but as a comedy director he seems incapable of actually shooting anything that is actually funny - why has no one told him this yet? Please, someone seriously needs too. But on this occasion it's not actually all bad. It just feels more like one of those gentle comedies whereby you don't really laugh that much, but you don't feel you've had a majorly disappointing time of it either. It's not really a film film though, it's natural home really ought to have been television. 

I guess what keeps Swimming With Men afloat is it's endearing ensemble cast of male swimmers, consisting of Rob Brydon, Jim Carter, Rupert Graves, Daniel Mays, Adeel Akhtar, Thomas Turgoose and, in the role of their coach, Charlotte Riley. There's also an amusing little gag that sees two of the eight-man team have little or no dialogue or any real character beyond being known as 'Silent Bob' because he doesn't say much, and 'New Guy' who has actually been in the team for a year.

The only thing that stuck in my craw was the pervading air of 'poor me' surrounding the men, specifically Rob Brydon's central character. The comparisons to The Full Monty are inevitable (especially as they're pretty flagrantly demanded for by the film itself) but where that earlier film succeeded was in its depiction of men who were genuine lost souls because, in the working class post-industrial north, they no longer had employment that offered them the traditional role of breadwinner. These were men you could easily identify and sympathise with, whereas the characters in Swimming With Men are not, because times and gender politics have changed and the reason these particular male characters feel lost is completely different. I saw Rob Brydon discuss the movie on TV when it came out as a film about how uncertain it feels to be a man in 2018 and that immediately got my back up. If there are men who feel uncertain in 2018 it's probably because they're reaping what they sowed after years of objectifying women and/or using the patriarchy to their own selfish advantage. I feel no real sympathy with Brydon's character's personal crisis as depicted in the film, because it seems to stem from the fact that his wife (Jane Horrocks, rather wasted here) has decided to no longer just be a housewife and mother and has got herself elected to the local council to do some good for the community, like fighting the austerity drive of government cuts. This - combined with the fact that her boss in the council is, in Brydon's eyes at least, handsome and therefore a threat (though he isn't - having no designs on Horrocks at all) is a move that sees Brydon immediately wallow in self pity. He childishly stomps out of the family home (leaving not just his wife, but also his teenage son - a teenager, not like they need you at that age is it? *sighs*) to go and live in a budget hotel and he enters the synchronised swimming team, having found a kinship with the fellow lost souls who established the activity in the first place as 'a protest against the end of dreams' and of 'who we've become'. 

I suggested earlier that the ennui of the real-life team this film is based on is distinctly Scandinavian and it really is because, depicted here, our heroes seem like selfish mardarses. It's frankly a bizarre move on the part of Parker and his screenwriter, Aschlin Ditta, to believe these characters require much sympathy based on the issues they present with here - Brydon's character is bad enough, but consider Graves' character too, who reveals that he left his family to have an affair with a much younger woman that ultimately didn't last the distance; and what's his reward here? He gets to find romance with Charlotte Riley by the close of the film! I just think that, in the current climate of #Me Too and workplace inequality, depicting soppy, self absorbed manchilds trying to reclaim their position as alpha-males with a synchronised swimming routine to 'This is a Man's World' is a pretty hideous misreading of the real issue here.

A Prayer Before Dawn (2018)

"...Starring as Billy Moore is Joe Cole, a former National Youth Theatre player and Screen International Star of Tomorrow recipient. Cole has been no slouch in the past few years, notching up impressive credits from his breakout role as John Shelby in the hit BBC period crime drama Peaky Blinders to a BAFTA-nominated performance in the Black Mirror episode, Hang the DJ. He has even courted Hollywood with roles in last year’s veterans drama Thank You For Your Service and 2015’s cult horror Green Room, but it’s perhaps fair to say that for all that he still isn’t a household name. That slight anonymity actually works in A Prayer Before Dawn‘s favour, because what’s integral to this film is Billy’s foreignness. It is simply Cole’s milk-white torso, rather than the star status of an A-lister, that makes him stand out from the broiling tumult of similarly semi-naked and heavily inked Thai convicts.  As the only westerner and English speaker incarcerated there, the bewilderment and isolation he feels is key to his specific ordeal and this is palpable for the audience too, as we are forced uncomprehending down this hellhole alongside him. The danger he faces, as warders and inmates bark and threaten, is credible in a way that a bigger name with a greater baggage of roles behind him would simply be unable to pull off. We know that just around the corner the trailer is waiting for them…with the lesser known Cole, you can believe he’s actually living this nightmare. This may not be the film that affords him the mainstream commercial breakout that is surely on the horizon, but the kudos it will gain in critical and professional circles is further proof of Cole’s ability to pick his roles well...."

Read my full review at The Geek Show

I, Tonya (2017)

Time was, Hollywood would make a Nancy Kerrigan biopic. A story about how, an exceptional figure skater and appropriate ambassador and role model for America was heinously attacked and suffered potentially career-damaging injuries but, to the amazement of all, overcame the odds to win a silver medal at the Winter Olympics. Cue stirring music over look of triumph on the actor's face, fade to black and wait for the Oscars to roll in.

But something very interested has happened to Hollywood in that the focus has shifted. Now, the industry want to tell the morally complex stories. They're more interested in the ambiguous (anti) heroes and heroines who occupy the grey areas, or simply the out and out villains, than they are the good guys now. This approach can often fall flat on its face (Pain and Gain), other times it can divide audiences (The Wolf of Wall Street) and sometimes, it's pulled off like a triple axel. I, Tonya is that triple axel.

Everything about I, Tonya more or less works. The soundtrack is brilliant, Margot Robbie delivers an incredible performance, and there's a good balance between the drama and the humour. This last bit in particular is key, because the absurdity of what occurred in 1994 cannot be ignored. They say truth is stranger than fiction and Craig Gillespie and his screenwriter Steven Rogers certainly get that in their approach to the subject matter. Earlier this year I read Seinfeldia by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, a book that explores how the TV series Seinfeld not only impacted upon the world at large but that it also seemed to subconsciously shape it too. Was it really the reality of 1994 that a man called Newt Gingrich was in the senate and that the rivalry between two figure skaters led to a brutal yet deeply incompetent assault, Keishin Armstrong argues, or was it a Seinfeld episode? Gillespie addresses not only the bizarro situation by willfully heightening its comic potential (Paul Walter Hauser's Shawn Eckhardt is clearly a Newman-like contact of Kramer's) but by repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to acknowledge the wildly contradictory opinions expressed by the real-life protagonists. In doing so, he borrows liberally from Michael Winterbottom's excellent 24 Hour Party People. That's the kind of thing that can be very foolish to do, but if you're going to steal you may as well steal from the best, and thankfully Gillespie manages to make it work for his own purposes.  

It's not a flawless film though. It could be argued that Gillespie is too cavalier with the incidences of violence that occur throughout (and are integral to) the movie. The scenes of domestic violence are played almost comedically, as if it's just another happy-go-lucky chapter in the life of Tonya Harding and that can send out all kinds of wrong messages. This is further expounded by the fact that, in choosing to represent all sides of this conflicting tale, he allows Jeff Gillooly to dismiss any accusation that he was ever violent towards Tonya, just as later Tonya is shown to shoot at a fleeing Jeff, before turning to camera to assure us that, from her POV at least, this never actually happened. It is here that the film is most reminiscent of Winterbottom's aforementioned Factory Records biopic, with its infamous scene of Buzzcocks' Howard Devoto cleaning a toilet in which his fictional self is seen screwing Tony Wilson's first wife, Lindsay. "I don't remember this happening" he says to camera. In both films, it's a funny scene, but it ought to be remembered that these scenes stem from personal pain someone has gone through and that they only exist to act as a compromise in order to avert lawsuits. 

Likewise the film has a duty to Kerrigan that it often fails. Gillespie becomes so fixated on Tonya's story that he forgets to pay the victim in all of this the respect she deserves. It's a real shame that, for a film that was keen to address how hard a hand life had dealt a talented young woman like Tonya Harding, it didn't want to give any such due to Nancy Kerrigan. Maybe I'm a touch to sensitive but when the film was released I did have to wonder what Kerrigan made of all this sudden interest in the people who, the court found, attempted to ruin her life. Maybe the truth is Kerrigan wanted nothing to do with the movie, I don't know, and that's fine of course and totally understandable too, but Gillespie ought to have known when to draw the line at some of the opinions expressed in Rogers' screenplay purportedly from Harding herself.

Overall, it might not have got the full marks from the judges, but I, Tonya comes damn close. I really enjoyed this and I think Robbie thoroughly deserved her Oscar nomination and probably should have got it with her performance here. I wish I could say the same about Allison Janney who did pick up the gong for Best Supporting Actress. Don't get me wrong, she's really great in it, but it's an easy Oscar win for a part that has all the work already done for a performer. The Academy love those grouchy scene stealing turns.

Crowhurst (2017)

When Crowhurst, in the depths of manic insanity, wraps himself up within a Union Jack flag like an anxious babbling infant with their precious security blanket, it says more about the nature of the man and his thwarted ambitions than the whole of The Mercy. This is not the Donald Crowhurst that Colin Firth could ever play...Justin Salinger makes this version uniquely his own; a small man totally out of his depth against the mighty, endless oceans. His Munch-like screaming direct to the camera is as powerfully compelling as that of any victim in a horror movie. In the end, Crowhurst is a horror movie – the monster is the mind.

Read my full review at The Geek Show

We Almost Made it...

Ah balls.

It was not the result we wanted. Football didn't come home.

But you know what? Yeah there's a lot to be sad and pissed off about, there's a lot to feel deflated and heartbroken for, but at the same time, there's a lot to celebrate too.

I never really bought into 'football's coming home'. I didn't dare hope and anyway, what's home about it? I'm not going to kid myself that we, as a nation, invented kicking a ball. But it's worth remembering that when Baddiel and Skinner joined forces with the Lightning Seeds and wrote those words back in 1996, they were writing about the 'thirty years of hurt' since our national team last played in a World Cup final.

Tonight, our national team broke another near 'thirty years of hurt' since we last played in a World Cup semi-final and that is a great achievement. That they did that when no one dared dream or predict it is even more of an achievement and we should feel proud, not defeated. Proud. We beat the odds to get here, and we've still the third place play off to win.

Out On Blue Six: Baddiel and Skinner and The Lightning Seeds

It wasn't going to be any other song today was it?

Because hopefully...it's coming home

End Transmission

The Mercy (2017)

Faced with the task of reviewing The Mercy for The Geek Show, I was tempted to just pretend I’d watched it and then posted a review  on here that was so wildly falsified that my inactivity would become apparent to all before leaving the review incomplete…

I feel it is what Donald Crowhurst would have wanted.

Thankfully, I didn't: I watched it all and I really enjoyed it.

See my full review at The Geek Show

The 1990s: Football and Music in Perfect Harmony

Dave broadcast a thoroughly enjoyable trip down memory lane last night. Entitled Football's 47 Best Worst Songs it was your standard list show fare; a host of largely non entity talking heads (one was called a 'social media celebrity', um, what?) mix with recognisable faces to offer up opinions in an enjoyable clips package of all those ill advised world cup and FA cup anthems from the last forty or so years. But just occasionally, we were reminded of the times when football and music came together in perfect harmony (more often than not these times involved Keith Allen) and I think the best time that happened was the 1990s. Just check out these crackers to see what I mean...

Blackball (2003)

Blackball is a deeply misfiring Britcom from writer Tim Firth and director Mel Smith that stars Paul Kaye as a cheerfully insouciant young rebel who sets out on the road of sports stardom, ruffling the feathers of the sedate and genteel conservative world of crown green bowling along the way.  

Just like Firth's other features (Kinky Boots and Calendar Girls) Blackball is based partly in truth. The inspiration for Paul 'Dennis Pennis' Kaye's bowling prodigy Cliff Starkey is Griff Sanders, the self-styled 'bad boy of bowls' who routinely flouted the hallowed rulebook by rolling a cigarette, drinking cans of lager and eating a bag of chips whilst on the grass. But perhaps his biggest transgression was to call the Devon County Bowling Association club secretary a 'tosser', which earned him a ten year ban from the sport (a savage blow which the club tried to ease by citing that, given that most  bowls players were OAPS, ten years was only a sixth of an average playing career!) By 1999 however, with sponsorship and TV coverage demanding 'a character', Sanders was allowed back into the fold and became a minor sports media darling. Naturally a degree of poetic licence comes into play for the movie; affording Starkey with a Romeo and Juliet style romance with Kerry (Alice Evans) the daughter of his nemesis and rival, the snobbish, ramrod straight club champion Ray Speight (James Cromwell), as well as a shot at becoming the England champ, with both rivals having to put their differences aside in a crucial, high stakes match against Australia.

I'm a great admirer of Tim Firth's TV work (Preston Front is one of my all time favourite series), but all too often his opportunity to work in film requires him to churn out deeply formulaic fare. Sometimes, it works - Kinky Boots is quite good and Calendar Girls (which came out at the same time as Blackball) was a resounding success, even though I didn't personally get the hype - but it really doesn't work here. I'm not altogether sure if Mel Smith's direction and Firth's writing is a happy marriage; Smith's humour leans towards the naturally silly and large, and is heavily influenced by his own performing career in sketch comedy. As such the pacing of the film never builds up a suitable head of steam, remaining sluggish and unambitious and offering audiences just a few intermittent chuckles - which are often usually followed by a roll of the eyes. Firth's writing is usually more lyrical, more character driven and ultimately more real, but all that's more or less absent here as he marches to the beat of Smith's drum. However, what writer and director do rather harmoniously provide is a traditional take of David and Goliath via the British class system. Kaye's Starkey represents the plucky, happy go lucky working class underdog who must beat and ultimately win over the stuffy, pompous middle class elitists that dominate his chosen sport, before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in the final reel. In that regard, Blackball follows the path of most sport movies, and it does it so uniformly that the sport itself - bowls - doesn't really matter and what is arguably one of the most parochial games actually fails to be distinctive in any way, shape or form. 

Ultimately, what just about keeps Blackball afloat is the host of British comic performers and recognisable faces who appear in the film -  from Johnny Vegas to the legend that is Bernard Cribbins -  and inject a bit of much needed life into the proceedings. Weirdly, Hollywood's Vince Vaughn also appears as Starkey's unscrupulous, flashy agent. He's there presumably to attract US audiences - where the film was bizarrely retitled National Lampoon's Blackball! 

Playing Away (1987)

Horace Ové's 1987 comic film Playing Away tells a culture clash tale of inner city, urban contemporary black Britain with rural picture postcard village olde (and exclusively white) England through the game of cricket.

The fictional Suffolk village of Sneddington is our location, where the charity minded, ultra conservative residents have been staging a Third World Aid week. To round the event off, the village team have invited the Brixton Conquistadores to a 'friendly' game of cricket which quickly proves to be anything but friendly.

Screenwriter Caryl Phillips claimed that his aim with the film was purely to entertain rather than address any deeply ingrained social issues, however I think he's being too modest. There's a really sound commentary going on here that shows the divisions not just between the Sneddington hosts and the visiting black community of Brixton, but also the divisions that occur in each group: it's clear that there's a line drawn between the middle aged Conquistadores such as team captain Willie Boy (Norman Beaton) and his deputy Robbo (Joseph Marcel) who arrived in the UK some twenty odd years earlier and their younger counterparts like Gary Beadle's pugnacious Londoner Errol. Willie Boy and Robbo are now at an age where they've realised their hopes and ambitions for a modern life in 'the mother country' have come to nothing. They're now considering making the move back to the West Indies, whereas Errol, who is undoubtedly a product of Brixton, represent the contrast and conflict between generations defining himself as he does as Black British. Likewise, there's a class division to be found in Sneddington, as best exemplified by the fact that the village has two pubs; one for the well-to-do captain Jeff (Nicholas Farrell) and one for the imposing ruddy faced real ale drinking farmer Fredrick (Bruce Purchase) and the local mullet-headed, disenfranchised youth who have seemingly just heard about punk some ten years too late, as represented by a pre-fame Neil Morrissey and Ross Kemp.

What's interesting to watch is just how quickly the friendly veneer falls away, largely through a fug of alcohol as resentments and racial prejudices come to the surface. The local yokel boys, incensed by the sight of Errol getting friendly with a busty young blonde they've clearly long since set their own sights upon, pick up Willie Boy's daughter Yvette (Suzette Llewellyn) in their Starsky & Hutch white-striped cherry red Ford Cortina and drive her to a secluded spot with the vague intention of raping her. It's a jarring moment for a film whose main aim is - as Phillips stressed -  to amuse and entertain, but it feels palpably real. Mercifully nothing comes of it, but it says a lot about the impotent frustrations of  such young men and the bitterness they feel towards outsiders. Meanwhile Willie Boy himself strays drunkenly into the 'better class of' pub and is soon given short shrift. Only the somewhat aloof and dreamy Godfrey (Robert Urquhart) proves to be an ally to Willie Boy and the visiting team, thanks to his time spent in, and lifelong appreciation for, Africa and the West Indies.

My favourite scene has to be the moment in the vicar's garden party where Errol, having watched a rather humble looking villager waiting on and handing out sandwiches, goes up to him and rather glibly asks "Can't you see they're oppressing you?", "What's oppression?" comes his suitably bemused reply.

A History Lesson For Boris Johnson

He's spent the week comparing Russia's hosting of the World Cup to Nazi Germany's 1938 Olympics, so it's time to remind him of a couple of things:

1) 20 million Russians were killed fighting the Nazis during World War II, so to liken them to Hitler's Nazis is both ignorant and disgusting.

2) Here's a photograph...

It shows the England football team ahead of a game in Berlin in the '38 Olympics, giving the Nazi salute.

They were instructed to perform the salute by the then British government...which was, of course, the Conservative party.

But what about the Russians, you might ask, did they give the Nazi salute to appeal to their hosts too?

Um no, Russia opted to boycott the '38 Olympics, seeing Nazism for exactly what it was.

Walk Like a Panther (2018)

Walk Like a Panther has been in something akin to development hell for some time now. I first heard about this story of a group of former wrestlers from the 1980s donning the lycra one more time some years ago in a newspaper article that announced it was a forthcoming TV sitcom that would feature the acting debut of Les Dawson's daughter Charlotte alongside Stephen Graham. In many ways it's a shame that its fate wasn't a TV series as that's exactly what this felt like.

It felt like watching Benidorm.

And I hate Benidorm.

It's really hard to see just how so much talent can be so pitifully served by one movie. The screenplay really is abysmal and you have to feel sorry for Jason Flemyng, who has just two scenes and the first of which requires him to vomit a ream of maudlin exposition before he keels over and dies. Meanwhile everyone else courageously battles through dialogue that is so densely written and tin-eared that I wonder if the writer/producer/director Dan Cadan has ever really heard anyone have a conversation in his life. Characterisation is also poor, with characters acting erratically from scene to scene just to push the plot forward or provide some attempt at humour.

It's also really hard to see actors who have previously impressed you seem to lose their ability to actually act. But that's exactly what Walk Like a Panther does to the likes of Graham, Flemyng, Dave Johns, Michael Socha, Christopher Fairbank, Neil Fitzmaurice, Robbie Gee, Julian Sands, Jill Halfpenny, Sue Johnston etc etc... the list goes on, because virtually every cast member here is a familiar and an often rather loved face. Unfortunately several of them appear to be acting in completely different films; Dave Johns brings the same sense of downtrodden poignancy he delivered in I, Daniel Blake whilst in contrast many others are setting their sights firmly on Benidorm like cartoonish comic caricatures. It's bizarre really. Worst of all, Walk Like a Panther will leave you wondering what the hell is happening to Stephen Graham's cinematic career. I can see why he probably wanted to do this, to show his lighter, comedic side, but he really should have got out when he saw the final script -  even Charlotte Dawson ultimately steered clear of this! Thank God Save Me came along to well, save him! Only Stephen Tompkinson seems acutely aware of the fact that he's in some kind of working class contemporary panto and delivers a boo hiss performance in keeping with his villainous role.  

The film's biggest crime though is that it is woefully unfunny. The trailer contains all of the film's jokes, so save yourself the bother and just watch that. I laughed just twice across the painfully long 110 minutes: the first was when Brian McCardie said that Julian Sands' character 'Looks like David Soul...if he'd've been a crack addict' and the other was when a cameo-ing Lena Heady's brewery boss Miss Winters (who is engaged to writer/producer/director Cadan in real life) arrives with the line 'Winters is coming' It's funny 'cos it's a Game of Thrones in-joke, y'see? Well, no one else in the cinema got it. And this was a crowd of annoying 50-somethings, one of whom said 'tea' out loud when one character brought in a tray of tea.

In it's defence, Walk Like a Panther benefits from being filmed in beautiful Yorkshire, and it does actually come alive a little in the final reel which showcases the wrestling that Cadan clearly wanted to pay tribute to. It's also still better than the deeply ill advised big screen revival of Dad's Army, but this remains a very poor British comedy. Mentioning this feeble effort in the same breath as The Full Monty is insulting.

RIP Jim Bowen

More sad news as it has been announced that the northern comedian, actor and Bullseye presenter Jim Bowen has died at the age of 80.

Bowen was a Maths teacher and a deputy headmaster originally, but he was compelled to try comedy after watching Ken Dodd perform two nights in Blackpool in the 1960s, and there's a bitter irony to be had in the fact that Bowen died just two days after his inspiration and hero. The years spent on the stand up circuit in the pubs and working mens clubs paid off, as Bowen bagged a regular spot on Granada's stand up showcase The Comedians in the 1970s. This led directly to the show Bowen became synonymous with, Bullseye. Arriving on our screens in 1981 the partnership of darts ability and general knowledge quickly proved to be a winning formula and Bullseye became a Sunday teatime mainstay for 14 years, attracting up to 17.5 million viewers in its heyday, and providing Bowen with both a clutch of catchphrases ('You can't beat a bit of bully', 'let's have a look at what you could've won' and 'super, smashing, great' to name but a few) and household name status.

Away from Bullseye, Bowen had a sideline in acting, appearing in Victoria Wood's TV play Happy Since I Met You and the 1980s property development drama Muck and Brass, alongside Mel Smith. In later years he appeared in The Grimleys, Jonathan Creek and as bewigged Blackpool bar owner Hoss Cartwright in Peter Kay's sitcom Phoenix Nights. He was also the president of Morecambe Football Club.

Between 1999 and 2002 Bowen had his own morning show on BBC Radio Lancashire but an ill considered, on air racist remark let to his resignation. In recent years Bowen suffered a series of strokes. He died in hospital this morning with his wife Phyllis by his bedside.

RIP.

Secret Society (2000)

Secret Society is a little seen comedy from 2000, somewhat in the mould of The Full Monty, and it is all about a group of plus sized female factory workers in Yorkshire who become sumo wrestlers. It is a British/German co-production from director Imogen Kimmel, who co-wrote the screenplay with Catriona McGowan.

It stars Charlotte Brittain of 1998's Get Real (pictured above;whatever happened to her? She's so sweet, charming and sexy here) as Daisy, an insecure young woman who has problems accepting her size and her beauty despite the clear belief from her husband Ken (Lee Ross) that she is gorgeous as she is. Unfortunately, despite Ken clearly being mad about her, he's a bit of an amiable well meaning prat who is unable to hold down a job or get their lives on course for the future. Determined to make Daisy feel good about herself and make some money he hits upon the idea of her posing for saucy postcards and resolutely fails to understand or read the signs that Daisy is acutely embarrassed and uncomfortable by this venture - and you can't really blame her, when his idea is to paint rodent features on her bare breasts and print postcards with the legend 'Greeting from the Yorkshire Field Mouse'. I could have done with some explanation as to his thinking here, really I could.

Realising that she has to bring home the bacon herself, Daisy gets a job in a local veg packing factory run by Marlene (Annette Badland) and which seems to employ more than its fair share of ample women, each of whom keep to their own secretive clique. Singled out as having potential by Marlene and the no-nonsense supervisor (Sharon D. Clarke), Daisy is tested by being told she must clean the toilets as well as her official work duties. When she finally snaps and hands in her resignation, Marlene realises that her young protege is a strong willed woman who has what it takes to become part of their inner circle, the secret society of the title - their sumo club. 

Marlene has long ago realised that, for plus sized women, size is not a weakness it's a strength. Using sumo training and its philosophy - 'shin' (spirit) 'gi' (skill) 'tai' (body) - she teaches her workforce that the body is a tool to use to its optimum, as opposed to their brains being ruled by their body and the hang-ups they may associate with it. This is clearly beneficial to Daisy and much more enlightening than Ken's hamfisted methods of trying to make her recognise her attractiveness. But of course, as Daisy takes the rocky road to self discovery and self confidence that she must keep secret from Ken, he begins the descent into insecurity and vulnerability. 

Ken's mates (James Hooton and Charles Dale) are both UFO obsessives who work at the local video shop. When Ken loans some kind of titillating alien amazon women film (featuring Hooten's Emmerdale co-star Lisa Riley who surprisingly gets 6th billing in the film despite only having three scenes and one piece of dialogue) from them and attends a few of their meetings he begins to believe that Daisy's new secretive mood and physical confidence is a result of aliens taking over her body! Like Ken's harebrained postcard scheme, I'm not quite sure what the filmmakers were going for her and the resulting subplot falls pretty flat at a time when the film should be stepping up a gear to reach its climax. By the final reel, Marlene has convinced her sumo sisters to go public for a tournament against a visiting team of male wrestler from Japan and there's a dilemma for Daisy who has walked away from her friends to be with the clearly distressed and confused Ken and to be little more than his wife once again. Will she stay that way or will the pull of her sisters have her return to the fold not only to continue on her course for enlightenment and size acceptance but also to win the tournament for her team? 

Well the answer is of course a predictable yes, she will return and she will win - but everything feels so rushed (especially given that one minute Daisy is watching the bout on TV at home with Ken and the next minute she's there, all dressed up and ready to go - just how near was the arena to their house?!) that you can't help feeling shortchanged.  

Despite these niggles in the film's denouement and the fact that, for a Fully Monty-esque comedy there isn't really much in the way of laughs at all (though thankfully it never once makes cheap gags about either weight or sumo; there's no 'big nappy' comments here), and that unfortunately - apart from Brittain, Badland and Clarke - the other female sumo wrestlers are little more than glorified non-speaking extras rather than characters in their own right, Secret Society remains a good film based solely on its merit in terms of not only female empowerment, but empowerment for women who are above a size 12. No wonder it's such a rarity.