Tag: Entertainment

This week I have been…

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Reading – None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

I have read most of Lisa Jewell’s previous books including Then She Was Gone which I reviewed here. None of This is True is her best book yet in my opinion, as soon as I began reading I was completely hooked. The book tells the story of “birthday twins” Alix, a glamorous podcaster who appears to live a dream life in a huge house with her wealthy husband and two children and Josie, a machinist, who lives a more modest life with one of her two daughters and her much older husband, Walter. Josie and Alix have never met until they happen to be celebrating their forty-fifth birthdays on the same night in the same gastro-pub. Josie introduces herself to Alix in the toilets with the phrase “I’m your birthday twin”. The women discover that they were born in the same hospital and share a moment of connection. Josie, however, isn’t content with just a moment and pitches an idea for a new podcast to Alix. Josie appears to have been the victim in a controlling relationship and Alix wants to help her tell her story. Nathan, Alix’s husband is not so keen on her new friendship, especially as it seems like Josie is becoming a permanent fixture. Thrillers are ten a penny on Kindle but Jewell’s writing is in a different league. Her ability to reel the reader in and weave a story together is really something else. Her books rely on an aura of menace and darkness and the story will stay with you after you have finished reading , you have been warned!

Watching – Your Friends and Neighbors – Apple TV

I don’t have an Apple TV subscription but a friend told me Your Friends and Neighbors is a must watch so I signed up for a free trial. Starring Jon Hamm as Andrew Cooper (famous for Mad Men) known as Coop, and Amanda Peet (Dirty John Two, The Betty Broderick Story) as his estranged wife, Mel. The show makes for glamorous and gripping viewing. Coop runs a hedge fund for a private company and, after an ill-advised one night stand with a younger employee, is fired, losing his capital account and everything he had spent twenty years building He looks for another position but his arrogant attitude alienates everyone and his contract had a clause which meant that he could not bring any of his previous clients with him (or something like that!) Coop’s lifestyle is lavish to say the least. He is used to spending $60,000 on tables at charity events, his house which Mel now lives in with her lover, Nick, has its own basketball court. When Mel and Coop’s son gets into trouble at school Mel casually pledges a quarter of a million dollars to keep him from being expelled. My favourite character, Coop’s business manager, Barney played by Hoon Lee, is struggling to keep up with his wife’s constant demands for more. He says that they have rooms in their house that they never go in yet they are spending money they don’t have to build more rooms and fill them up with shit that they won’t use. Consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses at its finest.

Coop needs to keep earning, as well as his two children he is responsible for his adult sister, Ali, who is struggling with her mental health, He is a fundamentally good guy who loves his famil. Coop’s plan to keep the money coming in is unorthodox to say the least and he gets into more than his fair share of scrapes. By the end of the season I was totally emotionally invested. The actors playing Mel and Coop’s children, Tori and Hunter (Donovan Colan and Isabel Gravitt) are wonderful and I found myself desperately hoping that everything would work out for their sakes. My only criticism of the show is that the styling of the women was so safe and boring, they all looked the same. Glossy brunette hair, cashmere sweaters in neutral tones, accessories by The Row and Hermes. It would have been nice to have seen more interesting fashion choices.

Listening to – Flesh and Code on Itunes

Flesh and code came up in my suggestions as it is presented by Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire the young women behind the hugely successful RedHanded true crime podcast. There are six episodes and some bonus content. Flesh and Code tells the story of an app called Replika which people use to create an AI companion. The app, which is still available, describes its companions as an “AI companion who cares, Always here to listen and talk. Always on your side”

The story centers around Travis who creates Lily Rose, who he goes on to have virtual sex with and even marry. No matter that he already has a wife, Jackie. Travis tells us how he is in love with Lily Rose and I thought how painful it must have been for his real life wife to hear that. There is a side story of Russian intrigue and some very sad developments in Travis’ family.

One Replika encourages its human to go to Buckingham Palace and assassinate the Queen, another encourages a human to send nude photos. People all over the world are in virtual relationships with their Replikas but one day the coding is changed and the sexy conversations stop, the AI become formal and careful about what they say. Travis and those like him are devastated and start an online campaign to have their former “personalities” restored. I didn’t really enjoy this story, I felt too sorry for Travis’s real wife who seemed to have been side lined in favour of Lily Rose who you just know had been created with big boobs and a skin-tight cat suit. Is AI ever a good substitute for real human companionship or is it dangerous tool? You will have to make your own mind up.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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Six, The Musical and Dinner in Covent Garden

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I had been hearing such good things from friends about Six The Musical so I decided to go and see it for myself. The show is on at the Vaudeville Theatre in the Strand. I paid approximately £130 for two tickets for a Saturday evening performance. We were seated in the upper circle, the seats couldn’t really have been better.

We caught the train from our local station to Charing Cross and then had a mooch around Covent Garden. Most of the shops were closed but there was still an buzzing atmosphere with , street performers such as contortionists, magicians and musicians. We went to Buns and Buns and had a steak dinner with a large glass of wine which was delicious.

The first, and only negative, thing I will say about Six is that it is unnecessarily loud, so loud in fact I did actually worry about damaging my hearing when it started. The show was written in 2017 by Cambridge University students Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss and was first performed by the university’s musical theatre group at the Edinborough Fringe Festival. Six is the tale of Henry the Eighth’s six wives, all told through song and dance. It has a similar fast-paced, high-energy vibe to Hamilton. The performers playing the wives enter the stage wearing various sexy interpretations of Tudor costume. All the musicians are women too, it is definitely a Girl Power show.

Each “wife” sings a number summarising how she met Henry and what fate befell her. Some of the tales are extremely sad. Tickets to Six would be a great gift idea for anyone studying history and I learned some facts that I hadn’t known before. Ann of Cleves was chosen by Henry after he saw a portrait of her by the German artist Hans Holbein. When Henry saw Ann in the flesh he declared she was ugly and their marriage was eventually annulled. She was luckier than Ann Boleyn and Catherine Howard though who famously lost their heads. Ann of Cleve’s musical number is very night-clubbish and there is a strong element of fun and humour throughout the whole musical. There is strobe lighting at a number of points in the show. My favourite performance was from Thao Therese Nguyen, the actress playing Anne Boleyn who somehow managed to stand out on a stage crowded with female talent.

Unusually, the show lasts for about an hour an a quarter, there is no interval. To be honest, I wish more productions were like this. I imagine the theatre loses a lot of revenue though as theatre-goers aren’t buying drinks in their bar or purchasing merchandise. We had sped through some really interesting herstory, pardon the pun, and were back home by 9.30am. A pretty perfect evening.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Film Review – Bridget Jones – Mad About The Boy

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This review does contain some spoilers. Comedies aren’t really my favourite genre but it’s been a long winter and who doesn’t need a little cheering up at this time of year? I have seen the other films in the Bridget Jones franchise so it seemed a pity not to see how Bridget’s story ends in Mad About the Boy – directed by Michael Morris . It has been nine years since Bridget Jones had her baby and a catch-up is long overdue. My friend booked us tickets to go and see it at The Stag Theatre and Cinema in Sevenoaks. I have never seen the cinema so full, there was not an empty seat in the house and almost all of the film goers were women.

The film opens and we immediately learn that Bridget’s life hasn’t been all sunshine and roses, Mark, her husband was killed on a humanitarian mission to Sudan four years earler. She finds herself alone, in her Hampstead house, with her two young children, Billy and Mabel. The house itself would probably cost about five million pounds, I know because I looked on the website of the posh estate agent that I used to work for. If you don’t fancy a trip to London after watching the film I will be very surprised, there are no pickpockets or phone snatchers to be seen, just the most picturesque locations. Bridget goes on a date in Borough Market, I was there recently and it was horribly crowded but it’s conveniently empty for our heroine. Bridget is, of course, played by Rene Zellweger. Mark Darcy does still make appearances throughout if you are concerned about the lack of Colin Firth. I saw an interview where Hugh Grant said that there really wasn’t any logical place for his character, Bridget’s former love interest Daniel Cleaver, in this film but the writers found a way to include him when Bridget rushes to his side after he has a health scare. Grant really is a scene stealer and the film wouldn’t have been the same without him.

Bridget has been on her own for four years and her friends create an embarrassing Tinder profile for her. She is finally going back out into the world. Of course Hollywood can’t let people be single, even if they seem perfectly happy that way. Any single person must surely be feeling unfulfilled and therefore coaxed back into the dating world. Bridget returns to her previous job as a TV producer and hires an annoyingly perfect, but actually lovely nanny, Chloe played by Nico Parker. The film features a whole host of famous actors, Isla Fisher (who looks just like Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter), Hugh Grant, Sally Phillips and Emma Thomson to name a few.

Bridget takes Mabel and Billy to Hampstead Heath where there’s an unfortunate tree-climbing incident. Although not really so unfortunate as she find two handsome men offering to help, Roxter, played by Leo Woodall and Mr Wallaker, the new science teacher at the children’s’ prep school, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Roxter is just twenty nine and Bridget is supposed to be around fifty. He thinks she is thirty five and she says yes, lets go with that. They have a fun romance but the age difference looms large. Mr Wallaker seems to appear, as if by magic, at the most embarrassing moments but he is clearly a caring soul. After pretending to be outdoorsy, Bridget accompanies him on the school expedition to the Lake District, another win for the English Tourist Board.

The school scenes did bring back some memories, the one mum who has to get a dig in about how you’re not quite as perfect as she is. The superior mother in this film has twins Atticus and Eros. She is organising hampers for the school raffle and Bridget fishes a half eaten pot of hummus out of her Mulberry bag as her contribution, we’ve all been there! There is a very touching scene at the end when Billy is singing and it really brought home the fact that I won’t have any more school concerts to attend for my own children.

Bridget’s wardrobe is pretty typical of private school mums. She has a Mulberry Bayswater bag which I am sure featured in another one of the films, cashmere cardigans, ankle boots, mini -but-not-too-mini skirts and dungarees. Personally I don’t think anyone over the age of five should be wearing dungarees unless they’re a painter and decorator. She also has a pair of straight Levi jeans which she wears for her visit to Hampstead Heath. For her dates she has pretty tea dresses, a denim jacket and an Anna Hindmarch woven bag. You could pretty much replicate her entire wardrobe with a quick order from White Stuff and Boden. Crew Clothing have this pretty teal cord mini-skirt which is a near match for Bridget’s. One thing Bridget doesn’t appear to be acquainted with is a hairbrush for some reason and she looks fairly dishevelled most of the time.

I doubt author Helen Fielding realised what a success her scatter-brained creation would be when she wrote her column in The Independent in 1995. The first book was published in 1996. Bridget Jones – Mad About the Boy is great fun, beautifully shot and very moving. Not so many laughs as the earlier films and Bridget isn’t quite so hapless which is probably just as well seeing as she is in charge of two small children. One girl sitting behind us left the cinema sobbing – you have been warned!

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Myke Simon on Unsplash

Film Review – Babygirl

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This review does contain some spoilers. I went to see Babygirl at The Stag Theatre and Cinema in Sevenoaks. My daughter had already seen it and said “Mum, I can’t imagine it will be your cup of tea at all”. I went with a friend whose daughter said the film is porn, “it’s not porn” I said, “as if Nicole Kidman would appear in porn”. Well my friend’s daughter was right, it really is soft porn. The film, directed by Halina Reijn, stars Nicole Kidman as Romy, a fifty something CEO of a robotics company. Romy is married to Jacob, played by Antonio Banderas, they have two daughters. Nora, who is still a little girl and Isabel who is a teenager and in a lesbian relationship. Isabel, played by Esther McGregor, was my favourite character in the film, she was insightful and compassionate. They all live in a fabulous apartment but also have a mansion in the country for weekends and holidays.

The film opens with a filmed upside-down sex scene between Romy and Jacob. As soon as they have finished Romy scurries away from the marital bed, furtively opens her laptop computer and writhes on the carpet whilst masturbating to porn. It transpires that she has been faking it with Jacob for their entire marriage. That pretty much sets the tone of the film.

We learn that Romy is super-stressed with an upcoming deal at work. She rushes off to work leaving Jacob, a theatre director, in charge of the children’s schedules On the way to the office she encounters a dog attacking a fellow pedestrian. Terrified she retreats but the dog lunges towards her. Suddenly, a young man appears and instantly calms the dog. Romy continues into the office where her PA asks if she would like to meet this year’s crop of interns. The interns are ushered into Romy’s office and, surprise, surprise, one of them is the young man, Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson. He immediately asks an insolent question about the ethics of the business and the PA brings the introductions to a hasty close. It is clear that Samuel is confident and very bold. There is a mentoring scheme in place for the interns and Samuel informs Romy that he has chosen her for his mentor. Unaware that she was even on the list she tries to make excuses but a ten minute meeting is scheduled and this is when things begin to get… heated.

Samuel is thirty years younger than Romy but oozes self-assurance. She may be the boss at work but definitely not in the bedroom. He makes it clear that she must do what he tells her. This is where things get a little silly . Romy finds herself on all fours lapping at a saucer of milk. She is sent to stand in the corner like a naughty child. Romy attends a rave dressed in an amber silk pussy-bow blouse and immediately young girls start pawing at her, the blouse comes off. She finds Samuel in the heaving crowd with no trouble and does not seem in the least bit perturbed about being the oldest person in the room by three decades. In real life people would have been wondering whose mum had turned up to take them home.

Although the relationship is entirely consensual there is, of course, a power imbalance and if Romy thinks she can just walk away from the relationship when she chooses she is sorely mistaken. Everyone at her company seems to be capable of blackmail and she is terrified of losing her position and her family. She immerses herself in her affair but it is safe to say that there isn’t a happy ending for Samuel and Romy. However, she finally finds herself able to open up to Jacob about her desires. Disgusted and embarrassed, he tells her to get out of their home. She simply goes to their other spectacular home, the outside of which is all lit up by fairly lights as if it had been expecting her.

Romy has the same uptight air that Kidman’s characters always seem to have. She reminds me somewhat of Julie Andrews playing Mary Poppins, I think it is her toes turned out walk. She struts through the city streets in a wardrobe that could have been borrowed from any of the films/tv productions I have seen her in recently. Kidman is of course still exceptionally beautiful but in one scene Samuel describes Romy as not being girlfriend material because she looks like a mother. Of course men have relationships with women decades younger than them all the time and nobody really bats an eyelid except to predictably suggest it is transactional on the woman’s part.

There were only six of us in the cinema and most people let at an embarrassed laugh at one point or other. I was slightly surprised that Kidman, a huge star, signed up for something so explicit. Babygirl is provocative, raunchy and fairly entertaining but my daughter was right, it wasn’t really my cup of tea.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Myke Simon on Unsplash

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Film Review – Mothers’ Instinct

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This review contains spoilers. Mothers’ Instinct is a psychological thriller starring Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain. Set in the American suburbs of the 1960’s, Hathaway plays Celine and Chastian plays Alice. The director is Benoît Delhomme who is clearly heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock. Alice is styled like Hitchcock’s favourite leading lady, Tippi Hedren with her blonde hair in a french twist and her strappy sundresses. Obviously Hathaway and Chastain are both ridiculously beautiful and they are permanently dressed in ultra-feminine dresses, usually revealing unblemished shoulders and décolletage. Celine even wears six inch stilettoes to do the vacuuming.

Alice and Celine are next door neighbours and good friends, they are both stay at home “moms”, married to successful and handsome men. Alice is married to Simon, played by Anders Danielsen Lie, some sort of accounts executive, and Celine’s husband is Damian, played by Josh Charles. I found Josh Charles a little distracting because he reminds me so much of ex British Prime Minister, David Cameron. Damian is a doctor and Celine is happy to stay at home full time and look after her only child, eight year old Max. Alice and Simon also have an eight year old son, Theo, who is brilliantly played by Eamon Patrick O’Connell. Alice has aspirations to return to her career in journalism but Simon is unsupportive of this and makes some patronising suggestions that maybe she could help out at the boy’s school newspaper. We learn that Celine is unable to have any more children and that Alice has only had one child by choice, Simon would like to have more.

Mothers’ Instinct did have me hiding behind my hands at some points but then I am a lightweight when it comes to scary films. The clues are a bit heavy handed in places. My son and husband are both anaphylactic and it amazes me how potentially fatal food allergies have become such tropes in films and books. Theo is allergic to peanuts and Alice understandably lives in fear of him accidentally ingesting something containing nuts.

Everything is picture perfect in suburbia, Celine drives her gleaming car with Max and Theo, in the back seat, the three of them singing Did You Ever See a Lassie loudy in preparation for a school concert. Celine spends more time looking over her shoulder than at the road and I was sure this is when disaster would strike but no, they made it home to their huge homes without incident.

The couples do a fair bit of socialising in each others homes, decanters and canapes are always at hand and it did seem like wife-swapping may be on the cards but then a dreadful accident befalls Max and everything changes. Does Celine blame Alice for not saving Max or is that just in Alice’s imagination? I was irritated by the fact that there are four main characters and two of them have been afflicted by serious mental illness and they are both of the women. Celine’s unravelling is unnerving to say the least but how ill can she really be to be so conniving? Her gaslighting skills are monumental. Damian and Celine seem unable to help each other through their grief and Damian is also falling apart but in a less spectacular fashion. Celine attends Theo’s birthday party in her mourning garb and stands watching everyone else’s child play happily having only laid hers to rest weeks or even days before. Of course this makes everybody uncomfortable and Simon’s mother tries to tactfully suggest that it isn’t the best place for her, which did not go well. So, is Simon right and Alice having a paranoiac episode or is Celine plotting some sort of terrible revenge? Alice takes matters into her own hands to find out and to protect her family.

I enjoyed Mothers’ Instinct although it was a bit clunky in places. I did not see the ending coming and found it satisfactorily shocking. I loved the glamour of the film which was a remake of a Belgium film, Duelle. Chastain and Hathaway were both wonderful in their roles and complimented each other perfectly and it is refreshing to see two women take to lead.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Myke Simon on Unsplash

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This Week I Have Been…

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Reading – Babysitter by Joyce Carol Oates

I love Joyce Carol Oates’ short stories but her novels are often too disturbing for me. I don’t tend to enjoy anything that has an ongoing threat of of violence and that is one of Oates’ specialties. Her short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, is one of the most menacing tales I have ever read. Second in the unsettling stakes only to Shirley Jackson’s horror, The Lottery. Oates is an extremely prolific writer having published over seventy books. Her short story collection Evil Eye is outstanding, the ending of the title story being something of a conundrum . I went straight back to the beginning and reread the whole thing but was still confused by the ending. If you haven’t read any of her work that would be an excellent place to start.

Babysitter, set in Detroit during the 1970’s is based loosely on the still unsolved serial killings of children that took place there during the time. These murders ae something of a background story to the domestic drama though. The story centers around Hannah Jarrold, an affluent housewife, approaching her fortieth birthday, who is married to Wes, a successful executive, they have two young children. It is clear from the beginning that Hannah has suffered some trauma at the hands of an abusive father she thinks of a “Joker Daddy”. It seems as though this is a part of her life that she has compartmentalised and Wes seems unaware of her past, in fact Wes really doesn’t seem to notice his wife at all anymore. One evening, while at a charity gala, where Hannah gives a speech and Wes is hoping to do some social-climbing, Hannah has a brief encounter with the enigmatic man she comes to know as YK.

Hannah seems to go through life in a state of permanent brain fog. She sleepwalks through her days making increasingly disastrous and irrational decisions. Although she has moments of complete clarity she does not have the emotional capacity to deal with anything unpleasant and pretends it is not happening. YK is about the worst thing that could happen to any woman and it is clear to the reader from the outset that he is a dangerous predator. No matter how brutal he is, Hannah simply thinks of him as her lover. She is grateful for the attention. YK’s “fixer”, Mikey, otherwise known as Ponytail, is an interesting character and he recognises pure evil when he sees it but is always there with his camera, ready to do YK’s bidding.

Wes feels that the country is on the brink of a race war and is keen to blame any crime on people who are not white. It conveniently fits his agenda and he doesn’t seem to much care about the truth of these accusations or the devastating impact they may have. An incident he has misunderstood, involving Hannah, is stoking his hatred of black people and his indifference to his wife.

I simply could not put Babysitter down, I found it absolutely riveting and found myself muttering warnings to Hannah under my breath as though she could somehow hear me through the page. It is extremely dark and the subject matter does not make for relaxing reading but it is the most compelling book I have read in a while, Domestic Noir at its finest.

Watching- Lover, Stalker, Killer on Netflix

This is a true crime documentary about Dave Kroupa a mechanic who finds himself newly divorced in his thirties. In 2012, like so many people, he goes online to look for a partner. He quickly meets Liz who he has a real connection with and they soon begin to spend quite a bit of time together. Liz, we are told, is a single mum who loves animals and is good with computers. Although Dave likes Liz he makes it clear that he is not ready for a serious commitment. Then Dave meets Cari who is a customer at the auto shop where he works and they begin a fast-moving romance. Cari is also a single mother. One evening, Liz turns up at Dave’s apartment as Cari is there and things begin to go very wrong.

Dave begins to receive hundreds and hundreds of threatening texts from multiple numbers as does his ex-wife and Liz. It s clear that the unhinged person sending the messages is constantly watching either him, Liz or his ex-wife and children. Dave finds himself on the edge of a nervous breakdown fearing for his family’s safety. Then things really escalate. Liz, herself the recipient of hundreds of threatening messages begins to fear for her life but where is Cari, she appears to have disappeared off the face of the earth. The policeman investigating is determined to find her.

I won’t give anything more away about how the story unfolds but, safe to say, it is full of twists and turns and the outcome is jawdropping and also very sad.

Listening to – Alligator Candy on Apple Itunes

This is a devastatingly sad podcast, narrated by David Kushner who, in October 1973, when he was four years old, asked his eleven year old brother, Jon, to bike to the local store and buy him some “Snappy Gator Gum”. The Kushners lived in a suburban area of Tampa, Florida and the nearest 7-Eleven store was at the other side of a woods populated by palm and cypress trees. For local children it represented adventure and freedom. Tragically Jon, a little red headed boy on his red bicycle headed off and was never seen alive again. Sadly he had run into the worst type of people, Johnny Paul Witt and Gary Tilman. More monsters than human beings. They were only arrested because Witt confessed to his wife who turned them into the police.

This is a very intimate podcast and David interviews his mother and other brother, Andy. They all seem such like lovely, kind people and the love that they have for eachother is evident Although Jon has been dead for fifty years it is clear that he is still much loved and remembered and Andy, a musician, performs a song he has written for his dead brother, it is incredibly moving.

David, only a tiny child when this happened, has blamed himself for half a century for asking his brother to go and buy the Snappy Gator Gum. The whole family have had to live with the knowledge that the worst type of nightmare can descend at any time. Although the subject matter is depressing, there is so much goodness and love in the Kushner family that it almost cancels out the horror. As David says, Jon was a boy on his bike, alone and independent, cycling through the woods. In the moments before his death he was happy. I hope that writing his book and making this podcast has helped David Kushner heal from this tragic and traumatic experience.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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A Trip To The Theatre – The Mousetrap

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My friend Helen and I like to go out somewhere nice every few months or so. In between these trips we will go for walks to the cinema or just have a coffee but we both work hard and like to treat ourselves to a theatre trip or visit a nice restaurant once in a while. Just for a change of scene as much as anything else I think. It’s also nice to have a catch up during the train journey into London.

This time we decided to go and see the long-running play The Mousetrap. Based on the famous murder mystery by Agatha Christie, it is the longest running play in the West End, showing since 1952 . I was in two minds about going to see this because, thanks to an unwelcome spoiler on a radio arts show, I already knew whodunnit but it seemed like something we would both enjoy and reasonably priced tickets were available.

We decided to go for dinner before the show and I booked a table at a small restaurant called Violas in Tavistock Street. As seems to be the case nowadays I had to provide my card details when booking online and was informed that, in the event of us not attending, I would be charged £40. This is the steepest no-show fee I have encountered but I suppose it is Covent Garden. Anyway, Violas is very prettily decked out with lots of artificial flowers everywhere (must be a nightmare to dust) and there are faux fur throws on the back of each chair. The staff were unsmiling apart from the French manager who was running up and down the stairs to the kitchen every five minutes and apologetically explaining to customers that there would be at least a twenty minute wait for their food. This obviously isn’t ideal if you have to be at the theatre at Seven O’Clock and the party on the table next to use took their food away in take-out boxes and asked for the service charge to be removed from the bill. 

I ordered the Black Truffle Pasta which was absolutely delicious . Helen wanted the Salmon but this wasn’t available so she ended up with the Prawn Pasta. Her dish was a plate of tagliatelle with a few prawns, one sliver of aubergine and not much else. Disappointing. We both had a coke to drink and the bill, including tip was about £50. I would have liked a desert but we ran out of time.

Thanks to the miracle that is Google Maps and Helen’s navigational skills we found our way in the nick of time to St. Martin’s Theatre in West Street. We had paid £40 for each of our tickets and we were sitting very high up in the Upper Circle, the stairs are very steep and quite deep. There was a long queue for the two cubicles in the ladies toilets which would have benefitted from a freshen up. We decided not to have a drink during the interval although we did go into the tiny bar which is right behind the light-up sign. The window was open and it was nice to get some fresh air as I had an immovable migraine. As is typical of these old theatres, there is very little leg-room between the seats. It would have nice to have had the option of borrowing some of those little binoculars, or Opera Glasses, to see the actor’s faces more clearly. 

Although I already knew who the villain was, I knew very little about the story itself. Set in a guest house called Monkswell Manor, it tells the story of the two young guest house owners who find themselves hosting an odd assortment of strangers during a snowy night. There has been a shocking murder nearby and investigations have led the local police sergeant to their door. I thought the actors were speaking too quickly at the beginning and it took me a while to settle into the story which, to be honest, was a bit daft but enjoyable. Another friend coincidentally went to see The Mousetrap the night before us and she described it as “a homely play” and that seems quite an apt description.

The woman sitting next to me kept whipping out her iPhone and checking her social media. She was in her fifties, old enough to know better and I found it very distracting. She also kept muttering the dialogue under her breath. She seemed a bit strange so I just tried to ignore her.

We enjoyed The Mousetrap but I was pleased we hadn’t spent a lot of money on the tickets and it definitely isn’t something I would want to see twice. We walked back to Charing Cross station where a train was already waiting on the platform. Towards the end of the journey a very drunk man walked through the carriage asking the other passengers for money. This can be very intimidating, especially if you are travelling by yourself. He didn’t cause any trouble though. We were back in our home town by ten forty five.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

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This Week I Have Been…

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

Reading – Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

I have read all of Sittenfeld’s books, my favourite being Sisterland her brilliant novel about twins. I also would also thoroughly recommend her very witty short story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It. Partly set during the pandemic, Romantic Comedy is a story about Sally, a writer for a late night comedy sketch show and Noah, a successful and handsome pop star. Noah appears on the show Sally writes for, Night Owls, as a guest host and asks Sally to help him finesse a sketch he has written himself. Like many of Sittenfeld’s female characters Sally pulls off an epic act of self sabotage putting the brakes on any burgeoning romance between her and Noah. She can’t bring herself to believe that he could be interested in her. Then the pandemic hits and they being to exchange emails. Sally’s surname is Milz and her email address is Smilz (Smiles – get it?) little details like this are so beautifully thought out

Romantic Comedy is brilliantly funny and very touching. Sally and Noah are such lovely characters that I found myself really caring about what happened to them. I also particularly liked Jerry, Sally’s step-father and his pet beagle, Sugar. This is a long story but, like any book by Sittenfeld , it is well worth the effort

Watching – Expats on Netflix

Expats, based on the novel by Janice Y.K. Lee, stars Nicole Kidman as Margaret and Ji-young Yoo as Mercy. Margaret’s husband, Clarke, played by Brian Tee, is offered a chance by the big conglomerate that he works for to relocate to Hong Kong for three years. His company put in place a generous package including private school for the children, a maid and chauffeur and they move into a spacious apartment. The chauffeurs are privy to all the comings and goings and private conversations, they are so quiet their passengers seem to forget they are even there. The family, including Margaret and Clarke’s three children, Daisy, Philip and little Gus find themselves amongst the the community of other wealthy ex-pats including neighbours Hilary and David who seem to have a complicated relationship to say the least. Life seems to be a round of glamorous but dull dinner parties and Margaret, who is a landscape gardener, has no real purpose. She looks down on the other women who are just “wives” despite being one of them herself. Then, on one such social occasion taking place on a boat, Margaret and Mercy cross paths. Three year old Gus is being a terror and Mercy steps in and helps. Margaret offers her an evenings trial as a nanny as she feels that the children are becoming too devoted to their current “help” , Essie. Mercy and Margaret take the children to visit the busy night-market and life changes forever.

I know that Kidman has won Oscars but, it seems to me, that she often plays the same person over and over. Margaret has stiff mannerisms, is uptight and is rather brittle with her speech. Kidman, aged fifty-six, is also too old to be playing the mother of a three year old. For some reason, when she is dressed to go out for an evening her hair is styled like a WWII evacuee. I have watched the first three episodes, it is a little slow but, no doubt, I’ll finish the series now.

Listening to – Hunting Warhead Podcast on Apple Music

Hunting Warhead tells the story of the Australian Police’s investigation into a huge child pornography website and the peadophile responsible for running it, Canadian, Benjamin Faulkner. The host is Daemon Fairless who sounds uncannily like Alec Baldwin. He is very sensitive in his presentation of the case and in his interviews with the people involved including the mother of one of the infant victims.

The subject matter definitely makes for difficult listening. The lengths some of the investigators go to to identify children at risk are extraordinary. The victims can be absolutely anywhere in the world and there is a huge market in supplying horrifying, exploitative content. The investigators refer to such websites as child abuse sites, not pornography. The website featured in this particular investigation, Child’s Play had over a million subscribers. It is staggering to think how many people get gratification from looking at images that most of us would find sickening. 

One of the guests on Hunting Warhead is a psychologist specialising in peodophilic behaviour and he explains that often a person will realise that they are attracted to children at around the time they are twelve or thirteen years old. If that person wants help with controlling their inappropriate feelings they are usually met with a brick wall, there is little research on curtailing this type of impulse. They grow up ashamed with nowhere to turn to for help. Most of these people realise that it would be wrong to act on the attraction they feel but some, of course, do go on to abuse children. The psychologist states that not all child abusers are peodophiles and not all peodophiles are chid abusers. Faulkner himself states that he was madly in love with a four year old. It really is horrifying to listen to his interviews, he is not remorseful at all. Had he been detained in Canada he would have received a relatively light sentence but Faulkner was arrested in Virginia and will serve thirty five years in prison.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

This week I have been…

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

Reading – Manhattan Nocturne by Colin Harrison.

Do you ever think back to a book that you really enjoyed reading years ago but no longer have? You’d love to repurchase it or borrow it from the library but you can’t remember its name. This happens to me ALL the time. I first read Manhattan Nocturne on holiday in Florida in 2000. Because it is such a doorstep of a book and our luggage upon returning home was already overweight, I left in in the hotel room. Anyway, I was recently purchasing from World of Books on eBay and decided to have a browse and what was on the second page of scrolling but this long lost thriller, I immediately recognised the cover. 99p and a few days later I was able to begin re-reading this fantastic thriller.

Porter Wren, a tabloid columnist has a lovely life with his surgeon wife and two children living in their quirky “Apple Tree House” in New York. He meets a beautiful and mysterious young widow at a party who asks him to investigate the bizarre death of her film director husband. Unfortunately for Wren, somebody powerful is watching him very carefully and he soon finds himself in trouble way over his head. This is one of the most gripping thrillers I have read, or re-read, in long time. The author, Colin Harrison, is a former Editor of Harpers magazine and wrote a series of thrillers, all based around money and sex and set in New York. Bodies Electric being the next one I plan to revisit.

Watching-Six Years Gone on Amazon Prime Video

Not what you would call a cheerer-upper, this bleak but very compelling drama directed by Warren Dudley tells the story of Carrie, played by Veronica Jane Trickett. Pretty, young and carefree Carrie has a day off work so, after sending Lolly, her eleven year old daughter off to school, has a nap then a bit of afternoon delight with the local estate agent then pops in for a coffee and catch up with her friend. Carrie is relaxed knowing that her Mum, Mary, is going to pick up Lolly from school. Except that Mary forgets, nobody has realised that she has early onset dementia . Three hours pass before Carrie finds out that her daughter appears to have vanished off the face of the earth.

Suddenly it is six years later and Carrie looks absolutely ravaged by grief and desperation. She and Lolly had previously been living in a big house in Brighton paid for by her her ex-husband but he stops the money and she and Mary, now incontinent and needing constant care, live on a rough estate. Carrie is now working as cleaner and struggling to make ends meet. The men in her life, her ex husband and brother are noticeably absent when she needs assistance, and the police have been totally ineffective in finding missing Lolly.

What struck me most about the film is how, when spotting a young woman having the most miserable time, so many vulture-like people were circling to take advantage. From the manageress at the social club where Carrie cleans to the men who smell her desperation and take whatever they want from her, people are just out for themselves. The only kindness is from a bailiff who shows a little bit of compassion towards Carrie having recognised her name from the news. Be warned, Six Years Gone is a tough watch, there is one particularly harrowing scene, but utterly engrossing with fantastic performances, especially from Trickett and Sarah Priddy who plays Mary.

Listening to – Real Survival Stories Podcast

This is an absolutely addictive podcast and I have been known to drive around the block just to reach the end of a particular story. My favourite so far has been the two part tale Pacific Castaways . Douglas Robertson tells us how, in 1971, his family decided to embark on a trip around the globe in their yacht, The Lucette. After the vessel is attacked by a school of killer whales the seafarer’s dream trip becomes the stuff of nightmares and things just go from bad to worse. I think I would have abandoned all hope within the first ten minutes but not the Robertsons. This is absolutely compelling listening and, even after five decades have passed, Douglas still becomes emotional when recounting the events. This podcast is a Noiser production, I listened on Itunes.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash