Play review - "Table 17" by Douglas Lyons (warning spoilers)

 A relationship in flashback at a dinner - we get to know the couple and various people played by the one actor (a secretly romantic gay waiter, a scene stealing character; a sleazy bartender who I would have liked to have seen more of; a sleazy airline guy). Nothing super new but a fun night out and I liked the open ending. 

Play review - "The Doctor's Dilemma" by George Bernard Shaw (1906)

 Strong dramatic situation - doctor torn whether to let useless artist husband of a woman he loves live. Lacked a little something for me. Maybe too smarty pants about medicine which does do a lot of good.

Play review - "Saint Joan" by George Bernard Shaw (1923)

 I loved this because it had all the smart arguments about religon and politics but also an emotional core because Joan is prosecuted for being competent and smart and her death is horrible. 

Play review - "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw

 Funny. Clever. All that. Show stolen by Eliza's dad. Shaw loves these feisty women and asexual men.

Movie review - "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973) ***1/2

 Watched some version of this. I think the preview. So much great stuff - James Coburn brilliantly cool and tormented, notwitstanding the gag of him in bed with four hookers, Kris Kristofferson brilliant. Love the music. The look. The male actors. Female characters a disgrace but it's Peckinpah. I liked Bob Dylan's appearance.

It's a movie of great scenes. But it doesn't quite hold. It should - it's Coburn tracking Kristofferson. Builds to latter's death. But there's no real build. You can see why it was cut. Cutting didn't help. But there's a central problem with the film.

Wonderful scenes I stress - like Slim Pickens dying. Jack Elam dying. But we barely know them.  

Movie review - "The Breach" (1970) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Solid Claude Chabrol. Stephanie Audran is an ex stripper whose useless husband hits their kid so she whacks him with a frying pan. His rich parents seek to get the kid. The story is solid, plotting keeps you guessing. Most of the story is carried by Jean Pierre Cassell as the dodgy prat hired by rich dad to spy on Audran.

I thought more was going to happen with the nice doctor and nice lawyer who helped Audran. I loved the boarding house of odd types - the three old gossips who eventually help her, the actor who comes through, the landlady Annie Cordy, her boozy husband, their simple daughter.

Quite a full on plot where Cassell arranges for his nude model girlfriend Catherine Roubel - always topless and gagging for sex - to sexually assault the simple daughter while watching porn.

A little silly in places but fun. It helps it's based on class so the conflict is powerful and inherent.

Movie review - "The Bride" (2026) ***

 Bold, imaginative and very watchable, anchored by two dynamic performances - Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. Doesn't quite build and nail the emotional core but there's always something going on. Maybe I was distracted by other films this could have been eg Buckley as Mary Shelley. Also some things didn't feel quite 1930s - 3D movies and drive ins feel more 1950s.