TV review - "Path to War" (2002) ***1/2

 I love how Frankenheimer ended his career as it started with TV plays. This is a dramatised documentary really but with a knock out cast - Michael Gambon as LBJ, Felicity Huffman as his wife, Sarah Paulson as his daughter (love the mention of her sister dating George Hamilton), Alec Baldwin as Macnamara, plus Donald Sutherland, Frederic Forrest, Bruce McGill, Philip Baker Hall and other hey it's that guy actors.

Story is a tragedy - a man who did so much good but also undone by Vietnam. That was idealistic but he didn't have the courage to walk away. 

Long but engrossing. Good one for Frankenheimer to go out on.

Play review - "Martin Guerre" (2026 performance in London)

 Fantastic direction and performers and sets. Story has good meat but there's an element of uncertainty about it. Why do it? Les Mis, Hairspray etc have something underneath it. This doesn't. It's like they cant make up their mind. I read they keep changing aspects of the story - who lives, who dies, what the wife knows. Pick a lane. Fabulous presentation but there's a hole at the core.

Play review - "Stranger Things: The First Shadow" (seen 2026)

 Excellend. Theatrical. Wonderful production values. Had a vision - origin story of many characters - and also a point of difference - being set in 1959. Loved the shout out to Bucket of Blood. Making central relationship a black white thing gives it more resonance.

Play review - "What the Animals Say" by David Ireland (2008, review 2026 performance) (warning: spoilers)

 Excellent production of an interesting play. About two Irish school friends - one a champion soccer player the other an actor, so it has a showbiz feel. Has violence but doesn't build to a death. On the night I saw it the mention of Mel Gibson made me and the other Aussie in the audience laugh loudly and no one else.

Musical review - "Jane Eyre" (2026)

 The musical was fine, sometimes splendid. Too many cast members. Nice how they were faithful but... what was the point? What's the underlying reason? They cast a pretty girl as Jane who is a great singer but couldnt act. She's just pretty. Rochester was good.  Maybe too faithful to the text. Best appreciated as a straight up romance.  The show I saw was full of school girls who gasped with shock with the reveal that Rochester had a wife - that was fun.

Play review - Ayckbourn #34 - "Henceforward" by Alan Ayckbourn

 Really enjoyed this. A bit sci fi but not too mucy. Ayckbourn takes himself ot task for being a vulture on the emotions of others. I would have liked to have seen the actress character back again. Loved the decaying world with the threat of gangs outside and the violence implied. There is humour and darkness. Very well done.

Radio review - "Unmade movies - Mary Queen of Scots"

 Famous unmade script by Jay Presson Allen which almost got shot by Alexander Mackendrick starring Mia Farrow before being cancelled in the great British film crisis of 1969. It was famous because Mackendrick pretty much retired soon after to go into teaching and because it sounded better than the 1971 Hal Wallis movie that was made on this queen.

The result actually isn't that great. It's fine. But it doesn't fix the problems in the story - Mary's state of mind. She gets knocked around too much - Rizzio gets killed, her husband hits her, her husband gets killed, Bothwell goes away, she winds up in prison.

I think Mary is one of those characters too complex to be a lead she might be better off as a support character. She feels real here and it's a good gutsy drama but it's unfocused.