The Play That Goes Wrong

‘The show must go on.’

(A nineteenth century show business phrase)

When Laurence Olivier first stepped onstage as a professional actor, he botched his entrance by tripping over the door frame and falling into the footlights. Things can go wrong for even the greatest actor. They can miss their mark, forget their cue, lose their prop. Every person, however revered, can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. It can happen because actors – despite their claims – are fallible. They are not divine beings, omniscient Gods, able to circumvent embarrassment and failure. They are shit in a bowl, fart in your pants, human beings. The fact they make mistakes doesn’t make them lesser actors; the fact they can find a way out of them is what makes them great.

Yeah, but you stacked it mate.

I talk about this because last night we went to see The Play That Goes Wrong. The play is a sleeper hit. First performed in The Old Red Lion in Islington, the show benefited from word-of-mouth reviews. From there, it enjoyed huge success in Edinburgh before transferring to London. Over the last four years it’s been packing them out on the West End, earning an Olivier Prize for Best New Comedy. The premise of the play is indebted to Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, a 1982 production that centred on the backstage rivalries of a failing theatre piece. The Play That Goes Wrong is purely centred on what happens onstage and the chaos that ensues when you pair incompetent stage crew with risible actors.

This is the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s production of Murder at Haversham Hall. Director Chris Bean introduces the performance apologising for the box office mix up that has led us here. He hopes we’re not too upset that our Hamilton tickets haven’t materialised, causing us to watch his play instead. Bean is in good spirits; he believes we’re in for a treat. Previous productions have not gone well. Technical challenges hampered James and the Giant Peach (a giant one couldn’t be sourced; the normal one lost. The end result: a work titled James). But this one would be different. They had the costume, the stage, the cast and most importantly, the rights. (Legal wranglings in the past left them without a plural, consequently their musical Cat did not generate the sales they hoped.)

The acting is as stiff as a corpse.

The play begins with Charles Haversham laid out on a sofa. His friend Thomas Colleymore and butler Perkins try to revive him- but he’s dead. Or at least he should be. Acting is a craft. It takes years of training and experience to convey a life not lived. Facial expression, tone of voice, timing, pacing, body language and movement. These are the constituents of acting. However, being a corpse demands none of these things. It is easy. Children do it in primary school. Dead lions on the mat is all the research you need for playing dead. All you have to do is lie there and think of interval – when you can then get up and stretch your legs. The trouble with Charles is he reacts to his company’s mistakes. When they sit on him, he recoils. When they drop something, he hides it. When the stretcher breaks, he wriggles off-stage - this to him is 'covering.'

It’s not just playing dead these characters can’t do: they can't perform for their life. When the body is removed and the inspector is called, havoc soon ensues. Props are misplaced, so instead of the inspector using his pen and notepad to make notes, he must use keys and a vase. As for the performers, they can barely speak let alone act. The actor who plays Perkins enunciates in a style akin to Matt Berry’s Steven Toast, delivering the word ‘morose’ in a way a head injury might. In one hilarious moment, an actor comes in too early, meaning they pre-empt their partner’s line – it’s the Two Ronnies ‘Mastermind’ sketch put to murder mystery dialogue. 

If it isn’t enough the actors have to deal with each other’s efforts, they also have to contend with the stage. Before the production began we saw Trevor, the Sound and Lighting Operator, leave his sound booth to attend to a few things on stage. One of which is a loose floorboard; the other a mantelpiece that won’t stay up. Of course, problems with these feature later. More than that though, the scene walls are shakier than a Crossroads set, and the front door, which connects performer to stage, just won’t open. Everything about this production is doomed to fail: from the corpse that won’t stay down, to the stage that won’t stay up, the play is an unmitigated disaster. So what do the actors do? Break the fourth wall and laugh at their mistakes? End the play early and preserve some dignity? Of course not. They soldier on. They cover each other’s mistakes with more mistakes, creating a house of mistakes, which will of course topple, allowing the process to begin all over again.

At the end of the piece, there’s echoes of Buster Keaton, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge and Only Fools and Horses. With all these disparate influences, it’s no wonder that the play has been successful. It really is one for all the family. A teenager will enjoy the pratfalls, a millennial will appreciate the satire, a parent will recognise classic sitcom and grandpa will enjoy all the carry on.

The show must go on. 

This show surely will for years yet.

The Play That Goes Wrong is on in the Duchess Theatre

There She Goes

BBC4 doesn’t have much in the way of original British comedy and drama, but when it does it’s often exceptional. Burton and Taylor and Detectorists spring to mind as to the channel's quality programming. Its latest offering There She Goes is currently my favourite programme on television. Writer Shaun Pye, responsible for Monkey Dust and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, has created a family sitcom that is both hilarious and vital.

Pye has written the sitcom from personal experience. The sitcom revolves around Rosie, a child with a severe learning disability, and her parents’ failure to cope. Pye and his wife had a child, like Rosie, with a chromosomal disorder. The sitcom is the transposition of the their life into thirty minute episodes. Some of the events are of course embellished, but the kernel of them is true. The idea for the sitcom came from years ago when Pye wrote Facebook posts about his domestic situation. His humour was gallows in nature, laughing in the face of condemnation; his daughter the jailer, he the prisoner. The posts were well received because people admired the honesty behind them. In the play of life, disability is often depicted as an interminable tragedy that doesn’t allow for levity. Pye though realises disability can be funny. And to laugh at disability is not to laugh at the disabled, but to laugh at the situations it throws up.

Shaun Pye. (You might remember him from Extras.)

There She Goes begins with dad Simon (David Tennant) and brother Ben (Edan Hayhurst) taking Rosie (Miley Locke)  to the park for a kick-about. The trouble is Rosie  isn’t interested in going. She performs a sit-in on the pavement in way of protest. Simon is reduced to calling his wife Emily (Jessica Hynes) for assistance. Emily opens the door and sees the civil disobedience in action. It’s down to her to break the strike and send the striker back to work. She and Simon pick Rosie off the floor and bundle her - like a murdered body - into the car. The journey to the park? About ten seconds. Immediately this scene establishes the humour and challenge in having a disabled child. Tasks that should be simple are bloody difficult when someone doesn’t want to play ball; the only option is to laugh in the face of defeat.

Rosie’s ability to outwit her parents at every stage- despite being learning disabled- is a real joy to behold. In episode two we see Rosie get excited over a picture of a bubble bath. Simon and Emily knows what this means. Their daughter wants to be bathed, and bathing means bubbles, and bubbles means trouble. Simon excuses himself with a carrier bag of food; an ‘I have to cook’ get out of bath time free card. It falls on Emily to perform the kind of mission that Ethan Hunt would refuse to accept. Getting Rosie in the bath is easy; getting Rosie out of the bath is impossible. When bath time is over, she tenses her body, becoming a dead weight. Even with two of them, Simon and Emily can’t get her out. Rosie is the ruler of her kingdom; she will come when she’s ready. Emily’s attempts to bait Emily out of the bath is comedy gold.

There’s another side to There She Goes though that elevates it beyond entertainment. The story flashes back and forwards over ten years. The scenes I’ve touched on are set in 2015-16, hitting the sitcom beats of build-ups and pay-offs. In these moments we see a united family that love Rosie in all her exasperating glory. Running alongside this though is Emily and Simon’s past, which to excuse the pun, isn’t so rosy. Here, we see how Emily struggled to cope with the realisation that her daughter wasn’t like her son. We see a mother’s struggle to connect with her daughter. Jessica Hynes is fantastic in these scenes, reflecting the confusion that stems from things not turning out the way you planned. In one heart-breaking moment, she explains her feelings to Simon, ‘What if you lost a child, but there was something there, just reminding you of it all the time?’ She sees Rosie as a haunting, a ghoul reminding her of the child she never had. On the other hand, Simon finds connecting with his daughter simpler; what he finds difficult is understanding his wife’s depression. Where he should be helping to pull his wife out of the abyss, he instead drinks himself to oblivion. The fact that we still empathise with Simon is a testament to David Tennant’s nuanced performance.

So There She Goes has it all. It has comedy that will make you laugh, and drama that'll make you cry. It has the happiness of seeing a family laugh in dysfunction. It has the edge of parents making fun out of their disabled child (in a good natured way though). It really is wonderful.

There She Goes is on BBC4, Tuesday at 10pm. Previous episodes can be watched on the iPlayer.

First Man

The only thing I know about space is ‘my very easy method just shows us nine planets.’ Given I’m often accused of having my head in the clouds, I have zero interest in what happens above me. I blame my science teachers. They weren’t bad teachers, but they weren’t inspiring ones either. I have no recollection of them showing any enthusiasm for the topic at all. When it came to the school of presentation, they were less Michael McIntyre, more Jack Dee: we were impositions on their time, obligations to be endured. In my science GCSE I got a good mark, but this was through memorising a revision guide, not because I had any actual understanding of the subject. My big fear as a teacher is my students will leave school and never read a book again. (I think the ultimate index for measuring my quality as a teacher is whether school leavers scour through a hotel bookcase or not? If they do, then I did a decent job. If they don’t, then my practice should be called into question.)

This year I listened to ‘Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino’ by Arctic Monkeys. The record is a concept album: taking place on the moon, its story consists of a fictitious band playing for guests at a space hotel. Being a huge fan of lyricist Alex Turner, I did some homework and discovered that Tranquility Base is the site on the moon where humans landed and walked on for the first time. My interest was a little piqued and I re-watched the moon landing again as a result.

This week I went to see First Man which tells the story of said moon landing, focusing on the leader of that mission, Neil Armstrong. I have seen space movies before – Gravity, Apollo 13 and Moon - and they’ve always left me a little cold. This one though I was excited about because it’s by Damien Chazelle and Justin Hurwitz, the pair behind Whiplash and La La Land. I talk about them as a pair because along with Christopher Nolan and Hans Zimmer, their movies wouldn’t work without the other. Chazelle’s movies have always had music at front and centre, with his first two having jazz musicians as lead characters. Chazelle has the eye; Hurwitz the ear. The latter's scores have been both muscular and propulsive (Whiplash) and melancholic and romantic (La La Land).

Their previous work is rooted down on the ground in the tarmac of small town America, featuring aspirant characters who look up to the stars and get disappointed when they don't look back. How then were they going to make a film about an all-American hero who aimed for the stars and hit the moon? If their stock in trade was creative underdogs, how were they going to create a film about a renowned victor without it descending into bland patriotism?

The first thing I should say is despite being more ambitious in scope than Whiplash, the themes and concerns aren’t so different. First Man, like Chazelle’s other features, is about obsession. Whiplash was about going to wild extremes to perfect drumming; La La Land was about the emotional sacrifice that comes from an individual pursuit; and First Man is no different. It’s a movie about commitment and the cost of it to the individual and their loved ones.

La La Land (left) and Whiplash (right)

It begins in 1961 where Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), a test pilot for NASA, runs into some trouble. The rocket plane inadvertently bounces off the atmosphere, meaning the mission must be aborted - our hero must face the consequences. This remember is a time of space race where the Soviets and Americans were locked in brinkmanship, each trying to outdo the other without causing all-out-war. Essentially, space programmes were multi-billion dick swinging enterprises. Any failure would leave a nation feeling limp and emasculated; any success would give them a raging hard-on that would last for Viagra days. So Armstrong is not the flavour of the month at the beginning, in fact, his failure leads to him being grounded.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere in Armstrong’s home is heavy. His daughter has a brain tumour that shows no signs of abating. Despite the research he does, there appears to be no way of decelerating the effects. These intimate moments at home, shot up close on jerky cam, are deeply profound. We see a father powerless to prevent his daughter’s demise. At the subsequent wake we experience heartbreak as Armstrong shuffles off into an empty room to be alone with his tears. Gosling is often accused of being blank and dead-eyed in his roles; here though he emotes, the glacier melts, the result is deeply moving.

Thinking deeply or looking vacant?

This is not the Ryan Gosling show though. Claire Foy plays Neil’s wife, Janet, and through her we appreciate the fallout of masculine repression. Armstrong doesn’t talk about his feelings with anyone – his feelings are as inaccessible as the moon. He’s still a loving husband and father, but he’s distant and struggles to connect. This disconnect makes him more and more obsessed about landing on the moon. Back on the programme, relocated to Houston, he stands in his garden, binoculars in hand, and stares wistfully into space, imagining being there than here. It begs the question: can one only accept the dangers of space if they don’t feel the comfort of earth?

I didn’t mention Hurwitz at the beginning of the piece and have neglected to mention him since. The soundscape of the film was inspired by a 1947 piece, Lunar Rhapsody, by Harry Revel with theremin player Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman. The composition was an Armstrong favourite that he played on Apollo 11. It’s the sound of a slow dance between earthling and alien, piano and theremin; a lifting off of an old jazz number into the cosmos, a human walking into space. This song features along with Hurwitz’s only masterly compositions. Up until the end, the music is mood, punctuating the small and big dramas on earth; the final number ‘Landing’ though has all the gravitas of a history-defining event. Just as Chazelle proves he can leave his independent Whiplash roots behind, Hurwitz demonstrates how-should he wish- he can throw the whole Hans Zimmer at the screen.

On the way home I asked The Girl so many questions: ‘What happened to Michael Collins?’ ‘Did Neil Armstrong go into space again?’ ‘How big is the moon?’ ‘How big is the Earth in comparison?’ She answered all of my questions with good grace, and as a primary school teacher promised to bring me home a book so I could learn more. (This will still be above my level). So what years of secondary education couldn’t achieve, a film did. Science is more interesting if you hear about the human first, isn’t it? That’s the angle teachers should go for. I’ll happily learn about evolution if someone told me about Darwin first? Maybe how he grew that beard? I’ll be fascinated by Newton if someone told me what brand of apple fell on him? Show me the person first; the science after – it’s what First Man did, and now my head’s in the moon as well as the clouds.

First Man is in cinemas now

Stag!

This blog is sponsored by self-pity, the company today I keep. You see, I’m feeling worse for wear, a little sorry for myself. Every bit hurts. My head? Lost in space. My stomach? Tossed to sea. My mouth? Jesus in the desert. I’ve been on stag this weekend, and this is why I must pay. I didn’t feel like this on Saturday. There, I felt on top of the world. The bee's knees, the cat's pyjamas; a booming economy – Blair’s Britain, The Roaring Twenties, The Celtic Tiger, – the good times were here and they were here to stay. I was out shooting shit, drinking beer, eating burgers, laughing at bedtimes. I was untouchable. Now of course, I regret this arrogance. For every election win, there’s a sexed-up dossier. For every Gatsby party, a fallout. A bubble will always burst. A boom, bust. But what one must remember: it's good fun before that happens. 

Here is the story of the stag: a tale like all good tales: one that begins unhappily and ends triumphantly.

Friday 27^th October

The school bell rings and we’re out the door, pushing the kids out the way to get out the gate first. We’re in a rush because we’re against the clock. The plane is at eight and we’ve got A roads and motorways to negotiate. The Stag is in great spirits. It’s the end of half-term. Eight weeks is a long time when you’re having to crush classroom coups and instil autocratic rule – the boy thoroughly deserves his break. We get back to his and have a beer. The other boys arrive twenty minutes later and the party is ready to leave town.

I worried we might come unstuck on a Friday night, but the Gods are smiling and we get there with no problem. After a quick check-in, we meet some of the other boys in the pub, order a burger and have a few drinks. Time is getting on now. I, at this point, have no sense of time. Typically, I’m ultra-cautious when it comes to flight times, but in a group I don’t worry about a thing. I’ll just ride on the back of their coat-tails when they decide to leave. “Think we best get going now, lads” Paul says. The Stag still has a drink in his hand and says, “I’ll just finish this.” (You can take a Jonnie to the airport, but you mustn’t make him drink.) Most of the group have now gone. It’s just four of us left. We chat happily for a bit longer and then decide to go. I still have no idea on what time it is. I’m in a state known as post-school, pre-holiday euphoria, a timeless universe unencumbered by slot times and departure boards. We make our way down. Sam and I go into Smiths to get a drink and a Cadbury’s Twirl. Stag and Jonny wait outside. The connecting train we get on does not move. It does not move for quite a while. The phone rings: ‘Boys, you need to get moving fast or this flight is going to take off.” Stag’s face turns to ash. Still the train doesn’t move. That timeless state I was in before no longer exists. I feel time in my head, heart, fingers and toes. We’re properly in the shit. I bite into my Twirl - it doesn't taste so good now.

Finally, we get to the gate ten minutes before take-off. But there’s no staff member, only a closed barrier there to greet us. The boys have tried to make a case for us, explaining that our train was held and delayed, but Ryanair won’t listen. I think the lads should have said, “Look, there’s a brown dude back there and you don’t want the PR that comes with not letting him on the plane. Not after last week.” Unfortunately, there are no race cards to play, nor any of Queen of Hearts to take pity on us. We’ve screwed up and we won’t be getting on that plane. The first night of the Stag Do will take place without the Stag. It’s now a ‘Do,’ which isn’t nearly as good.

The first night: we didn't make it.

We’re taken back to Arrivals, in what will go down in history as the shortest holiday known to man, where we debate what to do. Jonny makes the darkly comic joke that we’re now in a plot-line of Planes, Trains and Automobiles – Sam and I laugh, but it’s too soon for the Stag. We brainstorm Exit Strategies: other flights, trains, coaches – and even a taxi. “A taxi to Edinburgh from Stansted. I’ll check that for you, Sir. (Sound of typing) That will be £800.” With a seven hour drive, it’s not worth it in both senses of the term. Jonny proposes that we go to his in Highbury and have a night out. We’ll then get the train at seven in the morning. Everyone agrees this is the best option.

We have a good time. The Stag even catches up with an old uni friend. And the rest of us get to know each other; now bonded in collective stupidity. By 1 we’re home in bed. Alarms are set for 5. “We can’t miss the train,” we parrot at each other. Someone makes a joke about it being funny if we missed transport right through to Sunday afternoon, arriving in just about enough time to join the others for the return flight home. This time the Stag laughs. (His cloud is lifting).

Saturday 27^th October

“Wake up! Wake up!” Sam is calling this to me. It’s 5.10. Why didn’t my alarm go off? I set it for 5. I look at my watch and realise I set it for 5 in the evening. (Me and Time weren’t good bedfellows on this trip.) The Stag will not move. We try every method to wake him. Call, coo and coax: nothing works. At 5.30 the rest of us are ready to go, but the main man is out cold – there’s more life in a morgue. Finally, we get him to his feet, throw an orange juice down him and push him out the door. We’re forty-five minutes early for the train, but then we were two and a half hours early for the plane and still missed that. To be on the safe side, we’re the first to board. We’re on our way.

It’s a lovely journey up. If the train was a bit cheaper, it really would be the way to travel. You get a comfier seat and more leg room, and if someone’s being a dick they can be chucked off without the guilt of hearing their screams through the clouds. On the way up we saw some landmarks (The Angel of the North/ Tyne Bridge) and some beautiful vistas (picturesque beaches and seas). At 11.30 we arrived in Edinburgh City Centre, fifteen hours after our flight had taken off. If you ask me that’s too long for a short haul flight. Ryanair really need to raise their game if they’re to compete with other low-cost airlines).

Those wings aren't very aerodynamic. Hopefully, technology is improving in heaven to get angels to destinations quicker.

We made the short walk down Princes Street and turn right to head up to our apartment, which is a stone’s throw from Edinburgh’s Stand Comedy Club (the best place in the land to watch comedy). The boys weren’t laughing though when we arrived. They had been in an overnight joke where they were the punchline. There was no hot water or heating at the accommodation. An engineer had been called, but was unable to fix it. The boys had slept in sub-zero temperatures with no radiator to warm them, no shower to revive them. (I didn’t mention that Jonny’s London flat was well insulated and heated. I didn’t mention that I got too warm in the night and took my t-shirt off. I didn’t mention that I slept soundly and needed a volley of shouts to wake me. It’s the least I could do).

So before we had got our feet under the table, our feet were out the door, as we moved base for the Hilton Hotel. Checked in, we quickly made our way to our activity. Stuey’s uncle – an Edinburgh native – kindly took us across town to World of Football. The plan was to play Bubble Football, which for the uninitiated involves putting on a huge bubble and then attempting to play football. Now, I was worried about this. The last time I did it there was more bubble than football. When I went previously, the football lasted for five minutes, and what followed can only be described as an untelevised episode of Jackass. We were pitted against each other, one on each side of the hall, and told to run into each other as quick as we could. My body is not built for collision. On impact, my body was launched through the air like an hadouken! victim in Street Fighter 2. Fortunately, that game was not played on this Stag Do (sorry I didn’t suggest it boys, but self-preservation before self-destruction is my mantra).

Man down.

After having a bubble playing bubble football, we got back in the minibus and made our way back to the hotel. Having had a bit of downtime, we congregated at the bar for a little light lubrication. Then, we were onto the City Café Diner for burgers and beers, before heading out for a trawl and crawl around Edinburgh’s pubs and bars. Given Stuie knew the land, he took over navigation and was responsible for choosing a good variety of old and new. My favourites were in the Old Town on the Grassmarket though because that’s where the party was in full swing. One bar had live music and another had the kind of 90’s pop that you’d hate to listen to at home, but love to listen to on a night out. 

At this point the party went its separate ways. We went on to Dropkick Murphy’s where live musicians banged out covers from the likes of Thin Lizzy, The Pogues and Oasis. A fire alarm then sounded at 2.30, which meant we were forced to evacuate the building. On gathering at the assembly point, we were told to go home, that the club was closed. Is the fire alarm just a Scottish ruse to get patrons out the door quicker? Some of the boys I was with then became familiar with the lesser-spotted Lithuanian unicorn. Budding Attenborough’s, they trekked across town to see them in their natural habitat.

Sunday 28^th October

We go downstairs and have breakfast. The Stag tells me five times how great watermelon is. “It really rehydrates you,” is a catchphrase that I don’t think is going to catch on. After filling our bellies, we check-out and take a short walk for our whisky tasting. Daniel, our guide, is quite the expert. Five whiskies are lined up in front of us, offset by a centred glass of water containing pipettes. His talk is a tale that covers the whole of time and space. He begins with Aristotle and his discovery of distillation, which was important for better drinking water. After about five minutes, he gives us a little preview for what’s coming later – like on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares – before saying, ‘But I’ll tell you about that after you’ve had your next glass whisky.” We go through each whisky with his connected talk covering how the Catholic Church, Napoleon and bootleggers had a big role to play in its evolution. He makes the subject incredibly interesting, so much so he’s inundated with questions. “How many distilleries are there?” “What’s the oldest whisky?” “Is there any money in collecting them?” Then Sam drops a bomb. “I like Jack Daniels. What do you think of that?” There’s an audible silence in the room. Someone has sworn in front of teacher. A boy has blasphemed in Church. Daniel composes himself and replies, “Jack Daniels? It is what it is.” Daniel has killed the popular brand through cliché. He has denied it the dignity of an adjective. He will not lower himself to describe it. This is a whisky talk, thus Jack Daniels is excluded. He moves on.

Jack Daniels did not feature.

The next time, we have the same whisky but with just a drop of water. It gives the drink a totally different feel. Daniel tells us that whisky should be drunk on its own or with just a tiny bit of water. You get the feeling that if someone put ice in Daniel’s whisky, he would kill them and plead ‘self-defence.’ I loved the whiskey talk – it was worth every penny to hear someone so informed talk about a topic they clearly loved.

On leaving, we stopped in Byron’s (yes, I had burgers on back to back nights. I really should have done the early part of the month, then I could have called it Octburger. There’s always next year) and the Stag toasted us on ‘the best weekend he could have had.’ We then had just a bit of time to walk up to Castle, before making our way home.

This time Ryanair decided to delay our flight, which given the option of doing it on the outbound flight or the return, then I’m really pleased they chose this one. Finally, we did make our way home where the lovely Michelle picked us up.

All in all, a great trip with brilliant company. Specials thanks to Stuie on organisation, Paul on hotels, Pip, Michelle and Stuie's uncle on driving (I sound like a big band leader, so I might as well end on me) and myself for my role in fucking up our outbound flight. Cheers all. I had a great time. Just writing this has made me forget the aches and pains. See you at the wedding.

The Princess Bride

Last year The Girl and I were at the Rex Cinema, Berkhamstead, when a trailer came on for The Princess Bride. At the end of it The Girl turned to me and said, “That looks shit.” (She has a legendary potty-mouth. Joe Pesci in Casino has nothing on her.) I said to her, “It’s meant to be a cult classic. Maybe it’s the trailer that’s shit and not the film.” (My sense of perception is legendary. I thought Noel Fielding would be good on the Bake Off from the start.)

Somehow – I don’t remember how – I discovered there was a book of The Princess Bride. I always prefer to read the book before watching the film; I think it’s the best way round. You’re welcome to disagree, it’s a free country after all– except for car parks. The book is incredibly funny. It's not often I can say that about a book. Generally, I’m distrustful of any book that has ‘hilarious’ written on it - normally they contain one joke that requires a classical education to understand. The authors I find genuinely hilarious are P.G. Woodhouse, Sue Townsend and Joseph Heller; others may reach ha, but rarely achieve ha-ha.

Catch-22 is a comic masterpiece.

The Princess Bride is ‘written’ by William Goldman, the screenwriter for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All The President’s Men. He is something of a renaissance man when it comes to the pen, as he’s written across mediums in theatre, film, fiction and non-fiction. The reason I put ‘written’ is because Goldman has created a framing device for The Princess Bride, alleging he is only responsible for the abridgement, that the story truly belongs to S. Morgenstern.

Goldman is a cheeky scamp. He has created the author of Morgenstern to allow him to interrupt the novel at various points to explain why certain edits have been made. In a past interview Goldman cited Tolstoy as one of his inspirations; a writer famous for his longeurs on farming methods: are Goldman’s edits then a dig at authorial indulgence? Whatever the intent it’s smart and funny.

He begins the ruse by telling us about where he first heard the story. He was a child, off school, suffering from pneumonia when his dad read him A Princess Bride, the classic tale of true love and high adventure by S. Morgenstern. As a boy he was enthralled by his dad’s reading. This enthrallment stayed with him into adulthood when he set about sourcing it for his own child. Excited by the thought of his son’s reaction, he was disappointed to find that his boy wasn’t interested. Goldman could not understand why. It was inconceivable that anyone could find the story boring or uninteresting. This was a story of no other, ‘of fencing, fighting, torture, poison, true love, hate, revenge, giants, hunters, bad men, good men, beautifulest ladies, snakes, spiders, beasts, chases, escapes, lies, truths, passion and miracles.’ Look at all those commas: there had to be something in it for everyone. On reading the book, Goldman begins to understand his son. There are indeed long, tedious passages. Why did he not know about it? His dad must have skipped those bits. The reason why Goldman had such a fondness for it was because his dad acted as unpaid editor and chopped out the bits he didn’t like. This gets Goldman thinking: why don’t I abridge the book in the same way my dad did, so others can enjoy it too? The end product is The Princess Bride.

The 'good parts' version abridged by William Goldman. Funny bastard!

The story begins with a meditation on beauty. A reflection on who is the fairest of them all. Soon we’re being told about Buttercup, a milkmaid, whose beauty is well … inconceivable. Her looks should have been the result of a union between pre-snakes Medusa and post-reunion Gary Barlow; as it is Buttercup’s parents weren’t much to look at. In chapter one we learn how she beguiles every man she meets, ostracising her in the community for ‘stealing away’ the boys. Unbeknownst to her, news of her beauty has made the royal court. The Prince’s father nears death, which puts the heir in need of a wife. Soon the count is at the milkmaid’s door, sizing her up for palace clothes. Buttercup is unaware of this; the only thing she pays heed to is the count’s wife eyeing of Westley, the family farm boy. At night Buttercup goes to bed and has terrible dreams about the pair in love The next morning everything has changed. The boy she used to scorn, she now loves. She goes to him and confesses all: 

“There is no room in my body for anything but you. My arms love you, my ears adore you, my knees shake with blind affection. My mind begs you to ask it something so it can obey. Do you want me to follow you for the rest of your days? I will do that. Do you want me to crawl? I will crawl. I will be quiet for you or sing for you, or if you are hungry, let me bring you food, or if you have thirst and nothing will quench it but Arabian wine, I will go to Araby, even though it is across the world, and bring a bottle back for your lunch. Anything there is that I can do for you, I will do for you; anything there is that I cannot do, I will learn to do.”

This passage is so beautiful I was close to having it as one of our wedding readings. I love the bit on Arabian wine. The passage is indicative of the book. Melodrama undercut by humour. It’s all sounding slushy and syrupy until you get to that bit. The specificity of ‘bring a bottle back for your lunch’ is so good – the stuff comedy is made on. I even love the over-the-top exaltation of arms, ears and knees. Love does make you feel giddy, so why shouldn’t you exaggerate it.

Westley, in response, slams the door in her face. The expected kiss does not happen. Buttercup gets on her mope-ped and rides home. But fear not. The next day Westley returns the knock and confesses all: 

“I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careering against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids.”  

For a parody on the fairy tale genre, it’s seriously romantic.

The kiss between Westley and Buttercup doesn’t lead to the relationship we hope. As soon as their lips wave hello, their mouths sigh ‘goodbye.’ Westley seeks his fortune abroad to provide Buttercup with the life she deserves. Unfortunately, the letters sustaining the relationship stop. Westley’s boat was taken over by a famous pirate – the result? Death. Consumed by grief, Buttercup accepts the Prince’s offer of marriage on the condition they never love.

From here, romance turns into fairy tale. The princess-to-be is kidnapped by a gang of thieves. The nation of Guilder, rival to Florin, is suspected. With the Prince being a renowned hunter, the chase is on. A man in black is also on the tail: who is he and what does he want? The three kidnappers are a wonderful work of comic invention. A Sicilian mastermind, a Turkish brute, a Spanish swordsman; all three characterised with brio and zaniness. There are twists and turns along the way with risk, rhyme and redemption all featuring.  

The three villains. Yes, Andre The Giant is in the film.

The Princess Bride achieves a really difficult feat in being both ridiculous and romantic. Throughout the novel Goldman plays oxymoron with the reader, achieving serious silliness and daft intelligence all the way. 

This week, I bought the film off eBay. We’re going to watch it tonight. I’ve got a good feeling it’s better than the trailer suggests. Maybe the trailer was Morgenstern’s doing. Because with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men, Goldman clearly has the gift for writing.

The Princess Bride is available in all good bookshops. 

The Clock

“What time is it?” The Girl bursts. She’s been holding onto the joke for forty minutes. 

I laugh too over her brazen cheek. She knows what she’s said is totally unoriginal, that everyone in attendance would have thought it and probably said it, but she does it anyway.

We’re laughing because we've gone to see an exhibition on time. Unfortunately this week I don’t – aptly- have the time to go into detail on exactly how wonderful this piece is, but I will touch on it really quickly to give you something of an idea.

Completely free. Comfy sofas when you go in. Old and new movies. What could be better.

In 1995 Christian Marclay produced a video cut of telephone scenes from movies. The piece was only seven minutes long, but pre-YouTube it would still have been an undertaking. Years later, he has an idea to do something bigger and bolder: to reflect human time through film. If a viewer's watch says ’12.00,’ then the film will show a scene from, say, High Noon. ‘That’s easy,’ you might think. ‘Just have breakfast scenes in the morning and bedtime scenes at night.’ But Marclay’s film isn’t an approximation, a loose gathering of a day, it’s time specific. If your watch says, ’12.00,’ then there will be a short clip from High Noon, which will then clip into another movie that has a time piece with 12.00 and so on - until the next minute arrives and the process starts again.

While we were at the exhibition yesterday from 11.10 to 11.50 we saw a drunk Billy Bob Thornton waking up in Bad Santa. About twenty minutes later we were in detention with The Breakfast Club. Towards the end of our time Stan Laurel was trying to pacify a screaming clock; his decision to take a hammer to it segued into Robert Powell smashing through Big Ben in The Thirty-Nine Steps.

We watched this scene at 11.42

This is where the skill of the piece lies. It’s one thing to find scenes that match our time, it’s another to make it work as an interesting whole. There was one clip of Pierce Brosnan looking at his watch that lasted a second, but The Thirty Nine Steps cut was stretched out over minutes. What surprised me was how hypnotically tense the whole thing was. In the forty minutes we were there someone was being sentenced to death row whilst another faced torture. Marclay’s work was always going to be heavier on tension than laughs because in the movies time, more than man, is the enemy. The slacker comedy of Apatow is unconcerned with the clock, raising a middle finger to it, whereas heist movies and dramas constantly make reference to time, to precipitate and escalate drama; the idea being that our heroes might meet their match in the shape of everyday - or mortal - time.

Over the course of forty minutes we saw hundreds of movies, all because of the painstaking research of Marclay and his team (it took years to put together). And it’s wonderful. For movie fans it’s great because you get thrown back and forth through celluloid history, and for everyone else it’s just a fun trick to see. Personally, I was totally drawn in. I can’t wait to go again. At a different time. And see something altogether different.  

The Clock is at The Tate Modern and is completely free until 20th January

Little Volcanoes

This week my dad started work as a volunteer for a local hospice, driving day patients to and from their appointments. He joins my mum who works as a nurse in the same place, providing end of life care for the terminally ill. My mum has been a nurse her whole working career, and it was her I thought of when I listened to Cathy FitzGerald’s award-winning documentary, ‘Little Volcanoes.’

FitzGerald has been producing programmes for the BBC for a few years now. Her documentaries are disparate, showing no thematic thread, examining topics that range from reindeer racing to yellow cab drivers. Reading that she has a DPhil on the works of Dickens might explain her inquiring mind: the Victorian writer was as much anthropologist as novelist, showing an interest in every corner of life, documenting it in all its pain and glory. FitzGerald strikes me as being led by a similar desire to understand human behaviour. An earlier work ‘Skylarking’ exemplifies this. A meditation on the skies, it contains contributions from a prisoner and a paraglider. Where else do you hear those voices juxtaposed? It’s her originality that make her totally necessary, as she doesn’t choose well-trodden topics.

Cathy FitzGerald

Her work set in Pilgrims Hospice, Margate, is one of the finest pieces of radio I’ve heard. Its beauty moved me to tears. Over the course of the half an hour we hear from nurses, volunteers and patients. Zoe begins by reminding us that tenderness is the cornerstone of all nursing. She describes how at night she has to calm patients. ‘How?’ she’s asked. Sometimes it’s just by being with them, holding their hand. It makes you realise that as adults we’ve still got one foot in childhood. When something goes wrong we look for reassurance. We understandably regress to a younger state of fear and confusion. A handhold on a cliff face can be a life saver. It can pull someone from their nightmares, returning them to solid ground.

We meet other members of staff who speak about how validated they feel cooking and entertaining the patients. A cook shares how she received a thank you note for a meal she made. Hearing the pride in her voice was so touching. I imagine cooks aren’t paid great money in the care system, but she felt valued by the people she served. People who were having dignity stripped from them were bringing dignity to people whose work often goes unnoticed. Later, a volunteer brims with excitement, recalling a patient that found respite in their art sessions. It really shows the power of care: how bringing a little happiness to someone can make your work feel meaningful and worthwhile.

Interspersed throughout are the patients themselves. There’s Frank who was born poor, but through charm gained the patronage of the rich. Personally, he doesn’t care about death, but he cares about what it will do to his family. This is similar to Christine who in pre-empting death has written letters to the water and electric board, so as to save her children the grief. There’s Bill who has lost three wives: the first to adultery, the others to death. He loved them all. There’s Pat who loves music. Fitzgerald asks her, “If someone were to write a piece of music for you, how would you want it to make you feel?” Her thirty second description contains a whole life. Also, there’s Sally. Sally is the lady who gave the programme its title. Even though she’s ill, her concern is the health of a nation. She asks her neighbours for advice – not because she needs it, but because she recognises people feel important when they give it. She’s aware that people are ‘little volcanoes,’ all bubbling up inside, vessels of magma, that can be cooled by kindness or erupted via slight. Ultimately, people need to be treated with dignity, otherwise the effects can be catastrophic.

Essentially, ‘Little Volcanoes’ is about what it means to care, whether that be personally, professionally or philosophically. All of the people in the documentary – staff, patients, documentarian – do this by living a life that shows a regard for others. I’m very proud of my mum who's devoted her life to caring.

Caring ... what could be a more beautiful word?

Little Volcanoes is available here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bjz99z