That's Living, alright

Apologies for my absence; it was something of an enforced hiatus brought about by gremlins in the works. My Mac is currently very poorly (thoughts and prayers etc.) and is out of commission until James does his laying on of hands thing and (hopefully) brings it back from the dead - Lazarus style. In the meantime, I'm bringing any foreseeable new content to you c/o a rather handsome reconditioned laptop I picked up in Sherwood this morning - which is a million times faster than the Mac currently and is a dream to work with.

Before I was so rudely interrupted, and before my old machine went loco, I was halfway through writing about the lovely Jacqui Abbott. It was also before I'd been to see Living, the new Bill Nighy film. I'll try and pick up where I left off...  

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It was Jacqui Abbott's birthday on Thursday. A belated Happy Birthday, Jacqui, from all at Medd Towers. 

I was watching the recent Word in Your Ear podcast earlier and in it Jacqui talks really movingly and affectionately about how she met Paul Heaton and ultimately joined the Beautiful South; as well as the huge part her family played - and continue to play - in her musical life. Fast forward to 19:55 and see just how nervous her dad was before her first 'warm up' gig in Middlesborough in 1993. You can see in this interview with Mark Ellen & David Hepworth how grounded this northern lass is and is so not a diva.

Paul Heaton is a consummate songwriter. His barbed lyrics come wrapped in a tune and a melody so at odds, often, with the words that he's able to sing about stuff you wouldn't normally hear on national daytime radio. Don't Marry Her (Fuck Me) being one that springs to mind. It's not very often, therefore, that you see him tackle someone else's songs. Especially not a middle of the road, lighters aloft, soft rock anthem. That said, Heaton and Abbott play this particular Russ Ballard penned power ballad in a rather gentler fashion and, no, Ritchie Blackmore does not come out from behind the curtain to play the solo.

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott - Since You've Been Gone (2022)

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I went to Nottingham's Broadway Cinema last Sunday and saw a film that should clean up at any and indeed all upcoming awards. Best film, best screenplay, best actor, best support: Living, Kazuo Ishiguro, Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood. There, I've called it. Lemme know what you think.

Living (2022)

Sometimes. Always. Never.

I love stylish movies. I love funny movies. Sometimes Always Never is filmed like a series of Hopper paintings with jokes hidden in plain sight. If you like your dialogue crisp and your establishing shots crisper, this is the film for you.
Bill Nighy's name is above the door in this terrific directorial debut from Carl Hunter. Frank Cottrell-Boyce's screenplay about a retired tailor looking for his prodigal son is given a seemingly minimalist treatment by Hunter, but look a little deeper and this tight family based drama is a rich seam of Scrabble words, missing children, Marmite gags and red Triumph Heralds; what's not to like when references to Pickwick label Top of the Pops albums and which buttons to do up on your suit jacket* flow as naturally as Jenny Agutter walking out of the bathroom wearing nothing more than a towel?

And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, it turns out the soundtrack is only written and performed by Edwyn bloody Collins. This is a film I will watch time and again; I just know it.

Edwyn Collins - It's all About You (2019)

* Top (sometimes), middle (always), bottom (never).

Do you really think that's wise?

Left right, left right: John Le Measurier, Bill Nighy

The cast for the new Dad's Army movie was announced earlier this week. Tinkering with classics is always going to be fraught. Even when the original cast made the ubiquitous big screen version of their own TV show in 1971 it hardly set the world on fire. But this time, this time, it may just work. With big hitters like Bill Nighy, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon and Bill Paterson taking on the roles of Wilson, Jones, Godfrey and Frazer respectively, the project  certainly won't fail for lack of  talent. And hearing that it will all be shot on my doorstep*, almost literally, I'm warming to the idea more and more.

But it will be the script that makes it. Or indeed breaks it. It was an ensemble piece set during the war, but war was the very last thing it was about. It was about people. And people need natural scripts. If the writing is only half as good as that produced by David Croft and Jimmy Perry it will fly. If not, it will end up as soggy as the chips the U-Boat commander insisted on not having in that sketch.

* When the cast come to town they may well need to brush up on their pelican crossing etiquette:

The time is Nighy

It's true what they say: the best pictures really are on the radio. Everything from Paul Temple, The Goons, The Man In Black, to Start The Week and (even) The Archers work, and work brilliantly, because the listener is creating his or her own unique images to the soundtrack laid out before them. And so it was with Radio 4's recent dramatisation of Simon Brett's wonderful series of Charles Paris stories.

Paris is a struggling actor (and some say a cad) with a penchant for the bottle and pretty women. He also has a knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when various coves around him get bumped off - time then to don his sleuthing hat and, before you can say Hercule Poirot, the murderer is singing like a canary. It could all get silly and out of hand (think Diagnosis Murder) but with the ubiquitous Bill Nighy at the helm it maintains its dignity and skips along at quite a pace. Nighy, as you would expect, brings years of experience to the party and carries the listener almost single handedly through the 30 minute scripts. Though, like reading Fleming, when rereading the old stories it's virtually impossible not to see and hear Nighy in your mind's eye: I can live with that. If Mrs M is reading this, here's a Crimbo present link.