Peter Viney's Blog

NOMADLAND (LINK TO MY REVIEW) got Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director for Chloé Zhao, and Best Actress for Frances McDormand. Highly innovative, it blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction, and between actors and participants in a documentary. My thoughts are in the review. The comments box is open. There is much to say about it!

On May 12th, Peter he fell …

For the curious an account of how Karen and I met back on May 12th 1971 and more of that era in our lives. First photo, Karen swas bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding, 3 July 1971

LINK HERE TO READ

My first RSC theatre review in many, many months! The Winter’s Tale, shown on BBC4 and now available on iPlayer. We had tickets to see this which was cancelled just before lockdown. A year on they’ve re-asembled the 2020 cast and filmed it in three days on the stage as a theatre production. The feature they’re pushing is that Sicilia is 1953, and sixteen years later, Bohemia is 1969. Relieved as we were to be back in one of our favourite places, the review is critical. But decide for yourself. you can catch it on iPlayer.

To celebrate the anniversary Shakespeare’s baptism on 26 April, and also to celebrate ten years of theatre reviews on this blog. I’ve chosen one production of each play to illustrate with a link to the original reviews. The pictures alone show the breadth and variety of Shakesperean production over the last ten years. Link to the full set of pictures and choices HERE.

Little Joe (LINK TO MY REVIEW) is a late 2019 / early 2020 film, much acclaimed by some, much reviled by others. Stars Emily Beecham (who received Best Actress at Cannes for it) and Ben Whishaw. Horror? Well it’s not frightening. Sci-fi light with a touch of pandemic prediction? I am very critical, so watching it so you don’t have to!

A new one on AROUND AND AROUND. It started with a discussion on a half-remembered rude ditty and turned into an article on BAWDY BALLADS, LEWD LYRICS, RUGBY SONGS AND FOLK (LINKED). A light-hearted question: Is this sort of thing truly “folk music,” BEWARE lots of quotes from rude lyrics!

Review added of the National Theatre’s new “Film for TV” of Romeo & Juliet (SEE LINK), starring Jesse Buckley as Juliet and Josh “The Crown” O’Connor as Romeo. Filmed in 17 days during the pandemic in the empty theatre. Definitely a film, not a streamed play, though it remains tightly in a theatre. 5 star reviews from The Guardian and Telegraph too. Repeated on 5th April and 8th April on Sky Arts in the UK (Freeview Channel 11). Coming to PBS in the USA on 23 April for Shakespeare’s birthday.

Review? Or possibly an incentive to watch this 6 part TV series SEX, CHIPS & ROCK ‘n’ ROLL (FOLLOW LINK) , first broadcast in 1999. Just watched it for the third time … 1999, on buying the DVD on release and again this week. It’s a wonderful view of Manchester in 1965 with struggling pop group The Ice Cubes and two twin sisters, Arden and Eloise, and their family. Standout performances all round … especially David Threfall as creepy Cousin Norman, Phil Daniels as Larry B. Cool, and Sue Johnstone as the twins’ stern and snobby grandmother. Joseph McFadden as lead singer Dallas is a credible rock star too. It gets better every time I watch it. On DVD and episode by episode on YouTube too.

Review of the much-vaunted DREAM – Interactive from the Royal Shakespeare Company. Warning, this is one of my most negative reviews ever.

NEW! A dystopian pandemic novel. Now available on Kindle or as a paperback from amazon. It should be in your local market wherever. It’s aimed for adult and young adult. Only 200 pages- a fast read!

It’s twenty years after the Great Pandemic, a new virus that destroyed the brain in the late 2020s. The Isle of Wight shut itself off right at the start. It is the last bastion of the old world as it was before the disease, protecting its frontiers from the crazed ‘Frenzies’ on the mainland by any force necessary. However, it’s an isolated world with no imports, no internet connectivity. That means everything to do with money has gone. No cell phones. No GPS. No tea, coffee, cotton, synthetic fibre. No more petrol or diesel or gas.

Then one day, Nat, a young frontier guard is abducted from the beach by two women and a man. Nat is taken to a rugged community on the mainland run by a research scientist and his adopted daughter, Freya. The frontier guard controller, Edwin, begins to question the type of society that has grown up on the island, with its ‘navy’ consisting of an escaped American guided missile destroyer, and patrol boats with steel rams to run down any boat that tries to approach the island. Who runs things on the island and how? Can Nat be rescued, or will he bring back the virus and destroy the island?

It’s a fast moving story, full of action, as well as speculation on a world devoid of so many familiar things.

Amazon LOOK INSIDE gives you all of chapter one.

Follow the link above.