I usually do this in December to help with Christmas ideas … I’ve divided it into Theatre, Screen and Music in the past but this year, one will cover Theatre and Screen. Music to follow.
This year not everything listed got reviewed. Reviewed items have a link to the review.
BEST OF 2020
The year that didn’t exist. So some major changes:
FIRST THINGS FIRST: BEST ONLINE GROCERY DELIVERIES
OCADO
Quality and range, the best. It took several months to get a slot but their £10 speciality tomato box is a joy. Loch Fyne fish too. Lots of organic items from Natoora, though very pricey. Marks and Spencer products instead of Waitrose? A negative, though M&S Digestive biscuits at 60p are better than McVities at 99p.
TESCO
Reliability and early signing up: Tesco. They had issiues with opening delivery slots at midnight early on which meant staying up and pressing REFRESH for 20 to 30 minutes. They sorted it.
WAITROSE
Like all of them, nice drivers. Worst for short sell-by dates. We had several where we got three “main protein” items … one Best by today, two best by tomorrow. Nice to get the free newspaper. Took us several months to be allowed to be a customer, which rankled as they were our main supermarket before. We registered when Ocado switched from Waitrose to Marks & Spencer.
ASDA
Being there at the start when no others would sign us up. Nice drivers too. We still use them for basics. Their Espresso Chocolate bars beat anyone, and their own brand ground coffee is way better than Costa at 250% of the price. We didn’t used to shop much at Asda. They were a nice surprise. Best pizzas too.
SAINSBURYS
Can f*ck off. Couldn’t register because we were told we weren’t over 70 (we are). Appalling website. Told to phone. Did several 20 minute waits, then they took off the phone option. Haven’t spent a penny there since February. Haven’t missed anything. Probably won’t ever go back.
MOST WATCHED ITEM ON TELEVISION / BEST TV OF 2020
One Mile Happy Walk – Leslie Sansone
We started on YouTube before the first lockdown … first week in March. We have not missed a single day since. Every morning, 15 minutes. We looked at her other walk aerobics videos, and this one is the culmination of much trial and refining. Also you don’t want variety … following an identical routine helps. The detail is perfect – all the class members have grey and orange or vermilion, but the orange / vermilion is on a different garment on each of them. It took a long time to realize the room was a studio set … I realized the light through the windows were spotlights, and then there’s just a tiny shot over the back wall to see the studio ceiling grid above. We love them all, Suzy who can’t stop vying for attention, Tammy who is so thrilled by praise (and is obviously a professional dancer), Nick who has to exclaim and shout out, Shirelle with the happy air punching, Marvin with the namaste, Wendy, Dawn, Faye. If I won the Euromillions lottery (buying a ticket might help) I’d invite the whole class to fly over to the UK for a Thank You party.
THEATRE
SHAKESPEARE AND CLASSICAL
First … there wasn’t one. (Though we watched last year’s five star Bridge Theatre Midsummer Night’s Dream on TV, and the 2011 Much Ado About Nothing (REVIEWED) with David Tennant and Catherine Tate).
MODERN
I’ll just list the ones we saw in January and February. They therefore all get placed in the Top Ten. Except there are only five of them. And only two would get into other selections. We rewatched One Man, Two Guv’nors plus a different Deep Blue Sea on streamed TV.
Links to reviews.
The Upstart Crowe, Ben Elton *****
Gielgud Theatre, London
February. It would feature any year’s top ten.
On 21st December BBC did a one-off TV episode of Upstart Crow (on iPlayer), where Shakespeare (David Mitchell) and Kate (Gemma Whelan) are self-isolating in the 1603 Plague lockdown … they stand in the window to clap for the corpse carriers. Ben Elton (writer) missed an important point … the rich fleeing London.
Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard ****
Wyndham’s Theatre, London
Blood Wedding Barney Norris ***
Salisbury Playhouse
Endgame / Rough for Theatre II, Samuel Beckett **1/2
The Old Vic, London
A Number **
Bridge Theatre, London
DIRECTOR
Sean Foley, Upstart Crow
Patrick Marber, Leopoldstadt
ACTOR
David Mitchell, Upstart Crow
Adrian Scarborough, Leopoldstadt
Alan Cumming, Endgame / Rough for Theatre II
ACTRESS
Gemma Wheelan, The Upstart Crow
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Luke Thallon, Leopoldstadt
Emmett Byrne Blood Wedding
Karl Johnson,Endgame / Rough for Theatre II
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Eleanor Henderson, Blood Wedding
Jane Horrocks,Endgame / Rough for Theatre II
SET DESIGN
Lizzie Clachan, A Number
CONCERT
Just the two. Both Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne. Chalk and Cheese. Judy Collins was better.
FILM
Mainly I was adding to my 60s Retrospective Series of Reviews … lots and lots of them:
THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …
Not all in the list are this year …
The Six Five Special (1958)
A Taste of Honey (1961)
The Young Ones (1962
Some People (1962)
Play It Cool (1962)
Summer Holiday (1963)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
What A Crazy World (1963)
Live It Up! (1963)
Just For You (1964)
The Chalk Garden (1964)
The Carpetbaggers (1964)
Wonderful Life (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965)
Gonks Go Beat (1965)
The Party’s Over (1965)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Catch Us If You Can (1965)
Help! (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Custer of The West (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
Girl On A Motorcycle (1968)
The Bofors Gun (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
Medium Cool (1969)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970)
Take A Girl Like You (1970)
Performance (1970)
Oh, Lucky Man! (1973)
NEW FILM
The Year of Netflix and Amazon Prime.
– cinema! The last one.
Rebecca
This generated one of my longest reviews as it started me searching out the Hitchcock version, then the Charles DanceTV version too for comparison.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
The funniest film of the year by a mile.
The Trial of The Chicago Seven
Better than expected again.
The Secret Garden
A surprise. I hadn’t expected anything so richly imagined.
How To Build A Girl
Another added after this retrospective was written.
My review also goes into Citizen Kane.
Watched the day after first posting this. As I reviewed it, it might as well go in.
Hillbilly Elegy
I didn’t review it.
TV
We virtually abandoned Terrestrial TV … for the first year, my TV Licence Reminder had me saying, ‘WTF? That’s a lot of money for Radio Four half an hour a day, and the BBC News at ten o’clock!’ We start with Netflix and Amazon Prime and scroll through most evenings. We have Sky Q, but not for much longer. It freezes all the time. Over 50% of recordings fail. Yes, we are on our third Q Box. We were having problems with our Sony Bravia system failing to switch on the amplifier or Blu-ray, and losing internet. ‘Disconnect Sky’ was an online piece of advice. It works. We only plug in Sky when there’s a good film or AFC Bournemouth are on TV.
Our favourite comedy shows don’t work with virtual audiences. So it’s series for us:
1 My Brilliant Friend, Season 2
Artistically the best of all … music by Max Richter, beautifully filmed. Superb in every way. I started a review but never finished.
2 Sex Education Season 2
Indeed the funniest, and they rang enough changes in Season 2. I reviewed this one.
3 The Undoing
The most recent. We watched on Catch Up. Only two of six played through without Sky freezing, but it was worth it, even if Episode 3 required three disconnect and re-start.
4 The Crown
We lived through that era. We remember it so well. I’ve written three novels set in the 80s (Home affairs, Greek Affairs, Japanese Affairs). As fascinating as can be.
Reviewed, but we were unimpressed. The only BBC one really!
We gave up on Life too. Lost interest.
TV ACTOR OF THE YEAR
MALE:
Hugh Grant: TV actor of the year. He was interviewed on TV and said people expressed surprise that he was so good as Jeremy Thorpe then in The Undoing. As he said, people thought Four weddings and A Funeral was a documentary and that was who he was. No! he protested, ‘I was always acting!’
TV support actor: Donald Sutherland, The Undoing
FEMALE
Emma Mackey, Sex Education Season 2
REVIVED TV
A Very Peculiar Practice Seasons 1, 2, + A Very Polish Practice
See my three reviews
Broadchurch
We hadn’t seen it before. We watched all three series in a row.
Designated Survivor Series 1
We watched Keifer Sutherland play with his band in 2019. Series 1 was excellent but really stuck to the 24 template … 21 episodes this time, but basically resolved one story halfway and set out on another. We will do Series 2 and3 eventually but we need a break.
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