FILM REVIEW: Andy Serkis in ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’

Posted on January 8, 2010 by admin

serkis as dury

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Rowdy and a bit ragged but wholly entertaining, Mat Whitecross’s “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” is a biopic of British punk rocker Ian Dury with a sensational lead performance by Andy Serkis, best known as Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings’ films.

Set around performances by Dury and his band the Blockheads at the Watford Palace Theatre, the film takes a surrealist path to relating the rocker’s journey from polio-stricken kid to top-of-the-charts entertainer.

It’s an energetic and vivacious film that will appeal to fans of punk rock around the world and should find its place in the pantheon of great music film biographies. First-time director Whitecross and Serkis should be in line for awards.

Serkis does the singing with the real Blockhead musicians including guitarist and co-writer Chaz Jankel, portrayed winningly by Tom Hughes. Numbers given full screen time include the title track, “Billaricay Dickie,” “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick,” the controversial Spasticus Autisticus” and the mournful tribute “Sweet Gene Vincent.”

Dury never claimed to have a great voice although it was very distinctive and Serkis captures it perfectly. He also does a great job portraying the determinedly independent and outrageous performer’s flamboyant manner.

Paul Viragh’s screenplay has Dury talking onstage about his lonely upbringing with a father (Ray Winstone) who was frequently absent, leaving him at an institution for handicapped children in the care of an unfeeling orderly (Toby Jones).

The story follows Dury from his first failed band through to 1970s success after hooking up with Jankel, and his love affairs with tolerant wife Betty (Olivia Williams) and young girlfriend Denise (Naomie Harris).

The two actresses make effective contrasts with Williams using stillness to convey Betty’s wise kindness and Harris animated and wilful as the optimistic young woman. Bill Milner (“Son of Rambow”) is all cheeky resilience as Dury’s son Baxter, a young man whose exposure to his father’s excessive rock ’n’ roll lifestyle looks as it could take him off the rails.

The film is fast-paced and funny, with many jump cuts and bits of animation, but there are scenes of great poignancy conveying Dury and his tortured relationships. The English music hall was in Dury’s blood and combined with his great determination to kill off any hint of self-pity. Serkis lets his eyes do the work in the quiet moments with as much skill as he displays in the splashy numbers.

“Sex & Drugs” features lots of cheerful English swearing and the film’s exuberant pleasure in depicting Dury’s waywardness may put off straight-laced audiences, but punk rockers everywhere will eat it up.

Opens: U.K. Jan. 8 (Entertainment); Cast: Andy Serkis, Naomie Harris, Olivia Williams, Bill Milner, Ray Winstone, Mackenzie Cook, Luke Evans, Toby Jones, Tom Hughes; Director: Mat Whitecross; Writer: Paul Viragh; Directors of photography: Christopher Ross, Brian Tufano; Production designer: Richard Bullock; Music: Chaz Jankel; Costume designer: Joanna Eatwell; Editor: Peter Christelis; Producer: Damian Jones; Executive producers: Kevin Phelan, Peter Hampden, Andy Serkis, Paul Viragh, Ian Neil, Ralph Kamp, Paul Brett, Steve “Harry Harrigan, Tim Smith Production: Aegis Film Fund, DJ Films, Lipsync Productions, Prescience Film Fund, UK Film Council; Sales: Metropolis International; Not rated; running time, 115 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Music, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on FILM REVIEW: Andy Serkis in ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’

‘Up’ director Pete Docter talks about his fly-away hit

Posted on January 5, 2010 by admin

up 2 x650By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Pete Docter says that many people seem to have the impression that making computer animation is easy: “Somehow, they think, oh, it’s computers. You just type in ‘make movie’ and enter. They have the thought that it’s easier because we use a computer.”

Docter knows all about computer animation. He directed the mammoth Disney/Pixar box office hit “Up”, which grossed $683 million in theatres around the world and has sold more than 6 million units, grossing more than $101 million, since it was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the US on Nov. 10.

The tale of crusty widower Carl, who flies his home using balloons to a faraway paradise with only a boy scout for company, hits UK stores on DVD and Blu-ray on Feb. 15.

Pete-Docter x325The Minnesota-born animator (left) also had a hand in the stories for “Toy Story”, “Toy Story 2” and “Wall-E”, and directed “Monsters, Inc.”, which grossed $525.4 million in cinemas globally in 2001 and sold more than 11 million copies on DVD in the US the following year.

On the phone from Los Angeles, he tells me the truth is that to make animated computer animation is no different from other films: “It’s the same process as live-action filmmaking and just as hard. We think about overs, twoshots and masters, lighting, all the same things. It’s a very hand-made process.”

One of the biggest challenges is to create the same warmth that moviegoers see in classic animation made using handpainted cells: “There is a tendency for things to look cold and crisp and perfect in this medium and we sweat blood getting it to look fuzzy, worn and low-res. Things that seem like they should be easy are actually very difficult and we spend lots of time getting it right.”

Docter, along with co-director and head writer Bob Peterson and production designer Ricky Nierva, paid great attention to creating the fine detail of Carl’s old house in “Up”, he says: “Getting the wear patterns where he would have walked often or the banister where he’d have placed his hands every day, that takes a lot of time; just thinking through the history of a place and the characters … that takes a lot of time.”

It also takes a lot of people with up to 350 working on the production over five years. Docter says that while they both worked on the story, Peterson was busy with the actors and getting the storyboards going while he worked with the animators, the lighting folk, the cameras and everything else.

He says, “It’s a very circular thing. We start with the words and once we get a script then we go to our storyboard artists, usually five to seven guys. They’ll draw it up and 99 times out of 100 we’ll find stuff that doesn’t work. Then we rewrite, cut stuff, add things, change it, and it cycles back and forth from drawing to writing to drawing until we get it right.”

Casting voices is vital but Docter says at Pixar they don’t worry about big name actors: “We just think about character. We strip little bits of dialogue from films with actors we’re interested in and play the audio while looking at images of our characters. Some voices just seem to put perfectly, and of course Carl and Ed Asner were a great fit.”

Christopher Plummer voices the great outdoorsman that Carl meets in the jungle, and Docter says casting the legendary stage and film actor brought about changes in the character.

Doctor says, “Our thought was that he was like Ernest Hemingway, a big brawly guy that you’d find telling stories in a bar. When we cast Plummer, he became a bit more educated and refined. You work with the actor and try to write so it becomes believable and whole. Plummer is an amazing guy to work with. I don’t think I’ve worked with an actor who is so prepared and instinctive.”

Despite complete belief in the project, Docter and the Disney/Pixar team still felt they faced a challenge in winning audiences: “Its general acceptance was a surprise because it was such a bizarre idea. All the other films we’ve done have an easily gettable hook: toys come to life, monsters in the closet are real. This one was a bit more difficult. The fact that is has done so well is very flattering.”

This story appeared in Cue Entertainment.

 

Posted in Film, Interviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Up’ director Pete Docter talks about his fly-away hit

‘Up In the Air’ tops my 2009 Top 10 list

Posted on January 1, 2010 by admin

Up in the Air x650

By Ray Bennett

Jason Reitman’s ‘Up In the Air’, starring George Clooney and Vera Farmiga (pictured) with Anna Kendrick, is my pick as the best movie released in the United States in 2009.

My Top 10 list for The Hollywood Reporter was a very tough call between “Up In the Air” (which Paramount releases in the U.K. on Jan. 15) and “The Hurt Locker” (which is out now on DVD and Blu-ray Disc) for top place as they are both excellent.

The list also excludes some titles screened only in the UK or at festivals, and they will be addressed in another post.

1. Up in the Air
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Tulpan
4. Bright Star
5. Moon
6. Summer Hours
7. Up
8. Star Trek
9. Broken Embraces
10. Avatar

 

Posted in Comment, Film | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on ‘Up In the Air’ tops my 2009 Top 10 list

THEATRE REVIEW: Keira Knightley in ‘The Misanthrope’

Posted on January 1, 2010 by admin

The Misanthrope performed at the Comedy TheatreBy Ray Bennett

LONDON – Keira Knightley has chosen well for her West End stage debut as a spoiled young movie star who is the center of attention in Martin Crimp’s rhymed update of Moliere’s “The Misanthrope.”

She gets to look fabulous and also deliver some withering observations and insults to the sycophantic friends who surround her character, much to the annoyance of her disillusioned older lover (Damian Lewis).

Lewis is Alceste, a playwright whose general demeanor fits the title of the play. “Call it insanity, but I take issue with all of humanity,” he says. Angry and impatient, Alceste despises the flunkies who hang around Jennifer (Knightley), whom he adores and wishes to take away from her shallow showbiz world.

The setting is a fancy London hotel room where Jennifer entertains assorted visitors including actor Julian (Chuk Iwuji) and agent Alexander (Nicholas Le Prevost), who make a bet as to which one will bed the actress first; envious acting coach Marcia (Tara FitzGerald), who seems unsure whether she’d prefer to bed Jennifer or Alceste; prissy critic Covington (Tim McMullan), who lusts for the star but wants the famous writer to read his play; and Ellen (Kelly Price), a tabloid reporter.

There’s also Alceste’s buddy John (Dominic Rowan), to whom the misanthropic playwright rants about the terrible state of the world and everybody in it. Tension develops when Alceste rejects Covington’s play insultingly and the critic threatens to sue, and Ellen quotes Jennifer in a ferocious diatribe against everyone she knows.

Director Thea Sharrock keeps the play moving at a fiery pace. It runs a little more than two hours including an interval but provides plenty of opportunity for exchanges that slam modern entertainment, politics, sexual mores and everything in between.

Some of Crimp’s rhymes seem clumsy (inflexible with sexual) and others too obvious (Jackson Pollocks with bollocks), and sometimes the performers appear unsure whether to nail the rhyme or move on past it.

There are some good lines, though. When John asks Alceste why he tolerates Jennifer’s apparent selfishness, he says, “My strategy is to let her decide when to reveal her hidden virtues.”

Still, it’s tough to care about any of the characters, and though Lewis is sharp and savage, Knightley oh so very glamorous and the rest of the cast thoroughly expert, the enterprise feels brittle and unrewarding.

Venue: Comedy Theatre, runs through March 13; Cast: Damian Lewis, Tara FitzGerald, Keira Knightley, Dominic Rowan, Tim McMullan, Chuk Iwuji, Kelly Price, James Hogg, Nicholas Le Prevost; Playwright: Moliere, in a version by Martin Crimp; Director: Thea Sharrock; Set designer: Hildegard Bechtler; Costume designer: Amy Roberts; Lighting designer: Peter Mumford; Sound designer: Ian Dickinson

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter. Photo by Alastair Muir.

Posted in Reviews, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on THEATRE REVIEW: Keira Knightley in ‘The Misanthrope’

THEATRE REVIEW: John Logan’s ‘Red’ at the Donmar

Posted on December 31, 2009 by admin

red x650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Passion can be difficult to explain and harder to re-create, especially when the passion is for abstract art. But passionate acting and design just about make a success of John Logan’s new play, “Red,” that deals with supremely passionate abstract artist Mark Rothko.

Set during the time when Rothko had been commissioned to deliver what were known as the Seagram Murals for the walls of the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan in the late 1950s, the play is a two-hander between the artist (Alfred Molina) and his new young assistant, Ken (Eddie Redmayne).

Logan portrays Rothko as so passionate about his work that he’s not convinced anybody should actually ever see it. “Selling a picture is like sending a blind child into a room full of razor blades,” he says. Doggedly working class about his daily rituals, the painter demonstrates no interest in his new employee even though the lad tells him his parents were murdered and that he also is an artist.

Most of their exchanges involve Rothko lecturing Ken about every aspect of shapes, sizes and especially colors, having chosen red and black for the Seagram works. Foreshadowing the artist’s later suicide, he says, “There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend: One day the black will swallow the red.”

It sounds like something a great artist would say, but like much of Logan’s play, it’s trite and obvious once examined, and only the passion of Molina’s delivery makes it seem vital.

That’s true throughout the production, however, as Molina stalks, stares and blusters in magnificent fashion. Redmayne has little to do early on but to absorb the sow’s ears the great man strives to turn into pearls of wisdom; later, he matches his co-star’s magnetism.

Director Michael Grandage and set designer Christopher Oram combine to give flourish to the encounters, with the actors swinging and hanging great canvases. There’s a dynamic scene in which they stretch past each other with furious energy, brushing red paint onto a huge canvas and appearing bloodied and exhausted by the end.

It is exhilarating, and so are the scenes when the worm turns and Ken finally speaks his mind about the artist and his affectations. More than the words, it’s the craft and passion of Molina and Redmayne that make you want to seek out the paintings that Rothko created.

Venue: Donmar Warehouse, runs through Feb. 6; Cast: Alfred Molina, Eddie Redmayne; Playwright: John Logan[ Director: Michael Grandage; Set designer: Christopher Oram; Lighting designer: Neil Austin; Music/sound designer: Adam Cork.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Reviews, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on THEATRE REVIEW: John Logan’s ‘Red’ at the Donmar

FILM REVIEW: ‘St. Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold’

Posted on December 18, 2009 by admin

st trinian's 2 x650By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Strident, clumsy and pointless, “St. Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold” is a sequel to the 2007 attempt to revive the squealing sexy schoolgirl appeal of a series of Ealing Comedies from the 1950s.

Rupert Everett, who takes some of the blame as an executive producer, returns as the toothy headmistress of an institution populated by teenaged girls of many stripes who range from the beautiful to the wild and wacky and almost entirely witless.

All the girls and young women are called upon frequently to simply scream and run wild, or in one case create a musical Flash Mob at Liverpool Railway Station. Talulah Riley carries a lot of weight as the school’s new head girl, and Tamsin Egerton (pictured centre) makes a good claim to be star of the show as a would-be supermodel who is sharper than she appears.

It’s too bad the film isn’t. Like the first modern remake, the film’s comedy is pitched as low as possible with a tale about missing pirate treasure.

Gemma Arterton 'St. Trinian's 2' x325If director-producers Oliver Parker and Barnaby Thompson and screenwriters Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft had paid as much attention to the script as costume designer Rebecca Hale did to her colorful and entertaining outfits, things might have been much improved. It’s not helped by murky cinematography and a desperate lack of comic timing in the editing.

“St. Trinian’s” misfires in all directions, and while it might keep 10-year-old girls mildly amused, it is unlikely to hit a passing grade beyond audiences with a high tolerance for low English humor.

The ’50s films employed such experts as Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell and George Cole, whose comedic flair shone through the weakest material. Colin Firth, David Tennant, Toby Jones and Gemma Arterton (pictured), in little more than a cameo, join Everett in the new versions, and though they are fine actors, they need material to work with. Jodie Whittaker is completely wasted as a delusional school secretary.

In a typical exchange, one girl says, “This is St. Trinian’s, we don’t know the meaning of unfeasible!” To which another girl replies vacantly, “That’s true.”

Everett flounces about as the headmistress and also gets to play a rakish pirate ancestor who doesn’t do much while Firth has a thankless drunk scene. In a strained climax to the picture, the two play Romeo and Juliet at the Globe Theatre. As the villain of the piece, Tennant, who recently departed the BBC television series “Doctor Who”, has to mug a lot to make up for the lack of decent lines.

Opens: U.K. Dec. 18 (Entertainment); Cast: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, David Tennant, Gemma Arterton, Talulah Riley, Tamsin Egerton, Toby Jones, Jodie Whittaker; Directors, producers: Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson; Screenwriters: Piers Ashworth, Nick Moorcroft; Director of photography: David Higgs; Production designer: Amanda McArthur; Music: Charlie Mole; Costume designer: Rebecca Hale; Editor: Emma E. Hickox; Executive producers: Paul Brett, Rupert Everett, Nigel Green, Chris Smith, Tim Smith, James Spring; Production: Entertainment Film Distributors, Ealing Studios, Fragile Films; Sales: Ealing Studios International; Rating: UK PG; running time, 105 minutes.

Posted in Film, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on FILM REVIEW: ‘St. Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold’

THEATRE REVIEW: Tamzin Outhwaite in ‘Sweet Charity’

Posted on December 3, 2009 by admin

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – British television actress Tamzin Outhwaite is so vivacious and eager to please in the Menier Chocolate Factory’s revival of the 1960s Broadway show “Sweet Charity”, now transferred to the West End, that it’s a shame the show falls down around her.

sweet charity x325Outhwaite struts, shimmies, and flirts with aplomb and handles with flair what funny bits there are. She’s a passable singer and dancer, and if her smile seems a bit fixed at least it’s a winning one. But her best efforts cannot overcome the crushing banality of a crudely sexist concoction that feels dated and hackneyed.

The story is based loosely on Federico Fellini’s 1957 Oscar-winning “The Nights of Cabiria” with the streetwalkers of the film changed to 1930s dancehall hostesses with hearts of gold. Outhwaite plays Charity, a chirpy blonde who still believes that one of the many losers she encounters will turn out to be marriage material despite eight years of sleazy disappointment.

The problem is that while perky and attractive she is a dimwit with little to recommend her except a willingness to fall in love with any man who looks her way. The top talent that created the show – writer Neil Simon, composer Cy Coleman and lyricist Dorothy Fields – gave the character no background and failed to set any context for the clichéd tale.

There is no story; it’s just a just series of random sketches; and there are no credible characters, just lumbering songs full of complaints and unlikely dreams. The well-known numbers, “Big Spender” and “If They Could See Me Now”, have melody and oomph but director Matthew White takes the steam out of them by emphasizing their irony.

Legendary choreographer Bob Fosse’s dance routines made the show a hit when it was first produced although the 1969 film version starring Shirley MacLaine was a flop. Remnants of Fosse’s genius appear in the routines of chorographer Stephen Mear in the London revival but they mostly lack his pizzazz.

Josefina Gabrielle and Tiffany Graves give it their all as wisecracking dancehall girls although their broad New York accents slip and slide. Mark Umbers struggles through sketches playing various men in Charity’s life including a hunky Italian movie star with another bad accent and a shy and anxious admirer who’s afraid of elevators. These set pieces are so staggeringly witless that it’s hard to believe Simon put his name to them.

But they are typical of a show that buys into the notion that a woman just needs to find the right man, any man actually, in order to be happy, but cautions that the man will flee if she hasn’t been a very good girl.

Venue: Theatre Royal Haymarket, runs through Jan. 8; Cast: Tamzin Outhwaite, Josefina Gabrielle, Tiffany Graves, Mark Umbers; Book: Neil Simon; Music: Cy Coleman; Lyrics: Dorothy Fields; Director: Matthew White; Choreographer: Stephen Mear; Set designer: Tim Shortall; Costume designer: Matthew Wright; Lighting designer: David Howe; Sound designer: Gareth Owen; Musical director: Nigel Lilley

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter. Photo by Catherine Ashmore.

Posted in Music, Reviews, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on THEATRE REVIEW: Tamzin Outhwaite in ‘Sweet Charity’

‘How on earth can Barnaby be sexy?’, asks John Nettles

Posted on December 1, 2009 by admin

midsomercue x650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – John Nettles, who has decided to leave his long-running hit show “Midsomer Murders”, is considerably more colourful than his screen role although that has made little difference to fans of the show in more than 230 territories around the world.

He says he will miss the adoration of Barnaby’s fans although he insists: “How on earth Barnaby can be regarded as sexy, I haven’t the faintest notion. One paper recently described me as ‘half man, half walnut and full sex god’. I quite liked that.”

Barnaby has investigated killings in the fictional English county of Midsomer in more than 70 episodes — available on DVD from Acorn Media — but  his time as the calm, methodical copper, who was first seen in a pilot on ITV on March 23 1997, will come to an end this season.

Nettles made the announcement over pints of beer and plates of steak and kidney pie at a pub that resembles so many that have featured in the programme from Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.

Members of the media gathered for a pleasant repast and a chat with the genial bloke known around the world as DCI Tom Barnaby, who says,  “The viewers don’t see the real person, they see a romanticised image.”

This particular Hertfordshire village has the impossibly perfect name of Hogpits Bottom and the leafy pub, The Bricklayer’s Arms, is as quaint as can be. The actor is pictured in my photos with Laura Howard, who plays DCI Barnaby’s daughter Cully.

midsomercue003 x650

He says his decision to quit the role was tough: “I never thought when we were making the pilot in 1996 that the series would last so long, and more people have been killed than you can shake a stick at. Now that David Jason has thrown off the mantle of Frost, I’ve realised I’m the oldest detective in the business. But leaving has been something I’ve been considering ever since Series 10, to be honest. The clock keeps ticking and there are other things I want to do.”

The actor says he had hoped the series would kill off Barnaby “in noble fashion in the service of his country and be buried in Westminster Abbey”. But he confesses, “This was frowned upon by everybody with any critical faculties at all. It’s best to just fade away like old coppers do, and old actors too.”

The series’ long-time producer Brian True-May says that with eight new episodes in the 13th season, Nettles as Barnaby will not disappear overnight: “John’s attitude is that it’s very much business as usual and he will be on our film set until 2010, and on television sets until 2011.”

The show will continue without him, True-May says: “Although the departure of John Nettles will inevitably mean the end of an era, we’re looking forward to a long and successful future for the series. The brand is so strong that I am confident of its continuing success with a new actor.”

Nettles agrees: “I see it carrying on very well. There’s a whole bunch of actors who could take over the helm from Barnaby. Equity is full of excellent character actors and I can think of 12 who could take on the part very well. I shall be jealous and critical but it’ll be a different character. Unlike ‘Frost’ or ‘Morse’, it’s not called Barnaby, it’s called ‘Midsomer Murders’.”

Besides its worldwide popularity on TV, the show has had enormous success on video. Acorn Media Marketing Director Peter Smart says, “‘Midsomer Murders’ continues to go from strength to strength on DVD in all of the release formats: single films, six disc series sets and the popular ‘Midsomer Murders’ 10 boxes.”

“Midsomer Murders 12” will be released throughout 2010 and then the final season with Nettles, Series 13, in 2011. There are no imminent plans, however, to release the show on Blu-ray Disc.

Nettles aims to keep busy with appearances on the stage and while he has no intention of returning to his earlier TV character Jim Bergerac, who investigated murders on Jersey, he does plan to continue his interest in the island with TV documentaries.

He says he will miss “Midsomer” most of all for the company and the crew: “I’ll miss even more the actors who come as guests for four or five weeks. Some of the best actors in the country have been in this show and I’m also delighted to call them my friends. That’s what I’ll miss more than I can say.”

This story appeared in Cue Entertainment.

Posted in Interviews, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on ‘How on earth can Barnaby be sexy?’, asks John Nettles

THEATRE REVIEW: Alan Bennett’s ‘The Habit of Art’

Posted on November 19, 2009 by admin

the habit of art x650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON — Alan Bennett has a lot on his mind in his latest play, “The Habit of Art,” including creativity, aging, fame, anonymity and sex, and it hangs together because of his gift for language and fine stagecraft, and some splendid performances.

Like Bennett’s earlier plays “The Madness of King George III” and “The History Boys,” it surely will go on from the National Theatre, where it is having its world premiere, to the West End and Broadway.

Director Nicholas Hytner must take credit too for making the play’s complex structure accessible and drawing first-class performances from a cast topped by Alex Jennings and Bennett regulars Richard Griffiths (pictured right with Jennings) and Frances de la Tour.

The setting is one day in the rehearsal at the National Theatre of a play titled “Caliban’s Day,” based on a poem called “The Sea and the Mirror” by W. H Auden. The author, Neil (Elliot Levey) is on hand as stage manager Kay (de la Tour) oversees a run-through.

Griffiths is Fitz, somewhat reluctantly playing Auden, with Jennings as Henry, who is cast as British composer Benjamin Britten. The play within the play deals with the friendship between the two men, both noted homosexuals, and a fictitious reunion late in life.

Britten is grappling with an opera based on Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice” and having trouble with the libretto. He doesn’t come out and ask Auden to write it, but the poet jumps at the chance. The encounter, though, is a kind of audition as the two men’s conversation roams over their respective approaches to art and their private natures. There is also an important interruption by a young rent boy named Stuart (Stephen Wight), who shows up for a sex appointment with Auden.

Also in the play within the play is another real-life character, Humphrey Carpenter, who wrote biographies of the two accomplished figures and is used as a kind of voice-over. Bennett has great fun in the back-and-forth between Donald, the actor cast as Carpenter, played by Adrian Scarborough, and the playwright about the purpose of such a device. He also draws many laughs from interplay among the author, the stage manager and the actors.

Auden was famously slovenly and personally careless with a scathing manner, while Britten was stiff, prissy and hesitant. Griffiths and Jennings are expert in changing from the actors playing them to the characters themselves. The spry and witty dialogue ranges over many things including a contemplation of who is the innocent party in “Death in Venice” — about an elderly man obsessed with a beautiful boy — and why people like the young rent boy are overlooked in history and become what Bennett calls “the fodder of art.”

With beautiful language and magnetic performances, it’s a complex but fascinating production that will keep audiences long engaged.

Venue: National Theatre, runs through March 6; Cast: Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings, Adrian Scarborough, Stephen Wight, Elliot Levey, Frances de la Tour; Playwright: Alan Bennett; Director: Nicholas Hytner; Set designer: Bob Crowley; Lighting designer: Mark Henders; Music: Matthew Scott; Sound designer: Paul Groothuis.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Reviews, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on THEATRE REVIEW: Alan Bennett’s ‘The Habit of Art’

Sergey Dvortsevoy’s brilliant ‘Tulpan’ opens in UK

Posted on November 13, 2009 by admin

tulpan2 x650

By Ray Bennett

I had a very enjoyable dinner at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival two summers ago with Kazakhstan film director Sergey Dvortsevoy to celebrate his marvelous film “Tulpan”, which finally reaches cinemas in the United Kingdom this weekend. Go see it, you’ll be glad you did.

The film will run from Nov. 13 in London at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus, The Gate Notting Hill, the Odeon Panton Street, and Curzon’s Renoir, and in Dundee, Dublin, and Hawkhurst. New Wave Films distribution has all the details and more about the film.

Here’s my review of “Tulpan”, which appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

 

Posted in Festival de Cannes, Film, News, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Sergey Dvortsevoy’s brilliant ‘Tulpan’ opens in UK