Last night, Child 44 was shown on telly - and I made sure to watch it, as it had come across my radar before, but I hadn't seen it. Not to mention that it stars the excellent Tom Hardy, as a child who is liberated from a concentration camp at the end of WWII by the Russians, and grows up to join the secret police in the Stalinist era. Falling foul of the wrong people, he finds himself exiled to the sticks, with his wife, Noomi Rapace, under the command of a more sympathetic Gary Oldman, who helps him to investigate the suspicious-looking deaths of many small boys.
Well, Tom Hardy was excellent. Unfortunately, I rapidly lost interest in the film - as grey and depressing as you'd expect, it has few redeeming features. Relies too much on fight scenes too, which I have zero interest in. Can't really find any reason to recommend it.
So, as my mind wandered, I decided to follow a suggestion of Anthony's Cultural Events and Walking Activities Group (ACEWAG) for today, for a virtual trip around Cat Island, on Google Maps. An island with a huge cat population - and his challenge is to count as many as you can (I got over 50). If you do the same, watch out for the sneaky pusses hiding behind walls..
This evening, Up in the Cheap Seats (UITCS) are watching Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Andrew Lloyd Webber is streaming a whole heap of his musicals on YouTube for free - all you have to do is subscribe to his channel, The Show Must Go On. Shows will be released at 7pm every Friday, for 48 hours - and this first was released last night. Again, I had to watch early. But I suspect I'll be back to this channel! The problem, of course, with such a busy group as UITCS is, when you remove commuting time.. they can pack so many more events into a day..
Now, this is excellent. I'd never seen it before - and this is the official performance, with Donny Osmond as the titular, biblical Joseph, who's the favourite of his father, Jacob (Richard Attenborough), but betrayed by his jealous brothers and sold as a slave to an Egyptian officer - Joan Collins plays a blinder (in a non-singing role) as the officer's wife, who takes a shine to her husband's handsome new slave.
Irresistibly catchy and memorable songs, great production values, a witty take on the story. Highly worth a watch - but hurry, only available for free until 7pm tomorrow! (I think that's GMT).
Tomorrow morning, ACEWAG is heading on a virtual tour of Mount Everest, on Google Maps again! So I'll tag along. He's actually closing down this group, so this is likely to be my last event with them - I'm not sufficiently invested in it to join his Facebook group.
Tomorrow afternoon, why, London Social Detours has another event I'm interested in. (And for once, she's not charging..!) She's reading a chapter of a book entitled London: The Wicked City, and there's to be a chat afterwards. First sociable thing I'm planning!
And yes, UITCS is busy again.. They're watching a play called Wild, on the Hampstead Theatre website tomorrow evening. Another by Mike Bartlett, by the synopsis, it sounds like a dramatisation of the story of Edward Snowden. So that sounds interesting.. and as Hampstead Theatre is only streaming plays free for a week each, tomorrow is the last day for this.
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