Film: NT Live - Good

Yesterday, I was to be back with Over 40 Living the Life, for dinner at the Greenwich Yacht Club again. Until I got a message the evening before to say that everyone had pulled out - dunno why - and it'd been cancelled! Ah well - Plan B, as usual, was a film. Now, I already had the film list done for this week - but that blasted listings site is so unreliable, I had to do it again. And sure enough, I came up with a whole heap of films at the top of the list that weren't even on the list, last time I looked! Standout among them was the NT Live production of Good. This stars David Tennant as a German professor at the outbreak of the Second World War, who is forced to examine his conscience.. Closest showing to me was in the Vue Finchley Road, which I booked, to get one of the cheapest seats, under their new theatre-style seating. So delighted to have the chance to see this - I missed it when it was showing live.

Apart from the event being unexpected, so - of course - was where I ate, which should normally have been O' Neill's, given that I was headed in that direction. But then, of course, they changed their menu, and dropped the best thing on it! No more chicken katsu. I'm not keen on their other fare, so took myself to The Lucas Arms - first time in over three weeks! Well, and the lady behind the bar looked delighted to see me, and they knew my order off the tops of their heads - and yes, they still had my steak and ale pie. So I ate there - yum. And was stuffed, and just getting up to leave - when who should walk in the door but Laurence, straight from one of his walks! He'd come in for a drink - and damnit if I didn't have to leave, to make the film I'd already booked and didn't want to miss.. if only he'd come in half an hour earlier. Never mind - he walked me to the station, where he departed for the Tube and I waited for a bus. But I then checked the bus ETA, discovered it wouldn't get me there in time, and hopped on the Tube myself..

Was in time to queue for chocolate, then went straight in. Lots of ads beforehand for other NT Live productions, and an intro explaining that we'd have a short film about the playwright during the interval. And we were off..

A very minimalist, grey set - David Tennant and two other actors, one male, one female, to play all the other roles. He's a professor of Literature in Germany in the 1930s - married to a rather scatty woman, a pianist, who can't cook nor keep the house tidy or look after the kids, so he does all that. His mother has dementia. So he has all those worries. He unloads on his (Jewish) doctor, and best friend. And one of their principal topics of conversation is the unsettling rise of these thugs, the National Socialists, with their racist propaganda.. David (Johnnie) reassures his friend that they can't rationally get rid of all the Jews, the country depends too much on their capital! and dismisses his worries as panic..

It all happens very insidiously. You know, they say, if you want to boil a frog, if you increase the temperature of the water it's in very gradually it won't notice, and will sit there and let it happen.. Similarly, Johnnie finds it expedient to join the National Socialists. It's better socially and professionally to be a member, and well, being on the inside is the best way to reform them! And once he's in, he finds them such nice, welcoming people.. 

Even as an audience member, I don't think it hit me properly until the very end - although, as his Jewish friend is seen less and less, I did feel it from his perspective. But as for Johnnie, whose personal problems are dealt with as efficiently as anything else under the Third Reich..

Well, all I'll say is, it's disturbing. Highly disturbing. And honestly, a timely reminder of how these things can happen, by slow creep.. Should be required viewing. And bless NT Live for showing these! I see you can now subscribe to the National Theatre's website for content, too..

Well, I got buses home. And they were nice and quick - once they came - but I spent nearly an hour waiting for them! The #46 didn't help, which arrived without its number and destination display working, and didn't put it up until it was up the road, and I was too late.. And then I ended up booking so much stuff, it ran too late to blog! More anon..

For tonight, I was thinking film again - couldn't see anything better coming up than what's advertised by The London Movie Club and The Hideout: Horror Sci-Fi Club London! both of which I'm a member of. And both of which, it transpires, are run by the same people! So I've signed up with the Hideout. Specifically, what's happening is Alien Day - a special double bill of the classic, Alien, and its sequel, Aliens, at the BFI Imax! See, the first planet where the aliens land is named LV-426.. So, you know, 26th of the 4th.. Now, I've never even been to the Imax, so this'll be interesting! Also good to meet these folks again - apparently, there'll be a break between films as well, when we can have a chat.

Tomorrow, Helen's in town for a conference - we're meeting for dinner at Colosseo, before I head off to join UITCS again, for The Good Person of Szechwan, by Brecht, at the Lyric Hammersmith!

On Friday, I was thinking film - and that blasted film listings site has, as of now, partial listings up for it. So - subject to change, as so many films are listed with the caveat "no information available at the moment" - Friday's film is looking like How to Blow Up a Pipeline, the fictional account of climate activists attacking a pipeline in Texas. Showing in my local cinema - not that the listings site let me in on that secret, but from experience, I tried the cinema website myself directly..

No confusion over what I'm doing on Saturday - back with Laurence and the 45+ Not Grumpy Old Londoners again! This one is Clerkenwell: A Village of Contrasts - not so far from me. How fortunate am I, to be living close to so much history..

On Sunday, I got a free ticket for David McSavage's new show, Lazy Bastard, at the Top Secret Comedy Club. Still available, still free, if you're interested..

On Monday - well, there's a ton of stuff on Meetup! I finally decided that the most attractive thing was the Vintage Soho guided walk with Barrie, again with the 45+s (it's a bank holiday, you see). As with so many of his walks, however, tickets are also available with TAC - and even though I still have to pay him £5 cash on the day, it represents a saving!

On Tuesday, film again - subject to change, it's a tossup between two - depending on my mood, I might go and see Godland, a dark-looking thing about a young, fanatical, Danish priest who gets sent to Iceland in the 19th Century. Again, no location for it on the film listings site - but it's on in my local cinema.

Next Wednesday, again, loads of stuff on Meetup - but two of my groups are running events that would interest me, but are sold out. The Horror Book Club, meantime, is reading The Yellow Wallpaper - a novella that I found on Kindle, and downloaded a free sample for. Mind you, it came as part of a collection.. and is so short that its entirety was included in the free sample! so I read the whole thing last night. How different from our last assignment.. I wasn't that keen on it - although the ending is good. So I'll probably head to yet another film that night. And, at the same rating as Godland, is Sick of Myself, a satire set in Oslo, in which a girl is jealous of her boyfriend's artistic success, so she draws attention to herself by taking drugs that give her a skin condition.. Also on in my local cinema, not that the listings site let me in on the secret.

On the 4th, I booked a livestream from the Crick Crack Club, from the Story Museum Oxford. This is King Lear Retold. However, these tend to be available for a week after - so I've taken the opportunity, also, to book a concert with the World Music Meetup! This is La Chinganera, in the Finnish Church - and the concerts organised by Eleanor Salter Thorn of TunedIn London are always good!

Then back to Ireland for the coronation weekend..