Just For Lookin' Thru

Instructions are to take our shoes off before we go inside the house, to turn all the lights off after we have left and to make sure that the cats stay outside. If they get in we must make sure to shut them in the breakfast room. If I have any questions about these instructions then I am given a mobile number to ring. I hope that I can manage these things. In the event the couple arrive outside and don’t really want to go in, not having done a drive-by, and only now realizing that it is on a busy main road. This should go on the details. It would save a lot of time. We have a look anyway, dutifully take off our shoes in the porch and pad cautiously over the new carpets. It’s a nice place but who wants to pay 300K to listen to traffic all day and night? What else do we have today? A couple of nasty little modern boxes going for 186K and 194K, both nicely done out and freshly painted but still nasty little modern boxes. I try to imagine a whole family sharing the tiny sitting room. W...

Wartime Comedy with Swing Band Classics. Great Fun. A glamorous Northern all-girl swing band keeps losing members, particularly when American GIs are stationed nearby. Band leader Betty needs to recruit fresh talent for a BBC broadcast and she gets a schoolgirl, a nun, an upper-class tart and a draft dodger. Alan Plater has written a very funny script and the comic timing is spot on. The versatile cast astonish and delight; switching with ease from acting, to a wide range of instruments, then singing. The cool bluesy songs are all beautifully delivered; they’re sultry and sexy, moody and touching. Rosie Jenkins stands out as Miranda, the upper-class tart; she has great lines to deliver and her entire performance is bright and funny. She’s a joy to watch and, while she sings ‘Body and Soul’, the audience becomes very still. Pam Jolley executes ‘Ribbon Bow’ very well but disappoints as Elizabeth, the sixth former, instead coming across as an over-excited ten to twelve year old but, apart...

A novel beautifully written from the perspective of a teenage girl in rural Devon. Observations of the people around her, the farm and the countryside during one long, hot summer, are perceptive, intuitive, acute and touching and Pears captures the subtleties and sensitivities of a range of characters with apparent effortlessness. To read about them is to know them. He describes the forebearance of disappointed women, gives them the dignity of acceptance, and elicits understanding rather than sympathy. To pity these women would be to diminish their resolution and fortitude. He writes the Rector particularly well; gets inside his head, and gives the reader a wonderful sense of the man’s thoughts and his wisdom. He achieves this by writing the narrative about simple scenes and straightforward people with a mature eloquence, and peppering the narrative with short pieces of dialect which brings life and expression to the characters. The reader sees the story unfold through Alison’s unsophi...

Screened in sepia tint, the battle of Iwo Jima is recreated with particular focus on the famous photograph US soldiers raising the American flag on the island, and how it became a symbol for victory and patriotism. The story is told by a writer who is trying to uncover the truth of the flag raising because of rumours that the photograph was set up. Two flags were raised; the second raising was photographed, so there were different soldiers in the picture than those who originally shoved the thing up the pole a few days previously. It seems a flimsy reason to make an entire film but it’s a way of saying ‘the medium is the message’; the photograph meant victory to the US, and raised the hopes of a nation. The historical accuracy of knowing the identities of the first flag raisers doesn’t mean diddley-squat to me but I’m not a patriotic American. Eastwood paints a realistic picture of battle but also aims a cynical lens at the political use made of the young men who were ...

There is local firm unaffectionately known as Fullocrap and Bullshit, headed by an unpopular partnership, the least loved member of which is known to have amassed a portfolio of over 20 properties, the majority of which he has bought for himself at below-value prices. Some of these he has been known to sell on three months later for a profit and the wonder is that no-one in authority has noticed this unprofessional and suspect financial manoeuvring. Estate agents can of course buy property, and naturally they have an interest or they wouldn’t have gone into that line of business. The price and intention are the issue. These rumours circulate the city and yet no-one appears to have reported this man to any authority which seems a shame as I don’t like pockets being lined at the expense of innocents. The firm in question are also notorious for overpricing everything they sell, and for not caring whether they sell any properties or not. I can only imagine that their commission is so hig...

The matinee performance fills 850 seats in the theatre with almost exclusively school trips for GCSE sufferers and a smattering of unsuspecting individuals who each look somewhat crestfallen to be confronted with a venue full of over-excited young people released from the confines of the classroom for an afternoon, some of whom have never been out of their own localities into the city. They shove and giggle and squeal and, most delightful of all, every time they are frightened they scream with the effect of a Mexican wave, started off by one pre-emptive female and taken up in relay throughout the entire auditorium. This prolonged screaming is followed by a similar wave of laughter which relieves the tension in the dark. There is a significant element of heightened drama here, and it’s not on the stage. On stage, however, the performance is robust and engaging, led by Dominic Marsh, a tall, impassioned thesp who delivers his lines with force, clarity and precision. Michael Burrell plays...