A lunch time viewing, for which we were one of three pensioner couples. One, front left with their sandwiches. Two, us in the middle of the third row of the premium seats at the back, the ones with a reasonable amount of leg room. Three, to our right, with the lady reading her newspaper out loud to her gentleman, more or less until the start of the main feature. I came close to intervention.
Much more troublesome was the noise and bustle of all the stuff which came before the main feature, which was almost enough to put me off going to the cinema for good - and as far as I can make out, this was the first time for more than two years as it was. See reference 2. How long before we venture forth again?
A main feature which, as expected, was a lush costume drama, complete with a tiresome amount of sex, smut and bad language. Maybe some early eighteenth century courts were like that, but I am not sure that I need to know in speculative technicolour. Furthermore, a not very respectful take on the monarchy, and we wondered about the judgement of Hampton Court Palace, usually thought of as a celebration of royalty, in renting itself out for such purposes. After the event, we learned that most of the buildings in the film were actually Hatfield House, a strictly commercial operation with no duty to the monarch. This from a verging on lapsed but otherwise lifetime republican. Verging on lapsed, because it is not clear that elevating the likes of Blair, Brown, Cameron or May to the monarchy would be much of an improvement on what we have now. At least, as is observed in 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom', our crown is not a prize for the otherwise rather unsavoury person who is best at pushing him or herself forward.
Another sort of tiresome was the impression that the sound was coming out of the ceiling rather than out of the screen, which meant that, for me anyway, the words got a bit disconnected from the person supposed to be speaking them.
Another was the length of the film: at two hours perhaps half an hour too long.
But despite the film being tiresome, I ended up rather liking the actress in the lead.
Also interesting to be reminded of the delicate business of being the favourite of someone with a great deal of power, long term exercise of which is going to corrupt the someone concerned. All to apt to become arbitrary, capricious and cruel. To my mind, a rather uncomfortable blend of domestic servant and civil servant.
The credits were arty rather than legible, so I imagine that people like the second gaffer's personal assistant are going to be a bit miffed that their friends and family don't get to glimpse their names on the silver screen.
Out to stroll down the mid afternoon High Street.
Past a young man reading and begging, wrapped in blankets in a shop doorway. He did not look particularly damaged to me and I wondered whether he was actually a psychology student doing a bit of fieldwork; a possibility which I do not care for on account of the dishonesty involved, although I can see that it might be a good way otherwise to gather information about the life style.
Onto to the library for a spot of very reasonable tea and tea-cake at the newly refurbished café in the large area outside the library on the first floor. A library which could not offer a biography of Queen Anne, either in their second hand department or on the shelves, but which could offer a book about the stone age in Finland. Bought so that we can impress our Finnish neighbour with our knowledge of her pre-history. So far I have learned that Finland is flint-poor, so they rather missed out on that stage of things.
Onto the Marquis for a spot of their Picpoul. Quite busy for what was now quite late on a Saturday afternoon, mostly with people a good deal younger than ourselves. We read in their menu about something called 'Barber's Vintage Cheddar sausage rolls' and challenged the barmaids, who knew nothing about it, beyond the sausage rolls on offer looking quite conventional, certainly involving sausages made of pork, without any hint of cheese. But £4.25 was rather a lot to pay to find out the truth.
Back home, in the absence of a book from the library and having taken too much Picpoul to want to grapple with our Oxford History of the later Stuarts, we settled for Unstead, much more digestible and including pictures. A very handy four volume history of what became the United Kingdom; just the thing for checking how far from the truth a costume drama has drifted. This being one of my major bugbears with the genre, this blurring of fact and fiction. This by arty types, no doubt in the front ranks of all those angry people out in the streets, complaining about fake news. Or perhaps junk news or false news - but whatever it is called, I am reasonably sure that the amount of it is increasing, both absolutely and relatively.
PS: the right hand celebrity in the snap is one Mary Jo Randle, whom I knew from the driven to distraction episode of Morse. In the course of the film I became convinced - and remained so for some time after - that she was one and the same as Olivia Colman. A type of error that I seem to make quite often these days, confusing one celebrity with another. But then, I have always had trouble connecting people or names to faces, irritating when I am sure (sometimes wrongly) that I know them. So, for example, I pass someone in the street in town whom I am almost sure is the person who lives at No.77, whom I have sometimes caught tidying her front garden. But a someone whose name I never have known.
Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/09/queen-anne-show.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/05/florrie.html.
Reference 3: The Rise of Great Britain 1688-1837 - R. J. Unstead - 1963. A & C Black Ltd. A bit late to have informed my childhood, but possible. My memory of having had it at that time is not completely ruled out.
No comments:
Post a Comment