Contact (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

 A Mother (Blythe Duff) receives a surpise visit from her Son (Mark Barrett), who says he wants to mend their 'relationship', a word the parent scoffs at.  His wife stays in the car, having no part in this war of dysfunction.  Mum is acerbic, wounding.  Son matches her, unable to plot the calm path he planned in his head.  The dialogue is staccato, alienating, ith eye contact avoided.  It's all sliding doors and no real communication

He tries again, and her therapist has told her to give it a go too.  But all we get is the stories of why they are both so damaged, the difficult childhood, impossible marriage.  Can they reach any kind of .... maybe not agreement, but a rapprochment?  

Within the self consciously discordant style of action we can see real conecerns, real people, and the reasons why family life can sometimes be so difficult.  There are also some decent laughs, much of it from Duff's biting sarcasm.  It's not always enjoyable, but is absorbing and thought provoking, and greatly helped by two fine performances.  Memorable.

Pressure

Based on a true story, this is a war film without much much in the way of war action in it (there's a bit at the end, but we already know what's going to happen!). But there is tension aplenty, and some excellent performances to keep the attention.

A few days before the Allied invasion of Europe, Churchill sends Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) Britain's best meteorologist, James Stagg (Andrew Scott), to provide the most accurate forecast of likely weather conditions for the chosen day. Which is 5th June.

Stagg is intense, demanding, and not much of a 'people person'. He has personal worries as his wife is about to give birth. But he's also something of a weather genius, pioneering new methods of prediction and bringing greater accuracy to forecasts. He immediately clashes with the American's top weatherman, Colonel Krick (Chris Messina) who says the weather will be perfect on the 5th, but uses old fashioned methodologies. The man in command has to choose between them.

Adding a bit of softness to all this machismo is Kerry Conlon as Ike's PA, who provides the emotional link between Eisenhower's calm authority and Stagg's clipped expertise. Hollywood has these needs...

We all know that Stagg was right, the 5th would have been a disaster, and he correctly identifies a window in the weather on the 6th as being suitable. But the script does a good job of maintaining the tension, thriller style, over the path leading to the outcome. If you want a repressed middle aged man then nobody does it better than Scott, while Fraser delivers the epitome of soft power. There's a lot to admire.

There's not much in the way of depth, or anything to provoke fresh thought, but as a hundred minute entertainment it's more than acceptable.

It's Nice Up North

A 20th anniversary screening of the spoof documentary featuring Graham Fellows character comic John Shuttleworth.  Always bumbling and inapropriate, Shuttleworth sets for Shetland to prove his theoiry that people are nicer in the UK the further north you travel.  To record this he's recruited photographer Martin Parr, along with a tech team, to make the film of his journey and investigations.  Of course, John being John, it isn't all slick and predictable, as he makes his way around in an old Austin Ambassador...

The result is often badly filmed, awkward, full of minutae, with rambling commentary and moments of unexpected sadness.  Plus some arguments between subject and cameraman!  And it's still, after 2 decades, hilarious.  Fellows clearly has a lot of warmth and affection for his comedy creation, and for the people he talks to in his 'investigation'.  The best moments are often improvised, frequently with people in the street they hadn't even planned to talk to.  It's all beautifully done as parody of the real thing, and fun to see so much going wrong.

There was a chat with Fellows after the screening, which told us more about the making of the film (which mentioned that the on-screen tension between Fellows and Parr was often real!), the unintentional additions which made things worse (better!), like the helicopter cameraman they hired who turned out to genuinely awful.  Shuttleworth still has a life on stage, and will for some time to come.

And yes, he did find people were nicer up north!