Will Pound & Jenn Butterworth, Traverse

 An evening of joy.  I saw Will and Jenn two years ago and have no reason to change any of the views expressed in my review at the time.  Which you can see here.  

Jenn' solo album (Her By Design) is out now, and well worth a listen.  She sang a couple of songs from it.  Will played with his usual verve, imagination and unpredictability.  A highlight for me was being able to watch Jenn's face as they played and her constant surprise and laughter at the improvisations her partner threw in, and challenged her own abilities with.  Although they play regularly together this was an illustration of just how fresh and unique each performance is.  A huge variety of tunes too, deriving  from classicalmorris dance and folk genres, from countries all over the world, plus some self penned numbers, all with Will's customary informative and madcap introductions to set the scene.  

I hope it won't be another two years before I see them again.

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!

The Incomer

Whimsy. Suspension of disbelief essential. Embrace the weirdness. It's so easy to pick holes in the reality of writer/director Louis Paxton's film, but where's the fun in that? Better to sit back and accept that you have entered the world of fairy tales and folk tales, enjoy the eldritch feel of this off-kilter world. There's a malicious selkie bobbing in the water, a sprinkling of cartoon violence, and a smidgen of Hitchcockian terror. And while there is some effort to provide a meaningful ending - humans are social creatures and we should accept people as they are - it's best not to think too much.

Siblings Isla (Gayle Rankin) and Sandy (Grant O'Rourke) have been living in isolation on Auk Island since they were children, half convinced they are descended from seagulls. Daniel (Domhnall Gleeson), a socially inept council worker, is sent over to serve them an eviction notice, as the island is regarded as a wildlife sanctuary. Which goes against the residents belief that they must repel all Incomers...

Daniel is met with resistance, but gradually wins the pair over, only to have his work undermined when a more feral colleague, Calum (Emun Elliot), batters his way into the setting. Relationships are tested, and reinforcements combatted, as tensions rise and solutions sought.

Good performance all round, in roles which demand some over-the-top elements. Michelle Gomez, as Daniel's over-ambitious hardnosed boss, makes for an easily disliked 'baddie' figure, and there are plenty of laugh out loud lines spread through the script. O'Rourke's deadpan delivery is a delight. Plus there's the dulcet tones of one John Hannah...

The Incomer joins a line of whimsical Scottish films that twist the world into something slightly magical, and provide memorable characters and imaginative cinematic moments (like Daniel 'flying'). Warm hearted and quirky make a good combination.

John Smith: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, 3 Old Monks, PBH Free Fringe, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Smith is a likeable Geordie, who tells us immediately that his show has no overriding storyline, but is simply an hour of jokes and anecdotes, with the emphasis on dark humour.  Nevertheless he did mange to fit in a call back as part of his routine.  It's a slightly shambolic hour, but none the worse for that, although it gets a bit too slow paced at times.  His audience interaction is deent enough, and there are some pretty good jokes in there.  Dark?  Yes, quite often, sometimes to the point of feeling old fashioned,  but there's enough laughs in there to feel like this was time well spent.

He also has a guest making a brief appearance with her own routine - Very someone?  I didn't catch the name.  Very rushed, almost embarrassed by her own performance, and a bit weird...

In Loyal Company, Pleasance, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

 Actor and stand up David  William Bryan plays his great-uncle, Arthur 'Joe' Robinson, in a (mostly) true story.  Joe is a young man in Birkenhead in 1939.  He has a job.  And there's a girl in his life (almost).  But experiencing a Luftwaffe bomb attack on the Liverpool area dirves him to join the army.  He's trained, shipped about, and ends up heading for the Fra East, only for his ship to be sunk by Japanese bombers.  Rescued, and taken on to Singapore... just as the island is foreced to surrender.  Robinson has to endure 4 years as a POW, working as lave labour, seriously ill, his fellow prisoners dying.  But he survives, just, and finally makes it home.  What kind of life can he expect?

Bryan portrays this in dramatic and energetyiuc fashion, with several on stage costume changes, and giving voice to host of peoplein Joe's life.  He does a good job of bringing across the horrors of war, has his characters well deliniated, and there's a clear narrative arc.  He even manages to work a few laughs into a very sad subject.  The performance deserved the standing ovation he received in the end, if only for the physical toll each perfomance must take on his body.  

It's good to see a war story that is not about sucess of glory, but simply celebrates survival.