The Carer, Cineworld, Edinburgh Film Festival

From the opening sequence, in which an elderly couple in dressing gowns dance to jazz on the lawn, through to the emotive and inspiring closing monologue, this is a real treat.

Sir Michael Gifford (Brian Cox) is a famed Shakespearean actor living out his final days with a rare form of Parkinsons.  Never the easiest of men to get on with, he has become arrogant, obstinate, bullying and uncooperative with those around him.  A veritable grumpy old bugger.  His carers never last long in the job....

Dorottya (Coco Konig), a young Hungarian woman with her own thespian ambitions, is sent from a care home to see if she can take on the role of looking after Sir Michael.  He's as difficult with her as with those who preceded her, but finds her ability to respond in like manner to his use of Shakespeare's lines to be intriguing.  That and her failure to rise to his frequent provocations, but to give as good as she gets when the time is right.

Gifford's daughter Sophia (Emelia Fox), is a chip of her father's block, a bully who wants her own way, housekeeper/companion Milly (Anna Chancellor) is dedicated to the old man and suspicious of anyone else getting too close to his affections, while driver/gardener Joseph knows all his faults and provides Dorottya with a guiding hand.

When Sofia begins to suspect that the young woman is having an unwelcome influence on her father, encouraging him to reappear in public, the reality of the relationships around the old actor are tested and emotions come to the forefront.

Not shy of showing up the indignities of old age and infirmity, the film is full of heart and hope, and an encouragement to "rage against the dying of the light".  The casting is perfect, and Konig looks to be a real star for the future.  It's unusual to see Fox in an uberbitch persona, and she carries it off to perfection.  While Cox is simply magnificent, and has plenty of chances to show off his comic timing - there are a lot of laughs throughout.  While his speech at the end is moving, powerful, insightful and a statement in itself (apparently much of the wording came from Cox himself).

Not to be missed.

Brahman Naman, Cineworld, Edinburgh Film Festival

When a film starts with a man having sex with a fridge, then lets the titles roll to the sound of Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath, you know it's going to be tasteless and fun.  So far so good.

Set in 1980s Bangalore, Naman, an upper class college student, is a genius when it comes to quizzes, but failing at life otherwise.  Especially when it comes to the one subject that obsesses him more than any other - girls.  He and his friends have only two goals.  To win the All-India college quiz championship, and to get laid.

But these are teenage nerds, adept at creating fantasies and boasting of them to their friends, but with no idea how to talk with actual real life girls.  They want them to be like the women they see on the pages of their porn mags, and can't deal with a the complications of girls who thing they're pathetic, or those who prove their intellectual superiors.  And then there's the pressures of adhering to the social system they have been brought up to respect.

It's very funny at times, in a puerile teenager kind of a way, and Naman gets a few life lessons along the way, which he may, or may not, be smart enough to recognise.  And it's certainly fun, with excellent use of a fish-eye lens, some great animations and the characters bursting into off-key singing from time to time, backed up by a buzzing soundtrack.  There's a playful relationship with the audience, seven quiz questions appearing throughout, with the answers, shown upside down, appearing at the end of the credits.  But the film is at it's best poking fun at the iniquitous superstitions of the caste system and it's pernicious complication of human relations.

Enjoyable (if tasteless is your thing).

The Olive Tree, Cineworld, Edinburgh Film Festival

Set in southern Spain, this is a simple tale, beautifully told, of a young woman fighting to do what she feels to be right.  Feisty Alma works on the family chicken farm, argues with her father, and cares most in the world for her grandfather.  The latter has dementia, is prone to wandering off, and no longer able to speak.  But Alma is convinced there's more to his illness than the doctors think, and that he is still in mourning for the 2000 year old olive tree his sons sold off to pay for the transition from oil to poultry.  As a young girl Alma had had a shared connection with the old man through their love for the tree.

Having tracked down the tree to the foyer of an energy company in Dusseldorf, Alma persuades a friend and her uncle to go with her on a journey to bring the tree home.  The story she's spun to persuade them to accompany her is less than truthful, and when the trio face the reality of the situation events go way beyond what any of them had predicted.  By the time they return home all three will have been changed by their experience and become more certain of what really matters in their lives.

This straightforward story of family loyalties and conflicts also gives thought to some much wider themes.  Alma's quest becomes a cause celebre in Germany when social media attracts the attention of environmentalists, and bandwagon jumpers are quick to respond.  Her simple desire to please her grandfather must go against big business and the nature of capitalism, and a society where nothing has a value without a Euro symbol.  The young woman's passionate humanity up against the faceless power of big money.

This was the eleventh film I've watched at this year's festival, but the first that I left feeling that I'd be happy to sit through it again.  Anna Castillo is a powerful force as Alma, a swirling mix of love and wildness, determined to do the right thing, even if it means going about it the wrong way.  But the standout performance comes from Javier Gutierrez as Uncle Alcachofa, a man whose sense of self worth was destroyed by the 2008 crash, and is able to take a fresh look at himself when he has to make choices.

There's plenty of humour, especially when the confrontations in Dusseldorf take off, but I'll remember this movie most for it's humanity, warmth and charm.  Highly recommended.

The White King, Cineworld, Edinburgh Film Festival

An idyllic family picnic by the lake, looking like a perfect scene from 1950s America.  But the widespread presence of surveillance cameras, and a gigantic Soviet-style statue looking down from the hill, suggest a totalitarian regime set in the near future.  When the family return home the police are waiting to take away father Peter, something he'd clearly been expecting.

Eleven year old Djata is told by his mother, Hannah, that dad will be away working for a while.  But the truth can't be long hidden from him, not least because the pair begin to find themselves being ostracised as a traitor's family.  Djata tries to persuade his paternal grandfather, a high ranking government official,  to intervene, but he claims he's done all he can - and tries to further indoctrinate the boy into the ways of the dictatorship.

Djata tries to find out about his father for himself, later helped by Hannah, but there is no way they can compete with the resources of the all powerful state apparatus.  When they finally get to see Peter again it's on the government's terms, not theirs.

Filmed in Hungary, the regime in the source novel was broadly based on Ceaușescu's Romania, and the tyranny portrayed feels like an at-odds mix of East European communism and far right fascism.  The trident symbol of the party is everywhere, people are placed in torture camps without charge, and there is great emphasis placed on loyalty to Homeland and 'making our country great'.

[I wonder why that latter phrase sounds so familiar this week....?]

The film lacks a coherent sense of place, with  a curious mix of accents and stilted language.  Having people say "Hey There!" instead of "Cheers" doesn't work as a means to evoke a culture, but sounds more like a scriptwriter running out of ideas.  Indeed much of the script has a curiously stilted feel to it.  There are also sub plots that do nothing to contribute to the overall story, such as the violent feud between Djata and his friends against a couple of older bullies.

There are some fine performances, within these limitations.  Lorenzo Allchurch looks to have a great future, his Djata a confused but pugnacious centre which the other pieces move around, while it's always a pleasure to see Jonathan Pryce, this time as Peter's father.

There are some nice touches that reflect the dull, brutal realities of life under a dictatorship - the bullying schoolteacher, the regimented crowds, the megalomania of minor officials.  And the final few scenes have a wonderful cinematic quality to them.  But overall this feels like a missed opportunity, a product that's rather less than the sum of it's parts..

Barbarella, Filmhouse, Edinburgh Film Festival

POW!!! is the title given to the section of this year's programme looking at movies based on comic strip characters.  Barbarella is a film I've seen a couple of times before, but never on the big screen, and I was intrigued to see what it would look like cinematically.

Set in a far distant future when peace and love rule over a unified universe, astronavigator Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is tasked with finding, and returning with, Durand-Durand, inventor of a new weapon, who is to be found in Sogo, City of Night, a place where evil and sin still thrive.  Along the way she meets a host of weird characters, gets into and out of several dangerous situations, and into and out of a series of bizarre and skimpy costumes.  Plus discovering the joys of love making done "the old fashioned way" (the "modern" method involving a couple of pills and connecting palms....).  All on the way to a happy ending in which she saves the universe.

By any objective criteria this is trash.  The sets and props couldn't look any less real if they'd been created by a ten year old out of Lego, and some of the performances are so over the top that you keep waiting for a audience to cry out "Behind you".  Barbarella suffers several attacks that leave her bloodied and battered, only to reappear unscarred and unbruised ten minutes later.  (I'm hoping this works for me the next time I cut my finger when chopping onions.)

So best to be totally subjective.  The opening sequence, as the titles roll, sets the tone, with Fonda performing a zero gravity striptease out of a spacesuit that looks to be made of PVC and held together with velcro, and a bubblegum music track for accompaniment.  It's funny, ridiculous and very sexy.  Which pretty much sums up the entire film.  The ice yacht, the leather men, the people of the rocks, the women imbibing 'essence of man' from a hookah.  It's a psychedelic, trippy view of the world, a hippy fantasy that sparkles with colour and shapes and originality.  The execution might be lacking at times, but some of the underlying ideas are minor works of genius.

Fonda's portrayal of our hero as wide eyed ingenue is the perfect foil to all the ludicrous goings on around her, and her mood moves between states of wonder, concern and ecstasy.  The nearest she gets to expressing fear is "Oh my!".  Revolving around her very physical presence are John Phillip Law's beautiful blue eyed angel, Pygar, a well of compassion and love; Milo O'Shea's wildly overacted Concierge; and the deep, playful, seductive tones of Anita Pallenberg as the Great Tyrant, queen of evil.  A special mention should be reserved for David Hemmings, in a costume as scanty as any of Fonda's, redefining the boundaries of camp and incompetent as revolutionary leader Dildano (a name which is very much in keeping with the tone of the film).  And who could fail to love a movie featuring Marcel Marceau?

Yes, it's rubbish.  Yes, it's very much a male fantasy world.  And yes, it's very much "off it's time".  But suspend disbelief, embrace the silliness, and enjoy Fonda's performance.  It is just fun, and there's no harm in that.  POW indeed.

2 Nights till Morning, Odeon, Edinburgh Film Festival

Caroline, a fortyish, French architect, is in Vilnius meeting a client, and has to stay on a night longer than expected.  She meets thirtyish Finn, Jaakko, they go out drinking and, despite the language barrier, spend the night together.  In the morning Caroline dresses quietly and slips from the room, knowing she need never see her one-time lover again.

Except that the Icelandic ash cloud takes a hand, all flights out are cancelled, the hotels are overbooked, and circumstances force her once more into the company of the younger man.  So what happens when the participants from a casual drunken encounter are brought together and actually have to try and communicate with each other?

Which sounds like a flimsy pretext for another stereotypical Hollywood romcom, but this film takes conventional film romance tropes and twists them into something much more human.  Both characters reveal, sometimes reluctantly, parts of their present, past, and fears for the future.  Both spring surprises that alter perceptions of who they are and why they choose to live the lives they do.   This is less a case of "will they/won't they", and more a question of who finds most about themselves, and what they might do with those discoveries.  The ending might not be the one we'd like to see, but it leaves the audience to figure out which direction these two people might take after their encounter.

Throughout it all there is a questioning of familiar gender role assumptions.  It felt like any of the major characters could have swapped gender and still leave the film to work perfectly.  Although Finnish in origin, the bulk of the dialogue is in English, with other languages subtitled.  And Vilnius, even if much of the action occurs in hotel rooms, is an enjoyably neutral background location, a place of unfamiliar beauty.

French Canadian Marie-Josée Croze is superb as Caroline, so confident in her business life, but a mess of contradictions and uncertainties under the surface.  Finn Mikko Nousiainen is a reassuring Jaakko, a man who seems to have his priorities sorted until this stranger upsets his equilibrium.

Well worth a look.

2001 : A Space Odyssey, Filmhouse, Edinburgh Film Festival

I've seen Kubrick's 1968 classic several times, but the opportunity to see such a visually dynamic film on the big screen again was too good to miss.  It's a long watch at two and a half hours (this screening had an intermission), but always engrossing.  The plot unfolds in four clearly delineated sections.

A tribe of prehistoric ape-like creatures struggle for survival in a hostile landscape.  Their sudden discovery of a tall, black, oblong monolith sparks the moment of creativity when a tribe member realises he can use the bones of dead animals as a club.  At once the tapir like creatures they must compete with for food are themselves transformed into a richer and more plentiful supply of protein. and the tribe now have the weaponry to see off rival groups for watering holes.  Their evolutionary progress has been assured.

A bone, flung high into the air in triumph, morphs into a space shuttle.  On board is an American scientist en route to the moon and the discovery of a tall, black, oblong monolith which has been buried beneath the surface - evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and news that could shake humankind's understanding of itself.  The information is kept secret, and eighteen months later....

The Discovery spaceship is on it's way to Jupiter, to which the monolith had directed a signal.  On board there are three crew members in suspended animation, two, Dave and Frank, tasked with keeping everything going smoothly on the journey, and HAL, an Artificial Intelligence computer which is able to converse, and maybe even emote, like a human.  HAL develops his own ideas about the mission and deliberately sets about killing the crew (predating Stephen Hawking's warnings by almost five decades!), but Dave finds a way to survive and disable HAL's AI capability.  In doing so he learns for the first time about the true nature of his mission.

In the final section Dave leaves the ship to encounter yet another monolith, floating in space.  From a terrifying transition through to an alternate reality, Dave finds himself in a suite of rooms furnished in a bizarre mix of modernism and Louis Quinze, watching himself age and die, to have the monolith reincarnate his essence as a Star Child, a creature of endless possibilities looking down on the Earth.

With hindsight, the film has a definitively 1960s view of the future, especially the technology.  A mix of over optimism, surprisingly practical imagination, and so many laughable anachronisms - there isn't a touch screen in sight.  It's a Pop Art vision of the world to come, a directness in attempting to second guess human progress.  There's a lot they got right, but something as simple as the way a human being walks in moon gravity isn't there - the film predates Neil Armstrong's immortality moment.  Oh, and it looks like the Cold War was still going on!

Despite this there are some lovely details.  The velcro zero-gravity shoes, the rotating space station generating it's own gravitational field, the reliance on solar power.  Most sixties sci-fi spaceships were sleek, rocket like, so it was revolutionary to have practicality take the lead over looks.  There was as much science as fiction involved in the design of the hardware.

The transition sequence near the end of the film is the most purely cinematic experience, both visually and aurally, a psychedelic fairground ride.  Best ignore the limited scope of special effects back then, no CGI to call upon, so much of the sequence resembles brightly lit circuit boards and colour shifted mountain ranges, but remains impressive in context.  The in-space sequences are generally impressive, even by modern standards.

Kubrick always stuck to the line that the meaning of the film was entirely open to the viewer, who must provide their own interpretation.  Many have done so over the decades since so I'm not going to add mine here.  This is a film with a power beyond it's meaning, this is art.  Simply stunning on the big screen, I have, ever since my first sight of it, carried images in my mind that are brought to life the second I hear Thus Spake Zarathustra or The Blue Danube.  Try to see it at least once in your life.  It's one of those movies that reminds you just how powerful cinema can be.

(Let's not mention the Bechdel test....)

The Correspondence, Filmhouse, Edinburgh Film Festival

An Italian film, performed in English.

Amy (Olga Kurylenko) looks to be quite a complex character.  Studying for her doctorate in astrophysics, she funds her university course taking jobs as a movie stunt-woman, whilst also carrying on a largely electronic affair with a man old enough to be her grandfather.  Her lover is Professor Ed Phoerum (Jeremy Irons) who sees her when he can (she lives in England, he in Edinburgh), but communicates regularly using email, Skype and sms.

When he proves difficult to contact over several months Amy begins to wonder what's become of him.  She finds the answer by accident.  Ed is dead.  He died five days before she hears, yet she is still receiving messages from him.  What's going on?  It turns out the old man has conceived an elaborate plot to continue sending her messages from beyond the grave at key moments in her life.  So the emails and texts, and little notes and presents, still come in, and videos of a talking head Ed arrive on DVD.  He wants to continue to provide a (paternalistic) guiding hand in her life.

The festival programme describes this film as "a profoundly moving contemplation of the true nature of endless love and loss", and I expected much from the director of the wonderful Cinema Paradiso.  So this turkey was a huge disappointment.  There are far too many 'convenient' plot devices holding the improbable storyline together, and the dialogue, perhaps because it was originally written in Italian, feels artificial and flat.  It is beautifully filmed, and both Edinburgh and the Italian Lakes provide backdrops dripping with character.  Both Kurylenko and Irons give decent performances within the limits of their material.

But, far from being romantic, Ed's actions feel manipulative and creepy.  How would someone really react to having a dead stalker?  Not like the compliant Amy one imagines.   This is a film smelling strongly of "old man's fantasy" - not a scent I care for.

Betty Blue, Filmhouse, Edinburgh Film Festival

From the 'Cinema du look' section of this year's programme, a 1986 French classic.  Partly narrated by Zorg, one of the central protagonists, this is a visually stunning love story that descends into tragedy.

Zorg lives a quiet life as a handyman looking after holiday homes on the beach.  Into his life blows the whirlwind that is Betty.  She is beautiful, sexy, funny, imaginative.  She is also unpredictable, moody, driven to extremes of behaviour, hot headed to the point of occasional violence.  When she discovers that her lover is a would be novelist she is determined to get his work published, an obsession that begins to take her over.  And causes embarrassments for Zorg.

There are adventures, friends, good fortune and difficulties.  But an unhappy ending always feels inevitable as Betty is pushed beyond her limits.  Some people are meant to be together and should never be with anyone.

Gloriously colourful with some strongly memorable scenes, this is French style with a twist, and a wonderful performance from Beatrice Dalle as the over-the-top eponymous wild child.

Bridging the Gap : Women, Filmhouse, Edinburgh Film Festival

Bridging the Gap is a Scottish Documentary Institute initiative to encourage the emergence of new documentary film makers, now in it's thirteenth year.  At this year's festival they presented four short films, directed by women and with the views of women to the fore.  The four, ranging from ten to fifteen minutes in length, mixing intimate fly on the wall footage with narrative voice-overs from the subjects of the film.

Swan explains the changed relationship between a transgender woman, and her daughter, since she came out and began her transitioning.  Her relief at finally being able to be the person she always knew she was, and the reaction of her daughter to seeing the man she'd known as Dad start to change.  It's a beautifully matter of fact treatment of the topic, with both generations why their relationship had improved as a result.  But while the daughter has now stopped using Dad as an appellation, she can't yet, if ever, call her Mum.  Despite that she bought her a Mother's Day present, perhaps the warmest indication of how well their relationship had adjusted.

Where We Are Now shows life living with a severely autistic teenager.  Small details bring home the unending struggle to maintain normality - food scattered on seemingly every surface, endless washing of floors and stairs, a padlock on the fridge door.  With the daughter now sixteen there's the added worry of caring for someone with the body of a young woman, but, in many respects, the mental age of a toddler.  The girl loves trampolining, music (much to the relief of her mother), and sticking her arms out through the neck-hole of her sweater.  There are plenty of moments of laughter and connection.  But underlying it all is the mother's greatest fear - who will care for her girl when she is no longer able to, or dies?  Who loves her then?

Silent Laughs is by far the funniest of the quartet, unsurprisingly given the subject matter.  Leah is a deaf woman trying to break into stand up comedy.  The film switches back and forth from her everyday life to the pre-show nerves, and performance, for a newcomers night at the Stand Comedy Club here in Edinburgh.  She performs in sign language, with an interpreter vocalising her words.  Her set goes down well, and signing is a natural language of comedy.  Heart warming.

Finishing off we had The Review.  Perhaps you have to be a parent to appreciate it, but the central issue seemed trivial in comparison with those above, and I found this the least engrossing film of the group.  Voiced from a mother's point of view, we see events leading up to a decision whether her teenage son would continue to play for his football team, or be dropped.  I found the boy, and his siblings, largely unintelligible, so I may have missed something.  But not much.  In the end I think he was kept on, but by then I'd lost interest.  Nice spaniel though.

A promising mixture overall.

The Homecoming, Cineworld, Edinburgh Film Festival

The festival programme describes this as "The best Icelandic incest comedy ever" - and who could resist such a tagline?  Not me, and I'm glad I chose to follow my instincts.

Gunnar writes self help books, Disa is a receptionist at the hospital, together they appear to be just another middle class couple who've grown to be slightly bored with one another.  Then son David comes home to tell them he's getting married, and introduces his girlfriend, Sunna.  Once the four begin to talk, and the parents learn some of the background to their future daughter in law, Gunnar recognises the unwelcome truth.  Sunna is his biological daughter from an affair he had in the early days of his marriage.

What should Gunnar do?  What would his self help books (which he himself admits are a con) say he should do?  Tell the truth and expose his infidelity, or try to find ways to sabotage the wedding plans?  This sounds like a thin premise on which to base a 95 minute film, but the results belie that assumption.  Yes, it is slow paced and is all the better for it.  For there's never any sense of time dragging, but we get to see some of the most wonderfully awkward silences in cinema history.

If a few of the plot devices are predictable there are plenty of surprise twists to balance them out.  And some genuinely moving moments too, with a happy ending of sorts.  It is also delightfully funny, featuring some wonderfully understated and naturalistic performances.  The opening scene, pre-titles, is a miniature masterclass in marital non-communication, all half finished non sequiturs and those tense comedic silences.

You can look for a moral in the importance of telling the truth, and the dangers of long kept secrets which can explode into the lives of more than those immediately involved.  This is a comedy that's not afraid to put it's serious face on.  But it's the laughs you'll remember most.

Fans of fast action and high drama should look elsewhere.  But for anyone who appreciates the natural comedy of ordinary life this is a rewarding experience.  Highly recommended.

Suntan, Cineworld, Edinburgh Film Festival

Kostis is a forty something taking up the post of island doctor on Antiparos.  In the winter months it's a quiet place, and his life feels drab.  But as one new acquaintance delights in telling him, come the summer there will be lots and lots of 'pussy'.

The holidaymakers arrive and Kostis is called on to treat the lightly injured leg of young tourist Anna.  She and her friends make him laugh, tease him, and he subsequently ingratiates himself into their group.  But he is largely a figure of fun to them, a sad middle aged man trying to recapture his youth.  Kostis becomes increasingly obsessed with Anna, and continues to pursue his fantasy long after she's clearly told him No.

There's a stereotypical feel to this portrayal of mid life crisis and the cruelty of youth.  To engage the audience there has to be at least one significant character we can have some empathy with, but Suntan offers us nothing to latch on to.  The youngsters are brash, self centred, irresponsible hedonists.  Kostis is a pathetic figure who gives in to an inadvisable infatuation to the point of neglecting his patients.  If we'd had some back story for him there might have been a shred of sympathy, but all we know is that his recent emotional life has been a mess.  This lack of engagement made the film drag on so that it felt much longer than it was.

It became clear, early on, that Kostis' attempts at a relationship with Anna would end badly.  Sadly the film itself couldn't end early enough for me.

Tommy's Honour, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Film Festival

"Your station in life was set before you were born."

A film based on the real world story of golf's first superstar, Young Tom Morris, who remains the youngest ever winner of a major golf championship, at just 17, and who won the Open four times consecutively.  He was an innovator in the techniques of the game, pioneering club choices that were unconventional for the time and introducing backspin to his shots.  All of this is faithfully reflected on screen, with careful attention to period detail and many little golf-related jokes along the way.  The crowds following the matches are an entertainment in themselves, with drunken rowdiness and gambling descending into violence at times.

But the real meat of the tale lies in Tom's personal relationships, and his attitude to the society he played out his tragically short life in.  His father, Old Tom, was the professional at Saint Andrews, and passionate about maintaining the traditions of the sport.  When his son first exceeds his father's skills, and then becomes determined to gain greater financial benefits from his talent than the older man had ever conceived, their relationship becomes fragile.  The young man can see that others - "gentlemen" - are making far more in wagers than he does as a player and  determines to change the situation, rightly feeling that these rich men do nothing but feed, carrion like, off the back of his abilities.

This brings him into conflict with the established order, and it is the Saint Andrews club captain, played in oleaginous manner by Sam Neill, who smugly delivers my opening quote to Morris.  But the latter knows his own worth to these men, and becomes the forerunner of the professional sports stars of today.

He also challenges convention in his choice of wife, falling in love with an older woman of lower social status, and this too will bring him into conflict with his family and society.  Aspects of the relationship do come across as overwrought, but there is also genuine emotion to be had.

Peter Mullan is his predictably excellent self as Old Tom, while Jack Lowden carefully treads the line between brashness and vulnerability to keep the audience always wanting Young Tom to prevail.  Although, inevitably given the subject and period, the women are much in the background, for me the best performance in the film comes from Ophelia Lovibond as Young Tom's wife, Meg.  She's sassy, cautious, sensible and fun, while Therese Bradley as mother Nancy is a solid presence, a woman of convention who finds a way to admit her mistake.

The greatest strength of this movie is in portraying the snobbery, greed, hubris and inhumanity of the upper class, the self styled "gentlemen", and the courage of Young Tom in kicking against the door being held shut against him on account of his origins.  Thank goodness the world has moved on since Victorian times - although recent events at Muirfield suggest there are elements of the golf world that still have some catching up to do.....

Tommy's Honour should never be dismissed as yet another sports movie.  There's more substance to it than that, and many of the social conflicts it portrays still have validity a century and half later.  Definitely one to see.

Thon Man Moliere, Lyceum

Liz Lochhead, the national Makar until earlier this year, has been a major figure on Scotland's literary landscape for more than four decades.  As well as her poetry and original drama her body of work includes acclaimed translations of the best known Moliere comedies into Scots.  She clearly has an affinity with the seventeenth century comic playwright.  That affectionate empathy, and a clear understanding of the theatrical process and microcosm, combine in a comedy that re-imagines scenes from the great Frenchman's life.

Written in Scots, the script is sharp, bawdy and filled with memorable lines, turning familiarity into twisted originality -  "I didnae come up the Seine in a seive".  Moliere's self destructive tendencies, and ability to seek out defeat whenever a win seems likely, form a central thread, but the members of his theatrical company provide a constantly switching range of sub plots.  Along the way they demonstrate the mistakes of youth, the cynicism of middle age, the perils of lust and that 'midlife crisis' is nothing new.   There are ever-relevant digs at the pernicious influence of the rich and powerful on society,    Theatrical life is precarious, egotistical and subject to the whims of fashion.  And an inability to compromise can bring it's own troubles.

Against a monochromatic and oft changing set, the characters are bursting with colour, both literally and figuratively.  Jimmy Chisholm is superb as the main man - playful, obdurate, self deluding and all with spot on comic timing.  Sarah Miele's naive Melou is a touch underplayed at times, her tragedy not fully emerging, but the remainder of the cast deliver strong performances.  Molly Innes provides the still anchor of the piece, the maid Toinette, whose dour common sense gets many of the biggest laughs and comes armed with one of those catchphrases that becomes funnier through every repetition - "I'll no say it...... but....".

Fast paced, insightful and very, very funny.  What more could you ask for from an evening at the theatre?