Amélie

 The 25th anniversary of the release of this classic slice of French whimsy, and one I was eager to revisit.  Going back to an old favourite can often be disappointing - but this one exceeded my already high expectations - there really is nothing quite like it.

The eponymous heroine grows up in a sttangely repressed family, has an isolated childhood, and finds it hard to make friends as an adult.  Instead she has an active inner life, a vivid imagination, and intense curiosity in the minutae of the world around her. That leads her to a discovery - she can make herself happier by making others happy, preferably in secret.  And so her undercover life begins.  But it needs a most unlikely friendship to develop before she discovers how to be happy for herself.

While the basic plot is simple enough what stands out is the idiosyncratic charm, throwawy details, and a strong visual identity.  It's colourful, at times near cartoonish.  Not only cinematographic, but photographic - there are so many images you feel you want to freeze and study more closely.  Which connects it to a theme of actual photographs which runs throuht the film.  The story is full of little twists, facts, dates, love affairs, sadnesses, revenge, reunions, and explosive sex in a toilet.  Surreal and yet conected to the streets of Paris.  Where elase will you experince the continuity of a bluebottle, a peripateic gnome, nuns playing swingball and a man in awe of his own brain functions?  All of these feature, but only one of them has any relevance to the plot.

Whimsical, funny, quirky and human.  I think I might be in love with Amelie all over again.

The Katona Twins- Alhambra Inspirations, Ps & Gs Church

 I wrote a review of a performance from the Hungarian duo back in 2019,and it was good to see them again after such a long interval.  This time the theme, as the tile iplies, was primarily Spanish, with works from composers from Iberia, or other strongly influended by the traditions of Spain.  Many of thw works not intended for two guitars, so these were very much the siblings' own interpretations and arrangements. 

Amusing and informative introductions, if a little slow, set the scene, each taking turns in doing so.   Incredible virtuoso guitar playing, with melodies constatnly swapping from one pair of hands to the other.  

The evening ended with their version of the Beatles tune Come Together, a tribute to their adopted home city of Liverpool.  The evening was refreshing classical change to our more usual musical fare, with crispness and exactitude, played with passion.

The Swansong (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

 A young woman (Julia Murray) in the park, heads for the duck pond, her aim to end her life which feels like it's alll gone horribly wrong.  But an unlikely intervention from a talking swan (Paul McArthur) convinces her to think again, at least for a while.  And if there's time to think, says the swan, there's time for a night out.  Cue a series of bars and clubs and drunken soliloquys.  And songs, lots of songs, for htis is very much a musical.

And that's the problem, at least for someone like me.  When they could be expanding the plot, and exploring what is at heart a very dark theme, they're too busy singing.  he lyrics do help move things along, but not nearly as much as well written dialogue would have.  This cocktail of human frailty, fantasy and redemption deserved a little more depth, less froth. 

Disappointing.

The Events, Traverse

 A warm, happy group, having fun and laughs and tea, bringing the audience into the atmoshpere, by distributing tea and bsicuits.  They sing, a rough and ready choir, there for the enjoyment of using their voices, the minister directing them with humour and affection. 

And then He arrives, The Boy, and all changes.  The choir fade into the background, the conforntation between their leader, Claire, and the stranger, slowly taking shape, him chipping away her secuity with his own insecurities.  He the perperpetraro of a mass shooting, she a survivor, and it become sclear how he has marked her life, changed her.  He offers explanations for his actions, a litany of far right fantasy themes on race and immigration.  She unravels as the memories seep through, the fear and horror of the moment.  The choir, the community, the only anchor she has.

It's a poerful journey.  Sam Stopford is excellent as The Boy, constantly switching in and out of other characters in the story, a threat not through his presence but from his beliefs.  Claire Lamont's Claire gets a little too lost at times, but reamins the humane centre of the tale.  And the choir are there to remind us that events like these affect us all.

Davie Greig wrote The Events in 2013, but the themes it raises are still all too contemporary.