Into The Woods

Ah, that slightly concerning moment when you notice that you are the only person taking children into the film. And the creeping fear that you’ve accidentally walked into the 2.15 screening of Fifty Shades of Grey… with a seven-year-old. This is going to be a fun one to explain to her mother. My relief when it simply turns out that Disney’s latest butterball – an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical – Into The Woods just hasn’t enticed many children. And with good reason. You see, it’s not really aimed at them. No child relishes the thought that wishes are dangerous and that what happens after the happily-ever-after isn’t happy at all.

In a magical far away village…

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WARNING: entering spoiler-riddled woods – please continue at your own discretion

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In a magical far away village – the 10% that isn’t woodland is inhabited by either Cockney Londoners, old Etonians, or coastal Americans, who are seemingly forbidden to cross-breed – meet and watch a whole host of your favourite fairy-tale characters. Experience their lives crumbling about their ears. And listen to Sondheim squeezing every last drop from the one tune he wrote for this musical. Once upon a time there lived a baker and his wife, who were wishing for a baby. Their neighbourhood was not particularly diverse and had an unusual clause that only fairy-tale characters could own property. Little Red Riding Hood had taken up residence, but was wishing to visit Granny in the woods who – due to the old maxim, feed a cold – was in desperate need of bread. Jack (of beanstalk notoriety) lived in an old barn with mother and their entirely redundant cow, Milky White. Jack wished that they didn’t have to sell the old cow (the actual cow, not his mother). Cinderella too had taken out a substantial mortgage – or rather her father had, shortly before snuffing it – and all she wished for was to go to the – careful now – the festival. And somewhere, hidden away and unknown, is the baker’s little sister, who was stolen away at birth by a beautiful witch. She sits in a tower combing her ridiculously long hair (sound familiar?).

This is a film of two halves. The first half of the film follows Mr and Mrs Baker. As the result of a curse – a complex issue concerning the baker’s father and some exploding beans – the once-beautiful witch’s looks have withered, and the bakers are childless. The spell to lift the curse requires some unorthodox ingredients. Where are your wing of bat and eye of cat now? The baking duo must collect a series of totally random and useless objects from the woods. Well, not quite random. Thankfully, a red hood, a white cow, some blonde hair, and a gold slipper are all readily available for them to snaffle, and the bread-making pair become the catalyst for each of these classic tales. Red Riding Hood reaches her Granny, Jack gets his cow back, and Rapunzel and Cinderella get their respective princes. The music swells, I’m grabbing my coat and hastily swallowing the remaining popcorn, as they all live happily ever… Oh no wait! There’s still forty minutes to go. And I’m as lost a child in her new wolf-skin coat …in a wood. But never fear. It’s easy from here on in. The second half of the film sees all Disney rules broken: childhood dreams are shattered as good people die, princes have affairs, and no one lives happily ever after. The end. Sweet dreams, kids.

The fact that Sondheim was clearly on a tight deadline and forgot to write more than one tune is no hindrance to this production. After all, the theme and variation approach worked for Mozart, Chopin and Wagner. Fortunately, Russell Crowe failed to turn up for auditions, and as it is not sung live for some sort of gimmick or drunken directorial bet, there is no need for earplugs or a strong constitution. The singing is, without exception, a pleasure. Under Rob Marshall’s direction this film has a delicious, almost edible, aesthetic. The colour palettes give the woods the dark and frightening atmosphere they deserve, whilst making the bright flower and costumes pop. The eye and the plot are driven and directed using colour in each scene. Every frame is straight from a fairy-tale illustration, reminiscent of the Disney films that came before: the princesses, the castles, the scenery. It’s surrealist, sumptuous and the perfect way to transcribe from stage to screen.

Good old Johnny Depp, eh? He is the unsung hero of this film. Without his nobility and self-sacrifice, the film might not even have been made. But he stepped up to the plate and, a prince among men, agreed to reduce his usual $20 million paycheck and, for a smaller role, accept a meagre $1 million for his two and half minute song. What a guy! Seriously? $1 million? This is why we can’t have nice things… However, sneer all you like (and thank you, I shall) he is inspired as the wolf. Forget the hollow, dead-eyed parody of himself he has recently become – is anyone else still haunted by him dancing in that production of Alice that we should all just hunker down and pretend, for the sake of humanity, didn’t happen – and welcome the kind of reconstruction footage they aired in courtrooms during Operation Yewtree. Flitting through the trees singing ‘Hello little girl’, enticing Little Red Riding Hood with the lollipops in his jacket, Depp cuts a comic but deeply disturbing figure. Freud went to town on this interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood and there is nothing innocent about Depp. It’s brilliant, laugh out loud, and instantly iconic. Although children are already baffled and developing some pretty serious nightmares. Also I can’t believe this is Lilla Crawford’s first film. She’s so American it hurts, but she’s absolutely fantastic, and every child who braves this film will want to be her. Although they will never talk to a stranger, a wolf, or more importantly, a man doing a feeble impression of a wolf, ever again.

Why must all bad guys now have a sappy back-story? I miss the good old days when baddies were just bad for the sake of it. They were evil because they liked it that way, and no six-year-old child ever stared into the face of a parent and said, “Sure, she’s mean to Sleeping Beauty, but where’s her motivation?” That being said, I secretly quite like the idea that she genuinely loves and wants to protect Rapunzel. They clearly have a close mother-daughter bond, and the witch has no self-serving or malicious purpose, other than fear of losing her to a string of boyfriends. She is a witch driven to madness by the humans who steal, lie and cheat… and get away with it! Whilst she is judged for being a witch. However, she does slightly undermine this by losing her cool a little bit, cutting off Rapunzel’s hair, blinding her boyfriend with roses, and dragging her off to a swamp. Overplaying your hand there. Meryl Streep shines as the witch. Is she capable of not shining? And is nominated for an Oscar. Is she capable of not being nominated for an Oscar? Her performance of ‘Stay With Me’ is beautiful, impassioned and pitch-perfect. On a side (and slightly un-feminist) note, I cannot believe – in the transformation scene when she is given back her former beauty – that Streep is sixty-five. If she’s had surgery give me the name of her surgeon, if it’s makeup give me the name of the brand, and if it’s natural… is it too late for me to be related to Meryl Streep? Her genetic code may hold the key to eternal youth.

When trying to teach children the meaning of camp, simply show them Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen singing ‘Agony’. I suspect it was extraordinary-meets-90s-boy-band-music-video on stage, but Rob Marshall clearly decreed that it was failing to reach his quota for camp… in a musical about fairy-tales. So he improved it by having them caper about in leather trousers, on and in a waterfall. And some competitive shirt ripping. Manly! Children everywhere will sit confused and blank-faced while the entire adult audience rock with laughter. A shout out to Star-Trek-steering-pinenut Chris Pine, who is superb as the vapid and duplicitous Prince Charming. However, sorry Mr Magnussen. As good as you are, I would have provided the cow myself if their first choice, Jake Gyllenhaal, had accompanied Pine for this particular number.

If Russell Tovey is the history boy with the ears, then James Corden got stuck being the fat funny one. Not a nice label. But now he’s won a whole heap of awards for One Man, Two Guvnors, who’s laughing now? He’s loveable, believable and heart-warming as the baker, worrying about fatherhood and coming to terms with his own father’s abandonment. (it’s not as EastEnders as that makes it sound). And Emily Blunt, as his wife, is just so adorable and endearing… until there’s a major plot twist in the apocalyptic second half, and you slightly begin to wish that the wolf had just munched the lot of them to start with, and saved us all from the pain and confusion. Also, I envy her outfit; like tablecloth meets Helena Bonham Carter. Fantastic. She also sings, almost verbatim, a piece of Bahktinian theory. Seriously, this film is wasted on children.

Cynics and lovers of the original musical have complained that they Disneyfied it. Well, of course they did. The step-sisters still have their feet mutilated and their eyes pecked out by birds, and we still hear the gentle thumps as the body-count soars like a Shakespearean tragedy. But I don’t think anyone needs to see Jack’s mother mercilessly beaten to death by a palace official… so they took that bit out. That’s not a half-term treat for any child.

The remaining cast have been squished into one paragraph because I’m in danger of this review being as long as the film. Fifteen-year-old Daniel Huttlestone is great as Jack, although if he were Pavarotti himself, he could not entice me to watch him as Gavroche, or any of Les Misérables. Here, he’s like the lovechild of Oliver and Dick Van Dyke… and from this unholiest of unions, comes a child-star with a set of lungs to watch out for. Anna Kendrick plays feminist-statement-Cinderella, who realises her prince is a shallow moron who she didn’t get to know properly during the course of an evening’s dancing, and that they have absolutely nothing in common. But all that good girl-power sentiment is extinguished in style by McKenzie Mauzy’s agoraphobic Rapunzel, whose only rebellion from her Playboy-Bunny, brainless and passive existence is to cry. But her tears turn out to be magic, or at least cure blindness, so she can at least open a successful branch of opticians in the future. Hats off to the cameos from Frances de la Tour, prolonging her career as a giant, and Simon Russell Beale appears for ten seconds… which is totally worth it. Bet he didn’t get paid $1 million.

And so the second time the music swells, the ending really is the ending, and I can don my coat and, replete with my travelling circus of children, we can skip – like Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion – back to our house, singing the song, which will now be the cause of numberless sleepless nights, satisfied with another cliché Disney ending, in which the number of morals just outweigh the number of slaughtered innocents.

PS. List of Morals in Into The Woods: (1) ‘Nice is different than good’ (sorry, there is no excuse for such terrible grammar) Being nice is not the same thing as being good. When walking alone in the woods, don’t forget that witches are sometimes right, and that men dressed as wolves who offer you sweets are planning to eat you. It’s a tale as old as time. (2) All children are special. You are not alone. You are loved and everything is candyfloss. When your parents are horribly trampled by a giant or bump their heads and die, random bakers and scullery-maids will adopt you, and support your decision to wreak terrible revenge. (3) Be careful what you wish for. You think you want a cow for a friend, but it will lead to your mother’s untimely death. And princes are really boring people.

Paddington

Think you are too old to see a children’s film? With a combined age of 321, we were without a doubt the most advanced in years and experience of the parties attending Hexham Forum Cinema a few days before Christmas. You see, a certain bear has gone up in the world. He has taken the bear’s classic route to fame: from a children’s book, to a television series (the only one from the 1980s that is not currently under inquiry), a dubious advertising campaign for Marmite, and now – finally getting the recognition Michael Bond’s loveable creation most assuredly deserves – his first feature length film. And *revelatory harp twanging* it was superb. It’s a rare – possibly unique – moment, but today, magnanimous and gleeful, I get the opportunity to blog about a film I genuinely and utterly enjoyed.

But it wasn’t off to a good start. *snapped harp strings and weeping angels everywhere* Our splendid little trip did not begin so thoroughly stinking of roses. In fact, I can’t say that I was delighted to be my parents’ and neighbours’ token child-accomplice in our bear-riddled venture. Although Paddington’s world was part of my culture from cradle to four-poster, I was never in that quoting-singing-twirling mineshaft of dreamy intoxication and obsession into which I am so capable of tumbling. Whilst I would have nodded as a wise sage at any reference to ‘please look after this bear’ or marmalade sandwiches, as a literal Master of Winnie-the-Pooh, ‘bears of very little brain’ are far more my companion. But when you fly a thousand miles to be in the bosom of your family for Christmas, it is prudent not to kick off said festivities by refusing the benefits of said bosom. So along we trudged.

Go to this film for the cast! It has everybody in it. Throw in Colin Firth, Bill Nighy and Kate Winslet and I think we’d have the crème de la crème of the British acting monarchy well and truly covered. We start with only-bloody-Michael-Gambon, move on to oh-my-goodness-is-that-Imelda-Staunton, and are soon in a swirling puddle of Ben Whishaw – albeit in teddy-bear form – Sally Hawkins, Downtown Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville, Julie Walters, Bridget Jones’s dad Jim Broadbent, and Doctor Who himself, Peter Capaldi. Throw in Nicole Kidman for some Hollywood appeal – and an evil taxidermist to boot – and what do you have? That’s right. You have an award spangled Christmas tree of famous faces on your hands, that’s what! The kiddiewinks are fantastic too: unsentimental, un-slappable and un-nauseating. On the subject of Mr Firth, it must be embittering for Ben Whishaw that the internet (or certainly Google and IMDB) is unwavering in its belief that Colin Firth is in some way still connected with the voice of Paddington.

Stay for the film! Writer Hamish McColl (of Mr Bean-penning fame) has masterfully sewn together a moving and compelling story inspired by the original Paddington tales, with a dash of classic good-defeats-evil children’s movie. The story is enchanting and a voyage of self-discovery for all the characters as they attempt to find Paddington a permanent home in London. (with those house prices?) The script McColl has created is joyful, gentle and not infrequently worthy of the embarrassing audible cinema laugh. Never again will I be able to ride the escalator on the tube (or, more likely, the German U-bahn) without the sign ‘dogs must be carried’ reducing me to snort like a gaffed rhinoceros or steal a neighbouring dachshund. It’s a surprisingly intelligent film – stretching far beyond its audience in Velcro-ed shoes – which subtly shows that the lovely Mr Gruber came to England through Kindertransport. Like almost every aspect of this film, Mr Gruber’s past is portrayed with beauty and humour, but not at the expense of a sophisticated message. And on the theme of intelligence, there’s even a pleasing spattering of bear references, including The Winter’s Tale‘s famous stage direction. Most satisfying to us English students who so love a good wink wink nudge nudge moment. Oh, and a quick word here about directing too, by Paul King: I adore the doll’s house as a way of looking around the Brown’s house. Simple, effective and aesthetically delightful.

Oh, you’ve lured it out of me once again, you sneaky things! Of course I have a criticism, even of this divine and heart-warming little film, and it falls (as it naturally should) at the high-heeled dominatrix-inspired feet of Nicole Kidman. She’s the villain of the piece and she’s fine. Absolutely fine. Honest. I just wasn’t bowled over by her. And I so wanted to be.

Briefly turning my attention to costume (now that I can knit – very very slowly – I feel entitled), my mother was deeply impressed by the variety of splendid knitwear on display and pitched a potential book of knitting-patterns. You see what I live with?! And, like the moment when Sherlock dons his deerstalker, I couldn’t end this review without a nod to Paddington’s duffel coat. It is a thing of supreme beauty. Without this iconic piece of jacketry – and his hat, around which the entire film’s plot is based – he is not being welcomed into the loving arms of any smart London family, but is just another naked bear with a troubling addiction to preserves, roaming the streets and evading the local bear-catcher. It’s true. The right clothes really do matter.

Don’t be embarrassed as the only childless group at a cinema more stuffed with infants than an orange is with marmalade potential. This film is the perfect antidote to the world around us, especially in the wake of events this week. Paddington‘s charming sense of humour and celebration of people’s (and bear’s) differences, are a timely reminder to be inclusive, polite and kind to one another.

Dear Michael Bond, cast and crew at Warner Brothers, Forum Cinema audience, and blog readers: thank you for looking after this bear.

Nudity

Jerry illustrating my point (even though he’s naked all the time)

This week, to round off August with a little pomp and circumstance (yes, I know it’s September 1st but I mostly wrote this in a fit of pique last night, okay?!) I was going to tread uncharted waters and blog about a subject for a second time. ‘A second time? That’s madness!’ I hear you cry. But, ‘shush’ and ‘hark’, I say to those people. If anything deserves a second ponderance, it is unquestionably my trusted steed and companion, television. But now, beloved reader, you shall have to wait until the next time I gird my loins for a session poised at the keyboard, for I have abandoned my latest prattlings on regularly scheduled programming in favour of something that, like television, can be found in 96% of UK homes and is enjoyed (by people over the age of four) for an average of four hours a day. Nudity.

Chas and Morph

Let us begin with Noddy. We know the belled-hat and the car, which he can’t possibly be licensed to drive, but does anyone know how the poor little chap came to be in Toyland? It is not the sugar-plummed and candyfloss-sprinkled tale that the ‘make way for Noddy’ theme tune so innocently suggests. My recollection is that Noddy arrives lost in Toyland, naked, as we all do from time to time, having had his clothes stolen by golliwog dolls (very PC, Enid). And instead of offering him a blanket, a hot meal and popping in a quick phone call to ChildLine, the residents put him on trial, proving him to be a toy rather than – dun dun dah – an ornament. How charming of them. Channel 5, as I recall, rather glossed over the whole nudity scandal in their frankly saccharine adaptation. The racism too. But nudity (and not necessarily appropriate nudity) is all around us from a very early age. Not to mention the fact that, by the age of 11, most children have had a good laugh at some pornography, they have also had to put up with the quaintly British institution, the naturist homosexual couple, Morph and Chas. Only I suppose their nudity was faintly asexual, and I for one am relieved that Morph was not anatomically correct. I’m also proud that he hasn’t, under Operation Yewtree panic, been squeezed into little plus fours. For better or worse, the millennium exploded and the population have had to put up with tweenagers sitting on demolition equipment with no clothes on, much to the horror of mothers and delight of the more perverted record labels. And then the media got involved and nudity got a lot less fun and a lot more Leveson-y, as a horrified public discovered that the Royal Family had bodies too, and not only do young single officers in the Armed Forces sometimes take their clothes off for fun, but the future Queen has boobs. Shocker.

Jennifer Lawrence

My sudden return to Twitter – a little like jumping into a swimming pool a shade too soon after eating Sunday roast – brought flooding back to me all the reasons that I hung up my Twitter mortarboard and resigned my fingers from the dangerous allure of the hashtag. For nakedness is a fine line to tread. Whilst nudity isn’t the be all and end all of social horrors – even though the British Board of Film Classifications deem a touch of sideboob the end of the civilised world – there is something (I mean, not sacred, because that would be a bit sanctimonious) private about nudity. And although seeing on Twitter that nude pictures of Kate Bosworth, Amber Heard, Hayden Panettiere, Avril Lavigne and Jennifer Lawrence, to name but a few, have been leaked all over the internet made me write a blog, the gross invasion of privacy probably wasn’t worth my thousand words. Worldwide gal-pal JLaw has always had an uneasy relationship with clothes. She is probably best known for her portrayal of Katniss in the popular teenage-murder-hijinks franchise The Hunger Games, in which a key feature is her substantial and ugly clothing. And in her personal life, she is remembered fondly for falling over her obscene amount of white dress whilst attempting to grab an Oscar. But the leaking of naked photographs has strangely angered me. Maybe it’s because… blah blah blah Catholic school blah blah blah feminism blah blah blah sexism. (That isn’t to dismiss it and say it isn’t true, but you’ve heard it all before). But it’s not only that. It seems peculiar, pathetic and a little disturbing that we live in a world where – although Syria and Iraq and Palestine and the Ukraine are heading for combustion with unspeakable violence and rocketing death tolls – someone has nothing better to do than hack computers for personal and private photos of actresses and singers, ruining lives and distressing a few more people along the way. Hope they feel proud.

Who’s laughing now?

So perhaps those lampooned with fame should face the inevitable. Although, let’s be honest, I can’t see Jonah Hill or Michael Caine’s naked selfies hitting the headlines, complete with drooling teenagers queuing outside the newsagents and (and I use this term in a whole new sense) ‘jokes’ – usually involving anything from minor to serious sexual assault – that would appal the most hardened of villains: Voldemort, Hans Gruber, Darth Vader, all well known for their perfect taste in gentle humour and gender equality. I look forward to the day when, beaming proudly at their eight year old daughter playing Peter Pan in the school pantomime, parents sit their kiddiewinks down and explain that childhood is dead. Once you are ‘famous’ (another term I use loosely) the media owns your soul… and, far more importantly, your body. It is the media and the public’s right to appraise and scorn every inch of you, and privacy – along with decency – is now all terribly fusty and old school. In this Orwellian present nothing is sacred and all celebrities should roll out of bed on a Monday morning and don the contents of their wardrobes. Did we learn nothing from ten series of Friends?

Skylight

jumper envy

I have this uneasy feeling that some people always look stylish. Perhaps this is just a paranoid fantasy from which all twenty-something year old females suffer, but I can’t help but wake up screaming with visions of girls who apply mascara, straighteners or bras for the most trifling of social functions. Even trousers seem a far cry from my preferred outfit: pyjamas at all times (a possible title for my autobiography or epitaph for my tombstone). And, when pyjamas are absolutely socially unacceptable, skinny jeans and a baggy jumper. But it is reassuring, not to mention elating, that I have now witnessed the mother of all comfy jumpers as modelled the other night by actress Carey Mulligan in Sir David Hare’s play Skylight. And whilst she made the voluminous jumper more glamorous than if it had been a Vera Wang wedding dress – a feat that I, in its doppelgänger, seated in Row C of the Hexham Forum Cinema, alas cannot boast – it does at least allow me a review of the latest National Theatre production screenings. Hell of a segue, huh?

On booking the tickets for this show, I cannot stress how little I knew about this play. I hadn’t seen a review and I had avoided all mentions of plot twists. For all I knew it could have been an all-Japanese, ballet, farce set in the wake of an apocalypse caused by an evil god whose cruelty knew no bounds and who had unleashed, for reasons known only to himself, a plague of man-eating gerbils. The only thing I knew – other than the baffling and, ironically, unenlightening title, Skylight – was the cast list. But that was more than a recommendation. The words ‘Bill Nighy’ followed by the words ‘Carey Mulligan’ sent me into a fit of gleeful excitement, and I would have paid double the cinema ticket (yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, a whole £22) to see them read the Encyclopaedia Britannica, dance the tarantella, or eat cheese. I was, if anything, slightly disappointed when, on popping to the loo before the play began – a treat afforded me because there was, for peculiar reasons, a woman sitting in my seat when I arrived, who had to be removed by the relevant authorities – I was diverted from the tedium of loo-going by reading the handily placed synopsis on the back of the cubicle door, and learned that it was not the Simon Pegg inspired rodent debacle that I had conjectured. I shall give you a brief and largely unhelpful summary. Basically, it’s one of those two-people-in-one-room, set-in-real-time sort of fandangos that sounds intrinsically self-righteous (which it is) and extremely dull (which, mercifully, it isn’t). Kyra – Queen of the pixie cut, Carey Mulligan – is an impoverished, do-gooding, teacher in the East End (think Slumdog Millionaire but with snow) living in a London flat with little more than a red scarf and some onions for company, when she is unexpectedly visited by three ghosts… No wait. That’s Muppet’s Christmas Carol. Or, if you prefer, Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Thirty year old Kyra is visited by two people. First by 18 year old Edward, who brings her some rap music, sulks about the death of his mother and his insufferable father, and then the two of them cosily discuss the joys of going out for breakfast. Edward then pootles off, and said-father Tom completely coincidentally drops by, played by none other than squid face, Bill Nighy. And so it begins. The play is a clash of political ideals, and Tom is Thatcher to Kyra’s Blair: a rich, greedy, entrepreneur restauranteur and recent widower, who just happens to be her ex-employer and ex-lover. Although their real life 35 year age gap is perhaps a touch Operation Yewtree. The story of their affair and the future of their relationship unfolds over a spag bol supper. The begging question is the cliched ‘will they, won’t they’, and the fate of their relationship hangs in the balance, dependent on whether they can successfully reconcile their opposing political beliefs before the pasta goes cold. With me so far? It is also suffice it to say that skylights, whilst they do feature, have a minor part to play in the action and are not recreated in the set by gouging a large hole in the roof of Wyndham’s.

fantastic set

Let me turn quickly, therefore, to the set. Wyndham’s Theatre is utterly enchanting and an absolute privilege to sit in, but the seats are narrower than the average twenty-first century viewer’s buttocks and therefore I was grateful to be reclining in luxury in a modern cinema seat. However, director Stephen Daldry, who directed the enjoyable, smash hit Billy Elliot and then regrettably took a nosedive directing Hare’s own adaptation of The Reader – probably the longest and most boring film about the Holocaust ever made – managed to restore my faith in him here. Although I do question the wisdom of setting Skylight in the 80s, complete with rotary dial phone and brown floral cooking pots, when the play is so obviously a product of the 90s. Aesthetically, it looked sensational and the space worked really well for what he wanted to create. The backdrop of the other flats and the layers of rooms, with a sliding wall to hide the bathroom if necessary, was fluid, easy and natural. It wasn’t fussy, it didn’t get in the way, and it didn’t gently rotate or do anything unnecessary just because it could. Kudos. The entire first half happens whilst Kyra actually makes dinner onstage. Pretentious? Yes, probably, but I loved it. A bit of pretension hurts nobody. And, while what I actually did was wonder how she didn’t cry whilst chopping onions, and whether the sound guys were kicking themselves as the bubbling sauce sounded like a freight train in a windy tunnel, my parents were busy grumbling that she seemed to be cooking a meal for fifty on her tiny pauper’s budget. But it turns out that I’m simply a sucker for a bit of onstage snow. When it happened in Stratford’s Beauty and the Beast, the Comedy Theatre’s La Bête and now at the end of Skylight, it’s all I can do not to applaud with teary and childlike wonder. What can I say? I’m easily amused.

The acting was utterly flawless, which I suppose is easier when there are only three actors, rather than Hamlet or Guys and Dolls where there’s a whole throng of them to forget their lines or overact. But fair’s fair. Even three people have the potential to make a hash of it. But Nighy and Mulligan were faultless in their contrasting and complementary performances. There is momentum, humour and purpose to Nighy’s rambling style; his chaotic descriptions, swearing and gesticulating. His tics and jerks are so incredible, so attuned to the character, that it’s hard – if not impossible – to discover where Tom ends and Nighy begins. How do you make Dupuytren’s Contractures so effortlessly and mesmerisingly part of a character?  His timing and pacing are impeccable, capturing and exacerbating every moment of comedy. His long speeches are broken up with confused fragments about his late wife and the room he built for her, the crumbling of their relationship and the revelation of what happened between him and Kyra. Nighy handles this with aplomb. It is not overly soupy, apologetic or caricatured anger. Tom is a man caught in the confusion of grief and relief: both longing for the past and yet wishing it had played out differently. As more is revealed, it is hard to say whether I felt greater pity for him or began to despise him. And it’s this conflict that he treads so artfully. He is a terrific actor, worthy of any award the powers that be can throw at him. Plus, if all teenage girls want to be BFFs with Jennifer Lawrence, does that mean that Carey Mulligan is going spare? And that I can have her? There is an understated quality and sincerity to Mulligan whose ability knows no bounds. She really listens. Her stillness is entrancing, as she doesn’t overact in the shadows, yet your eye is drawn to her. She is a simply superb actress who, I hope, goes far after this whirlwind of a West End debut. Unlike a whole host of pretty girls I can think of, she doesn’t hide behind her hair – she can’t! And it may be a strange thing to say, but she isn’t afraid of her face. She isn’t frightened of laughing, smiling, crying (on which note, she evidently attended the same school as Tom Hiddleston and is capable of filling the auditorium in a Noah-esque deluge) and all those other emotions that unappealingly scrunch the porcelain features. What I’m saying is that Mulligan is confident enough in her abilities and beauty to look ugly. It’s her greatest gift. Oh, and Matthew Beard as Tom’s son Edward, who I fear will be forgotten and overlooked by critics everywhere. I don’t know whether he was an avid stalker of Bill Nighy before rehearsals kicked off, but to hit every mannerism so completely on the head like that must have taken some work, and possibly night vision goggles and a zoom lens. It’s clever stuff, this acting business.

Yes, if the play had a fault, or anything less than five blazing stars lighting every headline, it was not because of the actors. Sad, and far less fixable, is the truth. The problem with Skylight is the play itself. Like more and more plays I see at the moment it had real second act problems. The first half was quick, witty with a touch of pathos and mystery, and even a bit of sentimentality that didn’t have me (and more astoundingly, my mother) reaching with exaggerated gasps for the sick bucket. But that was it. All the plot and drive and excitement, over and done by the interval, with the result that when we returned, after ice cream and a costume change, it was to an equally long and sanctimonious sermon. We get it David. You’re a Blairite. Duly noted. Now please feel free to say something else. No, really. Don’t hesitate. We get that you think teaching is a worthwhile and under-paid profession. And somewhere through the fifth hour we’ve grasped that you admire public servants. And whilst the live audience in London applauded these over-egged sentiments in a ‘yah boo sucks Mr Cameron’ sort of way – ‘bring back the liberal haven of the 90s and down with the bankers’ – Hare’s writing was about as subtle as a herd of rhinos at afternoon tea in Claridges. It was more broken teacups and irate cucumber sandwiches, than sophisticated satire. Not to mention Hare’s apparently somewhat hazy memory of the 90s. Does anyone else remember the idyll of socialist freedoms under Mr Blair in which bankers were forced to donate their annual bonuses to needy children? No. Me neither. Does the word Iraq mean nothing to you, David? But I digress. To have produced such an intricate, intelligent and tangly first half, it was disappointing for the curtain to rise on a preachy and artless one note samba of a second half. There was no hint of nuance to the argument that takes place between Tom and Kyra. Nor was there any hint that it would ever end. It was just a Groundhog Day snooze-fest of the same obvious points: ‘I’m all damaged and liberal and unvalued by society’ versus ‘I may be a pig, but I’m rich and you’re jealous so stop living in a fairytale’. Let me add that this goes on for a good forty minutes of my life. Forty minutes which I must stress I will never get back. Ever.

On a side issue, may I just ask why directors feel the need to have women take their tops off in the middle of arguments? Culturally ingrained casual sexism is something I value so much over my tub of vanilla ice cream. Still, considering that for the sake of realism we were forced to watch the preparation of actually spaghetti really bolognese earlier, I’m not convinced that women, in the throes of political debate, feel the need to strip down to their bras. Vulnerability is not something people search for when quarreling. I’ve never watched a live international political debate per se, but I’m sure it is not the mainstay of Merkel’s technique. Nor, for that matter, was it Thatcher’s.

And so at last, with a sigh of relief, I turn to the ending. I won’t tell you if there is resolution between Kyra and Tom, what it is (if there is any), and whether at this point we care. But – spoiler alert – Kyra is left alone until Edward comes back, most uncivilised at some ungodly hour of the morning. With breakfast. I think it’s meant to be symbolic. She misses going out for breakfast because it represents Tom, his restaurant and the days when they were a family. But Edward’s too naive to realise that his father and Kyra were having an affair, so to him it’s just… eggs. I can instantly think of better ways to have ended the play, but Hare gives it a cyclical nature that GCSE creative writing students would beam upon, and it’s only very twee rather than actively nauseating. But David Hare, in amongst his didactic politics, has got something right. And it is the lasting message which, several weeks on, will journey through the ages as the cornerstone of Skylight‘s philosophy. Going out for breakfast truly is one of life’s greatest pleasures.