26th July A double date for daring duo

Well after almost 16 months not going anywhere to see anything, TOM and I appear to have transformed from couch potatoes to culture vultures as we celebrated (not quite) Freedom Day with a double date of outings to the cinema and theatre respectively over the weekend.

First up was a little jaunt to the Pomegranate Theatre in Chesterfield, a regular haunt pre pandemic, but as we drove to the venue neither TOM or I were able to recall what exactly the last thing we had seen there actually was. Perhaps this is a sign of not having caught Covid? 

Anyway Thursday nights outing was to see 'Supernova' a lovely if slightly downbeat film featuring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci. During a road trip around the Lake District, partners of 20 years, Sam and Tusker, are coming to terms with the fact that Tuskers's early onset dementia is rapidly robbing them of the person they both want Tusker to be. Issues of love, mortality, identity and the right to chose ones own exit from life were threads that run throguh the film as both struggled to find common ground in how they think their life together should proceed...or end. As TOM remarked when it finished, 'well that wasn't very cheerful was it' but Firth and Tucci were on top form and wonderful together.

Much more upbeat was our very own little road trip to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield on Friday night to see 'Talent', the first ever play written by Victoria Wood, one that originally featured Wood and her long time collaborator, Julie Walters, in the lead roles. We both like the amphitheatre like setting of the Crucible and that plays are always staged in the 3/4's round, so that even sitting in the cheap(er) seats like we were, the view is usually very good. 

It was typical Victoria Wood, with songs featuring great word play, a script that felt as if it were depicting real life, containing her quick fire humour but also moments of great pathos and reminders of the stark reality of sexual exploitation and harassment in the 70's. It also contains one of the funniest lines Victoria Wood has ever written when the Julie Walters character announces...'and I thought Coq au Vin was a quick f%^&k in the back of a lorry!"

Laugh...we almost spilled out shandies!!



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