What We Did On Our Holiday

This was my sleeper hit of the season. I'd never really watched Outnumbered on TV, but I'd been a keen fan of Drop The Dead Donkey plus the programmes that Andy Hamilton had written for radio.

The casting of the film was intriguing in the mix of the different backgrounds of the key performers, i.e. RSC and Doctor Who, Oscar Nominated Actress plus everything that Billy Connolly has done, but somehow it worked.

It was a black comedy, with definitely touches of Bill Forsyth's work, and iIenjoyed it very much.

Here are my notes:

What We Did On Our Holiday

UK 2014                      95 minutes

Director:                      Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin

Starring:                        Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, Billy Connolly, Ben Miller and Amelia Bullmore

Awards and Nominations

• BAFTA Scotland nominations for Best Actor (David Tennant) and Best Film
• London Critics Circle Film Awards Best Actress Award (Rosamund Pike)
• A further nomination for Best Film

“It’s impossible not to enjoy this big-hearted and sweet-natured British family movie from Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin – effectively a feature-format development of their smash-hit BBC TV comedy, Outnumbered, which pioneered semi-improvised dialogue from the children. It creates a terrifically ambitious (and unexpected) narrative with a tonne of sharp gags.”

Peter Bradshaw

 

Doug (David Tennant) and Abi (Rosamund Pike) take their children on a trip to Scotland to visit Doug’s elderly father for a family party.  Dog and Abi have decided to separate, but have kept the news secret so as to avoid spoiling the party; their children find it difficult to do the same.

Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin created and directed the BBC comedy series Outnumbered which ran from 2007 to 2014. Before this they were best known for the TV comedy Drop the Dead Donkey (1990 to 1998), although as writers their earlier work included sketches for many comedy shows including The Two Ronnies, Smith and Jones, and Not The Nine O’Clock News. 

Rosamund Pike first made her name playing Jane Bennet in Joe Wright’s 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice. She played supporting roles (and received good reviews) in numerous films including An Education (2009), Made in Dagenham (2010) before securing the lead role (and Oscar and Golden Globe nominations) in the acclaimed thriller Gone Girl (2014).  David Tennant’s career has included both stage and screen work: prior to Doctor Who his most high profile film role was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) but he had already played leading roles with the RSC. Subsequently he returned to the RSC to play the title roles in Hamlet and Richard II (both filmed) as well as teaming up with Catherine Tate (after their brilliant double act in Doctor Who) in a version of Much Ado About Nothing set in the 1980s.  His subsequent TV work has included two series of Broadchurch (with a third series in production) plus the lead role in Gracepoint, its US remake. He also narrated the spoof documentaries 2012 (about the preparations for the London Olympics) and W1A (about BBC bureaucracy).

 Here's the trailer:

 

 

 

Doctor Who About Nothing

We booked our tickets the day after we saw David Tennant and Katherine Tate announcing their production of Much Ado About Nothing on TV, but could only manage to book tickets for a Friday: the journey to London was difficult and very long, but it was worth it for the play.

Josie Rourke had set the action in Gibraltar in the 1980s, which allowed for some brillaint pastiches of typical music for the period.  The set itself was a circle surrounded by louvred doors and windows and with large pillars set across the circle.  This allowed the productionto keep up a fast pace and - more importantly - allowed the stage to revolve during ceertain scenes so that the shifting view that the audience received gave an almost cimematic fluidity to the action.

The gulling scene, complete with a team of painters and decorators, built to a wonderful slapstick crescendo with a paint-spattered Tennant reducing Tate to a fit of the giggles.  The chemistry between them that had been so evident in Doctor Who transferred unaltered to the stage, and just like Miichael Billington in his review on The Guardian, I'd love to see them work together again in something like Private Lives.

Some Thoughts on Doctor Who and Gardeners' World

I have been  a lifelong fan of Doctor Who - I am old enough to have vague memories of the first episode - although it is only more recently that I have watched Gardeners' World with any degree of regularity as it is my wife who is the gardener in our relationship.

Fortunately we are both Doctor Who fans, although in her case I think it was more David Tennant as an actor rather than the character.  Hence there was some concern on her part when Tennant departed and Matt Smith took over the TARDIS.  This more or less coincided with the unexpected handover of the Gardeners' World baton from Monty Don to Toby Buckland where a quick and strictly non-scinetific poll, ie chats with a view close freinds over dinner, revealed an immediate loss of direction of the programme and lack of interest in the charisma free presenter.  Thus it was not entirely unexpected when Gardeners' World returned with Monty Don once more in charge. 

Could the same thing happen with Doctor Who?  I hope not: RTD is an impossible act to follow, and the way I look at it is that if we had not had the four series plus specials with RTD in charge then we would welcome the new incarnation with open arms.  It's not wrong: it's just gone off in another direction, just like Doctor Who has done throughout its history.

I love the steam-punk look of the series and from all the clips I've seeen so far the next story, from a script by Neil Gaiman, should be asbolutely magificent.

Any if you want advice on celery, then talk to the fifth Doctor