All posts by Viv Wilby

French Exchange – An American in Paris

Classic Films, Genre

By Viv Wilby

A charmless lunk

Before I get going, a disclaimer: I’m a Gene Kelly sceptic. I’ve always been baffled by Singin’ In The Rain’s unassailable position as the greatest musical (and one of the greatest films) ever made. I’m not going to rehearse all those arguments again here, but one of the biggest stumbling blocks I have is Kelly himself. I just find him utterly charmless. I can see that he could dance, that he introduced a muscular modernism to screen dance that had hitherto been dominated by the top hat and white tie of Astaire. But his grinning, his trying-too-hard hoofing and husky voice, I just can’t get on with at all.

But there’s a season of MGM musicals on at the NFT, and it’s showcasing his magnum opus – An American In Paris – so I thought I’d give it a go. Continue reading French Exchange – An American in Paris →

Betty Blue Eyes

Theatre,

by Viv Wilby

Cameron Mackintosh must be a confident man. Exit the theatre after a performance of his latest production, Betty Blue Eyes, and you’re accosted by the front-of-house staff trying to flog you tie-in merchandise. Red t-shirts bearing that suddenly ubiquitous wartime slogan ‘Keep calm and carry on’ amended to spell out quotes from the show. ‘Sexual intercourse will be in order’ and something I didn’t quite make out about pork. Surely it took years for the likes of Cats and Phantom to build up that kind of cultural capital. Betty Blue Eyes is only just out of previews.

It’s all a bit redolent of the way the show itself feels like a marketing exercise. An adaptation of the 1980s Alan Bennett-scripted film A Private Function, it concerns the efforts of Yorkshire townsfolk to overcome the privations of austerity Britain in order to celebrate the upcoming royal wedding. ‘Sound familiar?’ the posters ask, somewhat archly. Well, yes.

Continue reading Betty Blue Eyes →