Friends of Pudding

im watching the Fantastic Four movie and it is interesting because it is quite classy - frequently looks nice, lovely score, i like the main cast. But i dont understand how it is meant to appeal to children in any conceivable way?

Think Clayface sums up the problem with the DCU so clearly - despite public confirmation that Pattinson is not DCU batman, it really tries to hedge its bets tonally and production-wise. I think it ends up lacking a really unclear POV and sense of the world it is taking place in

bah i forgot to lay out my issue in the first post. basically, you can really tell that the film wants to leave enough space that the reeves batman can get grandfathered in if they decide not to launch competing franchises. So it ends up in an awkward halfway house, kind of DCU and kind of pattinson

Think Clayface sums up the problem with the DCU so clearly - despite public confirmation that Pattinson is not DCU batman, it really tries to hedge its bets tonally and production-wise. I think it ends up lacking a really unclear POV and sense of the world it is taking place in

which, ironically, are both things gunn's superman and the reeves batman do extremely well. I am surprised at the positive reviews because, imo, it absolutely represents the identity - and production - crisis at the heart of the cinematic universe

so glad of the result from Brazil! but also is going to be a fascinating political case study - when almost half of your electorate will vote for a fascist, how do you walk them back off the edge? Democracy can't be contingent on winning every single election forever on slim margins

there are so many political problems in the world atm, i think the actual most pressing one of them all might also be the trickiest - how do you rebuild a pro-democratic consensus, nationally and internationally?

Enjoyed Lear in Manchester. Delighted to have gone to the Royal Exchange - what a cool, unusual theatre! Now i have a sense of the space, quite keen to watch the maxine peake hamlet

was surprised how little folding the fool into Lear changed his character overall, as much as it shifts individual scenes. Prob the clever touch is shifting some of the fool's shadiest lines onto Goneril (like 'lear's shadow').

i have four hours to kill in central Manchester which i had planned to just walk about - obv the weather is too bad for that, so i have booked for the 70mm imax The Odyssey - lovely that worked out as i have not seen a real 70mm imax film in a solid decade+

very impressed with the person who packed baloney sandwiches for a five and a half hour bus ride

smashing pumpkins in my opinion fell of harder than almost any band. Atum in particular contains some of the worst music ive heard a band of their stature put out. But their most recent album from a couple years ago is absolutely killer. To me it was and is a full-fledged return to form.

part of me finds liz truss funny, but there's an element of tragedy to it too. She has three, four decades left of this. She will never move on www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/9a05dd2...

was in town early today as im travelling down to Manchester and, just, good lord Edinburgh is a good city

the bar for me will probably always be the RSC's staging a long time ago, with Greg Hicks and Kathryn Hunter. Just an absolutely glorious pairing that has never left me. I would take a lot of persuading that there has been a better fool in a hundred years

was in town early today as im travelling down to Manchester and, just, good lord Edinburgh is a good city

eg the Beattie production in Pitlochry had the role doubled with the actress playing Cordelia (tho this merger was symbolic rather than literal). Im grateful and curious to see a Fool-less production as this was how the play was done for about 200 years!

was in town early today as im travelling down to Manchester and, just, good lord Edinburgh is a good city

im headed down for the threlfall King Lear at the royal exchange. From what ive read, some of the productions choices (merging Lear and the Fool) are prob not how I would stage the play. But that adds to the fun when you're seeing four