Enchanted and Nightmare

I was charmed by Enchanted when I saw it in the cinema last year. Its mix of ardent romanticism, comedy, music and a certain old-fashioned Disney-feeling hit me perfectly at the time. I re-watched it yesterday and realised it doesn’t really hold up on repeated viewings. The charm and originality of its conceit simply aren’t enough to make up for a script which is horribly sloppy in its plotting and a climax that manages to be both cheap and cheerless.

James Marsters and Timothy Spall are wonderfully convincing in their panto-verve and this was deservedly Amy Adams break-out role. She is wonderful in the role and it’s just a shame that film can’t really think of what to do with her or the character in the final act. She doesn’t have much of an arc and this is just one of the issues which makes the whole thing feel like a first draft then a finished product.

Saying that, I think this is one of the few Disney films which might benefit hugely from a transfer to Broadway. Punch in a few more musical numbers, allow the villainess some proper screentime and I think you could have a great show.

I also re-watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. I have a confession to make – I first saw this in the cinema and hated it. I refused to re-watch it for years because of my initial dislike for the film. I know can fully acknowledge its many charms while still insisting that it is vastly over-rated.
I have the same problem with Nightmare as I did with Tm Burton’s other stop-motion fest The Corpse Bride; all the effort has been put into the design of the characters and the world without giving it a muscular enough narrative to bring them to life. This is more frustrating in Nightmare which is much better plotted than Bride but which still seems to run out of breath more than end. It utterly fails to make any real use of the myriad of characters that it has created, which frustrated me hugely. This is a stunning looking, at times very touching, but superficial story that fails to take advantage of it’s designs and story ideas to tell a really compelling story.

I want to love this film but it ultimately leaves me cold.

I also think that, apart from one or two exceptions, Danny Elfman’s songs really aren’t all that. His score, on the other hand, is beautiful.

Religion versus Homos: Round 3,000,000

There are a couple of cases moving through employment tribunals at the moment where the faultline between religion and homosexuality seem to be cracking up.

I have already written about the first of these. Islington Council’s appeal against the Lillian Ladele ruling is due to come up in the next few weeks. My initial thoughts about this were depressingly milquetoast and accommodating – basically a ‘why can’t we all get along’ and a subtle dig at Islington for allowing it to get as far as a tribunal. I now think I was wrong in that assessment. While I still believe that flexibility is going to be required from all parties in the future, I think Islingotn Council were ultimately correct in firing Ladele.

I attended some workplace diversity training last week, and ironically enough, this was a case that the trainer highlighted as being of particular significance. The new laws about the provision of goods and services have opened up organisations to the risk of action from either side of this divide if one is seen as being preferential to the other. In this case, Ladele thought that her right to religious freedom was being discriminated against in favour of the rights of gays to expect an equal service. But a whole Pandora’s Box of trouble was opened up by the tribunal voting for Ladele – after all, what if she suddenly wanted to stop giving civil partnerships ceremonies to people who were divorced? Or had committed adultery? Or what if Catholic pharmacists suddenly decided that they should not have to give out condoms? When is it appropriate to invoke the strictures of your faith to deny a service, and should you then be held accountable for the parts of your faith that you ignore.

One of the things that irritated me about Ladele was that the Bible heaps all sorts of opprobrium on adulterers and the divorced yet it was with gay couples that she chose to draw the line (and remember that these were civil ceremonies with absolutely no reloigous component!). Luckily, according to the Pink Paper, it seems that she will lose the appeal, but it is highly unlikely that this is the last we will hear of it.

The other case seems much more cut and dried to me. About 10 years ago, a police officer sent around an email asking colleagues to support Gay History Month by wearing a pink ribbon. It is a pretty innocuous email, but it must have rubbed Graham Cogman up the wrong way, because he subsequently sent around an email to colleagues talking about the sinfulness of homosexuality. After being disciplined for this, he then posted a phone number for an American hotline which could provide help in Praying the Gay Away. This was not through private emails or a blog or anything like that but on the force’s internal messaging system. He was eventually dismissed from the police force a couple of weeks ago.

I am not quite sure what Mr Cogman’s case is here. He was already disciplined for a previous action yet he perversely seemed to compound his trouble with the telephone link. This action is simply not appropriate in the police force and to say that his religious beliefs have been impugned by his dismissal seems absurd. Yet the Police Federation is backing his claim at the tribunal. This is the body which represents rank and file police officers and I would be interested to hear their justification for the support of Cogman. Perhaps they feel that the punishment was too harsh on the officer, but he had already shown himself incapable of keeping his opinions to himself. Mr Cogman wasn’t fired because he was Christian, it was because he was using a narrow, bigoted form of Christianity to attack the force’s dedication to diversity.

You kissed a guy - COOTIES!

This is my new favourite article for today.

I can’t tell you how fucked off I get by male actors being expected to talk about gay kisses as if they were passing on the plague. There is a new wave of these stories coming out because of the film Milk which stars the very straight actors Sean Penn (who does get additional gay points for once being married to Madge) and James Franco and who, apparently, have a warm, sexy and convincing on-screen relationship in the movie.

Franco, who is a bit of a heart-throb and apparently great in the role, has been publicising the role on the talk-show circuit in the States, and wouldn’t you know it, has had to field a dizzying array of dumb-assitude about how gosh darn ICKY it must be to kiss a man.

These questions always come up when a straight actor takes on a gay role but there is something depressing and frustrating that even in our ‘post-Brokeback world’, an actor is expected to say how difficult and even disgusting he felt the kiss was. A big part of me really wishes that Franco would just turn to these hosts and smack them across the face, instead of grinning gamely and going along with the whole shameful line of questioning.

Women do handle these question a lot better but it is also true that society doesn’t generally put the same level of opprobrium on a female who needs to kiss another female for a role as they do for a guy. It’s probably extremely titillating for Letterman or Leno to think about Sarah Michelle Gellar and Salma Hayek swapping spit then for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall. But they should show a little class and at least cut out the school-yard taunts.

Forever Blowing Whistles

I don’t often go to plays – most of my theatre going tends to be musicals (I know. You’re shocked) but it is something that I constantly feel I should remedy. I think I miss out on so much great theatre because of a reticence about going to see something which isn’t going to break out into song every few minutes (my boredom threshold rises without a gaggle of high-kicking drag queens).

I did manage to see Blowing Whistles during its run at the Leicester Square theatre about 10 days ago. First performed about 2 years ago, it’s about a gay couple celebrating their 10 year anniversary, who invite a 17 year old from Gaydar over for a threesome. Unsurprisingly, drama ensues.

I would imagine that this play probably would have had more of an impact when it was first staged. Then, the idea of Gaydar would have seemed at least in some way fresh and interesting as a plot mover. Now, it just seems a little stale and predictable. Predictability was a big problem with the drama as a whole – it never quite rose above its pat characters and easy observations.

However, I actually had a really good time watching it. Despite the plot’s predictability, the dialogue is often sweet and funny, and the whole thing moves along at a nice clip. The first half in particular has some great moments and is well served by fine comic performances from its three leading men.

The second half is where most of the problems arise – the play sets up a too-easy dichotomy between good and bad and it gives in to over-wrought melodrama towards the end. I was sorry that the writer felt like he had to abandon the comic construct of the first half, and the plunge into heavy-handed drama felt a little like being forced to take Maalox after a satisfying meal.

It seems churlish to be too critical of this play. It is obviously not meant for the canon, but does provide a mostly fun night out.

A Little Night Music

It’s amazing and gratifying to witness the success of the Menier Chocolate Factory. Based in a tiny theatre about 10 minutes walk from where I work, this innovative and exciting theatre has emerged to add something rich and different to London’s theatre world. I have seen four of their productions at this point and each one had been a pleasure.

2 years ago, I saw their West End transfer of Sunday in the Park with George. It is one of the greatest theatrical experiences of my life. Brilliantly staged, intelligent and emotional and anchored by two astonishing performances from Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell, I can still get emotional listening to the cast recording.

I got to see their latest blast of Sondheim yesterday – A Little Night Music. The mood going into the show wasn’t exactly enhanced by the lunch beforehand. The food was poor quality and the service atrocious, despite the restaurant not being all that busy. It was the first time I had eaten there before a show, but I wouldn’t be rushing back.

But that changed once the show began. It’s a bit of a cliché now to bring up the description of Night Music as whipped cream with knives but it’s a witty and perfect description of the tone of the piece. The score is another Sondheim triumph, but I particularly loved the lyrics, which balanced real humour and heartache. The book is also excellent, but while it sometimes strayed into being a bit too arch, Sondheim’s songs perfectly drove the emotional mood of each moment.

The cast were marvellous. I saw Hannah Waddingham play an outrageously funny Lady of the Lake in Spamalot about a year or so ago and she is just as good here. She is warm, sexy and sad and her performance of Send in the Clowns should genuinely shut up all those comparisons to Judi Dench from the National’s production. The rest of the cast were her match – I particularly enjoyed Kaisa Hammerlund who played the ribald maid Petra. Her performance of The Millers Song near the end of the show was a standout.

I also found the whole production to be surprisingly funny. Perhaps because I had only listened to the score in the past, but I had an idea of Night Music as being a colder, more emotionally battering musical. And while there is that element to it, it is offset by genuine warmth and wit – both in Sondheim’s lyrics, but also in the performances of this cast. I guess that’s what you get when you have two such formidable comic performers in Waddingham and Maureen Lippman.

It didn’t hit me quite as hard as Sunday did. Part of the reason was that I just didn’t feel like Frederick deserved Desiree at the end (which had nothing to do with Alexander Hanson’s fine performance). I also think there is a generational aspect to this – I could well imagine that in 10 or 15 years time, the show would have added resonance with me. But this really isn’t a criticism – few things have affected me more powerfully in a theatre than Jenna Russell’s sensational performance as Dot. A Little Night Music is a gloriously sophisticated night out. I can’t wait to see it again.