Doubt is a superbly acted, intelligent, grown-up drama

Popping up on Netflix as I looked for something to watch this afternoon, Doubt is a 2008 film that was written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, adapted from his 2004 Pulitzer and Tony-winning play, Doubt: A Parable.

Set in 1964, a year after the assassination of JFK and not long after Vatican II pledged that it would drag the church into the 20^th century, it takes place in a predominantly Irish-American parish in the Bronx, where cheerful Father Flynn is the priest of St Nicholas’s Church.

As he preaches about a community of doubt – particularly in light of the previous year’s assassination – Sister Aloysius, the principal of the connected school, prowls the aisles, admonishing children who aren’t paying enough attention.

This sets up the central confrontation in the piece – that of the modernising priest who wants to be friends with the children and their families, and the nun who entered the convent after being widowed in WWII and is very much of the old order.

But after witnessing a fleeting encounter between Flynn and one of her pupils, Aloysius tells her fellow nuns to be on the watch for anything suspicious and report it to her. Some days later, naïve Sister James eventually tells her that a week earlier, Flynn had called her in class to ask for one of the boys – Donald Miller, the school’s sole black pupil – to be sent to see him at the rectory.

When he returns to class, he is acting strangely and has alcohol on his breath. Aloysius has no doubts about what is happening. James is full of them.

The film’s is quietly paced and gives great time to flesh out the characters. It ultimately leaves the audience to decide whether Aloysius is correct. Do we have doubts too or her certainty?

The central cast is superb. Meryl Streep is a fierce Aloysius, Philip Seymour Hoffman a charming Flynn who can be threatening too, and Amy Adams takes the naïve James and gives her some real complexity. With only a single scene, Viola Davis is outstanding as Mrs Miller, Donald’s mother.

All four gained Oscar nominations: Streep for best actress and the others in the best supporting categories.

A seriously intelligent, grown-up drama, it’s well worth 104 minutes of your time.

Philomena – Dench and Coogan in heart-rending, heart-warming drama

Time for more catch-up cinema – this time, Philomena, the 2013 adaptation of Martin Sixsmith’s book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee from director Stephen Frears, which by and large sticks to the true story that Sixsmith wrote about.

In 1951, after becoming pregnant, Irish teenager Philomena Lee (Sophie Kennedy Clarke) is sent by her father to Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, where she gives birth to a baby boy, Anthony. Forced to work in the abbey laundry, she has limited contact with her son, before the nuns give him up to a wealthy American couple for adoption.

Fifty years later, Jane, the daughter of the now retired nurse Philomena, spots journalist and former Blair government advisor Martin Sixsmith at a party and suggests to him that he investigate. Initially put off because it’s a “human interest story”, he changes his mind after meeting Philomena.

With a screenplay by Jeff Pope and Steve Coogan (who also co-produced), and coming in at a tight 98 minutes, Philomena is an examination of a multitude of themes: grief and loss, sin and guilt, anger and forgiveness, faith and hypocrisy, and snobbery.

The central characters are nuanced and the film rests squarely on the shoulders of its two stars – Coogan himself is excellent as Sixsmith, while Judi Dench is simply outstanding as the elderly Philomena, in a performance that understandably earned her a seventh Academy Award nomination.

It is a deeply moving film, but never mawkish, includes moments of humour, plenty of good for thought and is ultimately heart-warming.

Very much worth watching and available to stream in the UK on various platforms.

The Miracle Club – flawed, but worth a view

It’s 1967 in a working-class area of Dublin. Lily and Eileen join up with the much younger Dolly to appear in a Catholic church talent contest as singing trio The Miracles, with the hope of winning a trip to Lourdes.

Eileen has a lump on her breast, Dolly’s young son is non-verbal (we don’t know why), and Lily has simply always wanted to visit.

When they win, all the trio’s husbands try to stop them going, with Dolly’s even saying she needn’t come back if she does go.

The contest takes place after the death of their friend Maureen, and Lily and Eileen are shocked when Chrissy – Maureen’s estranged daughter, who has been in the US for 40 years – actually arrives for the funeral. Tension and bitterness are clear from the outset, and that increases when Chrissy decides to make the pilgrimage with them.

Released last year, The Miracle Club features the last performance from Maggie Smith, who plays Lily.

The script by Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager and Joshua D Maurer is pretty slender, with plenty of clichés – not least the general uselessness of the husbands around the house and their expectations of what their wives should do.

It is also sketchy in terms of character building – particularly of Chrissy. We learn almost nothing of what her life in Boston over four decades has entailed, yet she seems reasonably well off and clearly has an element of medical knowledge/training.

There are themes of friendship, guilt, grief, reconciliation (a miracle?), together with attitudes toward women and their bodies – including from women themselves.

Thankfully, at a tight 90 minutes, director Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s film doesn’t outstay its welcome – and is an enjoyable watch, thanks largely to the performances, which mean it never descends into mawkish sentimentality (arguably indeed, there is a quiet anger to be found), benefits from some dry humour and is genuinely moving in a number of places.

Alongside the magnificent Smith, Eileen is played with relish by fellow Oscar-winner Kathy Bates, while Golden Globe and Emmy winner (and Oscar and Tony Award nominee) Laura Linney makes the very best job possible of the thin material she had for Chrissy.

As said, the script is not particularly kind to her. She has to do an awful lot of ‘eye acting’, but she does it very, very well indeed.

Agnes O’Casey holds her own as Dolly alongside such legendary talents and a mention for Mark O’Halloran as Father Byrne.

The Miracle Club manages to be sweet and tart at the same time, even with its limitations. It’s currently streaming in the UK on Amazon Prime and is worth 90 minutes of your time.

Conclave is top-class, grown-up entertainment

Conclave, adapted from Robert Harris’s 2016 novel, is possibly not the sort of film I would usually think of watching – though I enjoyed The Two Popes when I streamed it in February. I might not have any faith left myself, but given my heavily religious background (very evangelical Methodist) I can still understand and appreciate Biblical debate, and almost inevitably find myself retaining an interest in religion in general.

I only really became aware of this film when seeing the trailer last week and, finding some of the rave reviews it’s been getting (including from the likes of Mark Kermode), decided to give it a go.

It opens with Cardinal-Dean Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) hurrying toward the Vatican to oversee arrangements after the pope has died. Aside from mourning his religiously progressive leader, it means that Lawrence will now have to organise and oversee the conclave of the world’s Catholic cardinals that elects the next pope.

The cardinals have been readying themselves for this – positioning themselves for possible election and campaigning among the rest of their number. The primary contenders are Aldo Cardinal Bellini, an American liberal (Stanley Tucci); Joseph Cardinal Tremblay, a Canadian moderate (John Lithgow); Goffredo Cardinal Tedesco, a right-wing Italian who wants the Mass to be said in Latin again (Sergio Castellitto); and Joshua Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a popular Nigerian candidate with conservative social views.

But on the eve of the conclave, one Vincent Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz) arrives in the Vatican – a Mexican archbishop apparently appointed by the late pope without anyone else knowing – and working as the cardinal of Kabul in Afghanistan. Suspicions are raised.

There were already whispers about the pope’s last hours and final meeting, and Benitez’s presence only adds to the suggestions of conspiracy and dodgy doings.

The scheming between the candidates and their supporters is barely hidden – though it involves noir whispered talks in quiet corners and comments that only a cardinal that didn't want to be pope would be a suitable one. But who doesn't, at some level, harbour the ambition?

In terms of the performances, it is a wonderful ensemble cast – and that absolutely includes not only all the actors named above, but also Isabella Rossellini as senior nun Sister Agnes, who gets to deliver a truth bomb that is magnificent – and conclude it with a gesture that has seen audiences laughing at screenings (not just the one I attended).

Edward Berger’s film is pretty much perfect as a piece of grown-up entertainment. It’s intelligent. It’s quite easy to see that the world of the Catholic church presented here could also be the corporate or political worlds, so this is not ‘about’ religion. It’s about ambition, power and the gaining and use of that by human beings who, even at their best, are not perfect.

I’ve tended to avoid films of much over 90 minutes in the last year: this comes in at two hours, but Berger’s direction means this doesn’t feel close to that. The pacing is spot on for the tension. Peter Straughan’s screenplay from Harris’s novel is superb: dryly witty, never condescending. It feels so timely, given what the world is seeing today in terms of regressive politics.

Similarly, Volker Bertelmann’s soundtrack is spot on. Stéphane Fontaine’s cinematography is a joy. The mostly muted colours – creamy marble, greys and whites – set against cardinal red – are stark. Some scenes have a feeling of having been choregraphed to almost Busby Berkley levels – cardinals in the rain with their uniform white umbrellas, shot from above, is just one, while the ceremonial aspects and rituals are superb, treated with complete seriousness and respect, yet also revealing the performance and theatre at the centre of church life.

A little personal note here for context (well, I did start this post with one!).

Until I stopped attending church altogether in my mid-twenties, I had drifted away from evangelical Methodism and toward high Anglicanism. I appreciated the theatricality, performance and ritual of services. And I continue to very much appreciate religious music – not the Gospel songs of Billy Graham-style crusade rallies, which haunt me unpleasantly, but works such as the requiems of Mozart, Fauré and Britten.

But let's get back to the review.

If I have any slight complaint, it's that the character of Tedesco is perhaps made to be overly obviously awful. He stands in the refectory vaping, yet refuses to stand for prayers in the Sistine Chapel – just two shows of contempt for most of his brother cardinals, despite he himself being the one that wants 'tradition' brought back. But perhaps that's being over sensitive when we live in a world full of real pantomime villains who are actually very dangerous.

As Lawrence, Fiennes is outstanding. For all the very carefully played camp of the film in general (it's a balancing act Berger gets spot on), his is a stunningly subtle performance. Acting with the eyes, as it were, is an absolute art and he is as good at it as Anthony Hopkins. His own inner struggle so often needs no words to be crystal clear. If he isn’t in the Oscar noms next spring, there’ll be something wrong with the film world.

And the ending – true to the book – is done with real class, even though it may not be quite what some would expect, given its extraordinary topicality.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. Seriously superior entertainment, with an actual ethical heart and message.

A sensitive exploration of what being queer means

Layla is the feature debut from non-binary British-Iraqi drag artist and film maker Amrou Al-Kadhi, and uses a deceptively traditional romantic story to explore the difficulties of navigating a life caught between queer and religious/ethic identities.

Layla (deadname Latif) is a non-binary drag queen from a Muslim family, who is living in London with three queer friends and has already become a star within their community.

 

However, they’re also trying to balance this with not being out to their family and, when they go back to visit, perform a conventional straight cis role. They are convinced that they cannot possibly be who they really are with their own family.

 

When they meet Max after a performance at a corporate London Pride do that goes spectacularly – and very funnily – wrong, the pair quickly start developing a romantic bond. But they’re also streets apart in terms of their lives. Max is from a well-to-do, white, middle-class family who are accepting of his rather beige gayness, but when Layla meets them, it’s clear that there are underlying issues around racism, Islamophobia and class.

 

And to add, Layla’s newly-married sister is moving to London with her husband.

 

This is a very sensitive film, while also being very frank. It is very unjudgmental and also helps to really explain what, for many LGBT+ people, ‘queer’ means.

 

Al-Kadhi’s direction and screenplay are excellent. Bilal Hasna as Layla is simply superb, while Louis Greatorex as Max is also very good. Indeed, It’s a very fine cast all around.

 

This was screened earlier this year at the BFI’s Flare festival and is now on more general release. It’s a very good addition to LGBTQI film.

A film about religious difference transcends religion

It’s early 2005 and Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, travels to the Vatican after the death of Pope John Paul II in order to elect a new pope. Joseph Ratzinger – arch-Catholic conservative and inheritor of the mantle of grand inquisitor – is elected.

He treats Bergoglio with disdain, but the religiously liberal – and certainly sharing many of the core ideas of liberation theology – Argentine is the only real challenger to the Bavarian’s ascent.

Some years later, Bergoglio travels to Rome to ask permission to resign as an archbishop and return to being a parish priest.

He is astonished to find that he had booked his flight before receiving a letter from Ratzinger – now Pope Benedict XVI – calling him to the Vatican.

They meet at the pope’s summer residence, the luxurious Palace of Castel Gandolfo, where they engage in theological debate, with Benedict tetchily disagreeing with every point that Bergoglio makes.

Yet in the evening, after dinner – which Benedict always takes alone – a thaw begins as they move away from the theological and into a more personal socialisation.

However, scandal – financial and in terms off sex abuse – has been hovering over the church. And the next day, after Benedict is called back to Rome as matters worsen, Bergoglio is told to meet him there the following morning.

The Two Popes is a 2019 film, written by Anthony McCarten, adapted from his own play, The Pope.

It’s been argued that it’s easy to see its theatrical origins, but Fernando Meirelles’s direction and Céasar Charlone’s cinematography ensure that it doesn’t feel static or stagebound.

Having come from a very conservatively religious background myself (albeit from a different Christian denomination), and having gone through a fundamentalist, evangelical religious period in my teens (embarrassingly, I tried to ‘convert’ fellow pupils in the lunch break), I don’t think this will upset anyone of faith, unless they are particularly unyielding in terms of a single perspective or interpretation.

Equally, I came to it today as someone who no longer has a faith and whose background was very much anti-Catholic – though my clergyman father loved nothing better than sharing whiskey with the local priest in our time in a Pennine mill town, a relationship that was far more friendly to him than any with an Anglican cleric.

It feels apt to say here that my own journey was slow. I drifted first from evangelical fervour to fairly high Anglicanism (I liked the theatre of it).

A few years further on, travelling on a train within the outer reaches of London and sporting badges on my jacket representing the Communist Party of Britain, a Christian fish symbol (ichthys) and a green star, I was challenged by another passenger as to what that all meant. I replied that I thought of myself as a “green, Christian communist”. So yes, I know what ‘liberation theology’ means.

He had an unopened can of beer and gave it to me, getting off at the next station.

Some years later, filling out the census, I realised, with a certain amount of surprise, that I had no faith left. Under no pressure, it had dissipated. Like the smoke from the extinguished candles in this film.

A period of Dawkinesque detestation of organised religion followed, but thankfully that too dissipated quickly. Now, I can happily visit churches (not – yet – a mosque, synagogue or temple) and always do so quietly and with respect. Apart from anything else, I actually take off the inevitable hat I will be wearing.

Though isn’t that strange? When my mother married my father, women going to church would be expected to wear a hat – and keep it on (an echo of the ‘modesty’ expected in the more conservative realms of Christianity’s fellow Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Islam). Yet I always take mine off in a church – whether in the UK or abroad. It’s a very basic sign of respect for me.

As the protagonists of this film discuss, ‘times change’.

This is essentially an intellectual/theological two-hander conversation – and it’s really engaging as that. The time doesn’t feel strained.

Anthony Hopkins as Ratzinger/Benedict – as with so much work he has done late in his career – is nuanced and fantastic. There is also massive credit to be paid to Juan Minujín, who plays Bergoglio in earlier years.

However, Jonathon Pryce as Bergoglio (later, Pope Francis) arguably gives the finest film performance of his career. The pain, the guilt (over his own actions during the time of the Argentinian military junta) are clearly covered – and are very, very moving.

This really is an excellent film. Available on Netflix, it is very much worth a watch.

Belfast – seeing The Troubles through a child’s eyes

Belfast, the semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, opens with what could be viewed as a rosy-tinted remembrance of life on a working-class terraced street in Northern Ireland’s capital in the late 1960s.

As nine-year-old Buddy returns home one summer evening, brandishing a wooden sword and a dustbin lid shield, playing at being the knight of his daydreams, the streets are full of children playing – ‘were there really so many children?’ you might think – while adults hang around chatting.

 

But just as you might be thinking that, a masked gang arrives to start a riot and things turn seriously nasty. They don’t care if children, women, the elderly – Protestant or Catholic – gets in the way.

 

Because this is August 1969, and the aim of the violence is really quite simple: to create a climate of fear that tells the Catholic residents on this mixed street that they must leave. Or terrorism, as we might call it.

 

The film shows a series of episodes in Buddy’s life at this time. His Pa (Jamie Dornan) is working in England as a joiner and can only visit every few weeks, so the family of Buddy (Jude Hill) and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) is held together by Ma (Caitríona Balfe), with help from grandparents Pop (Ciarán Hinds) and Granny (Judi Dench).

 

The character of Pa can feel like a bit of a type at times – he likes the horses to the detriment of the family finances, but he does also have greater complexity.

 

The family is Protestant but not particularly religious and gets along perfectly fine with its Catholic neighbours. However, as Pa continues to refuse the increasing threats of the local Protestant gang leader Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan) to get involved in their sectarian ‘improvement’ of the area, the danger for the family, as to the community as a whole, grows.

 

And while it seems fanciful when Pa tries to suggest emigration to Australia or Canada to Ma, when he is offered permanent employment in England, with the prospect of better pay and better housing, the increasing threat moves them closer to a decision.

 

But for Ma – and for Buddy – the prospect of leaving their home, families, friends and much more is terrifying.

 

While Branagh’s film has already garnered awards and much praise, it has also been criticised in some quarters for being overly sentimental and for downplaying The Troubles.

 

I’m long enough in the tooth to remember reports from Northern Ireland – and of bombings in England. I remember bomb hoaxes at my girls’ grammar school on the outskirts of Manchester in the 1970s, when we would stand for ages in the cold while the fire brigade checked the building. Because you couldn’t afford to be casual.

 

I remember too, the revived IRA campaign – the bombs in the City of London, one of which rattled the windows of the flat that The Other Half and I shared, one evening when I was home alone. It was terrifying. And another on a morning when I looked out from our bedroom window and saw the cloud from the explosion rising around the Nat-West building, less than a mile away. The south-west of traditionally working-class Hackney is a stone’s throw from the City.

 

In other words, I most certainly would not play down the history of what happened.

 

But back to Branagh’s film specifically. It makes clear, for instance, that the British troops sent to Belfast to stop the violence seemed remarkably forgetful about who they were supposed to be protecting. It is full of the menace as it shows thugs taking over neighbourhoods and, tragically, dividing communities.

 

It nods to the role Protestant clergy played in the demonisation of their Catholic neighbours (and the hellfire-and-damnation sermon rings absolutely true for this daughter of an evangelical minister).

 

No, it is not some sort of Ken Loach take on Northern Ireland, but I suggest that, if it was, it would have fewer viewers overall, with the potential for less education of more general and less obviously politicised audiences. Perhaps some will actually go and read TA Jackson’s Ireland Her Own after seeing this?

 

Wikipedia describes it as a “comedy-drama”, but while there are some laughs, I think this completely downplays what Branagh has achieved. The Troubles are still raw – see Brexit and the Good Friday Agreement – and I think that this opens up the possibility for a wider audience to perhaps see it differently.

 

Plus, sectarianism and bigotry is as big a problem as ever, across the world. Just as Taika Waititi’s 2019 comedy-drama Jojo Rabbit viewed Nazism from a child’s perspective, and pointed up how children are taught – groomed – into intolerance, so this views the situation in Northern Ireland through a child’s eyes. Yet in avoiding adult sophistication, it makes similar points very clearly. And one could add that, for many English audiences in particular, it might be a slight surprise to see who the thugs are.

 

But back to this film. The cinematography from Haris Zambarloukos is wonderful. The use of music from Van Morrison works perfectly, the decisions on the use of occasional colour are interesting and Branagh’s use of pop cultural references works well.

 

On the performances, there is not a bad one to be seen, but perhaps the big plaudits go to Hill who is remarkable in the central role, and Balfe, who gives a powerhouse turn. Hinds and Dench offer the sort of support grounded in their vast experience and abilities that one would expect.

 

All in all, very much worth seeing.

Walks of witness, steps free of shame

Placard protesting against the homophobic laws of the
Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, who, in true
Freudian style, has ‘anal’ as part of his name

Last Friday was Whit Friday – a day that means little throughout most of the UK but which, in parts of the North West of England, has great cultural significance.

In the morning, members of local Christian churches march through their town in a walk of witness, usually with banners for each church (think a religious version of trade union banners) and sometimes with a brass band from, say, a local school.

In the afternoon – in Mossley at least – there’d be games at the local football ground. In the evening, there’d be the band contests, where brass bands would travel from town to town, à la Brassed Off, competing in each contest before travelling to the next one.

For eight years, when my family lived in the Tameside region, I would have the day off school. I’d march with my father’s church, enjoy the games and then hang around outside the church itself while the bands marched in and out of St Joseph’s school yard to perform.

Eight years was the longest we spent anywhere when I was growing up: the sound of brass bands is woven into my being.

Yours Truly

My last Whit walk was 40 years years ago on Friday 8 June, 1979.

This year, on 6 June, I took part in what was, in many ways, another walk of witness and my first such one: London Pride.

I’d thought about going to Pride before – only as a member of the crowd, mind – but then somehow just never got around to it.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think that I was afraid of being outed to the only two people I was in contact with whom I wasn’t out – my parents. My father had, back in those Mossley days, carefully nurtured an awareness in me that people who knew him would see me doing things and report.

Trafalgar Square

It happened at least once that I can specifically remember now, about something ridiculously innocuous, but it was an idea that lingered. I don’t think that such things leave you easily, even if you cease to be consciously aware of them.

I never told Mother and Dad that I was bisexual: by the time I’d come out to myself, I wondered what the point would be: wouldn’t it just risk seriously upsetting them, given their attitudes toward sexuality – and sin?

A few days before this year’s Pride, a work email newsletter arrived in my inbox, announcing that there were spare places with our organisation’s contingent for the parade itself. I took the opportunity. It seemed an apt moment too, as I work through some of the things that have risen to the surface in the tumult of dealing with both parents’ deaths since 2017, plus my own cancer diagnosis last year.

The day of Pride, I got to Portland Place in good time, but realising that, in olive linen trousers, walking shoes and a branded UNISON t-shirt, I was woefully underdressed. So I picked up a little rainbow clip-on bow tie. I was still underdressed, but not quite as much so.

Steampunky Gothy greetings

The atmosphere was almost overwhelming. As an old friend noted to me later on Facebook, you feel surrounded by warmth and good feelings. I have never experienced anything like it. It was extraordinary to have people reach out from the massive crowd (an estimated 1.5 million on the streets of London) to high five as they wished you the best.

There was plenty of outré behaviour and attire – and I like that: I adore the transgressive nature of drag, for instance.

And off course, it was less than a week into my One Million Steps Challenge, so perfectly suited.

Perfectly suited too, for being not simply a utilitarian walk.

Some ask why Pride is needed these days. Well, when you hear and read of rising homophobic and transphobic attacks, you realise why.

When you read of the protests against the No Outsiders programme being taught in Birmingham schools, you understand why Pride is necessary.

Indeed, just today, it’s been reported that the government has been accused of being “too slow” to tackle the issue – and support the school: accused by the woman tasked with tackling extremism.

‘God is love’

But now, it seems that the protests by some Muslim parents, on the grounds of their religious beliefs, against teaching children that all people are equal, are encouraging others.

According to this report, a group called Catholic Family Voice has been set up near Glasgow by a woman who describes herself as “excited” by what’s been happening in Birmingham. Another woman has been individually leafleting schools on the issue, ”aiming to disrupt, essentially,” while the founder of The Values Foundation makes it clear that she doesn’t ‘value’ equality.

“There’s no way that people of faith will teach it’s OK to be gay,” she said. “They won’t because the Bible tells us it isn’t OK to be gay.”

Yes. And the Bible tells us that we should do an awful lot of things that these people would not remotely suggest were appropriate these days.

It’s also worth noting at this juncture, that plenty of people of faith have no problem with the spectrum of sexuality, just as plenty of people of faith acknowledge that evolution is real.

But that’s as maybe. The point here is simple: it might seem that LGBT+ people have equality – in law, at least. But while they continue to be attacked, simply for being who they are and loving who they love, then the struggle is far from over.

I‘ll go with this

In many ways, in terms of a practical, day-to-day level, it’s not been particularly difficult for me: despite being out to people in my daily life, I’ve been in a relationship with a straight, male Other Half for 30 years (he knew before I recognised it myself), so people comfortably make assumptions and frankly, I’ve no interest in making my sexuality the subject of every first conversation with someone.

But almost four decades to the day since I last took a walk of witness – and now, not because I had no choice, but because I wanted to – I walked again.

In times like these, with the rise of the far-right revealing again the attitudes that gave rise to the pink triangle – the symbol stitched onto the concentration camp uniforms of LGBT+ inmates in Nazi Germany – witness is vital.

This year is also the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, with all that began. Our history is important.

So too is showing solidarity with those still being persecuted and even being killed: four LGBT refugees from Syria had finally arrived in the UK a couple of days before Pride. Finally, they could experience what it means to be out.

And it is also vital to say, as MP Angela Eagle recently did in a speech about the Birmingham schools protests: “We aren’t getting back in the closet”.

A tremendous Tosca with Terfel in top form

Bryn Terfel as Scarpia

According to operbase.com, Tosca is the fifth most popular opera in the world. Of Puccini’s works, only La bohème ranks higher.

Finally getting to see Tosca, it’s not difficult to see why it rates so highly. The current Royal Opera revival of Jonathon Kent’s production is a traditional take, but certainly doesn’t suffer for that.

At its most simplistic, this is effectively a battle between love and lust. The story is played out against a background of the struggle between the Italian monarchy and the forces of republicanism, led by Napoleon, in 1800.

This is a tale of celebrated singer Floria Tosca and her love for painter Mario Cavaradossi. The latter is on the republican side and, when his old friend Angelotti, a former consul of the Roman Republic, escapes prison, he vows to help.

Unfortunately, Cavaradossi’s lover, Tosca, is a tad jealous – laughs in the first act – and this allows local chief of police Baron Scarpia to go fu-on Iago with her and unleash the green monster, with disastrous effects.

Unusually, this doesn’t just mean that the female lead herself dies – or that takes an entire act to die or, indeed, that Cavaradossi is a stereotypical operatic tenor wimp.

There are some really interesting themes here – not least in Puccini’s treatment of religion. Tosca is pious – to the extent of setting out candles by the body of Scarpia after she kills him. Shortly before taking up the knife, she sings the great aria, Vissi d’arte, which asks: “why, why, Lord, ah, why do you reward me thus?”

Now of course, if we’re to get all theological over this, then Tosca clearly doesn’t understand that the Judea-Christian god can do whatever he damn well pleases and it’s all and always okay. For instance, let us not forget that being ‘tested’ is good.

But there is a sense here that Puccini might be daring to suggest that all her prayers and good acts mean absolutely nothing. And given that she leaps to her death at the end – and therefore ensures that she cannot be buried in consecrated ground – we have all sorts of possible philosophical ideas that we could explore.

Kristine Opolais as Tosca

This is a wonderful production: magnificent sets and a cracking performance from the house orchestra under Puccini expert Alexander Joel (Billy’s half bro).

Before the performance, the audience was informed that both Kristine Opolais as Tosca and Vittorio Grigóla as Cavaradossi were a tad ‘under the weather’, but were hoping to give of their best. 

If Grigóla was ‘under the weather’, I’d worry about seeing him when he was on top form. He’s got one heck of a pair of lungs in him even when not at his best. Of course, he doesn’t always belt everything out at maximum volume, à la Ethel Merman, but it says something that such a comparison occurs at all.

And given that his performance at curtain call was like someone who was celebrating after just setting the 100m record for the universe, it’s tough to comprehend what the capital’s weather had done to him.

Opolais may have lacked some volume, but she more than made up for it in nuance and subtlety.

And here’s the thing: Bryn Terfel is basically global number one Scarpia at present – and it’s really not tough to see why. He’s superb in the role, lifting it far above simple panto villain. His scenes with Opolais crackle, which merely shows how her scenes with Mr I Like Me Who Do You Like lack any real frisson.

The Other Half and I had caught Terfel once before, as Hans Sachs in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, but it had been a lukewarm meeting.

This, however, made it absolutely clear why Terfel is a global opera star. A fantastic performance.

That said, it’s a fabulous production as a whole, with fabulous music and I’d watch it again tomorrow if I had the chance.

       

Alien: Covenant – frustrating and fascinating

If ever a film was deserving of the description ‘mixed beast’ then Alien: Covenant is it.

Dissatisfying and satisfying in approximately similar amounts, it prompted me to consider ratings and what I’d give it, and I’d probably do three stars out of five.

On the cons side, it suffers from a number of things –- not least being the latest instalment in the Aliens franchise. Part one is an icon of the horror genre, with part two not far behind. Part three was dire, while the fourth instalment is as divisive as Marmite (I like it).

Then there was a long gap before Prometheus. Which was awful – a point not helped because it didn’t ‘feel’ as though it belonged to the same family as any of the films that had gone before.

In many ways, neither does this. It feels as though it belongs somewhere else – and that's not a bad thing.

It begins before Prometheus, with the perfect synthetic David being ‘awoken’ by his father/creator Peter Weyland, and then moves us fast forward a decade to the ship Covenant, which is on a long trip to set up a new colony, with 2,000-odd humans and a thousand embryos sleeping/stored until they arrive.

The crew too is asleep with only a synthetic, Walter, around to run routine operations with Mother, the ship’s computer, when a fluke of an accident sees the crew woken and the captain dead.

As they repair the ship, the crew comes across a human transmission – someone singing a John Denver song. When they discover that the signal is from a nearby planet that seems perfectly suited for human habitation, reluctant acting captain Oram overrides arguments that it’s all too good to be true, and sets them on course to investigate.

Down on the planet, Oram and a team find more than they bargained for  not least, David – ‘brother’ to Walter and last survivor of the Prometheus.

Frankly, the first chunk feels slow and is far from great – not helped by having a generally unmemorable crew. Compare that to the first film with it’s outstanding ensemble.

Katherine Waterson as Dany and Danny McBride as Tennessee are really the only two who make – are allowed to make – any impact.

Where the film starts coming into its own is when David and Walter meet – and it benefits hugely from two superb, intertwined performances by Michael Fassbender as both synthetics.

There are gory deaths aplenty as we are introduced to whole new flavours of aliens – someone has been playing god with genetics. And there are some very clever twists amid the horror – slipping on blood in an attempted escape is just one.

Some of the visuals are superb, but the script by John Logan and Dante Harper is flawed.

While there are enjoyable elements of philosophical questioning – the nature of gods/creators and the act of being creative; the question of artificial intelligence overtaking the human intelligence that creates it and more – having made a point of Oram having a religious faith, it then fails to explore this.

One is left only with the vague notion that perhaps Oram’s ignoring of reasoning in his desire to quickly find a paradise, is indicative of religious faith.

Perhaps much of this is director and producer Ridley Scott continuing to work through some of the same subjects that he has for years – see Blade Runner, for instance – with the added intensity of age.

The ending is genuinely creepy and the use of Entry of the Gods into Valhalla from Wagner’s Das Rheingold to bookend the film is actually very effective, not least because of the different ways it’s played: by solo piano initially and then in the full orchestral version – indicating a theme developed.

Flawed without doubt, it is a movie that nonetheless gets under the skin. But while the themes can be explored in other settings and contexts, please let’s make this a day for the Alien franchise.