Spectator Life

The 76th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe will take place on the 8 May; although in fact the conflict continued for days (if not weeks) after this date with heavy fighting in parts of the former Eastern Front and areas newly occupied by Soviet forces. Indeed, anti-communist resistance groups in the Baltic states, Poland and other satellite countries continued to launch guerrilla attacks well into the 1950s. The final months of the war in Europe were amongst the bloodiest in the struggle, as Hitler resolved to pull the ruins of the Third Reich down around him in a faux-Wagnerian exit from history.

Bluebell season is beginning. In the next few weeks, woodland floors will have a fine blue mist hovering above them. This flowering season is so sensuous: there’s the sound of bees buzzing in and out of the flowers, the smell of their blooms, the cool spring breeze in the woods where they grow, and that magical blue colour. These plants are protected and you can’t pick them, though it is a mystery why anyone would want to when a bluebell bouquet droops so quickly and looks miserable compared to the sea of flowers it has been stolen from.  You also can’t really enjoy them through pictures alone. Clever photography does bring you an idea of what a bluebell wood is like, but it is still a pale imitation.

It’s no great secret that the Oscar for Best Picture has been awarded to some puzzling choices over the years. Way back in 1944, the musical comedy Going My Way won the award, rather than Billy Wilder’s classic Film Noir Double Indemnity. Then flash forward to 1952 when Cecil B. DeMille’s tiresome circus picture The Greatest Show on Earth trounced High Noon, whilst in later years Dr Strangelove lost to My Fair Lady, Rocky outdid Taxi Driver and (notoriously) Driving Miss Daisy ran over My Left Foot. In recognition of this, here's a purely personal look at ten times when the Academy Award for Best Picture went to a dubious choice, and which movie arguably should have won.

Beneath the polarised political spats that characterise our national conversation, there is a surprising degree of consensus between left and right on what is wrong with society. Selfishness, corruption, tribalism and a failure to build for the long term – these are universally decried. We can all see the same glitching appliances, but we seem determined not to follow the leads back to the same plugs. There appear occasionally thinkers that dig beneath the political fray and offer insight into how these political differences have come about. Three such writers that were published a generation ago, and have since been proved unequivocally right, are now available in my new preferred medium, the audio book. I thought it might prove instructive to revisit them.

A long time ago, a seasoned old hack gave me some wise words of advice: never to trust anyone who did not know the Sunday pub opening hours. This was back in the days when the Nanny State got to decide when pubs could open on the Sabbath. This year, after thirteen long months of the Gestapo State in charge of whether pubs could open at all, I’ve decided to write off anyone who didn’t have '12 April' circled and underlined in red ink three times in their diaries to mark our return at long last, after a long hard lockdown winter, to the pub. It was hailed as the Great Reopening. But when Monday finally dawned, the Great British Weather had other ideas, delivering freezing cold temperatures, sleeting snow and, yes, actual hail to large parts of the country.

The stark simplicity of the music performed at Prince Philip’s funeral service will have made a gentle but huge impact on the mourners, inside St George’s Chapel Windsor and on the millions watching on television around the world. Those of us who have some involvement in the world of choral music were mightily impressed at how the music was delivered, by only four choristers when the norm is a full complement of about 30 singers, adults and children. Three of the four singers were Lay Clerks of St George’s Chapel Choir (countertenor, tenor and baritone) with an added female soprano voice, conducted by James Vivian and the organ was played by Luke Bond.

The plot of Academy Award nominated Promising Young Woman (finally available to watch on Sky Cinema and NOW TV) centres on Cassie who adopts a novel approach to avenging the rape of her friend. Revenge has featured as a key theme in literature and drama virtually since writing began, from Euripides (Medea) and Seneca (Thyestes) to Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus), Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo) and more recently Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl). The Jacobean era (1603-25) saw an intense interest in retribution as the subject matter for plays, with a fair few still performed to this day, works such as The Duchess of Malfi (John Webster), 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (John Ford) and The Malcontent (John Marston).

So many headlines over the last year have read more like deadpan satire than actual news that it’s hard to believe we don't live in an episode of Chris Morris’s still unequalled The Day Today. Take this example last week from the Guardian: 'Tom Hanks’s son criticized for using "racist" font on merchandise collection.' As I sat down to interrogate Times New Roman’s imperialist past to ensure my letter to the editor wouldn’t be similarly charged, I discovered CNN had run an entire feature on those belittling artefacts of Orientalism, the 'Chop Suey' fonts.

Over the recent long months of lockdown, many may feel that they are stuck in their own personal Groundhog Day. With working from home and the few opportunities for travel or socialising, life, for some, has become a matter of dull routine. It's somewhat of a surprise, then, that the well-worn genre of the time loop movie, where protagonists are doomed to live one single day time after time, is striking a chord. Recent comedy Palm Springs has had plenty of attention from critics, perhaps because it resonates so strongly with our lockdown experience. On the face of it, this genre is a recipe for monotonous viewing, but it is to the credit of filmmakers that many have played out the concept in ingenious ways.

Those with a watchful eye might spot something this week (or next)  not seen in a while. And I’m not talking about a freshly poured pint, or the sight of your forehead after three months without a barber’s care. Rather, as England and the whole of the UK, begins to ‘open up’ after the third national lockdown, and as we emerge socially emboldened into the spring sunshine inoculated to the tune of some 32 million first doses of Covid vaccine, there's a chance we might see the handshake make a tentative return. I can't be the only one who has begun to wince slightly every time I see someone on TV shaking hands in a social setting, in a film or programme evidently filmed in the world before Covid robbed us of such basic, everyday civilities.

Around £250 million was placed in bets on the 2019 Grand National, and this Saturday’s Grand National, which will be shown live on ITV at 5.15pm, looks set to be equally popular. Cloth Cap, they say, ‘should win it’. Trained by Jonjo O’Neill, he has a stone in hand carrying 10st 5 – which is one of the reasons why he’ll be ridden by Tom Scudamore, who picked up the ride in the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury due to being able to make the 10 stone weight. He won easily. The pair went on to romp up at Kelso as well; but what would make this a nice tale is that both the jockey and the horse have Grand National heritage behind them. Scudamore’s grandfather Michael rode in the race 16 times, winning in 1959 on Oxo.

I am always irritated by film versions of classic novels, especially when I’ve recently read them. I needn’t have worried about Death on the Nile. Kenneth Branagh's Agatha Christie adaptation, already subject to no fewer than six delays, has been pushed back yet again to the first quarter of 2022. By the time it comes out – if it does – I’ll have forgotten the original. With that airless sense of ‘here we go again’, Nile’s delay has been caused because its leading man, Armie Hammer, has been accused of sexual assault, including rape, and sundry other unsavoury forms of sexual conduct - allegations which he denies.

What’s the thing that’s kept you going during these interminable lockdowns? For me, it’s been walking in my local forest, Ruislip Woods. Ruislip may be the acme of suburbia, a maze of bungalows and crazy paving - but Ruislip Woods is only a short walk away, and it’s vast. As I’m sure you’ve discovered yourself these last few months, there’s nothing quite like a walk in the woods to alleviate the lockdown blues. It feels great to go somewhere entirely unaffected by Coronavirus, a place where this pesky pandemic seems utterly inconsequential. A forest is a precious place in any part of the country, but to me Ruislip Woods feels particularly special because it’s managed to survive despite being entirely within London.

It makes sense that a closed, secretive world full of strange rules and rituals would appeal to film-makers but the sheer number of films about strange sects makes it more than a passing fascination. The cult has become a well-established cinematic trope. Here are ten films that are worth your time: Midsommar (2019) – Amazon Rent/Buy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vnghdsjmd0  Ari Aster, who also helmed Hereditary (another cult-themed movie), directs this fine-looking folk horror picture which depicts off-the-beaten-track Swedish communities as pagan holdouts where human sacrifice to the old Norse gods is still practised.