Kristin scott thomas

Apple TV+ may be struggling to break through into the streaming mainstream with more than a handful of their shows (as I’ve written before), but one categorical success is the British comedy-thriller Slow Horses, about to begin its fourth series on the service this week.   Because Apple has a vastly lower take-up for its subscriptions than Netflix or Amazon Prime, it remains a niche, cult show, rather than a much-discussed behemoth, and this suits its admirers down to the ground, who discuss its fidelity to Mick Herron’s brilliant series of novels with the kind of revivalist fervor usually seen at the Democratic National Convention.  From one clapped out old has-been to another.

Within the first five minutes of Two Tickets to Greece you know what it is and where it’s going. It’s based on what I call ‘the hate-love formula’ with its in-built guarantee: any two people who can’t stand each other at the outset of a film will have bonded by the end. In this instance it’s a womance featuring two middle-aged women who were inseparable at school but haven’t seen each other for 30 years. One is Blandine who, as an adult, is reserved and buttoned-up, while the other, Magalie, is – gulp – a ‘free spirit’. (Run, Blandine; run like the wind!) But while the film is predictable, it has a certain French verve, excellent performances and doesn’t take it out of you.

Rebecca is a new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s gothic, twisted, never-out-of-print tale of sexual jealousy. It’s directed by Ben Wheatley, with a script by Jane Goldman, and stars Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristin Scott Thomas. High hopes? Me too. But though it’s perfectly watchable, it’s not at all daring. Would the second Mrs de Winter be more fully formed and less of a pallid, round-shouldered meek little thing? Would sinister Mrs Danvers have more substance? Would it be a modern interpretation for modern times? No, is the short answer. And also it just isn’t sexy enough. Meanwhile, I forgot to start this with: ‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…’ as it’s how every other review will begin, I’m sure.

The big mistake people make with Alan Bennett is to conflate him with his fellow Yorkshireman David Hockney. But whereas Hockney’s art is generous, warm, bright, life-affirming, Bennett’s is crabbed, catty, dingy, insinuating. The fact that the BBC-led establishment keeps telling us he’s a National Treasure tells us more about the BBC-led establishment than it does about Bennett. Bennett is typical of the English intelligentsia Orwell anatomised in his ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ essay: ‘It is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings.