Verdict (Grand Opera House, York)

I went to see the Agatha Christie theatre company perform Verdict tonight, my main reason for going was that a couple of weeks ago I opened up the shop where I work to find a load of leaflets thrown all over the floor, printed on slippery cheap paper they had slid from the desk overnight. When I picked them up I saw Robert Duncan's grimacing old face staring back at me. Drop the Dead Donkey occupies I'd say 30% of my brain space, the character of Gus, played by Robert Duncan, occupies 80% of that 30% (the rest is Henry). So of course I had to see it! Even though plays I've seen starring Rob in the past have been abysmal I had to see it- plus Neville from the Harry Potter films was on the flyer too and he's quite cute.

Neville, go to school. And if you want to be an actor, go to acting school. Yeah, not the best of the bunch. And what a boring, predictable play full of ugly fourth rate actors. The main thing I took from it is where a buttonhole is on a man's lapel. Which is good, because I'd been getting it wrong on drawings all day. I still like Robert Duncan, he always plays Gus whether he's a confident fop, a hideous demon or a conflicted professor. Good old Andy Hamilton!

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Phew!
Suzie and I had a book club in Chicago, In between sight seeing and meal times we'd retire to the nearest cafe and open our books- her American copy with the Mason's seal on the front and my English copy with the key that appears only on one page of the book and is never used. Anyway, the point is it was much more exciting reading it with someone else, Suzie was always three pages ahead of me so I would hear her gasp and say things under her breath along the lines of "No way!" a minute or two before I did the same.
Yeah, I liked Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code (the first one especially as I read it in Rome) so I was really glad that this one came out just in time for my trip to America- a trip that involved 8 seperate flights (last one tomorrow). It was just as good as the other two- if you like that sort of thing- we especially liked the No-Way!-Chapter three quarters of the way through, and the Phew!-Chapter fifty pages afterwards!

Dark City (1998)

It looked and felt like Brazil(1985) except more polished, unfortunately there was not one joke in the whole film. Keifer Sutherland was doing a camp impression of Peter Lorre so that was sort of funny, but not really... I felt as though I'd seen the story a hundred times, though at first it was ridiculously confusing. But I hadn't read a description so I had no idea what it was about- I had no idea what it was about for a whole hour!

I like Rufus Sewell and he was definitely handsome in this film and Jennifer Connelly was gorgeous, remember she used to be so lovely and pale and not-anorexic!

But in the end you can sort of tell the caliber of a film when the bad guys walk in and they're Richard O'Brien and Ian Richardson.

Ho hum.