The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
A Stingray in the Brexit tale
Iwasn’t going to mention the “B” word this week, I really wasn’t. Then the ordure hit the air conditioning with a vengeance, threatening all kinds of uproar, gloom and despondency, only to descend into the kind of rollicking farce that would be rib-ticklingly funny if our individual and national lives, livelihoods and futures didn’t depend on it.
Anything can happen in the next half hour, it seems, to quote the portentous voice-over from the 1960s puppet series Stingray.
And it says a lot about our parlous politics when the best way to try to describe what is happening around us at the moment is to quote ancient and venerable TV classics. See above. Even would-be coup leader Jacob Rees-Mogg (at the time of writing) can’t quite manage his own personal Night of the Long Knives because not enough of his fellow Tory MPs are prepared to stop dithering long enough to deliver so much as a paper-cut, in the form of a strongly-worded letter to the 1922 Committee, to the reputation of PM Theresa May. Such antics have been described as worthy of that 50-year-old favourite, Dad’s Army, ironically now gracing our screens again in this time of national need and uncertainty.
Mr Rees-Mogg has even ingratiatingly remarked that he has always admired Captain Mainwaring. It’s just a pity that he’s coming over as more of a Private Pike (“Stupid boy!”).
Say what you like about Theresa May; she has played a very bad hand of cards – partly of her own making via some lamentable errors of judgement – but has at least put those cards on the table and dared her opponents to come up with anything they think might work better. Which so far they have signally failed to do.
As a Remainer who nevertheless accepts that we have to leave the EU, I’m almost past caring. But if I were a Leave voter and one of their constituents, I’d be battering on their office doors like Fred Flintstone yelling: “Wilma !!!! ” and asking them what the hell they think they’re doing. There we are. Back to the 1960s cartoons again. You couldn’t make it up.
Meanwhile, I was sad to read this week of the death of William Goldman, writer of scripts for film classics such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Marathon Man and All the President’s Men. And, of course, The Princess Bride, one of the great subversive fairy tales of all time. Obviously, someone back in 1987 knew star quality when they saw it because the spirited heroine was Robin Wright, currently playing US president Claire Underwood in House of Cards, a woman so ruthless, she did down her own husband to grab power.
The Princess Bride’s top-notch ensemble cast included some of the most talented purveyors of elegant comic timing you are ever likely to see – Billy Crystal, Peter Falk, Carol Kane, Wallace Shawn, Peter Cook, Mel Smith and the unforgettable duo of wrestlerturned-actor Andre the Giant and Mandy Patinkin as the depressed Spanish swordsman Inigo Montoya.
Then there was another great double act in the shape of Chris Sarandon as slimy Prince Humperdinck and Mr Jamie Lee Curtis (and peer of the realm), Christopher Guest, as his sinister six-fingered sidekick. If you ever saw him as the hilariously gormless Nigel Tufnel in the spoof rock move Spinal Tap, you could imagine that such a comic performance could never be bettered. Until you saw him as Count Rugen, delivering the line to his evil master: “If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got…anything…” You have to see it, trust me. Mere written words will not suffice to demonstrate its magnificence.
And speaking of rock movies, which we were, if peripherally, I finally got round to seeing Bohemian Rhapsody last week. It may have had a somewhat lukewarm reception from the critics but as a Queen fan of many years standing – as a 17-year-old, I was blown away by Seven Seas of Rhye in 1974 – I absolutely loved it. I remember watching Queen’s scene-stealing Live Aid performance in 1985 and the reworking, move by move and note by note, of much of that scenario for this film, was nothing short of genius.
Complaints that the full story of the wild life and times of Mercury wasn’t sufficiently hard-hitting surely aren’t the point. This wasn’t meant to be a documentary; liberties were obviously taken to cram various dramatic moments into the running time but it hardly whitewashed his lifestyle though much of it was suggested rather than spelled out.
Even my other half shed a tear and came out raving about it and he’s a man whom much of popular music culture has passed by.
I understand that the American Academy has now shelved plans for a category to include films popular with the public rather than those voted for by trade insiders. I doubt if Bohemian Rhapsody will be regarded as Academy Award fodder. Which is a great pity. Because if Rami Malek doesn’t get at least an Oscar nomination – let alone an Oscar – for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury, there is no justice.
I’d be battering on their doors like Fred Flintstone yelling: “Wilma !!!! ”