FILM - TV - BOOK AND ART REVIEWS
 BY JEANNE MONK

Linney, who plays Wendy,  was born in New York City, studied at the Julliard School and first came to prominence in the public television mini-series >Tales of the City=.  She has since been in several notable films.  Her wonderful timing, facial expression on film and excellent voice left a mark on my memory, particularly as Sarah in >Love Actually= where she excelled as a woman torn by being the dutiful sister to her mentally ill brother and having a life of her own.  In >The Savages=, Linney says: AFamily=s complicated - always has been and always will be.  But this story takes on a family issue that really hasn=t been dealt with.  Ultimately, the only thing you can do is enjoy the relationships while you have them and not take them for granted, which can be difficult because family, especially this family, is so complicated.@  A learning curve for all.      

By Jeanne Monk

ITV1 presents a brand new daytime medical drama, ‘The Royal Today’ in January 2008. The back drop for this gritty, realistic new drama serial is the established hospital, St Aidan’s Royal Free Hospital, made famous by one of ITV’s flagship shows, ‘The Royal’. Whilst ‘The Royal’ is set in the 1960s, ‘The Royal Today’ fast forwards almost 40 years to modern day Britain and life working in the NHS in 2008.

Fiona Black, Line Producer, says she is hugely excited having watched all the forthcoming episodes and having a daytime audience which is unique. The writers of the drama are Sarah Bagshaw, Mark Holloway, Patrick Melanaphy, Darren Fairhurst, Jonathan Rich and Chris Parker. Executive Producer is Keith Richardson and Co-Executive Producer is Ken Horn.

Best Actor award nominee Paul Nicholas for his role as Vince in ‘Just Good Friends’ (also of musical fame in ‘Hair’, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, ‘Grease’ as well as numerous TV work and film credits) plays head consultant surgeon, Mr Woods. Arrogant, intolerant and strict, Woods does not suffer fools gladly but is an excellent surgeon of the old school and his patients are always in good hands. Beneath his gruff exterior, however, he has real affection for his coven of female staff, although he would never admit it. Nicholas says: "It’s great to be involved in something that is brand new. I have never been involved in a medical drama and I was very keen to get with it and do it." When asked whether he based his character on anyone in particular, he said: "I suppose the closest to being a professional was my father who was a lawyer. I am a bit of a perfectionist anyway. It was useful for me when we went on a tour of St James Hospital in Leeds to watch real surgeons at work."

As to what makes his character tick, Nicholas replied: "I think there is a soft side to him which he doesn’t like to reveal too often. After all, he is the top guy in his field, dedicated to the work and keen to instruct." I asked Nicholas whether it was no bad thing for a surgeon to have a ‘bedside manner’ to put people at their ease? He laughed and said: "You have to be careful because you cannot get emotionally involved with patients, but there should be a certain amount of care shown. When a surgeon performs an operation, they totally dissociate themselves from the person and I find we do that on set. I am sure surgeons do get emotional sometimes though, especially if they are working on a child, or if they lose someone."

Regular cast members’ Andrew Scarborough, Mark Wells, Kirsty Mitchell, Victoria Pritchard, amongst others, also star.

Mark Wells, who plays triage nurse Kieran Marwood, says: "Because there are so many episodes, it feels like you are doing five plays in eight days! It’s ‘on your toes’ acting. I have done 12 scenes in day, but it’s helped by good scripts and I love it."

SLEUTH

I first met British actor, Sir Michael Caine, CBE back in 1992 when he was writing his autobiography, ‘What’s It All About?’. A major international star, Sir Michael Caine’s versatile talent in more than 100 films has earned him many Golden Globe Best Actor Awards, British Academy Awards, Academy Award nominations as well as numerous other awards. Not only is he one of Britain’s best loved and favourite actors, but he is a perceptive businessman and entrepreneur and, of course, a very fine actor.

In 1972, Sir Michael played Milo Tindle (an aspiring out of work actor) in Anthony Shaffer’s screen adaptation of ‘Sleuth’ directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Sir Michael played opposite Laurence Olivier who played a wealthy writer of detective stories. Having watched the film myself all those years ago, I thought what a great story it was and how teaming Sir Michael opposite Olivier was quite brilliant. Not surprising, Sir Michael received an Academy Award nomination in Shaffer’s 1972 screen adaptation.

Now Sir Michael graces our screens again in a new film by Paramount Pictures UK of ‘Sleuth’ (released on 23 November 2007) which is directed by Kenneth Branagh with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. Pinter says: "It’s a totally new take. I had not either seen or read the play and I hadn’t seen the original film either, so I knew nothing about it. So, I simply read the play and I think it’s totally transformed. I have kept one or two plot things in because you have to but, apart from that, I think I have made it my own."

In this new film, Sir Michael plays the pathologically jealous detective writer out for revenge against his wife’s young lover (Jude Law). The writer’s exquisitely modernised Georgian manor becomes the backdrop for a cat and mouse game that pits one creative mind against the other. Sir Michael says he has waited a long, long time to be reunited with Harold Pinter. "Yes, I had done ‘The Room’ at The Royal Court which was Harold’s first play," recalls Sir Michael. "And then Harold became famous as a writer and I became one of his biggest fans, and then for 50 years I never got another chance to work with him. And I am going ‘wait a minute, I started this!"

"I would have never had made a remake of Tony Shaffer’s script" Sir Michael explains. "I felt Larry and Joe Mankiewicz and Tony and I did a perfectly good job with that script and there’s no point in remaking it. The attraction, however, was the Pinter script. It’s very, very different and Pinter has made it his own." He is also delighted to play opposite Law who he says is a very experienced movie actor.

Sir Michael, who is famous for his pragmatic approach, is quoted as saying: "John Wayne once advised me, talk low, talk slow and don’t talk too much. And then I went and made ‘Sleuth’ " referring to the original film version. (Quote taken from Hallwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion, 11^th edition). Sir Michael says: "I haven’t seen ‘Sleuth’ since I made it, and I didn’t look backwards on it at all," says Sir Michael. "But I remember that Olivier played it - and played it fantastically - as this very dangerous eccentric. I’m playing it based on the syndrome of morbid jealousy so while Larry was a dangerous eccentric, I am a murderous psychotic. Larry was probably more fun and this is quite a bit scarier."

(Sleuth will be available on DVD this Spring).

The recent Sunday Times Culture Magazine, in its preview of the best TV coming up in 2008, stated that ‘The Last Enemy’, to be shown shortly on BBC One (a Box TV production) is a superior 5-part thriller starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Carlyle. "It’s all about the surveillance society stepping over a line" and as Gub Neal, its producer says: "It’s a near future story where the only way we can account for ourselves is through huge collections of personal data."

The drama is told through the eyes of Stephen Ezard (played brilliantly by Benedict Cumberbatch), a scientist who comes back to England after four years in China for the funeral of his brother (played by Max Beesley) - an aid worker killed in a landmine accident. There are three lead players - Benedict Cumberbatch, Anamaria Marinca, Max Beesley - who are joined by Geraldine James, David Harewood and Robert Carlyle at his most menacing as the mysterious Russell, as well as other great cast members.

In talking to the cast, Benedict says the programme is about "cold technology, a fascinating topic. It’s a challenging part and I think the writing is really gripping. My character is not conventional, which I like. He also has a compulsive disorder and, unlike his brother, went off to China to find another family whereas his brother wanted to embrace the world and became an aid worker."

Peter Berry, writer of ‘The Last Enemy’ says: "The two brothers are very different individuals. We went back as far as their parents and how there was a difference in the ways they reacted. Stephen Ezard wants to preserve his individuality by not getting involved with the world around him, whereas his brother Michael Ezard wants to embrace the world and help people."

Benedict continues: "The relationship my character has with his brother is split apart. Stephen is an extreme opposite to his brother. He has to overcome his obsessiveness and his quirky and awkward ways."

Not exactly Big Brother is watching you, ‘The Last Enemy’ focusses on a super-database called TIA (Total Information Awareness) which brings together all records on individuals in a bid to target potential threats and the information is linked to an individual’s ID card.

Peter Berry draws on an analogy made by Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty:

"She said that if you throw live frogs into a pan of boiling water, they will sensibly jump out and save themselves. If you put them in a pan of cold water and gently apply heat until the water boils, they will lie in the pan and boil to death. Is it me, or is it hot in here?!"

Everyone has a story to tell and this one is definitely worth telling.

By Jeanne Monk, Jeanne Monk Associates. Copyright Jeanne Monk © 2008. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be heavily sub-edited, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner, Jeanne Monk.