The Interview

Outer office, lavatory, inner office, secretary.

Executives waiting, idle conversation, called in one by one to form a committee of sorts in the surprising end, one of their number lost his wife on a Munich weekend (“boating accident”), the last interviewee.

Thrills Galore

Handheld camera, London pub, “bloody cold” Sunday afternoon, the regulars.

Nothing ever happens, over and over again, like the joke in Marty multiplied and disseminated amongst the crowd.

A virtuoso turn, for all that.

Krapp’s Last Tape

The sweating, constipated old man certainly goes into Osborne’s Luther, with his storm and companionship.

Portrait of the artist as a mad old man, very restless, seething, calming down into the dingle briefly at the close, caught in his dilemma finally.

The ecstatic, joyful “spool” is followed by Krapp’s long study, taking it all in, broken with rage briefly but keenly attentive, hardly moving, until criticism gets the better of him.

It is always the same.

Patrick Magee’s afflicted walk is one of the many entertainments.

The Country Wife

Who comes to town with her very cautious husband Pinchwife and falls in love with a gallant named Horner who has given out that he is impotent the better to steal upon female society.

The town wit Sparkish and Pinchwife’s sister give another view of London and environs.

Cedric Messina produced, magnificent scrupulous settings and costumes, Helen Mirren, Anthony Andrews, Bernard Cribbins, Ciaran Madden, Michael Cochrane, Adrienne Corri as Lady Fidget, and so on, exceedingly well-directed by McWhinnie on the principle that as a general thing the actors should not carry the play but vice versa, there is great business for the cast nevertheless in a play and performances as funny as anything, the letter-writing scene (centrally composed as one of several long takes) is remarkable above all in that respect among many.