Thinking Fast and Slow, Book by Daniel Kahnemann,Paperback Edition, Penguin Books (May 2012) 8* out of 10

In an outstanding and highly influential book written for an audience uninitiated in the dark arts of Psychology and the dismal (social) science of Economics, Daniel Kahnemann the godfather of behavioural economics shares his insights from the decades of his research into the human mind. 

Psychologists by training and profession, Daniel Kahnemann and his friend and colleague, the late Amos Twersky, have made an important contribution to the field of Economics for which Kahnemann received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. As the prize is not awarded posthumously, Amos Twersky who died in 1995 did not receive it.

Kahnemann gives an overview of the research on professional career, so the reader gets an insight into a lifetime's research into the human mind in action: solving problems, making decisions, experiencing pleasure and pain and remembering these experiences.

Kahnemann and Twersky focused their sharp minds on what human beings get wrong. And indeed they discover, name and classify the most common mistakes our minds are designed to make over and over again, this being downside of the mind being extremely well adapted to some other functions. Most notably human lack a good intuitive sense for the laws of statistics. I for one was happy for having additional excuse for being no good at Statistics. Additionally we love to combine a very few facts that are available to our memory at any moment into coherent pleasing stories. Unfortunately very coherent and pleasing stories intuitively built on such foundations cannot only be produced by us most prolifically and quickly they mostly turn out to be false. I found this finding initially very disappointing and later on as Kahnemann produces his compelling arguments and illustrations quite annoying. Surprisingly for a factual book, My emotions became quite heavily engaged as Kahnemann illustrates how good I am at fooling myself and how difficult it is to stop doing this even once I know the ways in which my mind is vulnerable to misconceptions about the world out there. I guess what annoyed me was the realisation that I am just as prone to all these mistakes as the average participants in his experiment. In fact confidence in your abilities and experience can be truly turbo-charge ones propensity to get things wrong and persist in ones erroneous ways!

Kahnemann's book is very accessible when he explains what happens when people try to solve problems or make decisions. There are two modes of thinking the fast, intuitive mode and the slow effortful deliberative mode. It is the fast intuitive mode that is constantly active, eager to jump to conclusions and develop plausible, entertaining and satisfying explanations and stories out of very few facts. The slow thinking effortful ode of thinking comes into action when it s clear that effort is required or when we sense that the conclusions of the fast mode of thinking need to be checked.

The result of all this is that human beings are prone to make mistakes when trying to solve problems that feel very easy, but are slightly trickier than they look, We are also prone to take decisions in a way that is inconsistent with what we actually want. What Kahnemann explains is that our errors and less than rational decision making is not totally random and wild, but actually quite systemic and predictable. They have names such as availability heuristic, anchoring and base rate fallacy. As a result his more fallible Human is able to replace the rational Econ, which is the simplified model of the decision maker.

For fans of the crew of the Starship Enterprise, before Kahnemann, Economics is based on the model of a person behaving like the character “Data” highly rational and intelligent, not subject to emotion, after Kahnemann, Economics can work with a model of a human being that is more like Captain Picard, just as intelligent but subject to emotions and inconsistencies in his choices. Many economists see this as great and valuable progress, others think that incorporating an emotional systematically inconsistent rather than a coldly rational person as the base model for their research may cost more than the benefits it brings. But right now Behavioural Economics is “hot” in Economics, business and policy making. With influential books such as “Nudge” by Thaler and Sunstein and “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely making it to the top of the best-seller lists.

Kahnemann's presentation is very effective as he let's the reader participate in his experiments. Thus we learn from our own actions how easily we mislead ourselves when an expert in human behaviour “pushes the right buttons”. For example: A bat and a ball together cost GBP1.10. The bat cost GBP 1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

Unfortunately, even once we have been made aware of the mistakes we are prone to make we are likely to repeat them when confronted with similar problem. Knowledge does however help us to recognize these mistakes more easily when others make them. Depending on our temperament, we can then enjoy catching them out, or help them recognize the error.

Kahnemann's agenda in presenting the book is to let the concepts that are crucial to his theories and discoveries flow into the daily office gossip as the water cooler and the coffee machine when we comment on the behaviour of others. He ends each chapter of his book with some helpful suggestions in this regard.

Thinking Fast and Slow covers a lot of ground. It gives us some insight not only into Kahnemann and Twersky's findings, but also their method of working:daily long walks where they discussed their ideas and hypotheses. It also tells us how some research can emanate from a family argument about moving to California or a visit to the Opera House to see La Traviata.

Most recently Kahnemann has been involved in research about what factors promote well being (he prefers this term to “Happiness”). Here again he shares very valuable insights, for instance, the difference between the experiencing pleasure and pain when an event happens and when we remember it.

Kahnemann's book is a great read with many insights. At times, particularly when an understanding of probability theory and statistics comes into it, it can be quite difficult, requiring a lot of effortful thinking, which can lead to quite a bit of “ego depletion” a state in which you find it difficult to pay attention and inappropriately give free reign to a more lazy fast thinking mode. As this state is connected with a decrease in glucose level, it can be improved by munching on a piece of high quality chocolate. That way even the more difficult passages of this book can bring happiness to the reader.

Daniel Kahnemann

Amos Twersky s"l

A Slow Air, play by David Harrower, at the Tricycle Theatre, London, 8* out of 10

At the beginning of the "noughties", I learnt much of what I know about the extraordinary human strength that can be found in ordinary families. I did this by moving to the Netherlands to become father, cook and in house tutor to my (step)children and husband to my (now late wife). Thus I was playing my part in allowing her to pursue her career as a lecturer and her fight for high standards in Holland's education system. Amsterdam,  as a media-city also provided me with vicarious learning opportunities through its inventiveness in TV reality-show concepts. I was, of course, high- browedly dismissive of the lot, while being simultaneously unable to resist their fatal attraction.

One of my favourites was “family dinner”, where the presenter would try to organise a dinner between two family-members who, after a dispute of some kind or for whatever other reason no one could remember had broken-off contact with each other. Sometimes the presenter's valiant attempt ended in disaster, often in a joyfully tearful reunion. While making numerous ironic comments, I , like millions of others sitting in front of their television screens, would feel tingles go down my spine as another long lost family-pair were again talking to each other after many years of silence. 

So in getting my tickets for David Haroower's play A Slow Air, I did not need convincing that the true stories about what goes on in ordinary families make compelling raw material for comedy and drama.  I was not disappointed:  David Harrower shows how the trials and tribulations of an ordinary family can be made into an intelligent and  multifaceted piece of story-telling on stage.

Athol, who runs a small building business, is in his fifties. With their grown up children out of the house, he and his wife Evelyn have moved from Glasgow to the West of Scotland. Morna, Athol's sister, is cleaner for an upper middle-class family in Edinburgh. Her son Joshua studies art and design. Morna and Athol were quite close once but after an incident between them they have had no contact with each other for 14 years.

In this two-hander Athol and Morna take it in turns to tell us what happened next. What follows is a sequence of soliloquies in which a story is told to the audience as it would be to a friend over a glass of smooth whisky. Who will be the hero or the villain of this story and will it end in tears; tears of rage or tears of joy?

David Harrower is a gifted, Olivier Award winning playwright who has fitted the story telling style perfectly to the personalities of each of the two protagonists which emerge as the story evolves. His use of language is  natural and straightforward and at the same time has rhythm and poetry, a sort of gentle Scottish rap. The more it developed the more the audience wanted to hear the story. Attention did not flag for a moment from beginning to end. 

Susan Vidler plays Morna gives a very fine performance as a woman whose teenage mistakes have shaped her life. Lewis Howden simply is Athol. You would love to have him as your builder - or your brother.

A very good evening at the theatre for audiences of various ages. Harrower has written an accessible play and this production deserves a full house.

http://www.tricycle.co.uk/current-programme-pages/theatre/theatre-programme-main/a-slow-air/

A SLOW AIR

by David Harrower

PRODUCTION

Director: David Harrower

Designer: Jessica Brettle

Lighting Designer: Dave Shea

Composer: Daniel Padden

Cast:

Lewis Howden

Susan Vidler

Misterman, play written and directed by Enda Walsh, National Theatre. Lyttleton, London, 9* out of 10

Thomas Magill (Cillian Murphy) is an eccentric outsider who  lives in the village of Innishfree in the Irish countryside,where he looks after his frail, elderly mother. When he leaves his house for errands, the mission he believes has been assigned to him - by a beautiful Angel sent from God - is to watch over the good people of Innishfree and make them repent for their sinful lives. Like a conscientious local reporter, Thomas commits everyone's misdeeds to paper and to the tapes of his portable cassette recorder. His neighbours are none to pleased. What begins as harmless banter between the self-appointed guardian of good morals and the other villagers gradually takes a more sinister turn.


Misterman was first performed in 1999. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is reported to have said:“You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.”  This is not much different with this play which in 2012 comes to us in a new context. We saw it in a week where the narcissistic Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik explained to his judges that he was on a sacred mission to save the future of Norway. In its service he claimed that he had to override all empathy for his fellow human beings, however hard he may have found it. 


In Misterman, Walsh gives us some insight into the mind of the loner who develops an obsession and how he is perceived treated or ignored by those around him; at some point such an obsessed person can turn into a mildly annoying or perhaps even lovable eccentric, who adds to the diversity of village life; Or such a person can turn into a perpetrator of brutal acts, beyond our comprehension.


Enda Walsh's beautifully observed play melds comedy, drama and pathos into a coherent whole which holds the attention of the audience from beginning to end. There can be no interval in this 90 minute play. Its impact is impressively reinforced by the set, a large disused manufacturing plant, and by the lighting with its neon symbols of Catholicism. The vast set reflects and amplifies the landscape of alienation and desolation of Tomas McGill's inner life. With Enda Walsh and Martin MacDonagh Ireland has given the English performing arts multi-talented story tellers, that can write and direct for the stage and film alike.


Beyond the excellent writing and the great set, it takes a brilliant actor to fill the stage and bring the story and its characters to life in this one-man play. Cillian Murphy's performance is mesmerising.  He is an actor whose talent shines on the stage and in film (for example as the evil Dr. Jonathan Crane in Batman begins). In this production at the Lyttleton, Cillian Murphy is truly outstanding. The rapturous applause from the full house was thoroughly deserved.


http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=69371

Headhunters (2011), Film directed by Morten Tyldum based on the novel by Jo Nesbø, 7* out of 10

“Short people got nobody
Short people got nobody
Short people got nobody
To love


They got little baby legs
That stand so low
You got to pick em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That go beep, beep, beep
They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time
Well, I don't want no short people”


from Short People, music an lyrics by Randy Newman


In 1977 the still brilliantly active singer-songwriter Randy Newman brought out his album “Little Criminals” with contained the controversial song “Short People”. As Newman saw it, the lyrics were written from the point of view of a maniacal bigot prejudiced against short people. As the song became a hit, Newman ended up hating it, since the irony of its original intent had got lost on a great number of its fans. 


The narrator and hero of Headhunters, Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie), is 1m68cm (5 ft 6 inches) tall. He makes it clear to us in the first scenes that compensating for lack of physical height is key to understanding what drives him. Yet there is more to him than meets the eye. Senior Executive Search Consultant in the morning, burglar of paintings in the afternoon, he is constantly in financial trouble. The reasons his expenses consistently exceed his not inconsiderable income are many. There is Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund), the tall attractive trophy-wife whose new art-gallery he has to finance, the designer house with the its stylish interior in the Norwegian countryside, the big powerful luxury coupe and last not least the made to measure suits. 


Diana introduces Roger to Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), the tall and handsome ex-elite soldier turned ex-Chief Executive Officer of a high-tech defence firm. Greve has just taken early retirement, but Roger sees his chance to earn a big fee for tempting him back into a new high tech firm. As luck has it Greve also is the owner of a valuable painting that captures Roger's moonlighting-job interest, too. In two fell swoops, Roger's financial problems might be over; but if all this seems too good to be true, that maybe so, because it is. From here the plot develops into a quite entertaining thriller with a bit of sex and violence ( against people as well as a dog) and a considerable number of twists and turns. 


Scandinavian crime novels, films and TV series are in fashion: There is Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, Henning Mankell's Wallander series and the recent Danish television offerings The Killing and Borgen. And now the Norwegian bestseller writer Jo Nesbø has moved in where Swedish and Danish creatives have shown the way. Headhunters is the first of his books to make it to the silver screen and international release.


The problem with Headhunters is that the plot seems to be constructed first and then peopled by the characters. The transition of scenes from hard hitting realism to comedy is not very well handled and often leaves the viewer a bit unpleasantly confused. It's not that easy to identify with any of the characters and their predicaments. Having said that, Headhunters has its moments, the plot its twists and turns and, all in all, they do make this thriller quite watchable.


http://www.magpictures.com/headhunters/

Les Intouchables (France 2011), Film written and directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, 8* out of 10

In his latest book, The Upside of Irrationality, the rising star in the field of behavioural economics, Professor Dan Ariely, quotes research on the psychological phenomenon of adaptation. People who had an accident that left them in a wheelchair and others who has just won a large prize in a lottery fill in surveys about their personal happiness. Initially subjective happiness of the lottery winner and the unhappiness of the injured people are - as one would expect- far apart. A year later there is still a significant difference, but the result is much closer. The explanation for this is the phenomenon of human adaptation, both to positive and negative events in people's lives. A powerful way in which nature has equipped us with the ability to cope.


Philippe (François Cluzet) is a successful entrepreneur who has become tetraplegic. He is interviewing candidates for the position of in-house carer. Driess (played by the French/Senegalese rapper Omar Sy), a petty criminal from the Paris banlieues is among the candidates. He hopes to be rejected so that he can continue to collect unemployment benefit. The last thing he wants to be is a carer for a tetraplegic. But he finds himself taken on for a trial period. From unpromising beginnings the relationship between the demanding employer and his troublesome new employee evolves to offer unanticipated opportunities and problems for both parties. Will it change them for good or just be a passing episode before each returns to their life before they met?


The plot for this film provides an unlikely  premise for a feel-good comedy-drama let alone the cult film of the year in France where 52% of French adults have seen it in the cinema. Les Intouchables (The Intouchabes) has also become an unexpected hit outside the French-speaking world, subtitles and all.


Les Intouchables is based on a true story. It is very well written and the writer/directors present the story with humour and intelligence so that this film holds the audience interest. It is a moving film that never resorts to pathos. Strong performances by Cluzet and Sy add to this enjoyable mix. Definitely worth a visit.




http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675434/

Young Adult, Film written by Diablo Cody, directed by Jason Reitman, starring Charlize Theron, 8* out of 10

Mavis Gary lives in Minneapolis and is a writer of a series of Young Adult fiction, appearing under a more famous person's name. Recently divorced, she lives in an apartment for singles in a sad high rise block. When she is told that the young adult novel she is working on will be the last in the series she faces decline into drink, unemployment and a generally sad and lonely life. 


But Mavis finds some resources from her past as the coolest girl in her small town high school. Rather than give in to impending doom, she decides that her now married high school sweetheart, who has just invited her and other friends to celebrate the birth of his first child, is the man she should have married.  Inspired by the romantic optimism of the young adult fiction she writes, Mavis decides that with a bit of positive thinking and pizazz, this oversight can still be fixed. Convinced that obstacles are there to be overcome, she sets out to her old home town to conquer her man and live happily ever after.


What makes Young Adult stand out from the usual fare of romantic comedy/drama coming out of Hollywood, is the ironic and sometimes sarcastic look at American stereotypes. The flawed character of the main protagonist played with great gusto by Oscar winner Charlize Theron is a well written woman's role. There is a talented supporting cast, too.


This is a comedy with bite and a refreshing disdain for political correctness. For those who appreciate that sort of thing, it all adds up to a fiendishly enjoyable evening at the movies.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1625346/ 

Coriolanus, Film directed by Ralph Fiennes, screenplay John Logan from the play by William Shakespeare 8* out of 10

William Shakespeare's play Coriolanus tells the story of the professional soldier Caius Martius. When the people of Rome take to the streets after their grain stores have been emptied he shows his contempt for the people who do not serve in the military and is prepared to use force rather than negotiation to ensure order returns to the streets. He despises the people and shows it too; he does not have a high opinion of his political masters either. 


An external enemy the Volscians led by Caius Martius' personal arch-enemy Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler) wants to use this opportunity to conquer Rome. Gaius Martius comes to the rescue and at his own initiative leads a raid on the Volscian city of Corioles. 


For his crucial role in the victory over the Volscians at Corioles, the government of Rome bestows on him the title “Coriolanus”. 
Coriolanus' mother, Volumina (Vanessa Redgrave), who has great influence on him, now encourages him to run for the office of Consul of the Roman Republic. He easily wins the support of the Senate. It is not his charisma or his political connections that brought him to the top but his his deeds and sense of duty. Believing he merits being Consul, he shows his contempt for a system in which the people (plebs) have a say in consular appointments. This makes him enemies of the Tribunes who represent the people. His bid for the consulship is rejected and Coriolanus is banned from Rome. Furious about having been scorned, he enters an alliance with his former enemies the Volscians and in particular with his former arch-enemy Tullus Aufidius. He starts a campaign against Rome providing crucial assistance and military leadership to the Volscian troops against his home country Rome. 


Director Ralph Fiennes, who also plays the title role, and writer John Logan have transported the action from Roman times into a near present, with the feel of the Balkans of the early 1990s, modern weaponry and 24 hour news-channels included. This works well. Indeed, one of the more comedic touches is to have Jon Snow, the actual anchorman of the UK's Channel 4 News programme, deliver narration and interviews in Shakespearian style.  The war scenes are spectacular and realistic and the contrast with the formal language of another age is handled very well by the excellent ensemble of actors.  The themes ambition, wounded pride, meritocracy and. democracy, soldier against politician and a mother's sometimes pernicious influence on her son are brought out very well.  


With his first film as a director, Ralph Fiennes convinces with a clear and thought-provoking version of the Shakespeare play. Without compromising on the language, he manages to convey the story line clearly through intelligent direction keeping a modern cinema audience, that may otherwise struggle with the classic theatre text, glued to the big silver-screen. Quite an achievement.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1372686/

The Descendants, Film directed by Alexander Payne, starring George Clooney, 6* out of 10

The Descendants is a film with the kind of story some find difficult to watch because it stirs up painful memories. Five years ago my wife was diagnosed with a recurrence of a cancer that had been held at bay for more than 11 years. Within 8 weeks of the diagnosis she died with great dignity. She made use of the Dutch law on assisted suicide and so she died probably a couple of weeks ahead of the time she would have without the assistance she requested and received from her doctors. My two children where left with me, their step father. We decided that the three of us would carry on as best we could. After five years it can be said that "as best we could" has turned out well. But there were truly shaky beginnings, mainly due to my difficulties in accepting my new reality; but we stuck together and got there eventually.


In The Descendants, Matt King (George Clooney) is the father of two teenage girls. Elizabeth, his wife is lying in a coma after a boating accident. She has left a living will to switch off her life support machine, if it becomes clear that there is no chance of recovery. In the beginning, there is still slim hope that she might recover, but a dawning certainty that she won't. Matt has to step into the role of a father which he has always neglected and increasingly, he'll have to perform traditionally motherly duties as well. He now finds out from his daughter Alexandra that his wife was in an extramarital relationship shortly before her accident. His wife's best friend lets him know that Elizabeth was planning to leave him. Father and daughter are shocked by this revelation and decide to find and confront Elizabeth's lover.


In his professional life, Matt King is lawyer who has to deal with some important business. He and his cousins hail from a Hawaiian princess and Matt administers a trust on behalf of all her descendants. He has the final say of what to do with the beautiful valuable piece of land on the island of O'ahu, which the trust owns. The descendants plan to sell it to a land-developer who will turn it into a high class tourist resort. This will make Matt and his cousins, who are mostly keen on the deal, very rich; but how to weigh his and their material interest against what the other people living on on the Island want? 


Ideally the different strands of the story should make the whole more than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, though,  they overload the story. The result is that the drama of coping with the loss of a mother and a life partner ends up being overshadowed by the extramarital affair and the resolution of the trust. Perhaps the characters seek refuge in these aspects because the core drama of their lives is just to painful to deal with without those distractions.


The strongest scenes of the film are when the tension between Matt and his father-in-law, Scott Thorson (Robert Forster) come to the fore. Scott is the most visibly grief stricken person in Elizabeth's surrounding and blames Matt's reluctant attitude to make use of his inheritance to have contributed to Elizabeth's accident. Between him and Matt there is a rawness and a realization that as grandfather and father of Elizabeth's daughters, they will have to go on coping with each other even though there is no love lost between them. Shailene Woodley's performance as the elder daughter, Alexandra,  marks her out as a talented young actress with a promising future career.


Films involving George Clooney always have wit and quality to commend them. That is the case here too, but not enough. Therefore, this is one of Clooney's weaker films with a rather flat acting performance. As a card-carrying liberal, liberal in the American usage of the word that is, he will no doubt been glad for this opportunity to convey some not so subtle political messages too, such as: Inheriting a choice piece of Hawaiian real estate, when you have green leanings, is a heavy responsibility. Even if real estate speculation can make you rich, putting the beautiful unspoilt landscape before profits is the right thing to do and will make you happier than the money you'll get selling it. People in Hawaii, although they wear loud shirts, walk on sandals and live in a paradisical island, have big troubles too. They are just as human, nice and, indeed, American as people in Atlanta or any where else on the American mainland. President Obama, of course, was born on Hawaii. So this message carries political weight, particularly in a year of US presidential elections.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1033575/

The Kreutzer Sonata, Play by Nancy Harris, adapted from Leo Tolstoy, Gate Theatre, London, 8* out of 10

When I was a young child I spent many hours travelling by train with my mother between Salzburg in Austria and Zurich in Switzerland. The mountain scenery is beautiful in all seasons. But what I remember most was the embarrassment I felt, when my mother with slight Polish accent would seek to begin a conversation with other people in the compartment, who would be reading a book or otherwise signalling that they were not up for conversation. The embarrassment invariably changed into amazement when within a very short time of this 8 hour journey, they would confide intimate details of their life to my mother as if she were their therapist and as if no one else was in the compartment.


I was reminded of all this, when Pozdynishev (Hilton McRae), the main character of The Kreutzer Sonata begins a conversation in a train compartment. Pozdynishev, a middle aged man, is not so much interested in listening, as in telling his story. It is a story of love, marriage, passion and rage whose stages evoke the andantes, allegros and crescendos of Ludwig van Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata.


Natalie Abrahami's production makes use of a great set design, film and video. Together with the live performance of parts of the The Kreutzer Sonata as the soundtrack to Pozdinyshev's storytelling skilfully enhance his monologue to make this a dramatic and exciting play. You can see it for a few more days in London after which it will transfer to La MaMa Etc. in New York from 8 to 25 March 2012.


http://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/the-kreutzer-sonata.aspx

The Iron Lady, Film, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, screenplay Abi Morgan, 7* out of 10

According to a recent longitudinal study mental deterioration due to ageing starts rather earlier than previously believed. Already at the age of 46 small but measurable deterioration in mental performance can be detected. All the subjects of the study were civil servants, so there is a slim hope for the rest of us that this finding may reflect a professional hazard that applies only to people who believe their defined benefit pensions are secure.

In any event, like the rest of us, people whose careers led them to the exercise of considerable power during their active working life have higher life expectancy than their predecessors of old. Therefore in increasing numbers, they too will suffer from the various illnesses that befall us in old age. Prime Ministers are no exception and when dementia befalls a famous, formidable and controversial leader such as Margaret Thatcher the deterioration of their mental faculties evokes empathy and is painful to watch.

The Iron Lady is less a biopic about Margaret Thatcher than a moving story of how a powerful strong personality struggles with oncoming dementia. Due to the quality script by Abi Morgan, the strong performances by all the ensemble of actors and the outstanding performance by Meryl Streep this film would be just as powerful in its impact on the viewer, if its protagonist were an entirely fictional character rather than the imagined real one.

The fictional Margaret Thatcher of this script fights the onset of dementia with as much courage, common sense and determination as a person in her situation is able to muster. In the early stage of dementia she is portrayed as still self-aware and managing to stay true to herself. In order to try and hide the true extent of her condition from those near to her, she needs an imaginary close friend. She conjures up an imagined version of her deceased husband Dennis (played movingly by Jim Broadbent) to be her accomplice as no doubt he was all through her adult life until his death. Of course over time dementia will win out, but not quite yet: during the examination by her physician, whom she gives a taste of the Margaret Thatcher spirit.

Important points of her career are shown as flashbacks in her mind, based on the memories she has created.  These are of necessity one-sided, showing how she had to fight her way up from her modest family home to the upper echelons of the British political system. Other than Airey Neave, the colleagues in the Conservative Party whom the film shows either gutless, sitting on the fence, or ready to stab her in the back. The characters from the opposition and the British people do not play an important role in her imagination. For her "there is no such thing as society". It is determined individuals like her father that make good things happen. Her key role as Prime Minister, it seems is to remove obstacles that might hold such people back. As a leader she knows what she wants and the challenge is getting her male colleagues to run their departments in a manner loyal to her and her principles. For the British people, for every Brit one by one that is, she prescribes her unwavering personal philosophy of hard-work, fiscal rectitude and self reliance.The film reminds us of the considerable prejudice against working women and of the misogyny she had to overcome in her early political career.

The film makes no judgement on her politics or her decisions. It does not show the impact she had on the country and its people; it shows how she is impacted by people and events and how she reacts to the challenges of her career – always true to character – flaws and all.

In effect, this film is not at all about the right and wrongs of Margaret Thatcher's politics. It portrays with great human empathy all the members of Margaret Thatcher's family, particularly her daughter who suffers most from the prospect of her mother's unstoppable mental decline.

Personally, I would have preferred if this film had dealt with the life of a fictional character. The fact that it takes a real, living and still very controversial person as its protagonist detracts from its core subject matter. Nevertheless, as a film on the struggle with oncoming dementia and for Meryl Streep's outstanding performance in the title role, this film is still very much worth seeing.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007029/

Reasons to be Pretty, Play by Neil LaBute, Almeida Theatre, London, 8* out of 10

Neil LaBute's play Reasons to be Pretty gets off to an explosive start in a young couple's bedroom when Steph (Siân Brooke) confronts her boyfriend Greg (Tom Burke) about a remark he has made to his friend Kent (Kieran Bew) at work that day. Kent's pregnant wife Carly (Billie Piper) who works as a security guard at the CashCo supermarket with Kent and Greg, has overheard the remark and told Steph about it: Kent had gone on about a new “hot” young woman employee in Accounts and Greg had said that he finds Steph's face quite plain and yet is very content to be with her. Steph wants Greg to own up to what he said. She is angry and finds it unacceptable that he should not think her pretty. Is it worth making so much out of this kind of remark even if it were (objectively or subjectively) true?

Greg is a nice enough fellow who has settled into a comfortable routine. As a result of Steph's readiness to follow through on her feelings of hurt and anger towards him, he is shaken up. Taking a lead from her, he begins confronting his own complacency and lack of drive both in his friendships and in his professional life.

Reasons to be Pretty is a resolutely American Play. Its protagonists are average Americans (average not being an insult in this context in the USA) wanting something better for themselves, not just economically. But how will this play out?

LaBute is a master of capturing contemporary language in the intelligent, fiercely funny dialogues between his characters. With the character of Greg he has created a modern, intelligent male, who has to decide whether to see himself as the innocent victim of his girlfriend's exaggerated sensitivity or to look deeper and act. Will Greg be man enough to face this challenge?

The production by Michael Attenborough is fast paced and precise, the set by Soutra Gilmour is inventive, the music well chosen and integrated. As a result of the pregnancy of one of the actresses and based on suggestions from Attenborough, LaBute has rewritten parts of the play for this, its UK premier If anything this has enriched the play.

The four actors are excellent. Tom Burke as Greg gives an outstanding performance, and Siân Brooke movingly rises to the demands of a complex role. Definitely worth a visit to the Almeida.

http://www.almeida.co.uk/event/reasons

Carnage, Film, directed by Roman Polanski, written by Yasmina Reza, 8* out of 10

In their New York apartment, Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael (John C, Reilly) Longstreet host a meeting with another white upper middle-class couple, Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan (Christoph Waltz) Cowan. Their two teenage sons have come to blows with potentially costly dental cost consequences for one and possible exclusion from their prestigious private school for the other. In the age of truth and reconciliation commissions and mediation, Penelope Longstreet and Nancy Cowan have agreed to address the conflict in a most adult, civilised and conciliatory manner with no third parties involved. Their husbands go along with this, more or less enthusiastically. As the story begins, it appears that the couples have managed this process in textbook fashion. Having apparently achieved their objective, all that is left, is for their meeting to unwind. All four are however, a little bit too wound-up inside to part company without casually making a point or two.

The French writer Yasmina Reza gained international fame as the author of the play “Art”. In it four French yuppie male friends fall out over a modern painting which one of them has acquired. “Carnage”, based on her play "God of Carnage", is a worthy successor to Reza's first theatre hit. She is very skilled at holding up the mirror of irony to exactly the type of person who will go to see her plays or films. She does this with sharp wit and an empathic sense of humour. What drives us to perform such social acrobatics? Do we want to seem reasonable and civilized, so we can look at ourselves in the mirror with a self-satisfied air? Do we reluctantly believe we need to show our uncivilized, rude and violent teenage children how to deal with conflict the “right” way? Do we want to teach those other parents a lesson about how to bring up a child properly, while demonstrating to them that we did that; never mind if the awkward, sweaty intermediate result of our efforts does not look even to us like an unqualified success? Do we want to show our peers that our professional success is bigger than theirs, or, if it is not, that our cultural refinement is? Or do we really just want to do “the right thing”?

In this film, Yasmina Reza explores all these avenues. She does this without letting the story escape into absurdity and fantasy. Situations like this are very likely occur in real life and are already absurd enough.

All four members of the star cast give excellent performances without overdoing it. The non-American members of the cast, Kate Winslet (who is English) and Christoph Waltz (who is Austrian) successfully portray a New York power couple. Veteran film-maker Roman Polanski has weathered the most recent twists and turns of his private life without losing his well honed director's touch. He has produced a quality film and brought to bear his experience and his skill of letting the camera tell a story with wit and humour sometimes without the need for any dialogue whatsoever.

Carnage would work as well as an ensemble play as it does as a film. This ironic look at the wealthy New York liberal has been produced with a largely European creative team as a European film. The result is definitely worth seeing.

How The World Began, Play by Catherine Trieschmann, Arcola Theatre, London, 8 out of 10

Susan (Anna Francolini) is a young science teacher from New York City, soon to be single mother. The break up of her relationship and her impending motherhood have led her to take a position as a science teacher in the US bible belt in rural Kansas. One of Susan's new pupils is the 15 year old Micah (Perry Millward) who is an orphan living with a local childless man (Ciaran McIntyre) and his wife. Micah lost his mother to cancer and his stepfather in a recent tornado, which has devastated the rural area where he lives.

As a science teacher Susan is all too well aware of how she needs to teach her subject and deal with evolution theory while respecting the division between state and church as demanded by the US Constitution and implemented in Kansas state legislation on education. Yet Susan is also a woman with a personal views and a certain impulsiveness. When she makes a remark in the classroom that might be seen to offend religious sensibilities, Micah insists that she presents a public apology. A dark and threatening atmosphere develops around the relationship between teacher and pupil and ripples through the local community. Where will this end?
 

How the World Began takes a familiar controversy dealt with in reality, film, television and theatre in several creative endeavours. Some like the play turned into a film, Inherit The Wind with the unforgettable Spencer Tracy, are of high quality.

The great strength of Catherine Trieschmann's play is the emphasis on the personal, the genuine connection that she credibly establishes between Susan and Micah. The dialogues are intelligent and both Micah and Susan defend their positions and their dignity, but they do not put ideology first. What we see is an intelligent, high potential farm boy student with a troubled background in conflict with a science teacher. Susan wants to earn her money, get all her certificates she needs for teaching, get health insurance cover. But she also defends the ethos of the science teacher, while respecting the religious background from which her pupils come. And she is a talented teacher with a heart for her students. It is the presence of the human and relational dimension within a genuine political and ideological problem in the US education system that makes this a very good play.

The director keeps the play moving along and the performances move the audience. The UK is a country blessed with extraordinary creative talent in film and cinema. 

All three members of the How the World Began give an outstanding performance. The chemistry between Susan and Micah gives drama and emotion to the very intelligent dialogues. Perry Millward as Micah stands out with a performance that is worth the price of the ticket plus a donation to the Arcola building fund. How the World Began is excellent theatre and deserves a sell out run. 

Although my daughter may not be a representative sample,  this is a play that can reach a young adult/teenage audience. With this production of How The World Began the Arcola Theatre confirms its track record as a place to go in London to be moved, entertained and challenged to think by intelligent plays.

http://www.arcolatheatre.com/?action=showtemplate&sid=490

Tom Atkins presents the European Premiere of HOW THE WORLD BEGAN by Catherine Trieschmann
Director Des Kennedy
Designer Alyson Cummins
Lighting Designer Mark Howland
Sound Designer Paul Millen
Video Designer Ben Gutteridge
Cast: Anna Francolini, Ciaran McIntyre and Perry Millward

The Ides of March, Film directed by George Clooney, 7 out of 10

Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is a campaign manager for Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney), an aspiring US presidential candidate fighting the Democratic primary election in the crucial State of Ohio. Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Morris´ trusted friend and Campaign Director has brought the talented Meyers on board. His forte is handling the media aspects of the campaign. Meyers is a smooth operator and a realist; but he is also personally convinced that Morris' will make a great US President for the Democrats who'll be able to advance a liberal agenda. Morris' opponent, Senator Pullman, is a right-wing Democrat, whose campaign director Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) is experienced, clever and ruthless. As a high stakes strategic game develops between the two campaign management teams, the heady mix of adrenalin and testosterone, of alpha males and attractive power-struck interns, of sex and politics unfolds. The resulting fatal attraction will raise the question of character of the candidate and his political advisers. Meyers will find out the hard way what it means to be a key-player on the sharp end of a primary campaign. And soon he will have to decide. Should he abandon the chance to influence US policy at the highest level in order to avoid fighting dirty, or should he break his “ethics-barrier” in order to come out on top?
 

The title of the film refers to the story of Julius Caesar. In the Ides of March (15 March) of the year 44 B.C. a number of senators, former supporters of Julius Caesar, including his quasi-adopted son Brutus, carry out their conspiracy to end his political career by murdering him.

Based on the theatre play Farragut North by Beau Willimon, The Ides of March is an intelligent political drama with real suspense. The plot is straight-forward and some of its twists and turns too predictable to make this a truly outstanding film. Still it is realistic enough. and there is a good deal of substance in the storyline. The ethical issues raised here are good food for thought and discussion. The Ides of March is certainly worthy of George Clooney and on the level of excellent political drama of a film like Primary Colors or a television series like The West Wing. This gripping thriller is a must for those interested in the US politics. Competent direction complements very strong performances by an ensemble of outstanding actors. 


The charismatic Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine, Drive) confirms that he is an excellent actor, suitable for a wide range of roles. Quite an achievement for a young man sharing the screen with the likes of George Clooney, Philip Seymour-Hoffman and Paul Giamatti.

The rating system of my reviews has changed to allocate points out of 10, rather than the five * used previously, to be more informative on the rating. (0 is the worst possible rating and 10 is the best)

http://idesofmarch-movie.com/

We Need to Talk About Kevin, Film directed by Lynne Ramsay, 10 out of 10

In his recent book, which appeared in the US under the title “The Science of Evil” (UK title Zero Degrees of Empathy), the British neuroscientist Simon Baron-Cohen reports on results of his research on the brain. His empirical studies identified an “empathy-circuit” in the brain. Empathy is the ability to put oneself into the position of an other and sense what he feels. Studies on psychopaths, who have committed heinous crimes, show that their empathy circuits are absent or do not functio properly. They do not feel empathy with other people. Baron-Cohen finds zero degrees on his scale of empathy a more useful concept than the commonly used term evil. The lack of empathy could also occur temporarily, i.e. while in a rage. Moreover it could be focused on some people while empathy is shown towards others. Baron-Cohen's research points to a possible genetic component as the cause, but the evidence was as yet insufficient to draw the conclusion that there are identifiable groups of genes leading to absence of empathy, what we commonly call evil. Not everyone whose empathy circuit is disturbed turns into an evil criminal, though. Baron-Cohen is convinced that nurture can do a lot to mitigate nature.

We Need to Talk About Kevin, the film based on the book of the same name by the female writer Lionel Shriver. It is perhaps the ultimate nightmare of every educated, intelligent, no non-nonsense mother brilliantly captured on celluloid.

Eva (Tilda Swinton) lives on her own in a small very modest home. She is subjected to the furtive, hostile looks of her neighbours. Her house and car are doused in red paint every day. As the story moves between present and past we find out what the circumstances were that have led to the situation in which Eva finds herself.

A modern and rather independent woman working as a well known travel-writer she meets Franklin. They marry and have a son, Kevin. Kevin is more than a handful to his mother from the beginning. A crybaby who drives his mother to distraction. Even as a small child he is highly manipulative. From the youngest age he devotes his energy to probe the areas where he can provoke and hurt his mother. This also involves manipulating his father, his doctors and others with his charm and intelligence. The cruel psychological war he has unleashed on his mother escalates as he grows into a teenager.


Eva won't be defeated. She does not break down, stands up to Kevin and has another child. A less strong person would have broken down, sent him away or left, particularly since her husband is of no help to her in raising their son. There are moments when Eva loses it, but Kevin is not interested in the final victory. He wants the thrill of the escalating war on his mother, the one worthy target of his manipulative narcissistic obsession. How far will Kevin go in order to provoke his mother to give up on him?

Lynne Ramsay's script (written with Rory Kinnear) and outstanding direction tells this compelling tale brilliantly. Tilda Swinton's performance is among the best of 2011. Ezra Miller as the teenage Kevin is magnetic and the chemistry between Swinton and Miller makes the film a candidate for many prizes. This film is not advised for couples thinking of starting a family, though.

http://www.weneedtotalkaboutkevin.co.uk/

The Theatre of Life: Quasicrystals, the True Story of a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, starring Dan Shechtman, Professor of Applied Material Sciences at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa

April 8, 1982. Dan Shechtman is a young Israeli materials scientist on a one year sabbatical in the United States. He experiments with heating up metal compounds and cooling them down quickly. An area of the resulting cooled-down mass looks different from the rest. Dan examines it under the electron microscope. What he sees at the atomic level is a structure that contradicts everything that has been taught on the subject. And so he doubts his findings. He writes in his notebook in Hebrew “Ayn Chayah Kazo”: A beast like this does not exist. He carefully checks his experiments and his method. Finally, he concludes that as a result of his findings, chapter 1 of all the basic text-books on the structure of matter will have to be rewritten.

At the time of Dan Shechtman's discovery, the mainstream of scientists works with X-rays to examine molecular structures. And using X-ray technology the results Dan saw under the electron-microscope cannot immediately be confirmed. Rather than question the paradigm, which has prevailed in their field since 1912, Dan's colleagues decide to disbelieve and even ridicule him as a charlatan. The head of Shechtman's research group, a personal friend, gives him a copy of a beginners' textbook and tells him to read it carefully. When Shechtman persists, he is fired from his research group as his boss and former friend does not want to risk the research group being exposed to the worldwide ridicule of other scientists in the field.
 
Shechtman manages to convince a colleague in Israel, that his stunning results are real. The colleague develops a theory framework based on the experimental results. But a paper they submit for publication in the field of Physics is rejected by the editors. The explanation given for the rejection is that Dan's discovery is of no interest to physicists. But he does not give up and slowly manages to convince a few more scientists and after four years of struggle, a scientific journal in the field of materials science publishes a paper co-written with colleagues that describes his findings.

Despite this publication, Linus Pauling, a scientist with the rare distinction of having won two Nobel Prizes in two different fields (Chemistry and Peace), continues to ridicule Dan Shechtman's work until his death in 1994. (Perhaps the 3 Lenin Prizes Pauling received in the 1960s from the Soviet Government disposed him to being somewhat dogmatic.)

But Dan Shechtman and the growing number of scientists who support his position does not give up and finally there is a paradigm shift in the theory on the structure of matter. Dan Shechtman's findings have entered the mainstream.

For those of us who believed that, in the natural sciences, excommunication and ridicule were tools of the established religious power against the advance of science, the true story of the structure of quasicrystals which plays in the 1980s will come as a shock. Human nature apparently does not need religious dogma to stay closed-minded. Scientists can be blacklisted by the community of scientists i.e. “excommunicated”, when they dare to challenge conventional wisdom and existing paradigms.
 
Luckily for Dan Shechtman, he lives in an open and democratic society. So no legal code in Israel and the rest of the West threatens his life as a result of his challenge to existing scientific authorities. Moreover, it does not take the several centuries it took the findings of Galileo and Kepler to overcome the paradigms and dogmas of their era.

It is interesting to speculate whether it was coincidence that Dan Shechtman has spent his academic career in Israel, where he is Distinguished Professor at the Technion, Institute of Technology in Haifa. It is also here that he initially found support for publishing his findings from a colleague. There are few other countries where people are willing to be persistent in the face of hostility and threats of exclusion from the scientific, cultural and political sphere not only by their enemies, but by their erstwhile colleagues and friends. There is ample evidence that the spirit shown by Shechtman, who is also one of the pioneers in Israel for teaching budding scientists entrepreneurship may be more pervasive in Israel than in other Western democracies. Numerous examples are found in the stories of Israeli High Tech Enterprises as told by Douglas and Helen Davis in their 2009 study of the Israeli high technology sector “Israel in the World”.
 
Meanwhile, Dan Shechtman's discovery of quasicrystals has given rise to a whole new field of cross-disciplinary science. Quasicrystals can today be found in many applications such as in surgical instruments and as a protective cover against extreme temperatures on turbine blades.
 
The Swedish Nobel Prize Committee for Chemistry 2011 deserves high praise for its choice of Nobel Laureate and the reasoning behind it. The message to young scientists is: build on the body of existing knowledge of your field but dare to challenge its fundamental principles, you may live to enjoy the fruit of your courage and conviction. The message to confirmed scientists is: listen carefully when a young colleague questions a paradigm with which you have worked successfully during your professional life.

But there may be a wider lesson to be learnt that is applicable to European academic and political institutions: listen carefully to voices from other confirmed democratic open societies which challenge your political and social paradigms; consider carefully whether these paradigms may need shifting, too.

European attitudes towards Israeli academics, artists and politicians who take a view different from the prevailing conventional wisdom may just be a place to start implementing such an attitude. No boycotts, no divestment, no sanctions but an open and frank dialogue which includes listening to uncomfortable views that challenge old paradigms is the right way forward.

To find out watch Dan Shechtman tell his own story here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZRTzOMHQ4s

And watch the video of the announcement of the 2011 Nobel prize for Chemistry here.
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1623

What has Dan Shechtman learnt from his experience of having his findings rejected and ridiculed?
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1636

Midnight in Paris, Film, written and directed by Woody Allen, 3* out of 5

If you were given the chance which past epoch would you have liked to have lived in? For Woody Allen and his good looking all American alter-ego Gil, the protagonist of Allen's latest film Midnight in Paris, the answer is clear: the 1920s in Paris.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is a writer who visits Paris in 2010 with Inez, his fiancée and her parents. Gil is a dreamer and romantic whose sympathy for liberal and socialist causes heavily contrasts with his future in-law's neo-conservative outlook. Inez wants Gil to come around to becoming a successful novelist and her trophy-husband. Gil in the meantime has fallen under the spell of Paris, although he only seems to take in the Paris of the past. None of Paris' modern architectural structures seem to gain access to his stream of consciousness as he wanders through its streets. If it is true that we all live our lives to the tunes of an inner sound track, Gil's is 1920s ragtime influenced Jazz. One evening, as Gil strolls through Paris on his own at midnight a limousine passes by and takes him into the international life of 1920s Paris. It is peopled with rich talented more or less idealistic Americans including Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. There are also other international artists on the way to becoming famous such as Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dali, Picasso and the photographer Man Ray. They seem to be spending most of their evenings at elegant parties given by their millionaire admirers or in romantic Paris cafés.

This is archetypal Woody Allen: intellectual, neurotic and mildly amusing, with the odd successful gag and some excellent well known actors and celebrities thrown in. An example of the latter is the current French President's wife Carla Bruni playing a tourist guide, demurely but effectively dealing with a 21st century insufferable American know-it-all pain in the neck.

Midnight in Paris is mildly amusing for people who are knowledgeable about the artistic and intellectual 20th century characters who spent the 1920s in Paris. There is however no bite in the satire The fact that the dreamer is a good looking tall blond man played by Owen Williams rather than someone reminiscent of the neurotic short, middle aged Woody Allen of his earlier films makes the inner logic of the story somewhat incongruent. Nonetheless, the beauty of classical Paris, the quality of the photography and the expectation Woody Allen has about the cultural education of the viewer, flatters the audience and mitigates the disappointment with the lack of bite. For hardened Woody Allen fans of his romantic-neurotic phase, the gentle nostalgia this film evokes outweighs the relative shallowness of its satirical ambition.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/midnightinparis/ 

Drive, Film, written by Hossein Amini, James Sallis, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn; 4* out of 5

A young Hollywood stunt -driver and underpaid car-mechanic moonlights as a getaway driver for robberies. He falls in love with a woman, who is married to a prison-inmate and unwittingly gets on the wrong side of some very nasty people.

If the plot of this action film does not sound very original, that's because it isn't. But don’t let that put you off.

The story is good enough for a stunning and outstanding action-film, because direction, photography and music combine to create a truly beautiful, tense atmosphere that makes the experience of watching Drive memorable.

The deliberate pacing of the camera shots during action sequences and car-chases and the perspective chosen in each shot are masterful. And to put the icing on this cake, there is an extraordinary performance by Ryan Gosling.

He plays his character with an understated determination and a propensity to explode into brutal and relentless but very focused violence. Gosling in his racing-driver's jacket has the charisma and the makings of a James Dean for the 21st century, hopefully with a long and productive career ahead of him. He also seems to have a knack for appearing in high quality films such as one of the best films of 2010, Blue Valentine.

The Danish Director Nicolas Winding Refn, who spent his childhood in New York introduces an unflinching Scandinavian look at social realities and the violent world of organised crime which is reinforced by slowing down the action and taking unusual perspectives. A tense car chase is made even tenser by slow and stationary elements forming part of it. For this film Winding Refn deservedly won the Best Director Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

In fact, Refn’s direction and Gosling's performance have lifted this film into a timeless classic of the action genre.

The Interrupters, Documentary film by Steve James & Alex Kotlowitz, 4* out of 5

The past Summer of the English riots has raised the issues of gangs, crime and violence in our cities high on our agendas. The Interrupters is a documentary about a tough-love approach to stopping a crime occurring based on intervention. 

The “violence-interrupters” of the title are former hardened criminals gone good. Armed only with the experiences of their past and a quick witted line in repartee they put themselves into harms way every day to save lives. Their most valuable asset is the respect they receive on the street due both to their courage and their past criminal careers. They work for CeaseFire, a Non Governmental Organisation formed in Chicago after the city had gained notoriety as a capital of youth crime. This notoriety came to a head when Derrion Albert a high school student was beaten to death in a violent incident captured on camera and broadcast throughout the US. The method this NGO employs to fight violent youth crime is to intervene on the street when an argument occurs and before it explodes into violence. It does this by employing formerly violent members of the community to intervene, by constantly gathering relevant information and intervening with the potential protagonists before the violence occurs. 

At one point, Gary Slutkin, a medical doctor in Chicago and the founder-director of CeaseFire explains that much of the violent crime committed by gang members is not gang-on-gang violence, but person-on-person violence resulting from some argument, chance encounter or a grudge that has gotten out of hand. Of course, gang members always have knives, guns or clubs at hand allowing them to act quickly on their most violent impulses. If the right people can find the right words before anger has turned to rage and rage to murder then there is a chance that a crime is prevented. This means a life is saved and another life not wasted behind bars and the pernicious impact on mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of those involved will have been avoided. Early intervention pays big dividends. 

The film follows three of these “violence-interrupters” over the course of a full year. As a result we get to know them and their clients well. This helps us appreciate the longer term impact they have on their direct clients, their families and the wider community in which they do their dangerous work. We can also make an emotional connection with the main characters who are indeed fascinating and inspiring individuals. We get to find out about their past and their present, their successes and their failures. And we find out that sometimes even hardened ex-criminals can sometimes be fooled for some of the time by young clients faking sincerity.

The film makers and the protagonists make us forget that we are watching a documentary. The characters and their stories draw us in, hold our attention and connect with our emotions as any good fictional crime/drama would.

The interrupters fully deserves the many prizes it has won at various festivals. If you cannot catch it in the cinema get the DVD as soon as its available.

http://interrupters.kartemquin.com/

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Film directed by Tomas Alfredson , Screenplay Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan based on the novel by John le Carré, 4* out of 5

In her 2011 BBC Reith Lectures entitled Securing Freedom, the former Head of MI5, the British Domestic Intelligence Service, Dame Elisa Manningham-Buller recalls a time when a number steam-kettles were kept by her organisation dedicated to surreptitiously opening intercepted letters without the final recipient noticing.

Some may think that nostalgia is not what it used to be, but the main strand of action in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy takes us back to 1973 in MI6, the British Foreign Intelligence Service not a million miles from Elisa Manningham-Buller's reminiscences. This, however, is a time when the business of spying is a largely intellectual pursuit carried out by clever men, expert at chess and solving The Times crossword puzzle. Fluent in Russian or Hungarian, they are, rare exceptions, graduates of Cambridge or Oxford University. Adept at office politics, this is where a lot of the pent-up emotional energy goes. Their sexual orientation varies. Some are straight, some bisexual, many are gay. Having been brought up in elite English fee paying schools they now analyse coldly what their counterparts in the Soviet Union, their Cold War Adversary is up to. Each side in this very serious mind-game tries to recruit defectors and double-agents from the other. Of course, the Americans were the Soviets' main adversary. The UK government of course is keen on maintaining the much vaunted “special relationship” with the US. Promoting this in 1973 demands that the superior skills British master-spies have honed over the centuries be deployed in order to maintain Britain's position as the preferred and trusted partner of the USA.
 

In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy the combination of outer calmness and inner stress is slowly brought to fever pitch by the suspicion that one of the inner circle of high ranking civil servants at the Head of the British Intelligence Service is likely to be a Soviet spy. In the eyes of the coveted American partner MI6 has become a leaky ship. The main protagonist George Smiley, has recently retired after his boss and mentor is forced out of the service. He is brought back by his erstwhile political master and charged with the mission to unmask this double-agent. The presumed traitor must have been a close colleague for decades. Or is Smiley himself the gamekeeper turned KGB-run poacher?

Making an absorbing film out of a book, where most of the crucial action is the interpretation of facts found and scenes remembered by the protagonists is a challenging task. But the adaptation of the screenplay and the outstanding direction by the Swede Tomas Alfredsen (who came to international attention with Let the Right One In) succeed completely. Keeping up with the twists and turns of the plot demands close attention from the viewers. There are many flashbacks, jumps in time which are not announced or signposted; but the viewers' attention is richly rewarded. The photography with its evocation of sepia tones, the set with many fine details and the costume come together and evoke masterfully the gloomy dingy London of 1973. They contribute marvellously to the atmosphere that generates the rising suspense. What the television series Madmen did for design and fashion of the 1960s Madison Avenue's advertising men, this film does for 1970s British Intelligence agents in pre-big-bang London. The best of male British acting talent is led by Gary Oldman, restrained this time as one has not seen him on screen before. The very high quality of the understated performances by the all-talent cast round off a thoroughly successful production.
 

The film is not totally devoid of humour either. There is the singing of the Soviet National Anthem as a turn at the British Spies' annual office party. And at one point as Smiley and his sidekick go about their business in the bleak East End of London, graffiti on the wall behind them proclaims “The Future is Female”; which brings us back to Dame Elisa Manningham-Buller Although sadly the steam-kettles for opening letters are probably gone for good, those of us who like to believe in happy endings would like to think that they have been requisitioned for making tea. As far as the future of this film is concerned, one or more Academy Awards seem assured.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340800/

Wittenberg, Play by David Davalos, Gate Theatre Notting Hill, London, 4* out of 5

In William Shakespeare's Hamlet we are told that the Danish Prince in his youth was a scholar in the German town of Wittenberg. In John Marlowe's version of Dr. Faustus part of the action takes place in the town of Wittenberg. And Martin Luther, a historical figure larger then life, wrote his 95 theses against the catholic church's practice of selling indulgences in Wittenberg, where they were nailed to a church door or two. The consequences for the history of the Church and Politics in Europe were immense.

The premise of this play by the American playwright David Davalos is that Hamlet, Faustus and Luther were in Wittenberg at the same time. Young Hamlet has Dr. John Faustus as his philosophy tutor and the catholic priest Martin Luther as his theology tutor. All three characters are as yet blissfully unaware of the roles they will play in literature and history, respectively.

Dr. Faustus represents the search for knowledge and the belief in reason and science. Martin Luther believes that all comes from god and is revealed to us through our own careful reading and interpretation of the one original text God left us with, the Bible. Hamlet represents the very sensitive and intelligent student whose station in life demands decisiveness but whose character is racked with doubt and fear of madness.

Of the three characters in Davalos' play Dr Faustus is the most multifaceted: he is not only lecturer in Philosophy but also Luther's general practitioner prescribing remedies for constipation and moonlights as a crooner in Wittenberg's student watering hole. He is also ready for the love of a good woman; but is the good woman ready for commitment.

For the enjoyment of this play it helps to be acquainted with the canon of world literature Hamlet, Faust the history of the Reformation Luther (and his bête noire Tetzel) and Copernicus. And it helps to have a passing acquaintance with key questions asked by the Enlightenment.

Davalos would not deny being inspired by Tom Stoppard and especially the play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” which also features characters from Hamlet in an inventive and intelligent manner.

While Davalos' Wittenberg does not reach the heights of Stoppard's brilliance, Wittenberg is a funny, intelligent and interesting play, entertainingly touching on big philosophical, theological and human questions.

Christopher Haydon's production is full of energy. Oliver Townsend's set is excellent and the acting performances are very good indeed. Sean Campion as Dr. John Faust has the best lines most varied part to show off his considerable talents opposite Andrew Frame's strong performance as Luther. The long-lasting warm applause from the audience was fully deserved.

http://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/wittenberg.aspx