I want to share my personal cultural highlights of the year, especially when living in the capital where so much goes on and so many opportunities are around to visit the theatre, the cinema, and exhibitions (I haven’t done many this year, so I haven’t ranked them). I don’t work in this field (I’m a senior manager in academic libraries), but I like to see as much as possible, and with the BFI Southbank, the National Theatre, the Southbank Centre, and the Barbican, we are extremely lucky, as well as being able to make the occasional excursion into the expensive West End.
Theatre:
1 The Crucible, at the Old Vic. Richard Armitage was superb as John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s still-powerful play.
2 Ballyturk, at the National Theatre. This divided audiences but I really liked it and came away thinking about Enda Walsh’s absurb creation for a long time afterwards.
3 Happy Days, at the Young Vic. Juliet Stevenson was heartbreaking as Winnie in the Samuel Beckett classic. More Beckett to come in 2015 as I see ‘Waiting for Godot’ at the Barbican.
4 Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, at the Barbican. The RSC brought Antony Sher as Falstaff and Jasper Britton as Henry in this pair of classic Shakespeares.
5 The Importance of Being Earnest, at Richmond Theatre. I liked this gentle parody of the Wilde classic, seen through the eyes of an ageing amateur theatre company.
Honorable mentions go to the revival of Miss Saigon, at the Prince Edward, and Twelve Angry Men, at the Garrick.
The disappointments of the year were Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and Richard III, at Trafalgar Studios.
Film:
1 NT Live – there were some excellent performances transmitted to cinemas this year – War Horse, Skylight, and A Streetcar Named Desire. This is fast becoming a much cheaper alternative to forking out London theatre prices.
2 Jane Eyre (1956). The BFI Southbank showed the entire Stanley Baker/Daphne Slater series as part of its Gothic season back in January. It is absolutely terrific. Whether it will ever see the light of day on DVD (it is a BBC production) is doubtful, but if you get a chance to see it, it is a definite must-see. It is now my fourth favourite version of the eleven films/miniseries I have seen adapted from this book.
3 Monty Python Live – 1 Down, 5 To Go. I saw this at the cinema, live from the final night at the O2. I am a long-time Python fan but was sceptical about whether this reunion would work. It was a musical comedy extravaganza.
4 I was very pleased to get a chance to watch the original Django (1966) on one of those cheapo Sky channels. The gorgeous Franco Nero in an ultra-violent (for its day) Spaghetti western.
5 I got twelve films into my Reverse Hitchcock marathon. With 44 more films to go, I might finish this in 2015, but then again I might not. Psycho and Frenzy were particularly brilliant.
Honorable mention goes to my discovery of the 1919 The World and Its Woman, which I thought was lost. Now I have seen three Geraldine Farrar films! You can see it, and many other films from European film archives, here.
Television:
1 Peaky Blinders (series 2, BBC). The television event of the year as far as I’m concerned.
2 CBeebies commemorated the anniversary of the Great War with a very touching short called Poppies. Quite superb in its simplicity, geared to its young pre-school audience.
3 Grand Hotel continued its mix of murder, secrets and period drama in the Spanish series running on Sky Arts. It returns for a final run in the first week of January 2015.
4 The viral video that was Too Many Cooks took everyone by surprise with its quirky take on American sitcoms.
5 We got the first series of The Vikings, which ran, curiously, on History, with an American and Irish cast and creatives. It was a TV highlight while Gabriel Byrne appeared as the warrior leader (he also appeared with less fanfare as the alcoholic pathologist in Quirke), but tailed off thereafter.
Honorable mentions go to Remember Me, a creepy ghost story starring Michael Palin, and the Victoria Wood play That Day We Sang.
DVDs:
1 My purchase of the year has to be the 1965-69 series The Power Game. Intrigue in the boardroom (and implied in the bedroom) this series from half a century ago is sharp, engrossing, well-acted, and has a marvellous opening sequence where all the main cast assemble in Paternoster Square in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral.
2 The Dutch release of Who Pays The Ferryman was well worth watching. I like Michael J Bird’s dramas and was similarly impressed with his earlier series The Lotus Eaters.
3 Young Anthony Newley made his debut in The Adventures of Dusty Bates, a TV serial that has made it to cut price DVD. He was around 12 or 13 here and wasn’t quite in Vegas mode, yet. He was a decent little performer.
4 The wonderful set of Ealing Rarities from Network Distributing came to an end with volume 14. This series of discs has brought 56 films back into distribution, some for the first time since their release. Network continue with their companion series of British Musicals of the 1930s, which is about to reach volume 3.
5 The BFI, as part of their Sci-Fi season, released Out of the Unknown, which presents all the surviving episodes of the BBC landmark series. I have had these episodes on bootleg discs for years but this set makes them look as great as possible with a sumptuous booklet. Well worth a purchase, and will be the subject of a more in-depth blog post in 2015.
Sport:
The only event worth noting really is the surprising rise of Brentford FC in the Championship, which is good news for the other member of our house, a fan of some 40+ years standing. May they stay in the top half of the table for the remainder of the season.
Concerts:
Chrissie Hynde and Joan Baez both impressed, independently, at the Royal Festival Hall. Chrissie gave us her new album but saved the best of Pretenders material to last, and Baez performed a rounded set of classics.