Tag Archives: death

Frost's Review of 2011

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2011 was an eventful political year, with the Arab Spring, phone Hacking and the death of more than one tyrant. On the flip side, it was also a year of wedding fever, Prince William finally made an honest women of Kate Middleton on April 29. Kate Moss and Jamie Hince, Lily Allen and Sam Cooper (she also announced her pregnancy), Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig, Prince Albert and Charlotte, Zara Phillips and Mark Tindall and Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell all tied the knot. Kim Kardashian got married too, but so briefly it is barely worth mentioning.

There was tragedy when Japan was struck by an record 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a tsunami. Followed by nuclear disaster at Fukushima, which is still being cleared up by brave workers, at serious risk to their own health.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were acquitted of the murder of Meredith Kercher.

In August London burned as riots spread all over England, people died, lost their homes and taxpayers were left with a bill of over 100 million.

The Arab Spring started when 26-year-old vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi. set himself on fire in protest in a Tunisian marketplace on December 17th 2010. It lead to leaders all over the Arab world standing down including Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and the death of Gaddafi in October.

Silvio Berlusconi also finally stepped down.

Osama Bin Laden was killed ten years after 9/11.

The press went mad over Pippa Middleton’s bottom. As did PR companies.

Super Injunctions were the buzzword of the year, but the name of the footballer came out after he was named by multiple people on Twitter. The film star who slept with the same prostitute as Wayne Rooney, however, got away with it. Our article on it was one of our most popular of the year, getting over 14,000 hits in a matter of hours

Borders book store closed down, as did the Space Shuttle Programme and Harry Potter ended after a decade.

The Iraqi war ended in December. A date set by the Bush administration.

Liam Fox lost his job.

The Phone Hacking scandal ran and ran.

Charlie Sheen lost it, but bounced back.

Aung San Suu Kyi was finally released from house arrest.

Frost’s Politician of the year is the people of Libya.

Anders Behring Breivik went on an murderous rampage in Norway on the Island of Utoya, leaving over 80 people dead and many more injured. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called the attack a “national tragedy” and the worst atrocity in Norway since World War II. Stoltenberg further vowed that the attack would not hurt Norwegian democracy, and said the proper answer to the violence was “more democracy, more openness, but not naivety”. In his speech at the memorial service on 24 July 2011, he said what a proper reaction would be: “No one has said it better than the AUF girl who was interviewed by CNN: ‘If one man can show so much hate, think how much love we could show, standing together.’

The end of Harry Potter.

Frost started a campaign to end Prescription charges in England, the only place in the so called ‘United’ Kingdom still paying them.

Jessie J had a breakthrough year and confessed to being bisexual.

David Walliams swam the Thames. He raised £1 million for Sports relief.

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher split.

As did J-Lo and Marc Anthony

Ryan Gosling had a brilliant year and was in the brilliant Drive. http://frostmagazine.com/2011/09/drive-film-review/

Sir David Attenborough dazzled again with Frozen Planet.

Frost Women of the year: Kate Middleton. After ten years and two break-ups, Catherine Elizabeth Middleton finally married her Prince Charming. Their wedding was watched by more people than 20 million people and the new Duchess of Cambridge has been wowing press and public alike with her style, charm and poise.

Man of the year: Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs died too young, aged 56, after a long battle with cancer. He changed the world with his vision and business acumen and when he died the outpouring of grief would rival that of Princess Diana. A true loss of a visionary man.

Most inspirational person: Eva Schloss. Eva survived the holocaust. She lost her father and her brother, her mother also survived and went on to marry Otto Frank and Eva became Anne Frank’s step-sister. She is truly the most inspirational women I have ever met. If you don’t believe me, read her books. The Promise: The Moving Story of a Family in the Holocaust
or Eva’s Story: A Survivor’s Tale by the Step-Sister of Anne Frank
[Full disclosure: I was in the West End Production of the play of Eva’s life; And Then They Came For Me.]

Kim Jong-il, Lucien Freud, Christopher Hitchens, Liz Taylor, Amy Winehouse and Vaclav Havel all died in 2011.

Adele and Katy Perry released the albums of the year.

Kristen Wiig co-wrote and starred in the hilarious Bridesmaids, which proved women could be funny.

Unemployment was high and economical troubles rumbled throughout the year. The US lost their triple AAA credit rating.

Finally, a great article.

http://frostmagazine.com/2011/10/top-10-common-faults-with-human-thought/

Have You Seen… Five Documentaries to Seek Out (Part Three)

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Charles Rivington asks the immortal question: Do all dogs go to heaven?

 

I stated way back in part one that I was going to present this list in no particular order. Having said that I have saved my favourite feature length documentary by my favourite documentarian for last and written so much about it that I’ve had to give it an article in its own right. Oh well…

 

Gates of Heaven (1978)

 

Throughout the first two parts of this three-part article and through these four brilliant films, I have touched on some very challenging issues: war, mental illness and suicide, child molestation and the disintegration of a family, the birth of the movies. It therefore might seem somewhat anti-climatic, perhaps even rather disrespectful to have as my final entry a film about pet cemeteries. Surely a documentary about people batty enough to spend large amounts of money giving Fido a proper burial can only ever be mildly amusing (in a sort of ‘ha ha, she thinks he’s people’ kind of a way) or perhaps even just a bit pathetic. Surely, it can’t be one of the greatest and most profound works about mortality, loneliness and the human condition ever made, right?

 

Wrong. Errol Morris’ Gates of Heaven is, quite simply and quite literally, an incredible film. It’s the sort of film you could watch every day for the rest of your life and it would still be deeply rewarding. Throughout this article I’ve touched on what I believe makes a great documentary and I’ve suggested two things. Firstly, I’ve stated that a great documentary should be impartial and force the audience to form their own judgements

An enthusiastic pet owner.

without telling them what to think.  Because of Morris’ unobtrusive style and the fact that he lets his subjects speak for themselves and is neither nor seen nor heard throughout the entire film (Michael Moore could certainly learn from him), Gates of Heaven does this so effectively that that at any given moment of the film one section of the audience might be in tears while another suppresses giggles. Secondly, I have suggested that the great documentary will often take a subject and use it as a springboard to touch upon much broader or challenging themes. Gates of Heaven is a movie about freaking pet cemeteries that deals head on with humankind’s most terrifying and impossible question: that of its own mortality and solitude. This is truly the stuff of genius. It is one of the greatest documentaries of all time, by one of the greatest documentarians of all time and quite frankly one of the greatest films of all time. It’s also one of my favourites.

 

     Gates of Heaven takes as its inspiration the story of the exhumation and transportation of 450 pets from one cemetery to another. This fascinating and odd story is used to shape the film, which is structurally little more than a series of talking heads, into two halves. The first of these focuses on the story of Floyd “Mac” McClure, a paraplegic man who had dreamt of building a pet cemetery after the death of his childhood dog, and uses interviews with pet owners and investors in order to explore how his dream briefly became a reality. Particularly memorable interviewees include Mac’s rival, the owner of the local rendering plant who attempts to defend his unglamorous profession to hilarious effect, and a woman who holds conversations with her dog.  Most of Morris’ subjects have their eccentricities, and the film is not short of humour, but he has a unique skill for looking beyond these to the humanity below, frequently unearthing

Devastating

accounts of loss and loneliness. The story of the failure of Mac’s cemetery is a particularly resonant example of these and the tragedy of the matter is that this compassionate man was unable to translate his dream and his passion into a workable business.  It is a tragedy that occurs daily but that does not make it any less heart breaking and I imagine that it will resonate with many people, perhaps even more so now than in 1978. The final shot of Mac sitting in his wheelchair under a willow tree, surveying the former site of his failed cemetery is entirely devastating, a perfect, wordless evocation of loneliness and despair and a prime example of Morris’s subtle and unobtrusive early style.

 

 

Florence Rasmussen sits on her stoop.

At the film’s centre, acting as a kind of transitional moment between the two distinct halves, is a monologue by an elderly woman named Florence Rasmussen. It is truly one of the most bizarre, moving and hilarious few minutes of any film I have ever seen. Sitting on her stoop outside her house, which overlooks Mac’s cemetery, this fascinating woman recounts her baffling life story in short bursts, constantly contradicting herself as she attempts to explain her troubled relationship with her son. In another’s hands this might have come across as exploitative or condescending and it is abundantly clear that Rasmussen could easily have been mocked as a stereotypical madwoman. Morris’ camera however does not judge, merely records and the entire film is mercifully devoid of any cruel reality tv editing or Louis Theroux-style winks to the audience. Instead Florence is allowed to speak for herself and the result is a frustrating, funny and ultimately sad meditation on one woman’s delusion and loneliness. It is a stunning monologue and one that, as Roger Ebert states, ‘William Faulkner or Mark Twain would have wept with joy to have created.’ And yet, it is reality. It is reality, in its most pure, unedited and unscripted form. Sometimes real life truly is stranger than fiction.

 

 

A funeral at Bubbling Wells

The film’s focus then moves to The Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park, which is run by the Harberts family. Patriarch Cal is a lot more ambitious and business savvy than Mac but shares his compassion for animals and has even built a church in order to celebrate God’s love for pets. His wife Scottie shares this view stating that, ‘God is not going to say, well, you’re walking in on two legs, you can go in. You’re walking in on four legs, we can’t take you.’ Although clearly successful in their business endeavours, the Harbarts family also harbours some unhappiness and this is particularly obvious in their sons Danny and Philip who both left their other lives (college and a job as an insurance salesman) to come back to the family business.

 

 

A bereaved couple reminisces in Gates of Heaven

There is one moment from this second half of the film that never fails to move me: a long silent montage of the headstones at Bubbling Well. If I had seen it on it’s own without the benefit of the rest of the film, I admit that it would probably have left me cold and it is true that some of the inscriptions are at first glance rather trite, silly even (‘God spelled backwards is dog’ etc). However after 80 minutes spent in the company of animal lovers and grieving pet owners and hearing them express their loneliness and grief, these inscriptions become a profound articulation of a universal and fundamental need for companionship and love. One of them reads ‘I knew love: I knew this Dog’ while another simply reads ‘For saving my life’. It is clear that there are stories behind each of these inscriptions, heart-breaking, heart-warming stories behind every headstone, stories about what it means to be alive, what it means to love and what it means to experience profound loss. They are stories about what it means to be human. Gates of Heaven merely touches on a few of these stories and in doing so it earns its place as one of the greatest documentary films of all time.

 

 

Gates of Heaven is currently available on DVD as part of ‘The Errol Morris Collection’ box set along with Vernon, Florida and The Thin Blue Line, which are both excellent.

 

 

 

Amy Winehouse Was 'Physical Wreck' – Death Leaves A Trail Of Grief And Denials

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Amy Winehouse’s grieving mother has said that the singer was “a physical wreck” the day before she died and that her minders had to help her down the stairs. Janis, who suffers from MS, added that Amy was “completely out of it.”

The singer was apparently having weekly health check-ups and her doctor visited her 24 hours before her death but had ‘no concerns.” Her bodyguard, Andrew Morris, also checked on her in the morning, but when he returned in the afternoon, she had died.

After her funeral on Tuesday, Winehouse’s father gave fans her clothes, leaving one fan wearing a vest the singer owned. It also emerged that she was in the process of adopting a poor, 10-year-old, St Lucian girl.

Since the singer’s death, tributes have flooded in, and her family released a statement saying: “Our family has been left bereft by the loss of Amy, a wonderful daughter, sister, niece. She leaves a gaping hole in our lives. We are coming together to remember her and we would appreciate some privacy and space at this terrible time.”

Amy’s phone was apparently “routinely” hacked by members of the press, as were Winehouse’s parents, brother Alex and ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, according to investigative journalist Charles Lavery.

Talking about the troubled Londoner’s attendance at rehabilitation centres, a source told Lavery: “The press knew where she would be, who would be there, what time, at any given time.

“They were able to be there too, to befriend her and actively encourage her, as if they had arrived by chance. That made better copy and, more importantly, better photos for the snappers both inside and waiting outside.

Ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil said that losing Winehouse has left him “inconsolable”, while Fielder-Civil’s mother hit out at critics who said he was responsible for the singer’s untimely, saying he had nothing to do with it.

Amy joins the ’27 Club’ – a list of famous rock stars who died at the same age  – which also includes Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Brian Jones.

Osama Bin Laden son in 'Moral High ground' Shocker

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The son of Osama Bin Laden has released a statement say the killing of his Al Qaeda father was ‘criminal’ and that he reserves the right to sue the U.S government. The statement made by Omar Bin Laden did not however mention whether he also felt the victims of 9/11 should be able to sue his father’s estate for the murder of their relatives.

Omar is Bin Laden’s fourth eldest son and also mentioned that the Al Qaeda chiefs other children also are ‘reserving the right to take legal action in the U.S and internationally.’ The statement that was published on the Islamist website Abu Walid al-Masri also stated that his father’s burial was ‘humiliating’ as his father had ‘such importance and status among his people’ ,but, yet again, did not mention that fact that over 3000 bodies of the 9/11 victims will never even be found.

Specialists on militant propaganda had said that the statement appears to be genuine.

Omar Bin Laden, 30, married a British women 25 years older than him and she appeared in a number of celebrity magazines with her young husband beside her. They tried to relocate to the UK but his visa was refused. Omar and his wife Zaina Bin Laden (Previously known as Jane Felix-Browne) are now based in the Gulf. It was announced in April that they are having a surrogate child through IVF, which is being carried by a British Pole Dancer. Their twins were miscarried last year through another surrogate, after which the couple broke up amide claims that Omar was suffering from mental illness. They are now back together even though Omar told the Daily Mail that there was “no chance” of a reconciliation.

The alleged letter from Omar went on to say: ”We hold the American President (Barack) Obama legally responsible to clarify the fate of our father, Osama Bin Laden, for it is unacceptable, humanely and religiously, to dispose of a person with such importance and status among his people, by throwing his body into the sea in that way, which demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters and which challenges religious provisions and feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims.’

Doctor Who's Elisabeth Sladen – A Tribute

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By Jack Bowman

Last night was a terrible shock. I came out of the tube, switched on signal, checked the Twitter feed and saw the news, over and over, that honestly you wouldn’t have believed you were due to read for many years to come.

“Lis Sladen, our Sarah Jane. RIP.”

Elisabeth Sladen, most famous for being the definitive Doctor Who companion, had passed on, aged 63, after battling cancer. The news didn’t – and still doesn’t – sit right; from the very start of her career as an assistant stage manager at the Liverpool Playhouse, to the very end as a children’s TV lead playing a character she gave life to just shy of five decades, Lis was a hard-working, strong, modesty, energetic individual. If anyone would beat this, it would have been her. It should have been her.

They often say the “Doctor Who girl” falls into two categories, the screamers and the fighters. Sometimes though, you get something else – an actress able to bring depth and beauty to the role. A lot of people credited Billie Piper for doing this when the BBC took a gamble and brought back the show in 2005. However, Billie had big shoes to fill as Lis Sladen was the one who absolutely did it first, back in 1973. Not only was she a phenomenally actress who made the companion role in Who an equal to the star and a lead role like none before her – not an easy task when working with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker – she was also a wonderful, wonderful person.

I was lucky enough to first meet Lis when I was asked to step in at the last minute and do some panel interviews for a convention in Newcastle in 2001. Admittedly Lis was a little wary of being interviewed by someone she’d never met, as we all are as actors, yet within seconds that wariness gave way to a natural warmth, generosity, charm and effortless grace that lead brilliantly fun hour of conversation about her career to date. It also lead to an on-off friendship that lasted many interviews – she was gracious enough to always be complimentary and ask me back for her panels – and the next few years with occasional phone calls, always asking after myself and the then-house mate, about my career, what was new, always offering an ear and advice.

We lost touch in 2005, just as BBC Wales were making overtures to bring her back for what was then to be a one-off appearance opposite David Tennant in the episode School Reunion. And it was heart-warming to see her back on prime-time BBC One. And then punch-the-air-brilliant to see her get a long-overdue spin-off, which became The Sarah Jane Adventures. And every year the SJAs were recommissioned, like others I’m sure, the heart would swell a little with pride at her continued success. And then came the awards, which not only were much deserved, also felt long-overdue for such a brilliant, natural, talented screen actress.

I had hoped that even though we’d drifted, one day our paths would cross again and she’d make me laugh with her stories and give that unbeatable smile across a room once. Sadly, it is not meant to be, and all we can do is take our memories of her and offer our thoughts to her husband, Brian and daughter, Sadie in these desperate sad times.

Possibly the greatest tragedy in her death is that she would have been thoroughly bemused, by natural modesty, about the out-pouring of affection, love and tributes across Twitter, Facebook, the Internet and the national and international press, from her youngest fans to those who remembered her first time. If anyone had said to Lis back in 2005 the exciting crescendo her career would reach by 2011, she would never have believed you due to that trademark modesty. Yet that, with her ferocious acting talent, is why she deserved it. And here we are talking about her passing at no age at all. The country and the business has lost one of its national treasures.

There are many memories of Lis to share, to many in fact, so I will leave you with one. It’s the one that started the whole adventure and brought Lis into all of our lives: her casting in Doctor Who. She told me that the day of her audition went like this. She came in, and read for the producer, Barry Letts. He was impressed, so took her down to meet Jon Pertwee on the studio floor. While she and Jon got chatting, Barry walked behind her and gave Jon two thumbs up. Jon finished the conversation and Lis turned to Barry, who started another conversation. Then Jon gave Barry another two thumbs up behind her back. That is how a TV legend was born.

It’s said that occasionally, just occasionally, there’s a perfect human being. Elisabeth Sladen was one of those.

Goodbye, our Sarah Jane.

Ceri: Portrait of an Inadvertent Killer {Ceri's Column}

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I killed the most beautiful butterfly today. Wow, that sentence makes my look like a soon-to-be serial killer. I didn’t mean to. It was fluttering along, maybe trying to find a new home, maybe trying to find a mate. Probably just fluttering aimlessly. The problem was, it was fluttering 1.5 meters above the M4 motorway.

I wasn’t fluttering. I was moving at a positively super-sonic pace (late for some bollocks, again). I was also encased in my 2 tonnes of steel and fibreglass and whatever the hell they make the cup-holder from.

The colourful mass left on my windscreen really was horrific. I mean, it was like the aftermath of a clown’s suicide jump…I assume. Fragments of red and yellow wing were still visible through the dark gunk, (butterfly lung, ass and uvula).

My next action, on reflection, was quite sick when you think about it…and you have nothing else to do. I pulled a tiny lever and the corpse was washed away in an instance. The remnants of such a beautiful little creature treated as equal to fluff, stains and those bits of crap that get in the way of our otherwise squeaky clean world. I’m a killer. I’m a bastard.

I mean, I couldn’t avoid killing it. The insurance folk wouldn’t accept “I swerved into the tanker to avoid a butterfly” as a valid reason to write off my car and maybe write off a limb or two. But my reaction, or lack of, makes me a killer. And a bastard.

But that spider I Hoovered deserved it. I hope the fucker rots in spider hell…great, now I’ll dream of being in spider hell tonight.

Shitter.

by Ceri Phillips

Stefans Top Ten Books

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After our Editors put out a call for peoples top ten books, I felt inclined to answer. After picking up reading faster than then my infanthood classmates and having a (some would say) overactive imagination, I’ve always loved *cliché* escaping into books. From biographies of drug traffickers to Bible Psalms, books have always been a big part of life, so here, in no particular order, I give you my top ten. These aren’t the most intellectual books I’ve read (or in the case of A Brief History of Time…tried to read) but their the ones that had the biggest impact on me or the ones I enjoyed reading and re-reading again and again.

American Gods – Neil Gaimen
Quite possibly my favourite book. I was introduced to Neil Gaimen through ‘The Kindly Ones’, the ninth book of his award winning comic book series ‘The Sandman’. After finding out more about his work I went in search of American Gods, and I’m so happy I did. The story of how old nearly forgotten Gods survive on what little worship they can muster, American Gods is an adventure story, a study in religion, a road trip book and is full of undying love, horror, humour and suspense. In my opinion it is literary brilliance.

Blankets – Craig Thompson
This wedge of 582 page graphic novel (that’s quite a bit for a single story in the comic world) was a present from a very good friend. I lugged this heavy bastard of a book home with me, made a cup of tea and started reading….I could not put it down. Taking place over a few years in the life of author Craig Thompson, this autobiographical story is told as recounted memories of his Evangelical Christian upbringing, his first love, his sexual awakenings and his confusing coming of age. Set mainly in the mid nineties, Blankets is full of outstanding emotional artwork and nice references to awesome music (the characters all dig punk and grunge) and took me back to my own teenage years and memories. The only graphic novel I’ve read that brought tears to my eye’s but not the best introduction to the world of comics yet its still one of the best.

Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
For years I heard people talking about how amazing this book was so I thought ‘right…I really should read it’. Those people weren’t wrong. A truly sinister look into a totalitarian future (it was published in 1949) it shows a world where the government have absolute non-negotiable control over everything, including your thoughts, using the moniker Big Brother and have the ability to change history to suit there current outlook without a single question raised from the populace. Growing up in the aftermath of World War II, protagonist Winston Smith has foggy memories of his childhood and after being asked to erase information that would change history he starts to internally question the government’s motives and power. Nineteen Eighty-Four also contain the best ending of a book ever, as soon as I read the last word I was absolutely speechless. Unfortunately, I was last reading it on the way to a film set the other day and I left it behind and my mate is still looking after it for me!

Northern Lights – Philip Pullman
This is one of the best children’s books and a great way to get kids to start reading more than the Beano (is that still going?). The first in Pullmans His Dark Materials trilogy, Northern Lights, now filmed as The Golden Compass, is a proper adventure book. As a young teen I could often be found on sunny days sitting in my room reading about the friendships and adventures of Lyra Belacqua and her dæmon Pantalaimon (everyone in this parallel world has their own dæmon, as they are physical manifestations of their souls). I’m not sure why I’ve always loved fantasy stories, maybe it’s due to me not having a spiritual side, I need them as a way of escaping reality….hmmm, one to ponder.

Mort – Terry Prachett
The fourth in the huge collection of Pratchetts Discworld novels, I have read nearly all of them and loved them all, so it was difficult to choose one to put in this list, so I figured, it should be the first I read. Taking place on the impossible Discworld (a round flat world that rests on the backs of four elephants that stand on the shell of a giant turtle that swims through space!), Mort is the story of a young simple lad with no aspirations who, after the advice given by his father to become an apprentice, is taken on by Death. The nature of Death is explored in Pratchetts own humour filled way while Mort learns the ropes and tries to ignore his confusing feelings towards Deaths adopted daughter. A great addition to this shelf filling series.

American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
This is a scary book! I find watching someone’s decent into madness so much worse than ghouls and monsters, and that is exactly what we get with Patrick Bateman. On the surface Bateman is just another 80’s stupidly rich yuppie investment banker, but we also get an in depth view of his insanity. Beginning with relatively harmless madness with just constantly checking clothing choices and holding in his anger when one of his friends has a better business card than him, Bateman deteriorates through imaging killing to committing horrific acts of violence (if you’ve read it…think back to the drainpipe and the rat *shudder*). American Psycho can sometimes be a difficult read with it constantly explaining in detail every item of clothing of every character and Batemans occasional internal rambling monologues, but seeing as the book is narrated by Patrick it is all necessary to get a complete overview of the character. If you haven’t read it, put aside a few weeks and immerse your self in madness.

Fox in Socks – Dr. Suess
Dr Suess was a genius. His non-sensical tongue twisters designed to help children learn sounds and speech patterns are some of my favourite poetry, and Fox in Socks is a collection of some of his best. I still struggle with the Tweetle Beetles but can recite the story of Luke Luck and his Duck by heart!

Yes Man – Danny Wallace
This is the most dangerous book I’ve ever read, more dangerous than Mein Kampf and more dangerous that The Anarchists Cookbook (the latter of which I’ve read), purely because while reading it you will feel compelled to say yes to anything. While reading this, a friend suggested I attend an Alpha Course, which is why I attend a church every Wednesday to join a group of Christians talk about God (as an atheist, this is annoying, boring and sliiightly maddening!) and why I am saving up for a passport to go to Hamburg, which is an absolute must as I mentioned it on twitter and Danny Wallace himself wrote back to me saying I should do it! YesMan is based upon a year of the authors life in which, after living the life of a recluse for a while, he decides to get more out of life by saying yes to any and every opportunity. A very funny tale of danger, excitement, adventure and eventual love, YesMan is a brilliant feel good book that will make you want to get more out of life. (and er, Danny, if you ever read this, I really wasn’t comparing you to Hitler in the first sentence…it’s the first dangerous book I thought of)

Born Standing Up – Steve Martin
The Jerk, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Dead Men don’t Wear Plaid, all very very funny films, but how did Steven Martin end up there? In Born Standing Up we find out about Steve’s childhood, his first job at DisneyLand, his first foray into the world of showbiz during his stint as shop assistant in a magic shop and his move into stand up comedy. A must for any fan of Steve or the surreal side of stand up (which we find out Steve was one of the pioneers of).

Factotum – Charles Bukowski
I had been out drinking with some friends, my mate let me crash on his settee, and in my insomniatic drunken stupor I fumbled about after everyone had gone to bed looking for something to do. I stumbled across a book and decided it would probably help me get to sleep if I read something. Factotum didn’t help, it kept me awake till morning. Written about Bukowski’s alter ego Henri Chinaski, we see the life of an alcoholic, constantly unemployed writer who cant get anything published even though he knows his work is much better than what is being released. Through half-hearted relationships and his need for cheap wine, Henri’s tale is heart-breaking in a ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ way and a compelling, involving book written by someone with a mastery of words.

Theatre review: Marianne.

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Marianne. Wimbledon Studio. 15 May 2010.

This play about a couple who lose their only child may not sound like a good way to spend an evening. However, the play is both funny, meaningful and painfull in it’s truthfullness.

When Marianne dies in a freak accident, Cath and David lose a daughter. Allie loses a best friend and Ash gains a heart. They all deal with their grief in different ways. Cath ( Played by Lynn Howes. Who gives a stunning performance ) looks for some kind of meaning in the pointlessness of her daughters death. She longs to understand death and have some kind of closure. Taking her to London and the boy ( Ash. Played by Simon-Anthony Rhoden. ) who received her daughters heart. The clash in culture and in greif – in both life and death – is well written and really makes you think.

David is stoic. Trying to move on, tending to his flowers. All the while dealing with his wife’s, more obvious grief. She uses him as an emotional punching bag. He loves her so he doesn’t mind. David is played by Leighton Pugh. All the cast are amazing. The top of their field.

Allie, ( Natasha Campbell. ) who was Marianne’s best friend is a rebellious teenager who things she is grown up. She visits the couple to try and re-connect with her best friend. She feels they are the only people she can talk to. She is falling in love for the first time and everything is a big deal. Across generations, bonds are made and the healing begins.

The play is beautiful and poignant. The kind of play that makes you think and, more importantly, feel. Cath cannot come to terms with the death of her daughter. She is stuck in a limbo. Thinking her husband has healed while he dies inside. In the end, with help from Allie and Ash they both learn and move on. Their marriage is saved. Life begins again.

This play was written by Anna Jordan. I would keep an eye on her. She is definitely going places.

Leighton PuLeighton Puggh, Lynn Howes, Natasha Campbell and Simon-Anthony Rhoden