What could be better? an opening night play with an outstanding actress, a long satisfying gossip and catch up with an old friend, and some Gay Yorkshire rumpy pumpy !
As Wallace would say " a cracking day out there Grommit!"
I met Nu in Soho and we went to the Curzon to see God's Own Country which is a film of great beauty and some soul.
It tells the story of a young moorland farmer Jonney Saxby ( Josh O'Connor) who deals with his frustrations of life with a disabled dad and emotionally distant grandmother on a failing upland farm by casual gay sex and binge drinking.
When the emotionally more mature Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) turns up to help with the spring lambing, Jonney is forced to deal with his demons as the pair embark on an intense love affair against the backdrop of a Harsh lifestyle in decline.
God's Own Country has been described rather unfairly as the Yorkshire Brokeback mountain. This is misleading as this movie has a sort of harsh charm all of it's own with the Bleak Moorlands echoing the empty hardness of Jonney's life. Filmed with minimal dialogue O'Connor shines as the unsympathetic and at times downright unlikable Jonney whilst the painfully attractive Secareanu underplays his role as the emotionally warmer Gheorghe rather beautifully and although the narrative of Jonney's emotional journey from " fuck up" to manhood isn't particularly original, the film does pack a bit of a punch emotionally.
8/10
I wish the play was as good as the movie. Unfortunately Wings at the Young Vic was a bit of a mess!
Wings is more or less a monologue by an aging stroke victim Emily ( The glorious Juliet Stevenson) who tries to make some sort of sense of a sudden and catastrophic brain injury . Confused and disorientated with motor and intellectual deficits , Emily tries and fails to make real her unreal world where nurses are seen as captors and where her body feels weightless and not her own.
For an hour, Stevenson remains suspended in a body harness and spins impressively around the darkened stage as she she shares a stream of consciousness of her experiences within the fugue state of a CVA and although she is undoubtedly a wonderful actress the play fails to impress
It was the opening night and it was sad to see Stevenson looking so upset at the lacklustre applause as the play ended.
We finished the day chatting and catching up. Touching base with old friends is a tonic for the soul