Helen McCrory as Margaret Peel
by Larkriser1 | YouTube | April 11, 2003
Short Clips of the Love Story of Jim Dixon (Stephen Tomkinson) and Christine Callaghan (Keeley Hawes), featuring Helen McCrory, from the film “Lucky Jim.”
Categories Lucky Jim
Lucky Jim Review
Lucky Jim Wasn’t an Unpleasant Ride
by Gareth McLean | The Guardian | April 11, 2003
Lucky Jim (ITV1) was Christmas cosy. The “happily ever after” of Jim Dixon’s triumph over adversity, snobbery and pretension, his getting of the girl and landing of the dream job, was cockle-warming. The jazzy soundtrack and lovely period detail – fig rolls, Lyons Corner Houses, headscarves, Bakelite telephones, Arthur Askey – were most soothing, verging on the Heartbeat. And the casting was a veritable selection box of treats and truffles.
Stephen Tompkinson blundered, Robert Hardy blustered, Helen McCrory whinnied, Denis Lawson sauntered and Keeley Hawes looked luminous (and very tall). There was even the requisite appearance by an ITV favourite in a surprising role: Hermione Norris in rollers, brandishing a cigarette and a smokin’ attitude as the saucy Carol Goldsmith.
Categories Lucky Jim Print Media Reviews
Masterpiece Theatre cracks a smile with the charming “Lucky Jim”
Get “Lucky”
PBS-TV’s next “Masterpiece Theatre” broadcast, “Lucky Jim,” is a winsomely charming comedy, likeable for a number of solid reasons. Chief among them is the story, based on a book by Kingsley Amis; the two main characters, played by Stephen Tompkinson and Keeley Hawes; and the nostalgic 1950s soundtrack.
Amis created quite a stir in British literary circles when “Lucky Jim” was published in 1954. First called an angry young man, Amis quickly established himself instead as a master of satire, malcontented rather than irate. His target was the intellectual milieu and those who wallowed in it, and the eponymous hero of “Lucky Jim” was something new: a working-class man, well-educated but unapologetically middlebrow.
Continue reading Masterpiece Theatre cracks a smile with the charming “Lucky Jim”
Categories Media Print Media Reviews Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night at the Donmar Warehouse – Review
Harrowing hilarity
By Paul Taylor | October 28, 2002 | The Independent
He looks as though his copious blubber has been constrained from birth in a wing collar and buttoned-up pinstripe suit and that he must have emerged from the womb with that self-important beard and punctilious moustache. His gait is an effeminately officious cross between a march and a scamper; his tone is a prissily sibilant sneer; and he is forever consulting his watch with righteous impatience. At night, his locks are lovingly protected by a lady’s hairnet.
Continue reading Twelfth Night at the Donmar Warehouse – Review
Categories Print Media Reviews Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night at Donmar Warehouse – Review
Mendes bows out brilliantly
As Shakespeare wrote elsewhere, parting is such sweet sorrow, and I am not ashamed to admit I had a lump in my throat as the cast took their calls at the end of Sam Mendes’s farewell production at the Donmar.
It was partly because of the moving depth of his staging of this most bittersweet of Shakespearean comedies, but it was also the memory of Mendes’s tremendous achievement here over the past decade.
It is 10 years to the day since he reopened the Donmar with the British premiere of Sondheim’s Assassins, since when he has scarcely put a foot wrong. The theatre became fashionable under his directorship, but the buzzy atmosphere was always founded on excellence. From Friel’s Translations to Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room, from Electra to Privates on Parade, the Donmar has an unparalleled track record in great shows brilliantly staged.