Yes, minister - series 2 (Paul Eddington)

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Having finished watching the BBC sit-com ‘Yes minister, series 1’ towards the end of August, it was an easy decision to start watching the second series. It was broadcast in 1981, starting around a year after the first series began. I remember enjoying the show when it was on television, and we acquired the full set of DVDs for all the series many years ago.  But it’s been a long time since we watched them.

The first episode of series 2, is ‘The compassionate society’.  Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington), who is still somewhat idealistic, discovers that a new hospital is fully staffed with ancillary workers and administrative staff, but has no medical staff. So there are no patients. He feels that this is a terrible waste of resources and wants to fire the people who are working there until doctors and nurses can be found. Then the unions get involved…

It doesn’t sound like a source of amusing banter, but, as with the first series, it’s very cleverly scripted. Sir Humphrey (Nigel Hawthorne) comes out with some long, convoluted explanations which must have been quite difficult to learn… and his expressions are wonderful. Bernard (Derek Fowlds) tries to balance his loyalties, and Hacker is stuck between what he believes to be right and his image with the public. 

Hotel du lac (Anna Massey)

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It’s over ten years since we watched the film ‘Hotel du lac’, and we had totally forgotten what it was about. So we decided to watch it last night. It’s not a long film - well under 90 minutes - and it was made in 1986, based on a book of the same name (though I have not read it).

Anna Massey stars as the middle-aged writer Edith. She’s been quite successful in writing romantic fiction, though she mostly keeps quiet about it; she writes under a pseudonym. She lives in the UK, but at the start of the film she’s being sent into a kind of exile, to a hotel in Europe, by a lake. 

She’s apparently committed a terrible crime, though this seems at odds with her quiet, unassuming behaviour. But underneath the drab clothes and calm demeanor, there’s a woman of passion - as we discover through flashbacks, where she has an affair with a married man. I wondered if this, perhaps, was the terrible crime. But Edith regularly writes letters to the man she loves, speaking aloud as she writes so we learn what she’s thinking - and many of them lead to scenes from previous years and months.

Shadows in the sun (Joshua Jackson)

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It’s nearly eleven years since we watched the 2005 film ‘Shadows in the sun’. I hadn’t remembered anything about it; we watched it last night and I had no memory of it at all, though my husband recalled one or two brief scenes. 

The story features a thirty-something man called Jeremy (Joshua Jackson) who works for an editing company in London. His boss (John Rhys-Davies) notes that another company has just signed up a writer who had not produced anything for a decade. He asks Jeremy what he thinks of another writer, Weldon Parish. Jeremy mentions that he loved a book Weldon had written when Jeremy was a child. However, he had apparently stopped writing when his wife had died twenty years earlier.

The boss announces that Jeremy is to travel to Tuscany, in Italy, to recruit Weldon to their books. Jeremy doesn’t believe it’s possible, but has no choice. We see him travelling in a smart suit, with his briefcase and his determination to attempt what might be impossible.

The rewrite (Hugh Grant)

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It’s ten years since we watched the 2014 film ‘The rewrite’. We hadn’t remembered anything about it, but saw a trailer for it last week, and thought it looked worth rewatching.

Hugh Grant stars as the screenwriter Keith who had a tremendous success fifteen years before the story begins. He won awards, and people still talk about his film ‘Paradise misplaced’. He did write some other screenplays, but had no more triumphs, and is now somewhat depressed, lacking money and uninspired.

Then he’s offered an unexpected post teaching screenwriting at a small university in New York. He hates the idea - he’s convinced that writing cannot be taught - but eventually agrees. He finds people very friendly - one of his potential students rather too friendly - and full of admiration for his famous film. Then he manages to upset one of his colleagues, first by being rude about Jane Austen, and then about women in films. He’s had a bit too much wine and gets himself into more and more trouble…

Yes, minister series 1 (Paul Eddington)

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It’s a very long time since we watched the series ‘Yes, Minister’. I recall seeing them - or some of them - on TV when they were first broadcast in the early 1980s. And I’m pretty sure we watched the series on DVD about fifteen years ago; but I have no record of it. And only a general recollection of the content.

So we started watching in early August. Each episode is only about half an hour, so we watched two at a time. The first episode shows the results of the general election when Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) is elected, and a new party takes office. 

We never learn which party they are supposed to represent, and while that bothered me in the past, I think now that this was wise. The point is made, often, that even if political parties have different aims or goals, the way they function (and the role of the civil service) is much the same. 

What we did on our holiday (David Tennant, Rosamunde Pike)

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It’s over ten years since we watched the 2014 film ‘What we did on our holiday’. I remembered that it starred two of my favourite actors (David Tennant and Billy Connolly). I also recalled that there was a very sad scene in the middle of what was otherwise a light-hearted story. But nothing else about it.

David Tennant stars as Doug, a Scotsman who has separated from his wife Abi (Rosamunde Pike). They have three children: Lottie (Emilia Jones), Mickey (Bobby Smalldridge), and Jess (Harriet Turnbull). We learn towards the end of the film that Mickey is six; Lottie must be about ten, and Jess about four. All three of these children are excellent: they have a great on-screen chemistry, and they’re entirely believable, even in what must have been quite difficult scenes.

As the film starts, Doug and Abi are trying to get the children’s cases packed and into the car, as they’re all travelling to Scotland. There are some very amusing scenes involving Jess’s insistence on packing heavy rocks and a breezeblock. She insists that she can’t sleep without them. And if anyone tries to persuade her otherwise, she holds her breath until she passes out. It’s manipulative, but she’s very cute, and often gets her own way.

The Help (Emma Stone)

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It’s eleven years since we saw the film ‘The Help’, which was based on the excellent novel of the same name by Kathryn Stockett. I recalled most of the plot - it’s a very powerful, thought-provoking one - but had forgotten most of the details. We decided to watch it last night despite it being quite a long film by today’s standards: it’s almost two and a half hours long. 

Although we knew it was set in the 1960s, it still felt shocking to us that racial segregation was still legal - and popular with white people - in Mississippi. It all takes place in a small town, where there are a lot of socialite white women who all have black ‘maids’ - known collectively as ‘the help’. 

We get to know just a few of the households concerned. Aibileen (Viola Davies) works for a woman called Elizabeth (Ahna O’Reilly), looking after her young daughter Mae Mobley, who must be about two and a half or three. Elizabeth had post-natal depression and does almost nothing for her daughter, who adores ‘Aibie’. Apparently Mae Mobley, who is delightful, was played by identical twins.