To the northern hemisphere, April means springtime and sunshine. For us in Aotearoa, it’s the start of the grim march into the depths of winter. And though I’m fully acclimatized to Christmas being a summer holiday; can handle Halloween taking place while the buds are blooming, there’s something about Easter that demands daffodils and baby chicks, none of which are anywhere to be seen at the moment. In fact, this display at the mall caught my eye, demonstrating the incongruity of the season with the holiday’s symbols:
I’ve finally reached the end of watching Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland adaptations, having completed the last three this month – including the famous MGM film, which capped the whole thing off. I’ll continue with Baum’s books, as there are still plenty of Oz stories left to be read, but I’ve since moved onto a reread of Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea books. I’ve never read the very last one in the series, though for now I’m sticking to the original trilogy.
Another theme for April is Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. Having seen both The Importance of Being Earnest and a Macbeth-inspired ballet at the theatre last month, I naturally had to seek out more performances and adaptations – plus, I dearly wanted to see Hamnet, especially after Jessie Buckley’s win at the Oscars.
The Importance of Being Earnest (National Theatre)
I naturally had to follow up my own theatre outing to see The Importance of Being Earnest by watching the production that most likely inspired my local theatre to stage their own version – especially since Ncuti Gatwa was involved. I went in mostly interested in the differences regarding how the two would be staged – for example, the halftime in this show was at a later point than the one I saw live, and a bit of the physical comedy we had at the Court Theatre was lost.
Likewise, the scenery change in our show was covered by Cecily singing a love song in front of the curtains, while here it’s Algernon trying on some new clothes in front of his butler, and later the infamous muffin argument (which ends with Jack yelling: “we’ve covered the scene change!”)
I am however, convinced that our costume designer was inspired by the extremely bright (to the point of garish) outfits showcased in the National Theatre – though they went one step further into full-on drag, featuring a dance prologue and epilogue in which the performers emerge in elaborate drag queen costumes (and apparently Stephen Fry filled in for Sharon D. Clarke as Lady Bracknell in certain performances).
As well as that, there’s a clear attraction between both Algie and Jack, and Cecily and Gwendolyn, which seems to be commentary on the irony of Oscar Wilde writing a play with two heterosexual pairings that are not hugely convincing in their declarations of love for each other (the actors in my show were rather dandy, but here it’s downright weird to watch Ncuti Gatwa declare his love for Cecily). It highlights the need for these characters to hide their true selves from the society in which they live – but in the safety of the theatre at least, they can celebrate who they truly are without any inhibitions.
Hugh Skinner, who I knew best as Fleabag’s hapless ex-boyfriend, makes for a much more highly-strung Jack, while Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ as Gwendolyn goes for broad comedy and plenty of double entendres. Eliza Scanlan is having quite the early career, as so far I’ve seen her as the pure, innocent Beth in Little Women, and the vindictive, conniving Amma in Sharp Objects. Now she’s playing another completely different type, though I wasn’t a huge fan of the nasal, rather buzzy voice she put on.
Then there’s Sharon Clarke as the character who always gets the biggest laughs, and who here nearly walks off with the whole show.
Macbeth (Stratford Festival)
I have no recollection of saving this onto my hard drive, though I suspect it had something to do with Covid due to the preshow interview with the director and two leads, since they’re clearly in lockdown. Originally staged in 2016, this performance was released on YouTube a few years ago for the rest of us to enjoy.
I’ve seen Macbeth a few times (it’s my favourite Shakespeare tragedy, and in fact, the first Shakespeare play I ever saw) though this is the first time I’ve heard it performed with Canadian accents. Though it’s shot in front of a live audience, the filming director makes the most of the camera’s flexibility to provide plenty of angles, close-ups, and in one instance, a point-of-view shot. When Banquo appears at the feast, we see the scene from Macbeth’s perspective, with all the seated men staring straight at him (us) and Banquo raising an accusing finger from the head of the table.
It was with interest that I noticed the director placed a lot of emphasis on the love story between the Macbeths, and because they’re played by much younger actors than usual, there’s an added sexual component to their interactions and a tonal change in how they interact with each other. Much of Lady Macbeth’s haranguing is softened, and one gets the sense neither one is striving for their own gain, but instead for the sake of the other.
In fact, the preshow interview has actor Ian Lake provide some incisive commentary on the subject of Macbeth’s famous “tomorrow” soliloquy, and what’s going on in his head when he speaks it:
“Find me an actor who’s played the part who’s ever felt like he nailed that speech and I’ll find you a liar, because it’s just one of those speeches that is too dense to fully ever really crack and that’s what’s so brilliant about it. But I always felt like what’s going on at the core of it is he’s gets brought back for a moment to that place of what they were fighting for, for each other, to begin with, which was legacy and family and love and just trying to make each other happy, and seeing how decisions he made with that in mind brought him to the exact opposite place.”
In contrast, other characters are made much older – specifically Banquo, which makes him a mentor figure to Macbeth instead of a peer.
Mostly it excels in its original details, usually just before the lights dim at the end of a scene. After meeting the witches, Macbeth’s eyes linger on the charm they’ve hung from a nearby tree. As Macbeth departs the court, Banquo thoughtfully watches him go. Just before Duncan’s murder, Fleance gives Macbeth a little hug, which he half-automatically responds to. All these little flourishes give the play a lived-in feel, and interiority to the characters, who are clearly having thoughts even when they’re not speaking their lines.
In all, a great and atmospheric performance, with actors who clearly understand their characters and the words they’re speaking. This would be a great performance to introduce someone to the play: there’s evocative set design, clear annunciation throughout, and no unnecessary frills.
Jessi and the Bad Babysitter by Anne M. Martin
I am determined to keep these entries down to a reasonable length, so here goes: it’s the book after Dawn’s departure and the BSC is getting swamped. A borderline hysterical Kristy calls for anyone to think of a new potential member and Jessi comes up with Wendy Loesser, a girl in her class we’ve never heard of before and will probably never hear of again. Wendy is a great sitter who knows how to entertain kids responsibly, but nobody gets a chance to vet her properly or fill her in on how the club works before she’s hired, largely because the girls are so desperately for help.
Despite her effectiveness with children, Wendy turns up to late to meetings and to at least one babysitting job at the Pikes, then gets in trouble for having private babysitting clients instead of passing on the club’s number so everyone can have a fair shot at jobs – something Wendy sees as a strain on her personal income. When confronted, she decides to quit.
And that’s it really – the cover art depicting her blowing gum at a meeting and the tagline: “this is Dawn’s replacement?” suggest a level of irresponsibility to her character that isn’t really there. It’s one of those conundrums in which both sides genuinely have a point: Wendy is eleven, doesn’t like having to be at meetings three times a week (in which she gets glared at by Kristy if she’s even a second late), doesn’t want to lose clients whose kids are comfortable with her as their sitter, and on being told: “you knew the rules when you joined,” points out that she didn’t. The meeting in which she joined was too hectic to even get the basics across.
On the other hand, Kristy also has a point: she’s set certain protocols for the sake of fairness and efficiency, and any deviations from that make the club look unprofessional. Girl’s a small business owner! The sheer chaos of their situation meant the finer print wasn’t made clear to Wendy.
In any case, Shannon steps up to be the new alternate officer since some of her extracurricular activities have come to an end (this makes little sense as she’s been attending club meetings for the last half-dozen books anyway) and Jessi calls Wendy to make sure there are no hard feelings – which there aren’t.
Jessi is an odd choice for a direct follow-up to Dawn’s departure – I can’t believe I’m saying this, but surely Mary Anne would have been the natural choice given the opportunity to explore how she might feel in the wake of her stepsister’s departure. Perhaps to make up for this lack of emotional context, the book stuffs in a ton of subplots. Mallory is still feeling consistency rundown and unable to take on jobs (it’s mono, as we’ll find out in an upcoming book, but I chose to blame burnout due to the Pikes still treating her as a third parent), Margo is caught shoplifting by Jessi and eventually made to fess up, and the Stoneybrook kids (including Norman Hill, who I thought had been forgotten about) use a camcorder to record a play for Dawn, a mashup of Snow White and Captain Planet. Heck, even Dawn gets a chapter when it turns out she’s doing something similar in California with the I Love Kids Club clients.
Claudia and the Mystery at the Museum by Anne M. Martin
Another mystery so soon after the last one, and starring my favourite babysitter. Hurrah! Claudia is excited about visiting a new museum in Stoneybrook, which features an exhibit by Don Newman, an artist she admires. She decides to take Corrie Addison (another character I didn’t think we’d see again) and the Arnold twins with her.
While visiting, the fire alarm goes off, and as everyone is gathered in the courtyard outside, an announcement is made that some expensive antique coins have just been stolen from their display case. Claudia catches a glimpse of it as they’re ushered downstairs to be searched, and tries to draw together a pool of suspects: a man with mismatched eyes, the creepy custodian, the janitor, a group of girl guides… well, maybe not them.
Naturally the Babysitters Club put themselves on the case, returning to the scene of the crime and looking for clues.
The annoying thing about this story is that the girls don’t actually solve the mystery, despite having all the clues at their disposal. What conclusion would you draw with this evidence: 1. The coins almost certainly weren’t removed from the museum since the exits were cut off and everyone searched before being allowed to leave, 2. Claudia’s artist has a number of “hands on” sculptures that are movable, including one called “Daphne” that is irritatingly never described, which Claudia believes feels different than when she handled it last in New York, and 3. In talking to the artist (who is apparently fine with people finding his number in the phone book and calling him up at his house), Claudia learns that “Daphne” has a secret compartment that he made to entertain his children.
Somehow Claudia doesn’t put the pieces together, so when she gets invited to a showing at the museum, she doesn’t ask the artist to show her the secret compartment in his sculpture and thus discover the coins, but instead ends up following one of their suspects (the unlikely named Mr Snipes) only to get waylaid and happen upon the janitor retrieving the missing coins from the sculpture. We then learn that the two major suspects, Mr Snipes and the guy with the mismatched eyes, were undercover agents, and – okay, they got me with that one at least.
The B-plot is Claire Pike wanting to become famous after she gets a special recording of herself at the mall singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and driving everyone witness with her reruns of it. According to her: “I’m going to be famous soon. As famous as Michael Jackson! As famous as Roseanne!” Oh dear. Not sure you want to be as famous as them these days. Despite some help from Rosie Wilder (it’s certainly a book for reappearances from Claudia-centric babysitting charges) Claire quits show business when she realizes how difficult it’s all going to be.
Other observations: First of all, that tagline is a keeper: “What kind of crook would steal art?” Er, an art thief. They’re kind of a thing. The exposition chapter is livened up a bit by comparing each of the girls to the animals they’re most like: Mary Anne is a koala, Dawn is a dolphin, and so on. And a couple of lines from Claudia were very funny. On being asked if she saw anyone suspicious: “there weren’t any guys with trenchcoats and briefcases or anything,” and on being invited to the museum’s art showing: “I had been asked to a formal party and I only had two days to figure out what to wear.”
The Road to Oz by L.F. Baum
Baum’s foreword pretty much explains the problem with this story: “I said I would like to write some stories that were not Oz stories, because I thought I had written about Oz long enough, but since [the last] volume was published I have been fairly deluged with letters from children imploring me to “write more about Dorothy” and “more about Oz,” and since I write only to please the children, I shall try to respect their wishes.”
Yup, even back in 1909, it was a mistake to listen to whiny fans. The Road to Oz is the weakest book in the series (so far) with a random story, even more random characters, and a sense that Baum is getting tired of it all. In previous books, one felt Baum was making it all up as he went along, simply enjoying the art of invention and creativity, but his foreword also mentions that a lot of the featured ideas are dictated to him by his child readership, which suggests he’s now just diligently transposing them into his stories without rhyme or reason.
Dorothy is outside her house when she’s approached by a Shaggy Man asking for directions. Seeing that he’s unable to follow them correctly, she offers to travel with him for a little while, having clearly never heard of stranger danger. The Shaggy Man tells her there’s no danger for them, as he’s in possession of a “love magnet,” which makes people love him in any circumstances, no matter what. Even putting aside how horrifying this sounds, the presence of such a device removes any and all danger from the story that follows.
Dorothy and the Shaggy Man quickly pick up some more companions: Bright Button, a rather dense little boy who doesn’t know who his parents are, and Polychrome, the beautiful daughter of the rainbow. All three are thematically connected by the desire to reach home, whatever form that may take for them (not quite as compelling as the quest for brains, a heart and courage in the first book) but as the road they’re on leads them into stranger and stranger climes, Dorothy suspects they’re on their way to Oz.
The journey there contains no conflict, danger or desire – it’s just a series of encounters with a few weirdos, in which no one is ever in mortal peril because of the Shaggy Man’s love magnet. You might think that Shaggy Man and Bright Button might end up being people of some importance in disguise, given the former’s lack of a name and the latter’s amnesia concerning who he is and where he came from, with their true identities eventually being revealed in a clever twist… but no.
Everyone just sort of meanders along, through villages of talking foxes and people who use their own heads as projectiles, aware that Ozma’s birthday is coming up and extending invitations to her party left and right. Almost the entire second half of the book is the group enjoying the celebrations and catching up with old friends (Bellina has chicks now) and new (Ozma’s party is attended by none other than Santa Claus himself – and you thought it was random when he turned up in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe!)
We get long descriptions of the guest list, the banquet and the festivities – just like at the end of the previous book, come to think of it, only with yet more characters in attendance. According to Baum: “perhaps there has never been in any part of the world at any time another assemblage of such wonderful people as that which gathered this evening to honour the birthday of the Ruler of Oz.”
There are a few interesting ideas scattered throughout: the Shaggy Man temporarily gets a donkey head like Bottom, and I was intrigued that all of Ozma’s guests are eventually transported back to their homes via giant bubbles. Between that and Polychrome being the “rainbow’s daughter,” could this be the inspiration for Glinda’s bubble vehicle and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in the MGM film? Did Baum come up with those concepts after all?
This is also the book in which Baum’s socialist leanings become obvious, as seen in this little speech from the Tin Woodsman: “Did you suppose we were so vulgar as to use money here? If we used money to buy things with, instead of love and kindness and the desire to please one another, then we should be no better than the rest of the world. Fortunately, money is not known in the Land of Oz at all. We have no rich, and no poor; for what one wishes all the others try to give him, and no one in all Oz cares to have more than he can use.” Later, on describing the army: “There were no privates in Ozma’s army because soldiers were not needed to fight battles, but only to look important, and an officer always looks more imposing than a private.”
It’s a pleasant thought, but not one that’s easily translated into reality. Here’s a much more achievable sentiment, when someone comments on all the strange people they’ve been meeting: “You have some queer friends, Dorothy.” “The queerness doesn’t matter, as long as they’re friends.”
Stonewitch by Skye McKenna
I get to work one morning, cast a glance over the new books on the trolley, and there was the latest book in the Hedgewitch series, just waiting for me! This penultimate instalment in the series takes us to Scotland, where the various witch covens are meeting for a Covenmoot in the remote valley of Glen Carlin. While their elders discuss the ever-growing threat of the mysterious Erl King, the young witches will engage in a number of activities to test their skill, with the winning team taking home the coveted Covenmoot Cauldron.
Yet while they’re there, Cassie attempts to learn more about the mysterious disappearance of her mother many years ago, and her connection with the Erl King, who is slowly but surely amassing weapons and allies to launch an attack on those that guard the borders between Faerie and the mortal world. That is, Cassie’s aunt the Hedgewitch, guardian of Hedgely, Maureen the Seawitch, guardian of Porthmorven, and the long-lost Stonewitch, guardian of Glen Carlin.
These are the places where the borders between our world and Faerie are at their weakest, and so by getting rid of their guardian witches, the Erl King will have nothing standing between him and… you know what, I’m not entirely sure what he wants, but it’s probably nothing good.
I’ve been enjoying these books quite a lot: the characters are likeable enough, the world-building is cozy, the use of magic and Faerie is suitably mystical and eerie (more Jonathan Strange than Harry Potter), and the plots are fun to unravel. But for all of that, something is missing that prevents these stories from reaching true greatness. Everything is good, but not exceptional. And sure, not every book has to be a classic, but these ones are so frustratingly close.
I can’t quite put my finger on why, though this time around I did notice that the depiction of Faerie and its creatures very much served narrative requirements, as opposed to being an unknowable and mysterious entity that exists entirely on its own terms. I’ve got Susan Cooper and Alan Garner coming up fast in my TBR pile, and I already know McKenna’s depictions of ancient forces and mystical powers are going to pale in comparison to what they’ve got in store.
She also can’t quite outrun the Harry Potter comparisons: a train ride to Scotland, young people whizzing around on broomsticks, inter-coven rivalries heightened due to a magical competition, and a plethora of little subplots: a squabble between Cassie’s two friends, Robin (a male witch) trying to prove himself, various encounters with fey folk of the highlands, and most importantly, meeting a young Scottish girl with a destiny before her.
Still, my enjoyment far outweighs my little niggles. The last book is due in October, so I may have to make that a witchy-themed month. I just hope it’s set predominately in Hedgely. Though it’s par for the course for these types of book series to go on roadbtrips and have their characters enjoy a change of scenery, I’ve really missed the cozy streets and little shops of Hedgely.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula le Guin
Unpopular opinion time: although I greatly respect the work, the intelligence and the person that was Ursula le Guin, I can’t quite seem to emotionally connect with A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book of her most famous series. I read it years ago (around 2006) to the same effect, and time and reflection has not changed that (non)-feeling.
As it was originally published in 1968, many of its once innovative concepts (the importance of names, the intricacies of mapwork, the Equilibrium of magic) have become staples of the fantasy genre, and because I came to it relatively late in life, it had no hold over my childhood or formative memories. Even the underlying premise, as le Guin points out in her afterword, was based on the reasoning that Merlin and Gandalf must have been young and foolish once – so how did they learn to be wise wizards? This idea, suffice to say, has been explored many times since.
(I even think that K.A. Applegate’s rules of Animorphing, in which her protagonists can’t stay in animal-form for more than two hours lest they get stuck in that shape, may have its origins here).
Ironically, the one still-unique (relatively speaking) component is that our hero is brown-skinned, something that has been repeatedly glossed over in cover art and crappy adaptations.
On this reread, bits and pieces came back to me: I could recall the wizard school on Roke and Ged’s terrible hubris when he calls up the shadow, but nothing of the cold and ominous Court of the Terrenon. My clearest memory was the short interlude involving the aged castaways, whose true identities and purpose aren’t even revealed in this book, but whose terrible fate haunts me to this day.
There’s no denying the story has no time for women, something le Guin herself came to rectify in later books, though it’s unclear to me how much of that was planned in advance. It seems unlikely that a woman of her intellect would write an idiom like “as weak as woman’s magic,” and mean it, but the righting of the ship is a long time coming. The only notable women here are Serret, a beautiful and dangerous enchantress (though without the sexual temptation this archetype usually implies) and Yarrow, a cheerful little sister who provides the boys with the vittles they need for a long journey. The rest don’t even get names, but are just a faceless assortment of mothers, aunts, wives and so on. And there are certainly no women at the school of Roke.
The latest editions of the book are gorgeous: hardcovers with material lining in either dark green, purple or blue, with silver or gold embossing and illustrations by Charles Vess. The best fantasy stories engender vivid impressions of a place; a set of sensations you can conjure up in your mind, and Earthsea has always been about salt water, damp earth, rock formations, ancient tombs… it’s this that Vess captures so well in his artwork. There’s nothing cozy here, and I can’t say it fully appealed to me, but I definitely felt it.
As le Guin points out in her afterword, there are no battles or wars here, no sense of good versus evil exactly, but something more akin to Taoism, in which her hero must “simply” find out who and what he is. There is seeking and discovery through loss and suffering, and as she puts it, victory doesn’t look like “the end of a battle, but the beginning of a life.”
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula le Guin
I’ve been unwell, so I raced through this in just two days. My memories of this book were vaguer than that of A Wizard of Earthsea, and all I really recalled with any clarity was Tenar realizing in shock that her friend didn’t really believe in all the rituals and worship that their lives revolved around.
In her afterword, le Guin swears that when she wrote A Wizard of Earthsea, she had no inkling that there would be a sequel, despite the opening paragraph recounting Ged’s marvellous feats, which the story itself didn’t delve into. I’ll take her word for it, though I always felt the chapter in which he’s given a strange artefact from an old woman stranded on an uncharted islet, which he doesn’t learn the significance of until much later, was a clearer indicator that le Guin always had more stories in mind.
That chapter is expanded on in this novel, and that artefact made the MacGuffin of the story – or at least, its other half is. Both make up the two halves of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, one discovered entirely by chance by Ged, and the other concealed within an immense labyrinth beneath the titular Tombs of Atuan in a barren desert landscape.
It is this that Ged spends the novel’s length searching for, though he is not the book’s protagonist. That role switches to a young girl known as Arha, the High Priestess of the Unnamed Gods, to whom her life has been consecrated. Her real name is Tenar and she was taken from her true family when she was only five, believed to be the reincarnation of the old priestess. Her life is one of dreary routine: rituals, meals, training, lessons – until one day she discovers a man in the labyrinth, one who is clearly looking for something.
I’d hazard a guess that this place was inspired by the labyrinth on Crete (sans the minotaur) and le Guin brings it to vivid life – almost too vivid, what with lengthy descriptions of Tenar navigating the twists and turns in the pitch dark with only her sense of touch and the directions in her head to guide her. *shudder*
She also mentions in her afterword that Tenar was partially designed to be the complete opposite of Ged: not only a girl instead of a boy, but as one who could not seek power or train for it, but instead had it forced upon her; a girl whose name was not given to her by a kind teacher, but taken from her by a masked executioner. Just as Ged refused wisdom through pride, Tenar was given the power of a goddess, but taught nothing about life as a human being.
Le Guin then talks about how tricky it was to restructure a fantasy story through a woman’s perspective, leading to a couple of interesting remarks, such as: “the women warriors of current fantasy epics are ruthless swordswomen with no domestic or sexual responsibility who gallop around slaughtering baddies – to me they look less like women than like boys in women’s bodies in men’s armour.” First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a female character in fantasy like the one she outlines here (she can’t be talking about Tamora Pierce’s heroines, right?) Secondly, even though I definitely have my reservations about the glorification of war no matter who is fighting it, who’s to say there can’t be interesting characterization to be found in what she’s just described? Is a lack of domestic or sexual responsibility something that’s inherently masculine?
She also comments: “some people have read the story as supporting the idea that a woman needs a man in order to do anything at all (some nodded approvingly, others growled and hissed). Certainly Arha/Tenar would better satisfy feminist idealists if she did everything all by herself… but my imagination wouldn’t provide a scenario where she could, because my heart told me incontrovertibly that neither gender could go far without the other. So, in my story, neither the woman nor the man can get free without the other. Each has to ask for the other’s help and learn to trust and depend on the other.”
Again, I have no problems with how the story of The Tombs of Atuan plays out, but I do have two caveats to this mentality. We have hundreds of thousands of stories in which men save the passive damsels in distress, so I think the existence of just a FEW more self-sufficient women in the attempt to try and even those scales just a little would not be remiss. Likewise, it doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that this theme of “asking for help” could just as easily take place between two women as it does between a man and a woman. At no point does Tenar ever think to seek advice or assistance from one of the many, many women that make up the religious sect in which she lives.
To reiterate, I’ve no problem with Ged and Tenar helping each other escape the labyrinth. I’m just saying that since le Guin drew attention to this subject of characters needing help, it’s worth saying the theme exists within a much larger literary context, and that other options for female characters are also available.
But I did appreciate that Tenar’s freedom is not that easily won on a psychological level. There are a few chapters left in the story after she escapes the tombs which makes it clear she’s not simply going to become a cossetted princess. Instead, le Guin takes the opportunity to point out that losing the only life you’ve ever known, even in the attempt to gain your freedom, is its own struggle and burden.
It would be a long time before Tenar’s story was continued – the next book was published in 1972, but the story does not return to Tenar until the publication of Tenahu in 1990, eighteen years later.
The Farthest Shore by Ursula le Guin
I had a few memories of reading A Wizard of Earthsea, and a couple of The Tombs of Atuan, but when it came to The Farthest Shore – nada. Only a vague recollection that Ged is older, and teams up with a young prince this time around. That’s all.
It wastes no time getting to the point, beginning with Prince Lebannen at the School of Wizardry on Roke, meeting with Ged (now a middle-aged Archmage) about a strange malady crossing some of the outer islands – that magic is drying up; luck disappearing; a sense of joy and purpose leaving the world. It’s a bit like what the Spectres do in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, or the Forged in Robin Hobb’s The Farseer trilogy.
Ged and Lebannen head out in their little boat to find the source of this sickness, hearing strange rumours of a man who has “opened the door” between life and death. There are rogue wizards, nomadic seafarers, ghostly spectres, and – best of all – dragons, whose return is welcome after sitting out the last book (on the other hand, Tenar is mentioned, but does not appear).
Set seventeen years after The Tombs of Atuan, Ged is now middle-aged, with Lebannen filling the role of naïve young man who needs to learn wisdom – though he’s more sensitive and prudent than Ged ever was. He’s a likeable enough character (his best moment is when he purchases a brooch for his mother before setting out on a dangerous voyage he knows he may not come back from) and his arc is solid, going from idolization of Ged, to disillusionment, and finally a greater understanding of the older man.
But some parts are a little odd to me. On their quest to find the source of the spiritual entropy, they’re temporarily joined by another wizard who has fallen victim to its sway. He voyages with them a little way, and is then killed off very abruptly, without really doing anything of note.
And although it’s not overstated, there is an underlying theme that in order for the archipelago to be restored to full spiritual health once again, it’s in need of a unifying king to lead everyone. It’s a concept that feels very reductive, especially for an author renowned for bucking trends.
Finally, sometimes le Guin’s prose could get a little… much. Take this sentence: “So ended their great run from the Roads of Balatran to the Western Isle. The stillness of the earth was strange to them when they had beached Lookfar and walked after so long on solid ground.” I had to read it twice, as it initially appeared to say the exact opposite of what she meant. Surely it would have been better to say: “walked on solid ground after so long.”
Then there was this statement from Ged: “I would say [to a king], my lord, do nothing because it is righteous or praiseworthy or noble to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do and which you cannot do in any other way.” Because of the context, in which Ged and Lebannon are discussing the advantages of remaining completely passive (that is, doing nothing) I struggled to discern the meaning here. Is Ged saying: “do nothing just because it is righteous or praiseworthy,” or does he mean: “do nothing precisely because it is righteous or praiseworthy”?
Yes, I know I’m committing an act of sacrilege by criticizing the great le Guin, but the unfortunate truth is I was never able to emotionally connect to these stories or their characters. I really wish I had, but I can only assume I simply came to them at the wrong time in my life. This is my second read through, and although I can appreciate them, both on their own terms and for what they did for the genre, they’re not ever going to be my favourites.
I’m going to take a little break before tackling the final three books in the series – which will hopefully be sooner than later, as I came into the library just this week, cast my eyes over the new books trolley, and saw a brand-spanking-new edition of The Other Wind waiting for me. That’s the only book in the series I haven’t read yet, and despite everything, I’m looking forward to it.
Sanctuary by Kate De Goldi
This month and next I’m attending a six-week seminar on children’s literature, hosted by New Zealand author Kate De Goldi. Realizing it was slightly embarrassing to have never read any of her books, I’ve been loaned quite a pile from a co-worker. Sanctuary was published back in 1996, and as it happened, De Goldi visited my school as part of a promotional tour. I have a vivid memory of her discussing how she chose the models featured on the cover, and of seeing a short performance by older students which dramatized a few scenes from the book.
Perhaps its most interesting feature (for me anyway) is that it’s set right here in Christchurch, something I’ve never come across before in a book. The Changeover by Margaret Mahy was set in Gardendale, which is clearly meant to be Bishopdale, but this uses street names and local landmarks and public areas that I’ve lived around my entire life – it was a little surreal. Some of the places aren’t even there anymore, most notably the New Brighton Zoo, which was a privately owned and run animal shelter I visited a few times as a kid.
Truth be told, it was a rather dingy place, which is how Catriona Stuart responds to it as well. Her new boyfriend Jeremiah works there, and despite the obvious love and care the owners have for their menagerie, Catriona hates the conditions the animals are kept in, especially the panther Cleo. Framed by therapy sessions that allude to a tragedy in her past, Catriona navigates a love triangle between Jeremiah and his brother Simeon, tries to reconcile with her mother Stella, and comes up with a plan to free Cleo into the wild.
It’s not the sort of thing I usually read, but that it was so of the place I live, set at such a specific point in time, and to have a distant memory of an author I’m currently having discussions with every Thursday – it provided a very full-circle feeling.
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
This was the last of all the Alice/Peter/Dorothy-related material I’ve been watching since the beginning of the year, so I’m pleased to say it all went out on a high note.
I’m not sure what I can say about this film that hasn’t been said a million times before, but here goes. Like so many others, I had this on VCR as a kid, but though it was an early viewing experience, it was never what I would call formative. I enjoyed it, I still enjoy it, but it doesn’t resonate with me on the same deep level as other films of my early childhood did. Perhaps it’s because it’s so intrinsically American, which I am not. I’ve heard it said this film is the one thing that unites all Americans through their great and abiding love for it, but I suppose I am simply more of a Wendy than a Dorothy (and definitely not an Alice).
Rewatching for the first time in several years, and having read Baum’s book so recently, a few things stuck out. First of all, Judy Garland is considerably older than the child described in the book (at least according to the illustrations – Baum never shares her exact age) and the film did do well in making the conflict between Glinda and the Wicked Witch a natural narrative thoroughfare throughout Dorothy’s adventures.
The film is also better at capturing the irony of the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion wanting a brain, a heart and courage even though they already have those qualities in abundance – well, perhaps the Tin Man’s sentimentality is only conveyed through his frequent bouts of tears. The book managed it better in that he’s extra careful about causing harm to anyone, to compensate for his lack of feeling, which of course only demonstrates that he has plenty of it.
Even amidst the litany of brains and bravery jokes that occur between Hunk and Zeke the farmhands, Hickory (the Tin Man analogue) only claims that one day a statue of him will be erected in the town square. That’s a bit of a weak correlation in comparison.
Likewise, that the film adds a framework of Dorothy’s adventure being a dream rather weakens the moral they’ve inserted: that there’s no place like home. I mean, technically she never left it. And it wasn’t as if Dorothy was depicted as initially running away from home for no good reason – she was trying to save Toto’s life from the nasty Miss Gulch, who brings a warrant from the local sheriff to have him destroyed. And poor Toto is still in danger by the end of the film, assuming Miss Gulch is still out there. Maybe she was blown away by the tornado…
Miscellaneous Observations:
To this day, the visual splendour and the glorious technicolour is what makes the film so special: the matte paintings, the fields of poppies, the yellow brick road, the glistening Emerald City, the ruby slippers, the horse of a different colour – it’s all gorgeous. As a child, I would fast-forward through the Kansas scenes to get to Munchkinland ASAP, though now I can appreciate the sepia-toned farmyard scenes as well (and those shots with the tornado in the background are pretty damn convincing!) I was a little surprised at how long the Kansas sequence really is, though I suppose Dorothy opening the door into the colour and beauty of Munchkinland is all the more effective for delaying it for as long as possible.
Since I last saw it, I had read about a whole sequence involving a creature called the Jitterbug that waylays the companions in the dark forest just before the flying monkeys attack – and so for the first time I noticed the line of dialogue from the Witch that references it. She tells the head flying monkey: “do what you like with the others but I want her alive and unharmed! They'll give you no trouble, I promise you that. I've sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them.”
In hindsight, it’s strange they didn’t cut that line along with the entirety of the Jitterbug sequence, though I suppose I have to admit I’ve never noticed her saying it until it was pointed out to me.
I was rather bemused that the fatal bucket of water that finally takes out the Wicked Witch is just there in the film, whereas in the book Dorothy’s stint at the Witch’s castle takes place over a number of days, in which she’s put to work mopping the floors – though either way, it’s pretty careless of the witch to give her such easy access to water.
I was always confused as a child as to what exactly the Witch meant when she threatened Dorothy with the hourglass, telling her: “that’s how much longer you’ve got to be alive!” Did she mean that when the sand ran out, she’d come back into the room and kill her? Or that the hourglass would somehow be responsible for her death? It feels like the latter since Dorothy is looking at it fearfully as the Tin Man breaks down the door with his axe, crying: “the sand has almost run out!” But what exactly would have happened if she was still in the room when it did? I’m still not sure what was going on there!
Terry the Cairn Terrier as Toto is surely the movie’s understated MVP, as the range of acting this little guy does is just amazing. I’m sure they had to go through a lot of footage to get him to do what they wanted, but what ends up on the screen is just adorable. The way he watches the Tin Man as he takes his first steps after being oiled is just delightful.
Finally, I’ve always wondered: just where did the RED brick road go?
The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
With each year that passes, this play becomes more and more of a headache to perform… except to the manosphere and the tradwives I suppose, who would no doubt be totally enthusiastic about the tamed Katharina’s conclusion that women should be submissive and obedient because their husbands do all the work of looking after them and only want “love, fair looks, and true obedience” in return. I mean, that’s like the central hypothesis of the entire Republican party, even though it holds no resemblance to reality, either back when women were treated as chattel, or today when women can (and should) financially look after themselves.
I wanted to watch this after seeing The Merry Wives of Windsor in February, as I mentioned at the time that that play almost felt like an antidote to this one, which is certainly not kind to its female lead. Every adaptation that tackles this material revolves around the question: “how on earth do we mitigate this?” In this case, the secret weapon is Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s performances as Katharina and Petruchio, and for each one adds some degree of nuance to what is essentially a marriage built on negging and gaslighting.
For instance, Katharina isn’t just defiant and unwilling to marry, but violent to the point of derangement. She’s not an outspoken feminist firebrand, but a woman who is needlessly cruel to those around her, which means an aspect of her “taming” feels a bit like comeuppance. Likewise, Petruchio’s treatment of her is performative; a deliberated method to try and change her behaviour, not a way of life she’ll be subjected to forever. In his moments alone, he appears exhausted at having to keep up the pretence.
The “taming” plays out more like Katharina realizing the game her husband is playing, and surrendering not from exhaustion, but because she chooses to play along for fun. When her submission and speech finally occurs, Petruchio is not triumphant, but almost overcome by emotion at her words (and she makes him follow her out of the room). And even Shakespeare himself makes it clear the marriage is not consummated until Katharina is ready for it to be so.
All that said, we still like Katharina as she was before: a slightly deranged wildcat. Likewise, our sympathy also lies with Bianca and the widow in the final scene for not dropping everything to rush to their husbands’ beck and call (and like Portia’s ploy with the rings in The Merchant in Venice, the correct lesson to take away from all this is to never submit your spouse to a secret test of character. You’ll always be disappointed, and it’ll be entirely your fault because they have no idea what’s actually going on).
You cannot help but feel sorry for Katharina as she’s pursued, humiliated, drenched, starved, forced to watch as her gowns are destroyed, and then regretful when her fires are finally quenched. I’m not saying her violence was a great look either, but the shrew is tamed, the horse is broken, and something in her is lost forever. Her spirit and wildness are exchanged for conformity, which is Petruchio’s goal from the start: “For I am he am born to tame you, Kate, and bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate conformable as other household Kates.”
In the orbit of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, everyone else can’t help but fade a little: character actor Michael Horndern is here as the girls’ long-suffering father, and there’s some fun scenes between Michael York and Alfred Lynch as Luciano and Tranio (when the latter takes on Luciano’s cloak, he fastidiously brushes off his master’s hand, pretending the garment has been soiled by his touch). There are plenty of hugely chaotic scenes which must have been a nightmare to direct, in which dozens of characters and extras are running all over the screen, bursting with life and energy, and an idealist depiction of Italy is rendered with elaborate costumes and large sets – these days it would all be blue screen.
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
This and Hamnet ended up being a perfect double feature (watched over two nights) and not just for the obvious reason that both are about where Shakespeare got inspiration for his two most famous plays. More pertinently, each one is about how art can make someone live forever, eliciting emotions that remain are felt just as strongly as they were hundreds of years ago. There’s beauty to be found in the contrast as well: Hamnet is about death, while Shakespeare in Love is about life, with the lovers parted but Violet/Juliet allowed to walk freely into a new world – America, in fact.
One is interested as Shakespeare as a lover, the other as a father. One focuses on a woman who is all light and air, a muse to his writings; the other a woman who is earthy and shadowy, existing at a remove from his creative work. And of course, one is a tragedy, the other a comedy (despite its bittersweet ending).
As someone who up until now would have said she was a bit lukewarm about this film, I ended up really enjoying it this time around, especially watching the way Will’s love affair with Viola de Lesser (as well as a host of other experiences and interactions) inspires the plot of Romeo and Juliet.
It also has a stacked cast of familiar character actors: Geoffrey Rush, Tim McMullan, Martin Clunes, Rupert Everett, Simon Callow, Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter, Simon Day (I’ve seen a few of these faces in Hustle recently), Mark Williams (though in hindsight, his character is a bit ableist – stutters do not magically disappear at the most heartwarming moment possible) and of course, Judy Dench doing her Judy Dench thing. Colin Firth acts against type as the awful Lord Sussex, and Ben Affleck is a walking meta-joke, given that he’s a big-name actor playing a small part as a big-name actor playing a small part.
But I’d have to say that Tom Wilkinson has my favourite arc, starting out as a ruthless moneylender who has little interest in anything but calling in his debts, but who is slowly drawn into the excitement and glamour of the theatre. Eventually Shakespeare gives him a small role in the play as an apothecary, and the funniest joke in this whole thing is when the end of the story is being recounted to the players, and on getting to the part of the apothecary, Wilkinson gasps and softly cries: “that’s me!”
The love story between Will and Viola isn’t too convincing, though I appreciated that the two are almost self-aware about the fact they’re in love with love (at one point a disguised Viola even says: “I think the lady is wise to keep your love at a distance. For what lady could live up to it close to, when her eyes and lips and voice may be no more beautiful than mine?”) It’s as passionate as it is because they know they’re on the clock; they have a “stolen season” in which these two poets can indulge their love of drama and tragedy before getting on with their lives, perhaps secretly knowing that their love is stronger for having never entered the real world.
Of course, the bittersweet ending is far sweeter for Will – who has an illustrious career ahead of him – and rather bitter for Viola – no one seems to take into consideration what she’s actually in for: a loveless marriage (and all that entails) to a horrible man. Unless of course we want to assume the shipwreck was real.
Unlike Juliet, at least Viola gets to live, and that final visual of her striding confidently across the sand is one of the all-time great final shots. I can always get behind a story that believes there’s more to life than romantic love, especially in an actual romance.
The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)
I obviously had to finish things off with the cinematic version of the play, and of course it was interesting to see what differences the medium wrought. Not being confined to the stage, which demands only three sets (two drawing rooms and a garden) the film is free to move around extensively, from Moncrieff’s townhouse to Worthing’s estate to places like the Savoy and the theatre and Lady Bracknell’s imposing home. Heck, Algernon even arrives at Jack’s estate in a hot air balloon.
Furthermore, the film can dramatize Cecily’s daydreams – namely how she envisions herself as a dewy maiden and Algernon as a knight in armour, in tableaus straight out of a Renaissance painting.
The performances are obviously less broad, seeing as the actors no longer need to project their voices across an auditorium, though the greatest change is in Gwendolyn. On the stage she’s a bit of a flibbertigibbet, whereas here Frances McDormand plays her with absolute self-possession and decorum. Reese Witherspoon looks very young as Cecily, leaning into her naivety rather than her cunning, while Rupert Everett is a natural fit as the sardonic Algernon (I’m not sure if he’d come out at this point, but it certainly adds to the theme of pretence).
Only Colin Firth is a bit lacklustre as Jack; not bad, but clearly required to play the straight man. Judy Dench is back, as is Tom Wilkinson as Doctor Chasuble, making up one half of my favourite couple of the three featured. And hey – I’ve only just realized this film includes four Shakespeare in Love actors: Firth, Dench, Wilkinson and Everett!
Only two things bugged: firstly that a flashback reveals Mrs Bracknell was a stage dancer in her youth (that seems very unlikely), and secondly that the audience gets to see that Jack lies about his true name in the final moments, with Lady Bracknell opening the Army Lists and noticing that his father’s name was John after all. Come on! That means despite his declaration that he’s realized the importance of being earnest (that is, truthful) he’s still lying to Gwendolyn about his identity. Not a great way to start a marriage.
Hamnet (2025)
A work colleague told me she went to see this by herself, was seated next to a woman she had never met before in her life, and that by the end of it they were clutching each other and sobbing together. As such, I went in prepared for a cryfest, and yes – it delivered. Once again I am profoundly grateful that vaccinations exist.
There’s a line in Shakespeare in Love in which the man himself woefully tells Rosaline: “I would have made you immortal*.” That’s the underlying premise of Hamnet: the idea that we are but brief candles, but that fiction resonates forever. The moment in which Agnes realizes what her husband has done; that people will grieve their son for as long as theatre exists, is no doubt what won Jessie Buckley her Oscar. I believe I first saw her in 2016’s War and Peace, and she stuck out even then for having such an emotive and vulnerable face.
This film covers the non-literary parts of Shakespeare’s early life, namely his marriage to Anne Hathaway (here called Agnes) and the birth of their three children. The tragedy at the centre of the drama is of course the death of their son Hamnet at a young age, and Shakespeare channelling his grief into the writing and staging of Hamlet. Most of the story is told from the perspective of Agnes, to the point where the film actually treats Shakespeare’s identity as a reveal, given that his full name is not divulged until the last fifteen or so minutes of the film.
For this reason, the film can sometimes feel a little uncertain of itself, simply because you’d naturally expect Shakespeare to be the film’s protagonist. After all, he’s the writer of the play at the heart of the film, and it’s his grief that drives it into being. Yet unlike Shakespeare in Love, which followed a similar concept by tracking the creative process of Romeo and Juliet across the course of his love affair with Viola de Lesser, Shakespeare remains a secondary character; his grief always at the edges of the story.
And doesn’t that kind of miss the point of the story? If we’re not allowed to see exactly how his grief influences the work? How art immortalizes an emotion? Apparently not, as Agnes is our main point-of-view character, and she can only respond to the finished work. Unlike Viola, she’s not even Will’s muse, and the stagecraft of the play (like the rehearsals and so on) barely registers. I realize I’m essentially complaining that Jessie Buckley is the main character and not Paul Mescal, but I was looking forward to see the process behind the marrying of Shakespeare’s grief to his art.
And after all, he’s the one who actually makes that art. In having an impact on the story, even Hamnet himself has a bigger role than Agnes, seemingly taking agency over this own death by “tricking” it into sparing his sister. In comparison, Agnes is entirely reactive.
Of course, that’s not a dealbreaker. That’s just how Maggie O’Farrell chose to write her novel, which inevitably shaped the presentation of this adaptation. But if you arrive at this film with the expectation that it’ll tell you how Hamlet came to be (see what I did there?) you’ll probably end up disappointed.
I don’t want to come across as too negative, as this really was a gorgeous film. Chloe Zhao’s gift is in bringing the past to life so vividly – and yet even though we’re back in the sixteenth century, there’s still a hominess and familiarity to everything. We have fences and backyards just like theirs! The child actors are fantastic, as are all the bit players and extras (watch the guy to Agnes’s left during the performance of Hamlet – he goes on quite the face journey). Everything is beautifully shot, especially the lingering scenes of the forest cave and how it echoes the door in the theatre from whence the ghost emerges (and through which Hamnet eventually disappears).
I did spot a few complaints about how Agnes was depicted as a “flower child,” but whatever. When you’ve watched 2022’s Persuasion, in which Anne Elliot sheds her gown to go swimming in the ocean and makes public remarks about a dream in which an octopus sucked on her face, you get a high tolerance for this sort of thing. And Jessie Buckley has such an earthy quality anyway, that her “witchcraft” hardly comes across as anachronistic.
One last thing: it’s based on the world’s most famous play, so I doubt anyone would have been at a complete loss here, but you do need to understand the context of Hamlet for the final scene to hit as hard as it does.
*(It’s also a little bit like Hamilton’s final song: “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?”)
Alice in Wonderland (1999)
I may be jumping the gun by saying this, as I have by no means watched every single Alice adaptation, but this may just be the most faithful one ever put to the screen. It depicts every single encounter Alice has in Wonderland, in the correct order in which they appear in the book – including the stuff that never gets included, such as the giant puppy and the pepper-obsessed cook. The only omission is the pigeon who thinks Alice is a serpent, but everything else is present and accounted for, even if they change the settings a little (the caucus race is now in a giant library, and the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle are in a hedge maze instead of at the shore).
They have changed the framing device as well – instead of being on an outing with her older sister, Alice is introduced as nervous about being forced to sing at a garden party in front of her parents’ guests (who are of course all played by the actors who will appear throughout Alice’s prolonged dream, à la The Wizard of Oz). Across her adventures, Alice gradually grows in confidence, till she can sing “The Lobster Quadrille” before an audience without fear.
The book’s framing device has always been the least important part of this story, so I’ll give them credit for trying to infuse it with a little character growth.
Alice is played by Tina Majorino, a prolific child actor of my youth who I haven’t seen in years, though she does well here as a surprisingly chill Alice. The rest of the cast is absolutely stacked with performers who clearly leapt at the chance to tick Alice in Wonderland off their career bucket lists: Robbie Coltraine, George Wendt, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lloyd, Pete Postlethwaite, Peter Ustinov, Simon Russell Beale, and Joanna Lumley. Special credit to Miranda Richardson as the squeaky-voiced Queen of Hearts, Martin Short as the Mad Hatter (not to be cruel, but he does look remarkably like the Hatter of John Tenniel’s illustrations) and Gene Wilder as the Mock Turtle, who somehow derives genuine pathos from his role, even as he stands there in a giant turtle costume.
The Jim Henson Company also provides effective puppetry for the most outlandish characters, the best ones being the jury of guinea pigs, the Gryphon, and the fully-articulated March Hare.
Towards the end of the miniseries they can’t resist tacking on a few characters from Through the Looking Glass: Tweedledum and Dee, the Walrus and the Carpenter, the garden of living flowers, and the White Knight. The casting of that last one is amusing since Christopher Lloyd looks and sounds so much like Matt Frewer, who played the same character in 2009’s Alice.
They also throw in the sleeping Red King, which doesn’t work very well since the chessboard motif hasn’t been set up at all, rendering Alice’s existential fear of being inside someone else’s dream a non-starter. I wish they’d simply filmed two miniseries, since as far as I know there’s never been a faithful adaptation of Carroll’s second book. Ah well.
Altogether it’s a funny little artefact with some funny details throughout: the overt American accents on some characters, the yellow dress Alice wears (which seems like a deliberate attempt to distance her from the Disney version) and that Whoopi Goldberg as the Cheshire Cat looks just like Vladislav trying to be a cat in What We Do in the Shadows.
Sleeping Murder (2007)
I’ve been sick, and so was listlessly watching YouTube videos when I came across a channel discussing Agatha Christie adaptations. It moved to rewatch this offering, which I had fond memories of as my sister and I watched it together while waiting for our flight to Wellington years ago to watch The Mousetrap on the stage.
This series was not particularly well received (and it definitely got worse as it went on) but I’ve always liked the vibe of them, and the deviations from Christie’s book aren’t too horrendous (except for making the pool of suspects members of a vaudeville theatre group called the Funnybones, something Christie would never, ever write). Sophia Myles was the perfect choice to play a girl called Gwenda Halliday, who travels from India to Devon to find and prepare a house until her fiancé can join her. She’s immediately drawn to a large white house on the cliffs, where an eerie sense of de ja vu follows her around – she tries to walk through a wall and learns there used to be a door there; she recommends a wallpaper pattern and discovers it was the original design behind the paint.
Miss Marple is called in and suggests she lived here long ago as a child – which is alarming for Gwenda as one of her memories is of a woman being strangled in the downstairs hall.
For all their faults, these TV movies could pull together great casts: Dawn French, Paul McCann, Una Stubbs, Sarah Parish, Phil Davis, Geraldine Chaplin… and of course, Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, who I always thought was really good in the role. Her trilly little voice is straight out of the book.
And I watched this whole thing without realizing the murder victim was Anna-Louise Plowman, who I only recently watched in Black Sails as Mrs Hudson. There’s even some Retroactive Recognition since last I saw it: Harriet Walters has a single scene as the Duchess of Malfi, and a very young Harry Treadaway is George. I didn’t realize it was them during the first time I watched this, way back when.
SPOILER: they did make one major change to the plot which seriously stretches the suspension of disbelief. By combining Gwenda’s deceased mother and the murder victim (who would have been her stepmother had she lived) we’re asked to believe that Gwenda has never before seen a picture of her own mother. That’s profoundly unlikely – but hey, it was a nice way to spend an afternoon sick on the couch.
Peter and Wendy (2015)
I was searching on Tumblr for GIF-sets of the 2003 adaptation of Peter Pan, when I discovered this made-for-television movie even existed. It came out in 2015, and like many other later adaptations of Peter Pan, it’s just as much a story about the story of Peter Pan, as it is the story of Peter Pan. Does that make sense? It utilizes a framing device in which a young girl called Lucy Rose is checked into the Ormond Street Hospital to undergo a heart operation, and while she’s whiling down the hours till she goes under, she starts reading an original edition of Peter Pan to the other hospitalized children. As she does, we get scenes of the story unfolding, with Lucy in the role of Wendy, her surgeon as Captain Hook, and Paloma Faith of all people (whose concerts Lucy watches on her phone) as Tinker Bell.
It’s an interesting take on the material, in which Lucy’s imagination blurs the line between the story and the real world, where the Darling children leap out of their Edwardian house to fly through modern-day London, Marooner’s Rock is now a pile of hospital beds, and the setting of the final battle alternates between the pirate ship and the hospital interior. Likewise, Tinker Bell wears modern clothes throughout.
Another interesting idea is that Tiger Lily is played by an Indian (as in, South Asian) girl instead of a First Nation one. While reading the story aloud, Lucy says “Indians” instead of “redskins,” feeling the latter is offensive, and one of her listeners questions what race of people she’s actually referring to – after which, she projects herself into the story as she is: an Indian girl. It’s an intriguing little twist.
The movie also dramatizes some of the scenes that are almost always left out of most adaptations, such as Wendy being rescued from Marooner’s Rock by Michael’s kite, or the pirates being sent one-by-one into the captain’s quarters where they’re ambushed by Peter. There’s even a reference from the very start of the book in which Mrs Darling recalls that Peter Pan will often travel with the souls of passed children “for a little while” so they won’t be afraid. Here, Lucy has an outer body experience on the operating table in which Peter appears as if to take her with him – though annoyingly, this concept isn’t returned to when one of the other children Lucy was reading to dies in the film’s final moments. Surely that called for another appearance from Peter to guide him away.
But I enjoyed it as a fresh interpretation of the story. Hazel Doupe plays Wendy with a world-weariness that suits a girl that’s been facing the spectre of death since childhood, and for whom eternal childhood means something very different than it does for other iterations of the character. She wants to grow up because she wants to live. In the same strain, Zak Sutcliffe plays Peter as a soulful bad boy – there’s nothing wild or puckish about him, but that makes sense given he’s a projection of this particular Wendy’s fantasies.
Stanley Tucci is naturally perfect as a hammy-but-still-menacing Hook (though it’s a bit strange that Wendy would cast her surgeon, the calm and competent Doctor Wylie in the role) and Paloma Faith is an unexpected coup as Tinker Bell. I love the way they have her communicate this time around: whenever she speaks, you can see her mouth the words, hear the chiming of bells, and see subtitles at the bottom of the screen. It’s an ingenious way of getting her voice across.
That the film alternates between the events of J.M. Barrie’s book and Lucy’s real-life experiences mean only the major beats of Peter Pan are here, and you certainly wouldn’t want this to be your first experience with the story, but like I said last month – this story is over one hundred years old at this point. We can’t just keep retelling it, and this is an interestingly different perspective.
Evil: Season 4 (2024)
And so ends another show, like Nancy Drew, with a truncated season four. Well, not really so truncated. On deciding this would be the final season of Evil, in which a priest, psychologist and scientist work as accessors for the Catholic Church, investigating strange paranormal phenomenon for their veracity, Paramount gave the show’s creators four extra episodes to wrap up their myriad of plotlines.
This is not an opportunity that the show takes, as episodes eleven-to-fourteen aren’t any discernibly different from any of the other standalone episodes of the past four seasons, and although there is a certain level of emotional closure for our three leads, most if not all of the overarching plotlines are left completely up in the air.
Evil on the whole was an interesting callback to shows of the nineties/noughties in which standalone Case of the Week stories were interspersed with an overarching storyline about the forces of evil gathering on the margins of everyday life and steadily accumulating power, which led to a somewhat uneven tone in which our three leads would investigate highly ambiguous situations that always contained a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane question at their core, while antagonist Leland Townsend was neck-deep in undeniable demonic activity. As in, interacting regularly with real demons.
Throw in the fairly large number of episodes and a regular production schedule, as well as the practical effects and crazy twists, and it’s a wonder this show even existed in the first place. The zaniness of the premise somehow worked, though I had some misgivings, right from the very start, that any of it would lead to a satisfying conclusion. Much like LOST, which it feels most inspired by, this show bit off more than it could chew, and simply ran out of time to resolve anything – that is, assuming the showrunners ever had a clear masterplan at all.
If they did, it was clear these guys were in it for the long haul, gradually sowing seeds and waiting years to pay them off. As it is, this is a field that sadly never came to harvest. We simply don’t live in that sort of television world anymore, and suffice to say, there are substantial lists posted online detailing all the seeded mysteries that never got a clear resolution.
Perhaps the worst fatality is Kristen’s husband Andy, who has spent most of his time off mountaineering, only to be kidnapped by the forces of evil and brainwashed as a sleeper agent who responds to “Feliz Navidad.” He’s confused, quite literally not himself, and on being told he has to kill his youngest daughter Laura with a hypodermic needle, breaks free of his fugue state long enough to stab himself instead, and then submit himself to a rehab clinic to protect his family. He wasn’t perfect, but there was no doubt that he loved his family. In which case, the writers did him dirty in his final episode, in which it turns out he’s having an affair (with Anna Chlumsky of all people), only to run off and abandon everyone. He’s barely mentioned again despite there being substantial evidence he was subjected to prolonged psychological torture.
There’s every chance they had more planned, but it’s a pretty poor conclusion for him. I think they were hoping against hope another network would pick this up, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, though it’s left in a narrative place where they could easily carry on from where they left off if a miracle occurs. If not – well, I was reconciled from the start that it was about the journey, not the ever-increasing multitude of story strands. And they at least get in some good jabs in at Paramount about their premature cancellation despite the show’s high viewing numbers.
And I suppose it frees up Luke Cage for the MCU.
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