Fun With My Leading Ladies of British Cinema (Part 3)

[featherxquill]

Okay, so, I comletely forgot to post this earlier, but yes:

MINERVA McGONAGALL IS CHAMPION

She beat M by a very large margin. The consensus seems to be that it wasn't a fair fight because of teh magics. I'm not sure I completely agree, what with the James Bond universe's habit of giving the agents exactly the gadgets they need and no other, but perhaps that is clutching at straws.

Minerva wins. But if anyone does want to provide a fanfic case for the shagging instead of fighting, I certainly won't complain *g*.

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In other news, I saw the Australian stage version of Calendar Girls on Saturday. I really enjoyed it! I think I loved the movie more - it would be very difficult for anyone to outdo Helen and Julie, and the actresses who played Chris and Annie certainly didn't - but the supporting cast was wonderful. Jean Kittson absolutely stole the show as Ruth, and seriously, whoever would have imagined the Ruth character would steal the show? I also enjoyed Cornelia Frances as Marie. I have a soft spot for her that's about the size of Australia, since I read her biography when I was seventeen, sent her a letter and got a lovely handwrittem response back from her. She reminds me of Agnes Moorhead a little in the sense of being a redhead and usually being cast as demanding bitches *g*.

It was a very fun afternoon. Fellow Aussies, if you get the opportunity, I recommend it.

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I read this morning that Lyn Redgrave lost her battle with cancer. According to the article, her sister Corin passed away just a few weeks ago. My heart goes out to the Redgrave/Richardson family. They've had an exceptionally shitty year.

Comments

[minerva-fan.livejournal.com]

...seriously, whoever would have imagined the Ruth character would steal the show? Actually, Ruth stole the movie for me--Penelope Wilton was absolutely wonderful in that part. I loved Helen and Julie and all the gals, but Ruthie was my favorite character on the whole.

[featherxquill.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not denying that Ruth (and Penelope Wilton) was awesome in the movie. She certainly was. She was kind of quiet, though - unassuming, and even her awesome was quiet. I got the impression that the rest of the girls probably never learned just what she had done with the going to the hotel and confronting her husband and his lover.

The character in the play was very, very different. She was kind of dopey and skittish and completely cowed by Marie all the time, a bit slow on the uptake but relentlessly optimistic in a way that reminded me a bit of Alice in the Vicar of Dibley, if you've seen that. For example, she showed up in a bunny suit for the WI Spring Carnival when the theme was something completely different and turned some pine cones into the Backstreet Boys for a theme tray when the theme was like 'autumn colours' or something. Just kept being enthusiastic and hopeless at the same time.

She did get to tell off her husband's lover, though, and it was spectacular. They changed the storyline for the stage so that there was no going to Hollywood, rather a TV commercial crew that came to them from London, and the makeup artist they sent was a woman from the gym that her husband was going to to 'work out', who had left a pair of knickers and a business card in his car. There was a great line along the lines of: "When a woman takes her clothes off for a calendar, she's a tart, but when she does it in a car, she's a 'bloody good sport'" and then "FUCK OFF BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM!"

So yes. She was very, very comedic, in a slapstick-y, raucous, obvious way. That's the kind of performer Jean Kittson is, I guess, though I hadn't considered it going in. That's what I meant by 'stole the show', kind of in the way Karen and Jack 'stole the show' on Will and Grace by being infinitely more hilarious than the main characters. And that was not something I ever would have expected of the Ruth character. The quiet awesome and dignified strength, yes, but not that. It definitely worked on stage - the way her story unfolded on film just wouldn't have worked in a stage production - but I was surprised by the direction they took her in.

[caramelapples11.livejournal.com]

Another Redgrave gone? :'(