Mrs Lowry & Son (PG)
Directed by Adrian Noble

BLESSED with a an acting masterclass from two of Britain’s greatest actors at the top of their game, it’s a delight to see Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Spall go toe-to-toe as Lowry mother and son.

Redgrave plays the bedridden Elizabeth Lowry as a bitter, sharp-tongued snob who hates living in a poor area of Pendlebury and relishes telling her middle-aged son and carer how talentless he is and how she hates his paintings. She constantly advises him to abandon his “hobby.”

A rent collector by day and a painter by night, LS Lowry is a stoic, loving son who is desperate to make his mother happy and to obtain her approval and appreciation of his work. “I am a man who paints — nothing more, nothing less,” he tells her.