RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
Amelie: The Musical, Alhambra Theatre, Bradford
Inventive staging of a contemporary film classic
Gamine: Audrey Brisson as Amelie
[Pamela Raith]
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
THE 2001 film Amelie has so many iconic scenes that it takes a brave person to adapt it for the stage.
Craig Lucas partly circumvents direct comparison in this musical version which, while maintaining the original’s surreal whimsicality, simultaneously makes it more physically grounded.
The basic story is untouched. Amelie, a lonely girl raised by a neurotic mother and iceberg father, spreads happiness in the lives of other people while ignoring her own needs. That changes when she meets the gently eccentric Nino and is forced to confront her own dream world.
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