Just perfick!!!

Searching the TV program at 6.30pm on a Saturday night is for optimists only.  One doesn't hold out much hope.  But joy, delight!  I have been so fortunate!  Ovation has begun The Darling Buds of May.  Episode 1 started to-night.

I had read the H.E. Bates novel decades before it became a wonderful television series.  A marvellous storyteller, he - and I have spent many a delightful hour in his novels and short stories.   

In the long ago, when I was a teenager, the Americans made the story into The Mating Game starring Debbie Reynolds and Tony Randall.  Now this was good fun but it in no way compares with the television series starring Pam Ferris, David Jason, and the fledgling Catherine Zeta Jones. Perfick!!!

One absolutely incredible thing I have discovered watching this re-run: the striking resemblance of Philip Franks -who plays Charley, the taxman - to our very own Kevin Rudd.

Somehow, while we all know that Kevin "is here to help", I don't think he will help me fill out my income tax - but then I'm no Catherine Zeta Jones either.

A laugh, a fuss and a great actress

Australian actress, Kerry Walker

It is sometimes the small, the little, the less significant things or places or people which capture one's interest and attention.  And so it was last week.  Monday and Friday turned out to be bookends of entertainment for the week.

Monday night, I was at The Playhouse at the Arts Centre to see The Hypocrite.  Truly, a memorable production.  Justin Fleming's reworking of Moliere's timeless Tartuffe is superb and brought the house down.  The key players in an entertaining ensemble cast are Gary McDonald, Kim Gyngell, and Marina Prior.  But there, right in the beginning was the ubiquitous Kerry Walker, one of Australia's great female character actors.  This production ends soon - and you shouldn't miss it.  It is entertainment plus - even if, the night I was there, Kim Gyngell himself got the giggles!!!  Marina Prior, however, managed to remain composed.

Come Friday night, I was over at The Palace at Balwyn for a charity showing of Australia.  It is as big - and as interminable - as Ben Hur and a lot of fuss which is questionable.  If you love creative cliches; one dimensional characters and overdone scene tweaking with CGI then this is the movie for you.  

I do have to say that Hugh Jackman was wonderful.  ALL the Aboriginal actors were superb.  David Wenham did another nice characterization of evil.  Brett Sprague has gotten older, gone bush and changed his name to Neil Fletcher.  

But there, in it all, was Kerry Walker.  Our wonderful character actor did go to the ball in Darwin.  I enjoyed her twice in a week - but needless to say her more substantial stage role was the pick.