Curtain call

This to wrap up my encounter with the book at reference 1, an encounter prompted by the visit to the cinema noticed at reference 2. There was a digression about a painting at reference 3.

Not the 'Curtain Call' above which is a comedy from 1940, successful enough that there was sequel called 'Footlight Fever' which flopped. But, coincidentally, involving one Ian MacLellan as one of the two screenwriters. Almost the Ian McKellen of the film of reference 1.

BH got through 'Curtain Call' in reasonably good order, although there were pauses while she strayed elsewhere. Furthermore, she did not read it in the right order, but that is no criticism of the book as it is not her custom to read books straight through. I got through it in reasonably good order too, with the bottom line being, rather like the film, 'Curtain Call' is a serviceable enough thriller, but at near 400 paperback pages it is rather too long. Furthermore, there were rather a lot of bodily functions and some of the writing struck me as rather flat - rather in the way that Agatha Christie's writing strikes me. This despite being a classicist from Oxford who did a good stint as a journalist with a literary flavour before starting to publish his own novels. A route taken by a fair number of writers.

I might add that while the film uses three of the central characters from the book and their milieu, it discards most of the plot, putting the critic - that is to say McKellen - centre stage and reworking the detail around him.

I was reminded of the tricky relationship between the theatre critic and the theatre: while part of the job of the theatre critic is to inform his readers, maybe even to help them decide whether or not to go to a play, another part is entertainment. And as people like Rupert Murdoch know all too well, entertaining people is not the same as telling the truth or being fair. But the critics and their subjects need each other, so I suppose they just have to learn how to get along.

There were some memorable sentences along the way, of which I can remember just one at present, right at the end, in an unexpectedly kind review by the critic of a book by his one time and long suffering secretary: '... The flaws in his character - abrasiveness, conceit, overweening self-regard - hardly narrows down the list of suspects. The man is an actor, for crying out loud...'.

PS 1: I read at the back of the book that one James Agate was the principal model for the critic, to be found at reference 7. Ebay has lots of it, at say £5 a volume upwards, although assembling a complete set might be a bit of a project. Oddly, he does not appear in any of the indexes of my four volumes of Osbert Sitwell biography, despite being a roughly contemporary and similarly verbose kindred spirit. Maybe Sitwell was more a ballet than a theatre man.

PS 2: in the margins, I have just found out about the collapse a few weeks ago of a big construction company called ISG, involved in lots of government projects, not least prisons' projects. Apparently owned by Cathexis, another company of which I had not previously heard, but I guess the rules of the limited company game are that Cathexis, despite owning ISG, can walk away from the whole sorry mess. It might lose its investment, but it is not responsible for clearing up the mess - the biggest such since the failure of Carillion in 2018. I have not looked into asset stripping by Cathexis, but then I have not seen any suggestion of same either. That apart, we just don't seem to be very good at this sort of outsourcing. See references 4, 5 and 6.

References

Reference 1: Curtain Call - Antony Quinn - 2015.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/to-pictures.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/digression.html.

Reference 4: Collapse of construction group ISG halts urgent work on UK prisons: Crucial improvements at 48 sites to tackle issues such as drug use and overcrowding now in doubt - Oliver Telling, Financial Times - 2024.

Reference 5: https://www.cathexis.com/. ISG not visible here.

Reference 6: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly3jzyyp49o.

Reference 7: Ego, No.1 thru No.9 - James Agate - 1935 thru 1948. Autobiography.