Monday, September 10, 2007

The Dinner Party

Like Abigail's Party crossed with The Wicker Man, but nowhere near as good as that sounds. The cast gave it their all, but were abandoned by the script and the Terry & June incidental music.

It was all so obvious - three couples (young, middle and old aged) in a big house in Essex. The moral was either "Money doesn't bring you happiness" or "Lower middle class pretension is abhorrent." Neither's particularly original, or valid.

Just as films about East End crack dens are all made by nice public school boys, so films about Essex ghastliness are churned out by North Londoners who think a trip to Clapham racy. After last year's Poliakoff horror where a man who has never worked in an office turned in a satire about office life, you'd think the BBC would have learned... But try and imagine Alan Bleasdale or Alan Plater turning in something so patronising and limp.

The only likeable character was George Cole. And the only likeable word was "succulent".

2 comments:

Andrea said...

On the only bright note - I do like the colour of Alison Steadman's dress!

Skip said...

Yeah - she did look fabulous. But when they got onto the laboured symbolism of an olive tree being hacked down with a sword, i swear the cheeky mare rolled her eyes.