Ballet Shoes BBC1, 8.30pm
The Old Curiosity Shop ITV1, 9pm
The Big Lebowski More4, 10.05pm
Bally rum do, Ballet Shoes. Couldn't make head nor tail of it. Won't be rushing to read Noel Streatfeild's book, that's for sure. Is Ballet Shoes a genuine magical-realist drama? Or is it a cynical leap aboard the Harry "Piffle" Potter bandwagon, with ballet displacing hocus-pocus? Dunno. Don't care. Either way, it didn't constitute must-see telly for decent blokes. Felt deuced uncomfortable with it, let me tell you.
Set amid upper-crust penury in London in the thirties. Straitened circumstances. Palpable air of shabby gentility. And Victoria Wood with an open handbag on her head for a hat, and wispy curlicues made from acrylic fibre hanging down each side of her face, meant to be a sage nanny of the old school.
Most disconcerting of all, there was this stage-struck shoal of orphaned pre-pubescent popsies - Pauline, Petrova and Posy - who kept swanning about, teasing one another about their burgeoning adolescent embonpoints. I say! Then dash it if we weren't suddenly confronted by two of these teens - one of them played by Harry Potter's sweet wee lassie, Emma Watson - lounging in the bath together! I gave up at this stage. Not seemly.
This was a shame, because until then the adult characters in the show - aside from Victoria Wood and her dodgy wig - had been a jolly compelling bunch of oddbods. Mannish Dr Smith, played by Harriet Walter, swaggered about in trousers, smoking cheroots and wearing a monocle. She lodged with fluffy Dr Jakes (Gemma Jones), who wore a dress. Couldn't see how comfortable either party's shoes were.
Marc Warren was the mysterious Mr Simpson, a good man in excellent baggy trousers who couldn't talk about the painful past that haunted him, painfully, except when he did talk about it (with an air of pain). Emilia Fox was dandy at looking selfless, pallid and consumptive. Best of all, Lucy Cohu was an absolute pip. She provided a first-rate impersonation of Nigella Lawson - minus all the tiresome business with foodstuffs - as the vampish, tango-crazed Theo Dane, an erstwhile soubrette with Miss Rosebud's Bouncing Babes.
Toby Jones was similarly spellbinding in The Old Curiosity Shop
In contrast, you can never go wrong with the film which is easily the Coen brothers' finest, The Big Lebowski. Jeff Bridges is Jeff Lebowski, aka the Dude, His Dudeness, Duder or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing. Principally, the Dude abides. This is to quote The Big Lebowski's mythical cowboy narrator, the Stranger. We should all emulate the Stranger in taking comfort in knowing that the Dude abides; finding assurance in the fact that he's out there, takin' things easy for all us sinners.
In addition to abiding and taking things easy, the Dude finds recreation in doing, you know, the usual. He 10-pin bowls. He drives around. He suffers the occasional acid flashback while listening to The Big Lebowski's splendid soundtrack (Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, Booker T and the MGs, Bob Dylan).
He also stots about in a dressing gown, seeking vengeance for his despoiled rug, pursuing a severed toe and a missing wife, and combating rampaging nihilists.
If this summary makes The Big Lebowski seem senseless, rest assured that it's still 100 times more meaningful than Ballet Shoes.
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