Birdsong; Sherlock; Nottingham Contemporary exhibitions

An arts column {kinda] for my nephew hoping he will now stop posting his own poetry in Facebook; published on the blog site at 30 January 2012 at 18:01:41 I enjoyed Birdsong on BBC tv this weekend, despite everything. The Mirror’s correspondents celebrates the two-part drama in glowing headlines (despite the detail of his analysis).

Quality (but the CGIs of the vast battlefields didn’t work, the subtitles were barely legible), hugely ambitious, affecting (but sweeping violins and poignant piano that followed the lead actor’s every move were obtrusive (plus examples of ridiculous dialogue)), best male lead actor (not for his acting; rather too many shots of him, smoking stylishly, pouting furiously, and smouldering with handsome angst); the calibre of the story that made it so gripping (except when the lead actor died at the end of episode 1 when we knew all along he hadn’t; the lead was so heart-broken he’d had no choice but to sleep with a prostitute, pulling a knife on her (pretty unpleasant actually and really strange)).

The bit I really took exception too was him setting off an explosion to get out of the tunnels under no-man’s land to emerge into the bright Summer’s sun, only to be told by a German that the war was over. Cos, if you know your history, the battlefront had moved on by then and peace was made in November.

Annoying cos there is value to seeing the scenes that both my grandfathers fought in. You want to believe the scenes.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv-entertainment-old/columnists/jim-shelley/2012/01/30/birdsong-s-fighting-for-awards-victory-already-115875-23726420/

Meanwhile, Sherlock has been excellent and a real lift. It seems that bloggers have worked out how Sherlock has survived a six-story fall and how someone else’s body has been buried in his grave, but I’m not particularly convinced Moriarty would suddenly decide his own suicide was the only thing he could do to stop Sherlock Holmes from persuading him not to see through the execution plans he had in mind if Sherlock didn’t jump.

The Nottingham Contemporary has opened 2 new exhibitions, one showing architectural models to illuminate the divisions seen in Israel and Palestine through Israel’s imposed 3 zones.

Similar divisions are echoed in Nottingham, caused by the use of wide roads with fast flowing traffic with vehicles carrying one person at a time. Well, kinda.