New Year’s Day took us to the movies to see The Favourite, a saga of love, rivalry and power, based loosely on the intimate relationship between a sickly and brattish Queen Anne (the last of the Stuarts) and a scheming Svengali-like Lady Sarah Churchill. We anticipated a restoration-style bawdy romp as promised by the trailers and pre-publicity. Instead we got a suffocating tale of court intrigue that plodded on for an age. Bawdy it was, with ripe language, racy dialogue and a few scenes which left little to the imagination. But, on the whole, the film was more darkly disturbing than black comedy, accompanied by a clanging score sounding like a death knell. Despite some great lines, superb acting (Norwich’s very own Olivia Coleman as the volatile queen definitely deserves a handful of gongs), palatial sets, evocative period detail, lavish costumes and gravity-defying wigs, the experience left us punch-drunk. We needed a drink afterwards.
- Tagged
- Cinema City
- Queen Anne
Jack Scott
Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as a publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me.
In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.
Perking the Pansies 
Too bad it wasn’t what you’d hoped. I hadn’t even heard of it!then again, I live “nowhere” with the closest theater in the big town 30 miles away. I hear little and miss much.
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Can’t like ’em all, can you? The film’s attracted a bagful of Oscars – best picture, leading actress, supporting actress and loads more – so has its fans!
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Loved the movie, myself. Different strokes and all I guess!
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Absolutely! 🙂
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