Short Fuse and the cinema

Rehearsals for Short Fuse have now begun. Alex and Vicky are putting on their adaptation of a part of "The Golem" by a Mr Meyrink (I think) for the Short Fuse event on the 6th of Feb at Liberties Bar in Camden. I am playing the new, and very exciting, mandolin (or tiny -guitar as it has now been dubbed) for the performance, as it requires some traditional music at various intervals. Rehearsals went quite well - I'm particularly enjoying my easy part of simply sitting in the corner of the stage tinkling away while people act around me. So that's how minstrels felt!

In other news, I went to the cinema with Alex last Friday to see "The Reader", featuring Kate Winslet's Golden Globe winning role as a concentration camp guard (lots of WW2 holocaust-related films around at the moment) who strikes up an affair with a 15yr old school boy, who later becomes a law student and is present at her trial for war-crimes. It made interesting viewing, and raised some interesting questions into the worth of trials, particularly of those lower down the orders (and the Nuremberg defense, which is only invalid if a moral choice was available to the defendant). Kate Winslet was fantastic, and as always I was amazed by Mr Fiennes' range. What a range... Again, a very different role from that he played in 'In Bruges', which was in turn very different from that in 'the Constant Gardener'.

Talking about ranges, there was an interesting blog about Kate Winslet's range on the Telegraph Online today, talking about the fact that she hides out of the lime-light which enables her to maintain such an impressive range of performances. It argued that because she keeps herself apart from celebrity culture we can forget we are watching 'Kate Winslet', and get fully involved in her role.