THESE FOOLISH THINGS

UK, 2005, 107 minutes, Colour.
Zoe Tapper, Anjelica Huston, Andrew Lincoln, David Leon, Leo Bill, Terence Stamp, Lauren Bacall.
Directed by Julia Taylor- Stanley.

This may not be your glass of Dom Perignon (there is more of that around in this film than cups of tea, except for the poor actors who live in lower class digs, living in hope of getting and audition and a part). The setting is London, 1938-1939, the world of the West End theatre, the more genteel end while Mrs Henderson was operating the Windmill just around the corner from Shaftsbury Ave.

This film is a labour of love for the writer-director, Julia Taylor- Stanley, who has adapted a 1930s novel by Noel Langley, There’s a Porpoise Close Behind Us. However, she has so situated the screenplay in those times that it comes across very much as an anachronism: nostalgia for those who love the period, quaint (at least) for those who are unfamiliar with it. However, it is often salted a little (from the prevailing more sugary taste) by some intimations of the gay world and camp language and behaviour.

It comes across as Mills and Boon filtered through Stephen Fry.

An aspiring young actress (Zoe Tapper), daughter of a theatrical diva, tries for a career, is attracted towards a young playwright while falling in love with a sympathetic director. A vain, gay leading man tries to humiliate her and seduce the playwright. Her jealously obnoxious cousin creates mischief. However, a wealthy American entrepreneur (Anjelica Huston), the grande dame of the theatre (Lauren Bacall) and a sardonic butler (Terence Stamp) are on her side – even after her extraordinarily unconvincing audition as Ophelia which the screenplay says is marvellous.

They did talk like that in those days and in the films of those days, but now…?