A year or so back we booked to go and see one of the National Theatre live broadcast shows at a local arts centre and then forgot to go as we had something big happening the day after & missed it.
I managed to find it as a torrent & we watched it last night. (Didn’t feel too guilty as we had paid to see it!)
It was Jodie Comer, on her own, in a performance of Prima Facie which is a play about a high flying, fairly cynical & successful defence barrister who ends up on the wrong end of the sort of courtroom tactics she normally uses herself.
It’s an extraordinary performance and an extremely strong play. Very informative about how the court/legal system works (& doesn’t) Well worth a look if you can find it.
Thanks will seek this out as I do love a good courtroom drama (probably from watching Crown Court as a child, and also I come from a long line of legal folks).
Napoleon. A bit disappointing tbh. Decent set piece battle scenes, much focus on the minutiae of post revolution French politics, and characters you couldn’t quite warm to so were somewhat indifferent about. Certainly no Gladiator, 1492 or Blade Runner.
Might have made an ok 3 part tv drama.
Should have made more of his 10 days in Plymouth too!
Did Marshall Ney get much of a mention? Always liked his character.
An ex high ranking officer under the emporer he joined the Bourbons after Napoleon’s exile. Sent with an army of 6000 to arrest Naploeon during the 100 days he promptly rejoined and added his army to that marching through France.
After Waterloo he was shot by firing squad as a traitor.
There was a scene where Napoleon his making his way back up through France having returned from Elba and is confronted by ‘his’ 5th army who’ve been sent to arrest him. I guess the guy detailed to do that was Ney.
In fact, looking now at the cast list there is someone playing Ney who is alongside Napoleon at one of the battles (probably Waterloo) but I don’t think he was given that much significance in the film overall.
I did see Waterloo as a kid with Rod Steiger playing Napoleon. As I recall (I don’t think I’ve seen it since) it was a much better & more memorable film than this.
He was quite important, he was one of the original 18 ‘Marshals of the Empire’ and commanded the rearguard of the French army during the retreat from Moscow where he made the best of a dreadful situation and Napoleon called him ‘The bravest of the brave’.
He commanded the left wing of the army at Waterloo.
It did remind me is that despite there often being calls for a revolution and for the existing order to be overthrown, the aftermath of such events is often just disorganised chaos resulting in massive corruption & a situation where an elite of some kind again separate themselves from the ordinary people.
Indeed when you look across Europe now, it’s surprising how many countries have settled into some kind of stability.
I’ve never seen that all the way through but it feels like I stumble on it at least once a year flicking through the channels and watch bits of it.
It always felt like an epic film that a lot of modern films with cgi never quite seem to manage.
