Warm Bodies

Possibly the weirdest idea for a film in a long time, 'Warm Bodies' (out next week) is a post-apocalyptic tale of a teen zombie falling in love with a pretty human girl, who's part of the resistance. And he's eaten her ex-boyfriend. Yep - it's probably the second zom-rom-com around...

The two leads are terrific, especially Nicholas Hoult, who has to spend the film in zombie-makeup. It's surprising just how much we root for him, considering zombies have a top speed of twenty words a minute (excluding voiceovers).

Being a genre mash-up, it's got recognisable set-pieces from both romantic comedies and zombie horror. It could easily feel clichė, but surprisingly it doesn't, which is a testament to the makers of the film. But it's definitely primarily a comedy - and pretty funny, too.

The slightly stock nature of the plot at times could be a bad point, but it does help keep things light. It's a fun movie overall - perhaps let down by the lack of 'heart'. I guess that's obvious for a zombie movie, but these characters feel like they need to be fleshed out more. Besides that, it's pitched well for the audience (with some nifty effects, too), and should be a hit.

Agatha Christie's Autobiography - a review

After reading almost all of her canon of work, I've delved into one of Agatha Christie's most important tomes - her autobiography. Though published in the months after her death, it covered her life up to when she was in her seventies, about ten years before she died. Whilst I was reading and discovering her books, I'd built up a strong image of who she was - by what subjects she wrote about, or information regarding the publishing of her books, or that famous disappearance - and even some particularly autobiographical characters she created. So, how would I find reading this, her own, perhaps definitive, account of an eventful life?

The book is a long one - it weighs in at 250,000 words, and took her fifteen years to complete it. But the extra time was worth it, as it's packed full of interesting stories and happenings. And whilst there are digressions along the way, it has all the economy - and excitement - of one of her great books.

People who are expecting a complete guide of every process that goes into writing one of her novels are going to be disappointed - it's an autobiography after all, a personal account of the story of her life. The books rarely feature - and when they do, they're the ones that she considers important personally, or that she has strong memories of, or has picked out as a good book when reading back many years later. There's particularly a fair amount about how she came to write her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and also the publishing side of things.
It's interesting to read how at first Agatha Christie didn't consider herself as a novel writer, but as a wife who started to do that sort of thing on the side to make some extra money. Ten years on, and she found herself writing books even when she didn't want to - a sign, for her, that it was now a job, and she would write a book every year. There are recollections of crafting some of her early work - the light hearted adventure type thrillers "that are more fun, and quicker to write", yet few of the period in the 1930s in which some of her most acclaimed detective stories were published. However, she also delves into other parts of her work (such as poems, short stories, romantic novels and acclaimed plays) and interestingly, her thoughts on the process of writing, and how she came to do it in the first place. Written in the first person, she shares a lot of personal opinions, and it builds up a picture of her own character - and in one frank section, she simply gives us a list of things she likes and things she doesn't!

That's not to say the life she's lead isn't recognisable as something out of a Christie novel. Plenty of autobiographical detail seems to have been included in her work, sure to be picked up on by those who have read it. Things like travelling on the Orient Express, dig sites in Syria and Iraq, or an exotic business holiday to South Africa, which was then extensively used in the early thriller The Man in the Brown Suit. Much of her childhood seems very close to the Mary Westmacott romantic novels, in which she painted a picture of someone's life story - some things copied word for word - and later novels, like Postern of Fate. But these references are fewer than you'd think - she says she rarely based characters on anybody in real life, certainly not people she knew, and after all - in her eyes, they were purely escapism.
Rather, the avid Agatha Christie reader gets a sense of the time she was living in, and the wider world in which her books were written in - a time of country houses, servants, generations of men becoming soldiers, and unexpected foreign travels. It's easy to forget that some of the events she describes happened over a hundred years ago.

After a slow start, though with many detailed recollections of her early years - no less busy than her later ones, as her parents moved around France as she was growing up - she then covers the events of her reaching adulthood, with plenty of prospective husbands! Personally, I found the book picked up pace, despite the many amusing and heartfelt events of her childhood - and became even more interesting when it went on to cover the events of the First World War, and the interesting world of the VADs, and events that would strongly shape her future.

The book, and by extension her own life, covers a lot of ground - from schooling, to nursing, to travelling round the world - and is often a joy to read. Her books are often praised for their readability, and this one is just the same. Despite the length, it's accessible, enjoyable and moving - giving us an insight into the modest, retiring crime writer, whose audience - including me - previously only knew through her detective novels.

Children's TV - and a plea

I have vast swathes of recollections of things I used to watch when I was younger (not to mention books!). CITV generally ruled, although we did watch some CBBC - and that's aside from the indomitable collection of Disney videos. (Breakfast TV, normally filled with cartoons - although that included Pokemon - was strictly limited to holidays)
When I was younger - Thomas the Tank Engine, Bodger and Badger, Noddy, Old Bear, Sooty, Dennis the Menace, Winnie the Pooh (ohh, great cartoons those were). Probably the greatest show, which definitely stands up to rewatching, The Animals of Farthing Wood, and similarly the perfect Mr Bean. Goosebumps, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Hey Arnold, hazy memories of the ultra scary Blair-Witch style Jeopardy and Are You Afraid of the Dark. Sunday evening dramas like Aquilla, the oft-mentioned (in my family) Black Hearts in Battersea and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and something involving chocolate. The Worst Witch, The Demon Headmaster - based on the books, with a creepy series about plants and cloning too - Children's Ward (a soap, basically). My Parents are Aliens, Jungle Run, Art Attack, Zzzap!. The original, far inferior, Horrible Histories. And also lots of pretty good shows about computer games - which seems odd now, looking back.

And then there's a drama series, which must have been shown around 2002-2003, which I can't for the life of me track down. And of course, I remember a lot about it - albeit not its strange, weird name that you could hardly pronounce (an acronym, perhaps).
It was presented as a game show or reality show, and had a group of about eight children (who were slightly annoying and bickering) staying in "the world's largest film set". A bit like The Truman Show then - weird things happened each week, shot on 'hidden' cameras, but we were given a glimpse of what was happening behind the scenes - stuntmen and actors and people moving the set around.
I think I missed the first episode (it was on twice a week, Mondays and Tuesdays I think, about 4.30 - I used to scour TV listings even when I was younger), but there was a cake competition I remember, which ended up being poisoned and making the entire town ill, and the villagers angry. In another episode, the group ate some drugged blackberries, and then woke up to find the entire set had been switched to the medieval times, in a sort of time travel adventure. In another, the group stood outside a TV shop, when suddenly aliens attacked (at night - so basically just lights and explosions) and random bystanders were seemingly killed in front of them.
Of course, this made an impression on me - but I can't find anything about it online at all. At the end of the series, the group of children that remained won a prize, a huge money prize (a million dollars?) but couldn't spend it until they were older. It's probably an American or Canadian or Australian show or something, which is why I can't find it.

Around the time of this mysterious show they were syndicating lots of similar dramas from other countries. Pirate Islands was good, set on a virtual tropical island with an over-the-top pirate captain's ship parked nearby. Blake Holsey High looked cool, of a similar style to Buffy, but I only saw the first few episodes. Alongside more home-grown stuff - Sir Gadabout and Harry and the Wrinklies, and odd stuff like Don't Eat the Neighbours.

Later I moved to BBC for some reason - watching Blue Peter for once (though I can't remember many others - though Shoebox Zoo was good, and later things like Trapped!) and then, when I was about 13, Doctor Who would have arrived! And it was long overdue...

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy - review

Is this my first proper Doctor Who article on here? Blimey. Well, I saw this late 1980s story recently, and wondered if I could write a review on it. It's a tricky one to get your opinion round, so perhaps it's a good idea. Here goes then.

The icing on the cake of any Doctor Who story is if it includes a scary monster, something that will last long in the memory of children watching. The setting of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy delivers on this front - the Doctor and companion Ace visit the renowned Psychic Circus, whose acts are turning murderous... Killer clowns? It's a classic frightening image that rarely crops up in the show, possibly because it's almost too frightening for half seven in the evening (see The Deadly Assassin for a previous incredibly scary cameo).

And elsewhere, it's a typical Doctor Who adventure, and very reminiscent of other stories of the era. The wealth of location filming in a rather fine desert-like quarry means the production stands up rather well. The writer, Stephen Wyatt, also wrote Paradise Towers in the previous season, to mixed reviews. The similarities are there if you look for them - both have settings populated by a variety of surreal characters, and by the Doctor has arrived, the place has run down, with the robots seemingly developing a mind of their own, in order to appease a god-like figure. But thanks to a much more grounded location - a circus tent! The corridors are simply walled by bits of cloth, genius! - and more focused direction, this second story is far better (even if the production was apparently rather troubled - but you can't tell).

Inside the circus of terror... cheap but cool!

With Sylvester McCoy having found his feet by now, the Doctor is a delight to watch, not least demonstrating some crazy circus skills in the final part. Ace, by comparison, doesn't have an awful lot of character moments, although her fear of clowns is acknowledged (and, in part, overcome), but does get a strong part of the plot, helping the Doctor as his plan comes together whilst defeating robots, without hardly a scream or a pointless question. But it's the mysterious Mags who steals the limelight, getting a nifty twist to her character and a cliffhanger too.

At four parts, it's not too long, but perhaps the story sags in the two middle parts set entirely inside the circus tent. The bad guys only show their faces at the climax of Part Four, alas - and they're pretty famous, bandied about everywhere, like on the DVD cover - though they are done well, with menacing voices. Similar pacing is abound in the likes of Ghost Light or Paradise Towers or The Curse of Fenric - but at least it means the final episode isn't a damp squib.

It's a story with a wonderfully surreal flair, a script that's surprisingly original (not to mention layered - you can read plenty into the McCoy stories, this one included), whilst still keeping traditional monsters and thrills. This surely means, with some competition, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is among the top stories of the era.