The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) review: characters, comedy and pathos in piles

Ben Stiller directs and stars as the eponymous Walter Mitty, a lovably introverted workaday photo editor. As the magazine undergoes radical change, Walter is forced out of his comfort zone to fight for his livelihood, his life and his love.  The film has divided audiences between those who take it for the light-hearted, life-affirming flick it is, and those who are disappointed it’s not more life-affirming.  Here’s some of the bits I liked and some of the bits I didn’t so much:

Things Walter Mitty did well

Todd from eHarmony – the guy who keeps phoning Walter up about his online dating account, scraping the barrel for something, anything even remotely exciting to liven up Walter’s otherwise bland eHarmony profile.  At first a character you think won’t appear again in the film, becomes an increasingly hilarious running joke.  Patton Oswalt plays the carefree lazyboy perfectly – and I totally agree that Cinnabon is “100% frosted heroin.”

Corporate douchebags – Adam Scott plays the new Managing Director of Life magazine, charged with downsizing the company.  He’s the kind of character you love to hate: arrogant, patronising and sanctimonious – all qualities used to hide a thinly-veiled insecurity and general ignorance.

Supporting cast – from the drunken helicopter pilot to the irate hotelier screaming in Icelandic: the film is jam-packed with passing characters, comic and tragic in their own ways, making every scene unique, varied and fun.

Design – from the immaculate cinematography, extremely well-considered editing, subtly brilliant title sequence and consistently clever inclusion of motion graphics and SFX, this film simply looks great!

Understated humour – Walter gets off a giant jumbo jet stationed at a tiny airport on Greenland.  It turns out it’s only him and one other man who were on the flight.  The two shake hands at the exit and walk off in opposite directions. 

Well, I guess you had to be there, but its little touches of comedy like this in the most mundane, necessary places of films that make this one worth watching.  The awkward moments are a big hitter in this movie too – such as the difficult hug Walter and his understudy share in an elevator.

Self-Awareness – Ben Stiller makes Walter Mitty’s job title “Negative Asset Manager”, a title so dull that he struggles to say it himself, is immediately ridiculed by Adam Scott’s Managing Director and earmarked as first in line for the downsizing chop.  Stiller employs the tactic of making fun of the film himself before anyone else does, it’s also how he deals with product placement.  The product placement is purposefully made utterly blatant and drawn attention to, as if to make a sly joke at the hurdles Stiller has to hop to satisfy Hollywood financiers.

Ending – The ending has an uplifting, life-affirming conclusion which, deep down you know is just sugar-coated Hollywood fairydust at it’s sickly best, but it resolves the narrative perfectly and delivers a very nice message about the value of the head-down, hard working, high-hoping, day-dreaming worker bee.

Things Walter Mitty didn’t do so well

Cheryl Melhoff – The female lead was just a bit too 2D for my liking.  Kirsten Wiig is pretty, but that’s about it for her character – the serenely smiling object of Walter’s affection remains passive throughout and you never know whether she’s still seeing her ex-husband and feeding Walter some white lies, or if he really is just round to repair the fridge.  Pretty filler to tick a Hollywood box more than the woman who motivates Walter on his quest around the world.

Kathryn Hahn as Walter’s cooky sister – I didn’t get it.  I think this idiosyncratic character was supposed to add a bit of a goofy sweetness to the film and make you feel some sympathy for Walter and admiration for unconditionally supporting her in all her uselessness - but I felt more sorry for Ben Stiller having to try to act alongside her (and direct her!).

PLOT – There are some major plot holes (like “why did he go to Greenland?” and “how did he cross the Afghan mountains in a couple of days?”) but the film is all about mixing fantasy with reality, so the somewhat far-fetched, loose narrative doesn’t really ruin your appreciation of the film as a whole.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a gripping naturalistic film which will validate your existence, Walter Mitty will probably disappoint.  But if you’re looking for an excellent piece of escapist, entertaining popcorn cinema that gives you characters, comedy and pathos in piles with an optimistic look at life, Walter Mitty is for you.

Captain America (2011): derivative and superficial fluff featuring Hollywood notions of nationality

After enjoying Avengers more than I thought I would, I’ve been swept up in the recent superhero movie craze and finally got round to giving Captain America a shot.  I thought it was interesting in places but disappointing in others, enjoyable overall but not worth a re-watch too soon.

I liked the character Dr Abraham Erskine.  A great German scientist, he fled Nazi Germany and used his talent to help the Americans – as many Germans did at the time.  It’s good that Hollywood has made an effort to overtly represent the greatly under-represented Nazi-era German people who wholly disagreed with Hitler’s philosophy.  Hollywood itself is dotted with Germany-based talent who fled the constraints of the Nazi state for the free world: Fritz Lang, Peter Lorre, F.W. Murnau, Billy Wilder, Marlene Dietrich and Paul Henreid to name but a few.

Having visited Berlin recently, taking in the history, one of the most profound realisations I experienced was the sheer amount of guilt and responsibility which still weighs down on the ordinary people of Germany to this day due to the shameful and violent past inflicted on their national identity by a select group of twisted people who held power.  I think the Emmy-winning documentary Inheritance best portrays this phenomenon.  It tells the story of Monika Hertwig, by all accounts an ordinary German woman, who struggles to come to terms with the legacy of evil left by her father, Amon Goeth, one of the most infamously ruthless Nazi commandants (notably portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List).

In Captain America the villain, Red Skull, isn’t particularly threatening, despite being played by the legendary Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Lord of the Rings) and apparently surpassing the evil of modern history’s most despicable villains, the Nazis.  In spite of this and the fact he’s harnessed the infinite power of Marvel’s favourite MacGuffin, the Tesseract, he’s consistently put down by the Allied forces.  He never presents any real challenge – more an ominous air of ‘you better be frightened, this guy’s worse than Hitler’.  This works for the enduring America-as-hero-terror-as-villain myth which Hollywood (and indeed US politicians) love to propagate, but it just seems that the war is too easily won here.

Howard Stark could’ve been a much more pivotal character in this film, and should’ve been in my opinion.  I mean, come on, it’s Iron Man’s dad we’re talking about here.  The man left a hell of a legacy and this should’ve been milked to the fullest.  I think the writers missed a trick here.

The scene near the end of Captain America where the plane is going down is clearly derivative of the incredible opening sequence of the classic A Matter of Life and Death (1946). So much so, it’s almost as if the character Peggy Carter was manufactured to fit this bill.  In A Matter of Life and Death, a British bomber pilot contemplates mortality before jumping out of his flaming aircraft without a parachute.  He speaks to an American ground-control officer and there is an inexplicable but undeniable attraction between the two as if they’ve just fallen in love.  In Captain America, the nationalities are switched, but the situation is almost exactly the same.  Captain America is plummeting towards earth in an aircraft to stop it crashing into New York City, while speaking to Peggy Carter, a British military officer who’s almost an exact match to Kim Hunter’s June in A Matter of Life and Death.  The fact that Peggy is British and working for the most secretive project in the US military is never explained – the only explanation is that her character is superficial and merely exists to satisfy a crude attempt to pay homage to that famous scene and/or shamelessly replicate its emotive genius.

Going on the theme of national identities, the relationship between Peggy Carter and Captain America could be seen as analogous of Britain and America’s historic alliance throughout the modern era and the present day.  As an extenstion of this analogy, the group of POW’s rescued from Red Skull’s lair who become Captain America’s personal henchmen could be regarded as American alliances (if my memory serves me correctly, I believe this group consists of a Frenchman, Englishman, American and an American of Japanese descent).

A mixed bag of surprisingly impotent villains, interesting representations of the German national identity, derivative filmmaking and missed opportunities make Captain America ultimately not as effective as its big blockbuster brother, Avengers, but still fairly enjoyable.

 

Avengers (2012): Hollywood doing what Hollywood does best - blockbusters

 

Avengers is an entertaining, action-packed, big-budget summer blockbuster encapsulating a massive series of superhero franchises from Marvel.  I’m not generally a fan of popcorn movies, but Hollywood have pulled out all the stops here and made a genuinely likable, easy-going piece of universal entertainment.

There’s not much of a plot, it’s really all about the characters and action.  At just over two hours already, it would be impractical and a different kind of film to introduce deep emotional complexity in every character – and that’s not the purpose of this flick.  It’s all about entertaining action and great characters. 

I haven’t seen the Captain America film but I will definitely watch it now - lines like “it seems to be powered by some sort of electricity” typify his quirky old-fashioned style.  Hollywood being the booming voice of patriotic America, Avengers isn’t subtle about making a Hitler analogy of the villain, Loki, when Captain America confronts him: “You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."  This sort of America-laying-it-on-thick sentiment perfectly suits the tone of this larger-than-life blockbuster: an export to the world from a Hollywood puffing up its chest and waving the stars and stripes.

The casting of the characters is spot on too.  Obviously Iron Man, Thor and Captain America were cast for their individual films beforehand, with the idea of a larger franchise in mind, but the newcomers are good too.  Considered one of the most attractive young women in the limelight at the moment, Scarlett Johansson gives Black Widow as much psychological mystique as sexuality – ticking the box for blockbuster eye-candy and feminist-friendly heroine.  As I’ve pointed out before, I really rate Mark Ruffalo, and his Hulk is widely accepted as having blown Eric Bana and Edward Norton’s efforts out of the water - as well as being the first to actually ‘be’ the green rage-monster through motion-capture.  Rufallo’s generally laid-back and slightly introverted demeanour (The Kids Are Alright, Shutter Island) lends itself perfectly to the Hulk’s alter-ego and galvanises the epic rage of ‘the other guy’. Tom Hiddleston provides a despicable villain in the form of demi-god Loki, brother of Thor, with wicked piercing eyes and a spitting thespian vernacular.

The main enjoyment of the film comes from the way the characters bounce of each other.  The chemistry is excruciating between certain characters and hilarious between others.  Captain America and Iron Man are quite similar in that they are both strong egos, both full of conviction.  Instead of trying to pretend they’re quite different, Joss Whedon and Zak Penn realise this and pit them against each other, creating a great conflict of personalities (which is later neatly overcome, of course).  The banter between the titan Hulk and demi-god Thor is typified by the moment Hulk punches Thor for fun.  Thor goes flying out of shot but we know he’s OK and we know it’s just a bit of tomfoolery between mighty superheroes.

One thing I didn’t get about the film is the unexplained tension between Hawkeye and Black Widow.  There’s an implied history between the two characters, although there’s no solid proof in the movie that this is romantic.  I can’t help but think that the producers tried to foster a superficial bond between these two characters in order to  generate more interest around them as they’re less well-recognised than the other heroes.

A uniquely good thing about Avengers and the rest of the recent Marvel superhero franchise is that they’re not afraid to use humour.  The relationship between the fanboy Agent Phil and Captain America (with the trading cards), the guy playing a computer game on the ship, the bit Hulk calls Loki a “puny God”, Captain America’s “Hulk: smash” line - are just a few memorable examples.  These gags are consistent and well-placed, keeping the tone of the film light despite its apocalyptic action.  A captivating mix of action, comedy, drama and sexuality is what the blockbuster audiences want, and that’s what Avengers provides.

Aesthetics-wise, while the CGI and VFX are overdone (of course they are it’s a superhero blockbuster) they aren’t utterly superfluous.  That is to say, while the film does feature gargantuan floating alien creatures snaking through the skies of Manhattan, it’s short and sweet and usually plays a part in the plot.  It’s not all guns and explosions for the sake of it; the action is well-balanced with  dialogue and  a progressing plot. 

I particularly  liked how Whedon handled the scenes in space with Loki and ‘The Other’.  They’re  done in an abstract and surreal style using close-ups and impressionistic aesthetic rather than a explicit theatrical feel.  This not only conjures a mystical atmosphere but ensures the identity of ‘The Other’ (rumoured as Thanos) is relatively obscure, thus creating excitement among speculative fans and, on a pragmatic note, means things like the final design of Thanos and his realm can remain open to alteration until the next Avengers film goes into production (which could take years).

Hunger Games (2012): don't believe all the hype, but don't give up on the franchise just yet

The Hunger Games isn’t as good as I thought it was going to be.  I had witnessed a lot of hype about it beforehand, so thought it was going to be remarkable.  It was enjoyable, but it didn’t match up to the hype in my eyes.  The box office receipts tell a different story though – the film remaining the top-grossing film worldwide for four weeks in a row.  There’s a lot to be said for word of mouth when selling a film.

I thought the visual effects were a little garish in places - particularly the scene where Katniss and Peeta are set on fire and paraded in front of a stadium of cheering fans.  The direction wasn’t particularly interesting – it was quite conservative and naturalistic despite the opportunity for a more sensational style considering the fantastical subject matter and younger target audience.  

The predicament for the director is that he had to portray acts of horrific violence, but keep it suitable for the 12A rating.  He kept it suitable for the kids, but at the expense of realistic violence.  The audience are never really shocked by the violence, but they should be, otherwise the film risks normalising such brutality instead of exposing how wrong and unnatural it is.

Gary Ross has decided not to direct the sequel and Francis Lawrence is reportedly taking his place in the director’s chair.  I am Legend shares similar elements with The Hunger Games world (survival in a dystopian future), so I’m confident Lawrence can make a successful follow up.  It could well be more visually exciting than Ross’ effort too – comparing their filmographies side by side it seems Ross fits well into more grounded dramas like Seabiscuit and Lawrence suits a more fantasy/sci-fi style (eg. Constantine).  

 

I have a couple of issues with the story too.  The parachute packages inspired an incredulous reaction from me, seeming like blatant plot devices and nothing more.  Yes, the film clearly shows they’re bought and sent (legitimately or not) by the contestants’ personal sponsors, but even at this, it seems like quite thin writing.  There are one or two things which just seem utterly implausible too: for instance, the fact that District 1’s Marvel was portrayed as a ruthless, powerful killing machine from the start but was fairly easily defeated by the somewhat underprepared pair from District 12.  I’ve never read the books, so for all I know these shortcomings could be a problem of the filmic adaptation, but much better expressed in novel form.  I’m not going to argue that books are a better storytelling medium than films, or vice versa – it’s like comparing chalk and cheese.

Despite my reservations, there are some parts to The Hunger Games which make me think that it’s not just another fantastical, coming-of-age action-drama aimed at teens and fans of the novels.  I like the issues raised about the dangers of a totalitarian state.  16 year old protagonist Katniss serves as a victim-hero who becomes disenfranchised and awakens to the inequalities of the system.  This theme is not only fashionable in film right now (eg. Dark Knight Rises, Coriolanus, etc.) but also serves as an incredibly relevant analogy (eg. the Occupy movement’s proposed reform of the global monetary system, the Arab Spring’s uprising against dictatorship and tyranny, etc).  The Hunger Games does well to express how not-so-far-fetched such a dystopian society could be.  Hopefully Catching Fire will take this theme and run with it, dealing more with the idea of active protest and revolution – and hopefully Lawrence can make it a little more exciting.

New Pages!

Check out the new blog pages Editors Picks and A-Z Archive.  Both pages just provide another way of navigating your very favourite IOAWYT content, thereby enhancing your blog-reading experience tenfold!!!

In other news, I don't think the acronym IOAWYT will ever catch on.  It's actually harder to remember than simply 'I Only Asked What You Thought'.

Moving on...

I went to see Hunger Games tonight.  Review to follow.  For now, here's a joke you've probably already heard:

Zeitgeist the Movie (2007): believe in myths and be controlled

The ideas presented in Zeitgeist: the Movie (2007) challenge the dominant ideology and are becoming increasingly more relevant nowadays.  In a week when the UK government are proposing supposed anti-terror legislation which vastly infringes on personal privacy and basic human rights, a viewing of Zeitgeist is timely and recommended.  As Allan Massie noted in his article in the Scotsman this week:

“It is bizarre that, since the European Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into our law, respect for the liberty of the individual citizen has diminished, and, as this proposed extension of state surveillance makes clear, we are all viewed with suspicion by authority.”

It seems that acts like the European Convention on Human Rights might be being used by authorities as more of a ruler to judge the extent to which they can legally reach to enforce control over populations rather than promote a culture of liberty.  This is just one example in a string of actions made by the UK government which proves their increasing tendency towards a full blown totalitarian state.  Instead of getting embroiled in the specifics of such an argument though, it might be more enlightening to step back and look at the bigger picture – this is exactly what Zeitgeist does.

Zeitgeist is essential viewing for any discerning, vigilant human being anywhere.  If you’ve always had the feeling that the whole Western, capitalist system is fundamentally wrong and unjust, but never really had the knowledge of economics, religion and politics to realise why, then this film is for you.  It starts to explain, in a simple and accessible format, the sickening corruption that is in the blood of the world’s greediest power brokers.

In ‘Part one: the greatest story ever told’ the film starts by explaining the concept of the myth.  By relating to astrology and religion, it begins to explain how humans have always used myths to describe and understand the course of nature and the world around them.  It takes Judeo-Christian faith as an example of how myths are created and used, as well as underlining the fact that they’re all based on Paganism and early astrology and, so, essentially plagiarised.

The truth according to Zeitgeist is that astrology was represented by myths and stories in order to simplify and explain the complex intergalactic movements at play and how this affected basic things like growing and harvesting crops in order to eat and stay alive.  These truthful myths were then manipulated over time into religious myths.  When you consider how much blood has been shed in the name of various gods throughout human history, it’s humbling to realise these religions are based on nothing more than an analogy of nature.  Zeitgeist explains that religious myths have always been used to control and segregate people, creating fear and war.

This brings the film into the second part, titled ‘All the World’s a Stage’.  Here the film presents the 9/11 myth as understood and promoted by the US government.  It goes on to systematically dissect the myth, explaining the inconsistencies and lies within.  The truth behind this myth is that, according to Zeitgeist, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an elaborate and intricate plan undertaken by the most corrupt people behind the US government itself.  The aim of the plan was to create a myth so widely accepted by an outraged global public that the US would have justification for the invasion of Afghanistan and then eventually Iraq in order to cease control of oil resources and undertake an illegal war which would last for years, thus generating exponential profits for international defence contractors.  Apparently the London terrorist attacks were all for the same purpose too.  Apparently Vietnam was the same kind of war but without the oil.  Apparently the men in power have been doing this for centuries: creating myths which create a desired reaction amongst a population in order to justify some (usually morally abhorrent) action which normally results in financial gain for themselves.

It also explains that these myths are used to create futile and artificial divisions among humans in order to create a global culture of fear and thus control entire populations.  “Divide and conquer” is the motto given to this strategy of empowerment – make a population fight among itself and become the all-powerful referee.

‘Part three: Don’t Mind the Men Behind the Curtain’ goes on to explain how the corrupt, nonsensical, synthetic global financial system is the main method by which the men in power control governments and the public by a system of slavery.  I’m not exactly clued up on economics but it’s quite easy to understand that the global monetary system is fundamentally unfair.  Central banks regulate how much money is printed and loaned out into the system, and charge every single penny at interest.  There’s no reason for the interest, other than the fact that the men in charge of the whole system pocket the interest as profit and retain absolute control over governments and populations.  The dominant monetary system is a crooked invention – it is not a necessary human resource.

Part three also describes how educational systems are designed to stop people from being “too educated” and “thinking too much”.  It also explains how entertainment, drugs, alcohol and all other permutations of entertainment are meant to pacify entire populations, stop them from being too intelligent and distract them from finding out the horrible truth of how the world is really run.  By this point in the film I’m profoundly aware of Karl Marx’ statement “religion is the opiate of the masses”.  As it appears nowadays, this could be translated more relevantly to “myths are the opiate of the masses”.  It was once religious myths which were used to control people, now it’s myths of all kinds.  Myths which are created by horrific actions commissioned by the men in power and perpetuated by the media which they themselves own.

I don’t think the word Illuminati is mentioned in Zeitgeist – I don’t think it needs to be either.  This film doesn’t concentrate on the so-called Illuminati or any other secret society.  Instead it’s about myths and how they’re used to manipulate the ideologies of the people, control them and thus conserve the system of oppression and slavery that is beneficial for the elite ruling classes.  The people at the top of the system aren't some conspiratorial, secret organization though.  There is no Illuminati or lizard people.  The people in power are just products of the system - whether they were born into power (as is often the case and makes for prime fodder for conspiracy theories) or worked their way to the top, these people are just people who want to succeed and just like the rest of us.  There is a complex system of relativity at play - wealth is relative as the monetary system is invented and so the power structures are imagined.  All people are part of the same global population - differences and divisions are synthetic and learned.  To say that the system is corrupt because of those in charge is to foster a culture of 'us' and 'them', thereby creating more divisions.  Real change of the whole system relies on solidarity - to acheive that relies on the way people think and perceive the world around them.

Later on, the film suggest that “a new consciousness is emerging which sees the Earth as a single organism”.  I can forgive people for criticising this idea and dismissing it as simple and dogmatic, but I like it.  It reminds me a lot of Carl Jung’s notion of the ‘Collective Unconscious’ whereby all people are connected by an unconscious realm of thoughts and dreams.  The idea of all living things existing ‘as one’ is repeated time in time again in religion, philosophy and, now, psychology.  I think Zeitgeist’s big idea is to get us to dismiss the divisive ways of the world powers and realise that we are in this together - at the risk of sounding like a hippy.

Overall, Zeitgeist is extremely persuasive.  I was very aware of this and constantly questioned how much is speculative propaganda and how much is truth.  After a quick search on the director, Peter Joseph, I found a good interview with the man himself and he seems like an extremely intelligent, socially conscious human being.  In this interview he admits that he (and anyone else who has challenged the system throughout history) has come under a lot of pressure for his challenging ideas.  Zeitgeist is so big I’m frankly amazed he hasn’t been assassinated yet (since that’s what Zeitgeist says happens to “all the good guys” – Ghandi, John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jnr, the Kennedys, etc).

I won't be surprised if many people don't enjoy this film.  It makes you think and many people I know generally don't watch films to think, they watch films to be told. The great irony of Zeitgeist's success is that it uses a medium to spoon-feed people information to tell them that they shouldn't allow themselves to be spoon-fed information.  I'm reminded of John F Kennedy's words:

"The great enemy of the truth, is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." John F Kennedy

Zeitgeist is composed mostly of pre-existing audio and video clips and Joseph states in his interview that all of the information in the film is from a source.  I tend to sway towards the viewpoint that, while an enormous amount of creative license has necessarily been used to structure these facts into a persuasive argument, Zeitgeist is more than just propaganda.  Paradoxically, you could say that Zeitgeist is a myth with a motive, just like the ones it criticises, but there’s too much logic and truth to this story for it to be classed as simply another loopy, anarchistic conspiracy theory.

What Zeitgeist doesn’t do is offer any kind of solution or alternative to the way things are.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, after all two hours is a good length for a feature (especially one with so much information and thought-provoking concepts to process) and there wouldn’t be enough time to feasibly undertake such a task without losing the concentration of the audience.  I realise that there are three subsequent films in the Zeitgeist series and I expect these will be more concerned with offering a theoretical framework for some sort of positive change.  I fully intend to watch and review these, relating my thoughts to this first review.

For now, I’ll sum up by saying that Zeitgeist is an incredibly influential film which deserves a lot of serious attention.  One man can’t provide a solution to fix a world riddled with corruption, but he can sure put his ideas out there and stir up debate.  The beauty of digital video is that it is such an accessible and easily-distributable medium, perfect for influencing a critical mass that is necessary to reach in order to change the way we live our lives and run the world.  I’m not totally in the know of the whole Occupy movement, but I imagine it might well represent the embodiment of a discontented mass who campaign for truth, justice, transparency and a new global monetary system.  A group who think much like Peter Joseph and seek to evolve the zeitgeist – the fundamental way we all think, live and run the world.

You can watch Zeitgeist the Movie and the rest of the series online for free or download the torrent.

David Kay stands out at the Glasgow Comedy Festival

I went to see Scottish comedian David Kay at Oran Mor in Glasgow on Saturday night as part of the Glasgow Comedy Festival.  STV asked me to write up a review for their website too, so HERE IT IS.

I've actually known David for a number of years now, since he lives and works in my hometown where I grew up.  I used to be in a couple of bands and he was the tech guy for a council-run multimedia centre at the time (talk about multi-talented), so we used to go and pester him to help us record our needlessly heavy, typically teenage angsty songs.

He is one of the most laid-back guys I've ever met in my life, and this really reflects in his comic style.  It's an acquired taste, I think, but massively appreciated by those who 'get' it.  Me being one of those appreciators, obviously.

He's done a number of things for TV and radio and was talking to me after the show about an upcoming project for TV, which I'm not really sure I'm allowed to say anything about yet.  Needless to say, the guy's a (somewhat hidden) gem of Scottish comedy and deserves some serious recognition.

As well as writing up the review, I also helped film the show with the production company Small Majority as part of a DVD project he'll be offering soon.  It was all shot on sparkling HD on DSLRs, so it will look cracking.