By Michael Coveney
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Lights, camera, curtain

Why is it we remain obsessed with silent movies and the birth of the talkies? Search me, but like everyone else I love the film of Singin' in the Rain, and remain to be convinced that any stage version, including the latest (which I've not yet seen), is worth the bother.

One critic even suggested that Adam Cooper was better than Gene Kelly on celluloid. Truly, the world is going mad. And this week we have yet another play about the birth of the movies, or rather Hollywood, in Nicholas Wright's Travelling Light at the National Theatre, starring Antony Sher as an early immigrant mogul.

I can't wait. Or can I? We shall see when it opens on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Wright has penned an article in the Guardian detailing in a most touching manner his love affair with silent movies which dates back to his childhood in South Africa, when a cinema buff uncle, stalwart of the Cape Town Film Society, kept his family permanently enthralled in the dark by proving that silence is golden.

Funnily enough, the effect of Wright's piece is probably to send you straight out to see The Artist rather than book a ticket for the National. For he reports that he's seldom seen such a receptive audience for a movie as he did when he went to see the Oscar front-runner, the cinema basking in a rapt and innocent haze of pleasure.

That audience didn't include me. I'm the man in the Bateman cartoon who didn't really like The Artist, although I have to concede that, so far, I've only seen it on a DVD screener, not in a film house. It struck me as over-long, over-winsome, over-ingratiating and lumbered with about two false endings too many.

Oh, and there's an insufferable dog, too, that everyone loves. I much preferred the other current movie about the invention of cinema, Martin Scorsese's Hugo (scripted by John "Red" Logan, who's suddenly as ubiquitous as Abi Morgan), in which Ben Kingsley plays the weird genius Georges Melies whose fantasies Wright confesses to finding malodorous and tacky. Weren't the illusions, he asks, merely stop-go camerawork? Maybe, but that's precisely the reaction I had to The Artist.

Kingsley is mesmerising in the role, surely giving his best performance on screen since Ghandi, and the cast contains -- apart from yet another astonishing boy actor, North Londoner Asa Butterfield -- many of our own favourite British actors: Helen McCrory, Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, Ray Winstone, Jude Law, and there's a lovely little romance going on between Sacha Baron Cohen's sub Peter Sellers-style station master and Emily Mortimer's flower girl.

Before the New Year's new theatre kicks in with this week's openings at the Bush, National and Theatre Upstairs (not to mention King John at the little Union in Southwark), it's been fun being totally mystified by the new digital-age Sherlock Holmes on television. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman form a most wonderful double act as Holmes and Watson, playing with the popular misconception that they might be a gay couple, and, in last night's hilarious spoof of the Final Problem, Andrew Scott came into his own as a scary, fake baddie -- he's an actor, for God's sake -- Moriarty.

Freeman was superb on stage in Dominic Cooke's production of Clybourne Park and he's just about to go global in the lead role of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, so he's probably lost to the theatre for ever.

I sincerely hope the same is not true -- it can't possibly be -- of Cumberbatch, who's currently revelling in War Horse glory along with Tom Hiddlestone and Joey the equine star, who's presumably contesting the dumb animal Oscar with Uggie the dog in The Artist.

And come back soon, please, Carey Mulligan, who's only 26 and on the brink of mega-stardom as Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann's new movie version of The Great Gatsby.

Mulligan is my new favourite actress -- sorry Maggie Smith, sorry Miranda Richardson, sorry Nancy Carroll (although of course Nancy has a chance to redeem herself in the upcoming The Recruiting Officer at the Donmar) -- and it's particularly interesting that she reveals today (also in the Guardian) that she first learned how to play beyond the reality of her own experience in Ian Rickson's production of The Seagull at the Royal Court.

She clinched her casting as Michael Fassbender's damaged sister in Steve McQueen's overwhelming film about sex addiction, Shame, by doing McQueen's bidding and getting a tattoo: it's the outline of a seagull on the inside of her right wrist.

She's a nicely brought up middle-class girl, our Carey, so she didn't dive down to Camden Lock for the inky incision: instead, she steeled herself for an upmarket shopping expedition in Oxford Street. She needed a place to go, she says, where she didn't feel like a total idiot."And it was Selfridge's. And actually I felt like more of an idiot there."

- by Michael Coveney

Any opinions expressed above do not represent the view of Whatsonstage.com nor any of its staff or contributors beyond the bylined author.

Related Content

Booking Tickets & Show Listings
	Singin' in the Rain Listing Page
	Travelling Light Listing Page
	King John Listing Page

Other Posts By Michael Coveney
	Michael Coveney: Big Apple bites and Manhattan memories - 22nd May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: New York honours Matilda with five big awards - 20th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Tales from New York in Kinky Boots - 17th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Finsbury hails its local Park Theatre opening - 15th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Hooray for Halifax and Carrie's ENO debut - 13th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: All change at Trafalgar, Liverpool and Finsbury Park - 10th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Critics come full Circle in centenary bash - 8th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: High old time with High Tide in Halesworth - 7th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Hytner steams on, Sondheim scintillates - 2nd May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Theatre queens and Paris low-life - 30th Apr 2013 blog
	More...
Internal Links
	Roddy Doyle's The Commitments readies for Palace premiere - 11th Apr 2013 news
	Derren Brown transfers Infamous live show to Palace, 27 Jun - 10th Apr 2013 news
	Singin' in the Rain closes in West End on 8 June ahead of tour - 22nd Mar 2013 news
	Jennifer Ellison among new cast of Singin' in the Rain - 28th Jan 2013 news
	Musicals extend: Blood Brothers delays closure, Top Hat & Singin' - 17th Sep 2012 news
	Casting: Robert Powell starts Singin' in the Rain, Darren Day in Session, new boys for Billy - 5th Sep 2012 news
	Cast recordings announced for Singin' In the Rain, Top Hat - 6th Aug 2012 news
	Andrew Lloyd Webber sells West End's Palace Theatre to Nimax - 11th Apr 2012 news
	Singin' in the Rain extends West End booking to Feb 2013 - 13th Mar 2012 news
	Opening: Goodbye, Floyd Collins, Lady & Deyn's Society debut - 27th Feb 2012 news
	Singin' In The Rain Co. splash out with WOS theatregoers at reception - 23rd Feb 2012 blog
	Review Round-up: Singin' in the Rain makes a splash - 16th Feb 2012 roundup
	1st Night Photos: Stars are Singin' at the Palace - 16th Feb 2012 photos
	Singin' in the Rain - 16th Feb 2012 reviews
	Show Pics: Singin' in the Rain dances into new home at Palace - 15th Feb 2012 photos
	Opening: Donmar Officer, Singin' in the Rain & WOS Awards - 13th Feb 2012 news
	Home Counties feed West End - 13th Feb 2012 blog
	National stages Haddon's Night-time, Bean's Cristo & Bennett's People - 25th Jan 2012 news
	King John - 23rd Jan 2012 reviews
	Travelling Light - 19th Jan 2012 reviews
	Review Round-up: Sher's Travelling Light at NT - 19th Jan 2012 roundup
	Show pics: Sher leads Travelling Light at National & on tour - 16th Jan 2012 photos
	Opening: Bush's New Girl, NT Travelling Light, Court Constellations - 16th Jan 2012 news
	Cast & Dates for NT Spring Rep Shows Confirmed - 4th Nov 2011 news
	Photos: Cooper, Strallen & Crossley Ready for West End Singin' in the Rain - 26th Sep 2011 photos
	CFT Singin' in the Rain Transfers to West End, 15 Feb - 15th Sep 2011 news