In a rickety old house in London Kings Cross, Mrs Wilberforce rents out her spare room to Professor Marcus.  Instead of the gentleman she thought he was, the ‘professor’ is a con man in the midst of hatching a plan to commit daylight robbery with his gang of thieves.

Despite being lucky enough to have seen some stunning plays already this year, it’s been a long time since I have laughed quite so much as I did on Saturday.  Written by Graham Linehan (Father Ted/IT Crowd creator), he’s taken the 1955 classic Ealing comedy and re-written it for the stage.  It’s kept that vital spark of genteel post-war innocence while adding a plethora of belly laughs.  Add to that a very strong cast and you see why the production has sold out.

Peter Capaldi gives a highly energised portrayal of Professor Marcus, keeping none of his most famous alter ego’s aggression, but all of his intelligence and guile.  It was simply wonderful to see him on stage, his predator glare as he stalked his victim.  I think his years of ad libbing with Iannucci showed when Capaldi cracked a joke, the audience burst into laughter so much he should have paused for it to die down, and instead of letting them calm, he carried on riffing on the joke directly to the audience for a good few minutes with a wicked gleam in his eye.  Glorious.

There’s not a weak link in the rest of the cast either.  While I don’t watch much television, I still recognised James Fleet as the timid Major, Ben Miller’s Romanian gangster Louis, Stephen Wight as the amphetamine-addict Harry, Clive Rowe’s man-child One Round, Marcia Warren as the innocent old lady, and Harry Peacock as the long-suffering bobby who has to listen to her fanciful stories.

Still, it’s the stunning set design that almost upstages Peter Capaldi from his lead role.  On a rotating stage, the designer has recreated the interior of landlady Mrs Wilberforce’s escher-like three storey home – no right angles, leaning and wonky walls everywhere.  When rotated, it shows the outside of the house, allowing one of the most audacious car chases I’ve ever seen on stage.  (It involves radio controlled cars)   The audience burst into spontaneous applause at least three times during that sequence.

You can’t get a ticket for love nor money at the current theatre, though it is moving to London at the end of the month.  It’s well worth the effort to catch it at the West End if you can.

Moon by Michael Bay

Since Hollywood is so good at remaking already superb films, I had a think about what they’d make of Duncan Jones debut masterpiece ‘Moon’.

For starters, they’d get in ‘auteur’ director Michael Bay.  They’d replace Sam Rockwell with Shia Labeouf and Gerty the robot with a random Hollywood starlet of the day to voice the sexy robot girl.  It’d start with Sam running across the Moon in a funky space suit, shooting shit up with a frikking mining lazer to send back to earth.  There’d be a massive explosion and Sam 1 would be hurt.  Cut back to base, where Sam 2 wakes up when Sam 1 hammers at the window.  Lots of exposition as they discuss in clear terms exactly what’s gone on, how they got here and what they need to do.  Slight suspense as a ship lands in the window and they don’t noice.

Cut to massive cleanup crew blasting into the base and Sam 1 & 2 using their mining lazers to kick ass and take names.  Long, pointless action scene, lots of explosions.  Some close ups of Sam 1 & 2 sweating and looking a bit heroic, then more explosions.  Sam 1 goes down the the nursery (no need to explain how he knows where it is now) and wakes up an army of Sams.  More fighting until they kill all the crew.  Gerty shows her true colours by turning on them, but Sam 2 takes the bullet for Sam 1 before blowing Gertys head off.  Sam 2 injured, but pulls through.

All the Sams steal the cleanup crews ship and head back to Earth.  They realise it’s actually got a huge nuke on it, so aim it towards Lunar Industries headquarters.  Just before the nuke hits, they escape in a life pod, that drifts down to Earth with an American flag as a parachute.  End with dialogue implying a sequel where Sam(s) are going to storm the remains of the building and kick more ass.

The scary thing is, I can imagine it happening…

Sam Rockwell in Moon

‘Moon’ by first time director Duncan Jones, was a great film.  Proper intelligent sci fi after a summer of brain dead action flicks.  But it was also a little independent film with a tiny marketing budget.  That means it also doesn’t have the budget to compete in the big Oscar campaigns.

If you’ve seen it, you’ll realise how well Sam Rockwell does, he carries a whole film pretty much solo (with the help of Kevin Spaceys voice for the computer Gerty).  So, believing that Sam is worthy of an Oscar, Duncan has started a grassroots online campaign.

• Sign the petition >> HERE <<
• Add a Twibbon Twitter & Facebook >> HERE <<
• Pick up a Sam Rockwell Oscar campaign T-Shirt >> HERE <<
• Use the dedicated Twitter hashtag #SamRockwellOscar creatively in your tweets.

The DVD and Blu-ray are out on the 16th of November.  Get it pre-ordered!