The Extreme Staycation

Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown It's amazing how long you can put up with something that is broken or has ceased to work in exactly the way it should.  The work-arounds you find.  The small sacrifices. This was the case with our very hardworking Humax remote control. I think the first feature to stop working was the  MEDIA  button to take you to recordings - never fear there was the  MENU  option to resolve this, but it meant 2 pressings of a button, but that's ok. The  SKIP FORWARD  button stopped working a while ago (probably 6-8 months at a guess) so we used  FAST FORWARD  instead. PLAY  and  PAUSE  gave up at some stage -  OK  it is then Then  STOP  stopped working -  EXIT  will do... Finally,  FAST FORWARD  stopped and an arrow button was used to fill the gap. Now, this just shows how clever a simple remote control is.  It's also...

Location: London, UK COVID-19 / Coronavirus Outbreak Lockdown I always think it's great when you see an actor perform a role that you never would have imagined them doing. One example is Hugh Grant who has thoroughly shaken his foppish persona in recent years taking on roles such as  Jeremy Thorpe  in A Very English Scandal , the baddie  Phoenix Buchanan  in Paddington 2 and probably my favourite, the tabloid journalist (who Grant is well known for detesting) called Fletcher in The Gentlemen . Another such performance for me was Benedict Cumberbatch in Frankenstein , this week's NT Live.  I have always thought he was a good actor, but I've never seen him take such a physical role as that of the Creature in this production.  He totally commits and is on stage for the majority of the 2 hour run time - it must have been exhausting!  Catch it while you can: Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...