Quick run down of stuff I've been seeing, just in case anyone would like to chat about it :D

- Arcadia (by Tom Stoppard) at the Opera House - it featured one of the lead actors from Holding the Man (Ryan Corr), and I wanted to see whether he could actually do stage. Turns out that he can, as could everyone else up there, which was nice. I'm not even going to bother trying to explain Arcadia - you either know it, or you don't. It's about love and chaos theory and history and gardens and uncertainty, and involves flipping back and forth across time, the modern replacing the traditional, and talk of the butterfly effect and recursive algorithms and their application not only to mathematics, but to relationships, and history. Plus the usual entertaining banter. Exactly my cup of tea; possibly not everybody's. I can't think why *g*

- 10 Cloverfield Lane - never saw Cloverfield, but I just liked the feel of the trailer and was intrigued by John Goodman, who I thought was pretty amazing, actually. It was another of those movies where I kept wanting to rewrite the plot, though. I kept hoping that Emmett was the real killer of the girl, and that he was lying to Michelle about who the girl in the photo was to make her *think* Howard was the real killer. I also thought it was obvious that Howard would never have hurt Michelle because she was a daughter substitute, not a "woman", which again made Emmett's deliberate reframing of Michelle in the game extra-creepy. Also, when she did escape, I would have loved if the outside had proved so dangerous she ended up running back into the shelter and having to cower there, alone in the half-gutted (but still functional) shelter for the rest of her life. I really enjoyed the atmosphere, but the ending was just... whatever.

- Zootopia, mainly thanks to a highly positive review by shadowfireflame. I'm glad I saw it, and I did enjoy it a lot more than I would have expected from the trailer, but it just didn't make a huge impression on me - possibly because the message aspect was so blatant? It was worthy, and a lot of fun, and I don't really have anything bad to say about (even that bloody song was catchy) but I wasn't captivated by it the way I was by Inside Out. Maybe because I'm not really an "animal" person to begin with, idk. I did particularly enjoy Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) and Gazelle (Shakira) in relatively minor roles.

- Clone - mainly for the sake of Mark Gatiss, but I do like Jonathan Pryce very much as well. I'd seen the Gatiss sections on Youtube before, but never watched the entire series. I loved it, actually. Pretty much your typical cheesy British comedy, but there's nothing wrong with that. Jonathan Pryce plays Dr Victor Blenkinsop, a scientist who has managed to create the ultimate super-soldier. In future all soldiers can be cloned from this perfect prototype and be sent into battle, sparing the rest of the populace. But in the best British comedic tradition, it's an utter disaster - the Clone is sweet, childlike, and a complete and utter klutz. Victor and the Clone are forced to go on the run while Victor struggles to find the right "trigger" to turn him into the super-soldier he was always meant to be. In the meantime, the delightfully psychopathic Colonel Black (Mark Gatiss) is doing his best to find and destroy them so his superiors never find out. Colonel Black kills a lot of people, threatens to kill many more, and occasionally talks about his erection. It's that kind of show.

- The Devil of Winterbourne, written by and featuring Mark Gatiss. I'll just cut and paste from my tumblr review.

I found it highly entertaining, but possibly for all the wrong reasons. I read an interview someone posted about how he thought he’d never get the chance to do something like that again and so he put everything into it. Ladies and gentlemen - welcome to a glimpse at Mark Gatiss’ psyche, featuring:

- the UK’s version of the X-Files, with female “believer” vs hard-nosed cop (and a grumpy high-level civil servant thrown into the bargain)

- cults and ritual killings, both human and animal

- subsequent murder mysteries

- ghosts

- League of Gentlemen echoes, with things tied to stakes and weird pathologists and not!Mickey… and Reece Shearsmith

- Doctor Who echoes (lead character Liz Shaw played by Caroline John; Peter Davison features)

- pretty public school boys and their not-so-hidden longings

I suspect if you threw in time travel and fossils you’d have almost everything else *g*. As a show, it was a reasonable effort, but a bit clunky and drawn-out, and any modern viewer will probably giggle at the melodrama and see the end coming a mile off. Still worthwhile, for all the above reasons.

Haven't yet finished The Night Manager, which improved a little from the first episode, but which I still find a bit silly. Tom Hiddleston is immensely pretty, but unconvincing to me as Mr SuperSpy. Hugh Laurie is basically playing English evil!House, which is delightful. His accent is so upper class you could cut yourself on the edges. Elizabeth Debicki is gorgeous - apparently her entire purpose - and Olivia Colman is engaging as a role that was originally written for a man, apparently. Why am I not surprised?

I think that's all of note. And so much other goodness as well - Doctor Strange pics, Mark Gatiss winning an Olivier and new setlock coming up, yay!