The Mandalorian: Chapter 21- The Pirate

 "Bo-Katan walks both worlds..."

Wow. The Mandalorian gets better and better. This season is on fire.

The plot is simple, time-honoured, life-affirming Western stuff. Greef Kargo's decent, hard-working community are attacked by pirates, overrun, and become refugees. The New Republic won't help because of bureaucracy, or rather the understandable realities and limits of power. So it falls to the Mandalorians, who successfully fight off the pirates and are rewarded with land of their own. Simple.

Except it's not about the plot, it's about the nuances and little things. The Salacious Crumbs pointing out the ambush. The fact we all knowdamn well what Kargo is doing when he bends down to the R2 unit. The fact that the New Republic colonel who refuses help is portrayed not as a stupid pen-pushing staff officer but as a reasonable man with competing, impossible priorities who is, while we may not like it, probably making the right decision. The subtle plotting of G68. Paz's unextectedly supportive speech.

And so, after some awesome action sequences, the Mandalorians have some security. And the Armourer- I live her- bonds further with an increasingly spiritual Bo-katan and bids her remove her helmet(!) and go forth to recruit others so Mandalore may be retaken. And if that bombshell wasn't enough... we learn that Moff Gideon was sprung... by Mandalorians???!!!

Wow. Just wow,.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (David Kerr, 2016)

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

It's tempting to belittle the work of adapting Shakespeare- after all, the words are already written and can hardly be much improved upon- but this adaptation by Russell T. Davies, fitting into a tidy ninety minutes, reminds us that there's a real artistry to it. The words, although abridged, may be Shakespeare's, but this production is fresh and original. Top marks for the casting, too, letting the likes of Bernard Cribbins and Richard Wilson play minor roles and leaving the principals (Theseus, Titania and Bottom aside) to promising newcomers.

John Hannah's Theseus is dictator of a totalitarian state, festooned with fascistic imagery, and Hippolyta is his prisoner, the spoils of war, kept rather kinkily in a constant state of bondage. All this fits in rather well with Egeus' tyranny towards his daughter Helena, of course, and makes a nice constraint with the humanity of the "mechanicals", rehearsing in their pub with Matt Lucas being rather good as Bottom. I love everyone's hostility to Theseus on the pub telly.

The final act looks rather different with this slant on the play, with Theseus literally dying of laughter from the mechanicals' play and the end of tyranny. As a final touch we see that Hippolyta is in fact a fairy, and that Oberon and Titania have been plotting her rescue all this time. An inspired take on the play which looks magnificent throughout.