And then – phut – it’s all over just as you were getting interested

And then – phut – it’s all over, just as you were getting interested.Do we blame the choreographer for supplying too much subtext and too little dramatic substance? Or do we blame the demands of a building that needs to make money on interval drinks? Castle Nowhere feels like an enticing prologue to a much more substantial work in which something actually happens Too bad it didn’t have the space to be that. Three other couples in evening dress suggest a vague context of gossip, flirtation and treachery. Arvo Part’s brooding music (we’re not told what it is) builds to a point of tension where you expect a murder or worse. It begins stunningly, the curtain rising on a fabulous Milky Way of suspended objects – mirrors, lamps, candelabra, a chair – that might have been hurled by the protagonists, at least in their imaginations.
Beneath it Edward Watson and Zenaida Yanowsky – a fashion-plate beauty in a bustle – stalk and prowl and wrestle, all angry self-loathing on his side and tortured yearning on hers. Castle Nowhere sets out to capture the well-mannered but emotionally barbed world of a Henry James novella.

The centrepiece of the Royal Ballet’s latest triple bill – a new work by young Canadian Matjash Mrozewski – falls victim to this cocktail-chat routine. Our own Royal Opera House, for all its superb facilities, encourages expectations that are not always helpful to creativity, or our appreciation of it. Why, for example, so many intervals in a ballet triple bill? No sooner have you settled in your seat and attuned your ears and eyes, than the lights go up and you spend 25 minutes (sometimes longer than the work itself) milling around the bar Then the same thing happens again No wonder ballet often feels ephemeral. When Pierre Boulez remarked some years ago that opera houses should all be blown up, he was making a point about the stultifying tyranny of buildings.

The film is fascinating in many ways, but wafts around all over the place, which is sometimes what happens when a writer directs her own script, and casts her husband in the lead role.. One of them immediately catches a snake, which could possibly be symbolic. Still, there’s no doubt that his acting is typically phenomenal. His commune long-gone, he lives the good life with his 16-year-old daughter, until he spoils things by inviting his girlfriend, Catherine Keener, to join them in their Eden, along with her two teenaged sons. Very young viewers might enjoy seeing a man on all fours chasing after a cat..

Perhaps Daniel Day-Lewis should have swapped roles with Harrison Ford in Firewall, because he’s too young to play an eco-warrior who built an island commune in 1967. Tim Allen stars in this live-action Disney remake as a workaholic lawyer who turns into a were-dog, a transformation which enables him to learn valuable lessons about spending more time with his family. I remember being so wracked with nerves on the night of the final I couldn’t go. I banged my head on the wall of the chalet – it was Artex and it really hurt – so that I didn’t have to go.”Which is why, so legend has it, Spall never works on a set that has been painted with Artex ‘Pierrepoint’ is released on Friday.

She got through the first round – came third I think – and was due back for the final round The prize was a free holiday at Butlins. We used to go to Butlins on holiday, either Clacton or Bognor My mum was a good singer Round a piano sort of thing, not for money. Anyway, when we went to Butlins one year she struck up enough courage to enter the talent contest. And it turned out that my kids were as well.”Given that we have returned to the subject of his family, I ask him if he can recall a particularly potent memory from his own childhood He takes time before replying.”That’s quite difficult Hmm OK, yes. The first thing that occurred to me was that they should put a little ‘SE’ at the end of it Ha ha! At first I was completely shocked I knew that my mum would be absolutely delighted. I’ve noticed that there are things I don’t do any more as I go along.”Of all the awards he has won, the OBE is the one that positions him firmly in the national consciousness Was he embarrassed by it?”No I was chuffed, of course. Much of it is reduction; you try to get rid of stuff that is extraneous Sometimes you can have a ball, piss about, have a laugh.