Adventures on the Internet

An engaging and at times unsettling drama revolving around the upwardly mobile French professional couple Alain and Benedicte. Alain is working on the design of a flying web-cam for a hi-tech company; the couple's home is a des-res in the south of France, and their stylish way of life is underscored by the Volvo V50 2.0D SE on the driveway. Things start to unravel after Alain's boss Richard and his wife Alice come round for a meal one evening. The pleasantly awkward dinner party terminates abruptly in a shower of sparkling dialogue, and thereafter events in Alain and Benedicte's lives start to spiral away from their hitherto orderly path.
Working late at the office one night, Alain is interrupted by Alice, (played by Charlotte Rampling) who attempts unsuccessfully to seduce the young designer. In a highly charged scene, when the smouldering Ms Rampling intones "...you can do anything you want with me, I won't be shocked..." the tension is not the only thing rising in the expectant audience.
Soon after, Alice pays a visit to Benedicte and plants seeds of disquiet in her mind that cause the younger woman to reassess the foundations of her relationship with Alain. Meanwhile, Alice exits their lives in a shocking scene, and sets in train a sequence of events that drive the narrative forward to a satisfactory conclusion.
Essential viewing.

Another performance in the ongoing series of live productions staged by the Nationwide Conference South group. Set in an outdoor theatre on the outskirts of Cambridge, this largely unscripted play explores the power relations between a disparate group of individuals in the context of a football match.

Each production in the series follows a rigid format comprising two 45 minute acts with a 15 minute intermission, and the naturalistic setting and improvised (yet curiously limited) dialogue invites analogy with the Dogme school of film-making.

The different groups of actors - teams, managers and coaching staff, referee and assistants, and opposing supporters each have their specific role to play in a situational conflict scenario which may or may not reach resolution at the end of the second act (also known as 'the final whistle').

Throughout the performance the relationship between the actors is continuously examined on many levels ranging from organisational confrontation to the individual battles between opposing players, and the subtler interactions between manager and player ("GET RID OF IT!") and referee - player ("Name?" "But I played the ball!!").
All the while, events provoke the spectators to interact with the players, and indeed the extent of audience participation is a unique feature of these modern-day morality plays.

It's a truly passionate spectacle, embodying the full spectrum of human emotion. By the close, you'll be exhausted. Unmissable.

Biographical account of Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's Chief Executioner until his resignation in 1956. The subject matter of the film is largely concerned with Pierrepoint's work, and consequently there is much footage of hangings, as well as the preliminaries and aftermath. Pierrepoint is portrayed as an ordinary man with an unusual line of work. He goes about his job dispassionately, taking care to discharge the duties as efficiently and humanely as possible whilst taking pride in the details of his profession.

In the course of the film we learn about the mechanics of hanging - rather more than one might expect to need to know nowadays. Pierrepoint's ability to judge precisely the correct drop based upon the physical characteristics of the condemned, combined with his rapid conduct of the procedure was highly valued by the justice system. He claimed to dispense almost instantaneous death by breaking the neck between the second and third cervical vertebrae. (Too much drop and the head is ripped off, too little and death results from prolonged strangulation.) His record was such that he was specially requested by Montgomery to execute convicted Nazi war criminals.

However, the job of executioner did not provide steady work, and Pierrepoint also worked as a delivery man, and subsequently ran a pub with his wife Anne. Until he became a public figure after the Nuremberg trials, it seems that he did not mention his other line of work to his wife, friends or acquaintances. Indeed, Pierrepoint held the view that his work should remain secret, treating it with the sanctity that a priest might afford the confessional, and Pierrepoint was distressed at the publicity he received in later years.

The fascination of the film lies in the contrast between the two aspects of his life, and what must have gone on in the mind of a man who carried out the judicial killing of more than 600 people over a period of 24 years. The film provides occasional glimpses, as when Pierrepoint reveals that on entry to a condemned cell he leaves 'himself' outside the door. His detachment from prior details, not caring to know of the crimes of his clients and taking no view as to their innocence or guilt presumably must have provided some of the necessary insulation, especially in cases such as Timothy Evans, posthumously found to have been wrongly convicted and executed. Nevertheless, it must have been an extraordinary individual who could subsequently sleep peacefully in his bed.

The words of Conrad's narrator, Marlow (in Heart of Darkness) seem especially apposite:
"The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible - it was not good for one either - trying to imagine."