Rob Wickings's Blog, page 55

Thank You For Smoking

As the weather starts to draw in, and you start to think about digging jumpers and coats out of the wardrobe, you might think it's time to pack the barbecue away. Although it's probably past the time of year for you to be standing in front of a blazing grill in your shorts and “Kiss The Chef” apron, you might still get a bit of traction out of that unused bag of charcoal yet.

Readership, you may recall that I have been playing around with the notion of smoking my food. Certainly, our recent trip to Seahouses and the beautiful kippers and smoked prawns that they served up sharpened my appetite for all things hot-cured. Let's not forget, autumn is a time of bonfires and woodsmoke. Why not use that to our advantage?Oh yeah. Daddy likee.

Now, my slightly cobbled together smoker is a testament to what can be done with an unassuming starting point–to whit, a lidded barbie from B&Q that we picked up half price a few years back. It's never really done the job, sadly, somehow managing to take ages to come up to heat. I'm an impatient man when dinner time is near, and it's very tempting to just slap that steak on my cast iron griddle, especially if I'm just cooking for the two of us.

But really, a lidded barbecue is all you need to start smoking. WIth the addition of a thermometer that gives you the optimum temperature for cooking with smoke, you're away.

Now, I mentioned that I'm not a patient man, but this method of cooking will teach you how important that virtue is. There are no shortcuts when you're smoking food. When you're cooking ribs or a pork shoulder, you need to be thinking in terms of 12 hours or so, 8 at a bare minimum. Fish or chicken won't take as long. Maybe six hours. The serious players in the US barbecue scene put their meat on overnight. The really dedicated guys sleep with their ovens, all the better to tweak the temperature or wood mix.

Slow and low, that is the tempo. The Beastie Boys said that, and who are we to argue? Do not allow your coals to go over 225 degrees (farenheit, that's about 110 celcius). I find it's best to just use one of those little bags of self-lighting coals, which will heat up and cool quickly, but hold enough residual heat to keep things ticking over nicely. If I need to change over, It's just a case of covering the meat in foil while I dump another bag in.

 

Steam train

 

You'll need wood in there as well, of course, soaked for an hour or so beforehand so they'll smoke rather than burn. Some barbies have a tray in which you can spread the chippings. If not, just form a rough bowl out of a couple of sheets of foil and pop the wood in that, next to the meat or fish. A sturdy jug of water will help to keep the atmosphere in the oven nice and moist too, helping the smoke to permeate deeper into your dinner.

The choice of wood is yours, and most garden centres have a reasonable selection (or, of course, there are online resources). Oak's better for fish and chicken, the more robust flavours of mesquite work brilliantly with beef and pork. Play around, see what works.

IIt may sound perverse after you've got up at six in the morning and spent all day watching a barbecue puttering away, but it's really nice to char your meat a little on a grill once it's smoked. It's the double cooking that makes the end result so mind-blowing. We had some pork ribs recently that, after 8 hours smoking, I drenched in Sweet Baby Ray's (the one and only barbecue sauce, accept no substitute) and blasted on a hot griddle. The end result was full of smoky flavour, absurdly rich and unctuous. Even TLC, who normally won't go near a rib, had three or four.

It's early days for me with this technique, and I'm absolutely guaranteed to have messed something up (all advice, hints and tips welcome, drop 'em in the comments if you would be so kind). I haven't even touched on the complex subject of wet and dry rubs, marinades and sauces. Again, any suggestions are very welcome.

But I'm eyeing up the bag of chicken in the freezer, thinking about a big bag of prawns, maybe a side of salmon. And considering how nice the sharp autumnal air in my back garden is going to smell with the sharp tang of woodsmoke in it.

 

 

Movies Unplugged: Berberian Sound Studio

And we're back. After a long hot summer, in which the last thing on my mind is sitting in X&HTower's screening theatre (plush and opulent though it may be), the weather has turned appropriately autumnal. Time to close the blinds, fire up the projector and dig into the teetering pile that is the Unwrapped archive.

Today's choice was informed by the fact that Peter Strickland's The Duke Of Burgundy has lit up the Toronto Film Festival. Time to look at the movie that brought his name to the public eye: Berberian Sound Studio.

Plot dump approaching, topped with the red flag that is the Spoiler Alert.

Gilderoy and Nagra

Gilderoy (played with twitchy reserve by Toby Jones) is a renowned dubbing mixer, who is hired by an Italian sound studio to help rescue an Argento-like horror film that has run into problems. He quickly finds that the environment, people and material are hugely different to the world of pastoral documentaries and children's programmes that he knows, and quietly begins to lose his mind…

Shot on a tiny budget on location at Three Mills Studio in East London, Berberian Sound Studio is a prime example of a film-maker getting the most out of his environment. There's no questioning the authenticity of the production design, and the attention to period detail is astonishing. If you're a fan of old film gear, be prepared to fangasm now. I was especially pleased to recognise an Albrecht sound follower: a piece of kit that I still use on a near-daily basis.

Gilderoy ponders the best way to eviserate a watermelon

 

The action is kept completely indoors. There isn't an exterior shot in the film, adding immeasurably to the airless, claustrophobic atmosphere. It's all artificial light, pools of darkness, empty corridors.

The word that kept springing to mind while watching the film was Kafkaesque. Gilderoy is an outsider, floundering in an environment in which he doesn't understand the rules, where he keeps making the wrong impressions. His efforts to reclaim expenses are thwarted as the accounts department claim there's no record of him flying to Italy in the first place. As his work in sound-designing the film starts to become an ordeal, the walls and dark rooms of the Berberian Sound Studio start to look ever more like those of a prison—or an asylum.

Gilderoy and Santini

 

Let's make one thing clear, directly from the lips of Santini, the maestro behind The Equestrian Vortex, the movie on which Gilderoy labours. This is not a horror film. Sure it takes plenty of cues from the mise en scêne of giallo. Just look at the black gloves of the never-seen projectionist, the pumping, Goblin-like soundtrack from Broadcast. The film is full of attractive Italian voiceover girls, of just the kind that would find a horrible end in yer typical Eurohorror. But if you're looking for gore, best keep looking. The only things to see the edge of a blade in this movie are the fruit and veg that Gilderoy attacks to provide the sound effects for Santini. We don't even see a single frame of the film itself that the diminutive sound engineer reacts so strongly against. That being said, the sight of a witch being vaginally violated with a red-hot poker, the scene that causes Gilderoy the most problems, is one that I could do without.

Strickland's refusal to bow to expectations as to what Berberian Sound Studio is or how events in the film pan out have led many to view the film as a frustrating experience. I understand that. The film is deliberately slippery, dodging away from genre tropes and formula story beats. Santini isn't an anagram for Satan, however hard you try to make it so.

Elena: giving the film a voice

 

The trouble with slippery things is, of course, that they're hard to grab hold of, and Berberian Sound Studio remains opaque, asks far more questions than it answers. How much of it is real? Are we, as is suggested at the end, simply watching a film within a film? There's no definitive answer, and loose ends aplenty. It famously divided opinion right down the middle when it was screened at Frightfest in 2011. Even now, synopses of the film differ wildly and are mostly inaccurate, pitching the movie as proto-giallo when it's nothing of the sort.

Which brings us to the 64,000 lire question—was Berberian Sound Studios worth Unwrapping?

Yes, it was. Difficult but tought-provoking, it's at once a treatise on the craft and sheer hard work involved in getting a film made, and a warning of the cost that the process can exact on you. The people that Gilderoy encounters are, for the most part, monstrous. One of the ADR actors even goes by the nickname 'The Goblin'. Gilderoy, the very image of the innocent abroad, has no chance amongst these creatures.

As a stylistic exercise Berberian Sound Studio is a storming triumph, and there's enough going on to keep you watching, and guessing, until the end. And indeed after. Enter without expectations, and you just might find yourself ensnared.

 

 

 

 

 

Will There Be Kippers, Then, For Tea?

It takes six hours, if you're prepared to drive with little in the way of breaks, from the gates of X&HTowers to Seahouses, the jewel of the Northumberland coast. Readership, I'm here today to tell you: it's worth the trip.

Seahouses is a pretty wee fishing port, bustling with tourist trade, great pubs and at least four chippies within 100 yards of each other. It's a great starting point to explore this lovely bit of the country. Seahouses is about half an hour south of Berwick, which is effectively the closest point of the English-Scottish border. These territories have always fascinated me. They're the places where cultures mix in strange and intriguing ways. You're as likely to hear a soft Lowland burr as the rounded warmth of the Tyneside tone. As for the food… well, the beef and cheeses are monstrously good, and you can get haggis and chips, if you have the mind, with very little effort.

But Seahouses in particular has found fame in culinary circles (if you ignore the Hairy Bikers' endorsement of Pinnacles fish and chip restaurant) for its smokehouse, one of the few remaining in the country, and most certainly the oldest. Swallow Fish, praised by Rick Stein in his Food Heroes series, is tucked in a tiny side street away from the harbour. It's been there, puffing away like an old lag on a Rothman's, since 1834.

If you don't know where you're going, you'll need a map. When you get there, you'll know. There'll be two signs. Firstly, the sweet-salt aroma of the smoke. Secondly, the whacking great queue that spills out through the shop's low-lintelled front door. It's a popular place even late on Saturday afternoon, when we finally made it up to the counter.

We were lucky. There was local crab, that we had for tea that night with pea-shoots and some fried potatoes, but luckier still in that we snagged the last three kippers in the shop. These are the reason to make the trip, and I guarantee you will not breakfast on a finer bit of smoked fish… on this side of the border, at least.

 

Allo, darlin'.

I completely get why people are put off by kippers. The fishy smell when you grill the little beauties will linger for days, the bones that are a nightmare to pick out. To the latter: filleting will remove the backbone, but the fine hair-bones will remain. Frankly, I just chew straight through them. They're barely noticable. As for the smell: grilling doesn't do kippers any favours. It dries 'em out. Better to jug them.

This is as easy as boiling a kettle. Pop your kippers in a jug (you already see where I'm going with this, doncha?) and pour over boiling water, leaving enough of the tail free so you can hoik them out. Six minutes, and you'll see the kippers plump up and uncurl, and some of the oil will float free, leaving burnished pearls on the surface of the water. That's it. Take 'em out, drain, and serve with plenty of fresh bread and good butter.

Swallow Fish kippers are sweet, salty and smoky all at once, with a dense texture that gives the flesh bite. It's umami personified, a savoury smack to the senses that wakes you up in a trice. Breakfast of champions.

Of course, if you still can't bear the thought of a morning kipper, then the smoked fish works brilliantly in salads with a smartly acid dressing, or as a pâte. I can offer you another alternative, which I've ganked with apologies from L. Robson and Sons in Craster, just down the coast from Seahouses, another smokehouse that's well worth a visit. Try this on for size:

Craster Kipper Toasties

2 cooked kippers
2 slices of hot toast
Worcester sauce
Grated cheddar cheese
2 tbsp double cream

Butter the hot toast generously and add a dash of Worcester sauce.

Mash the kipper fillets, and stir the cream in. Add the cheese to taste (about a teacup).

Spread this mixture onto the toast, and grill until the cheese bubbles. Serve hot, with long glasses of ice cold Newcastle Brown Ale.

If you want to really amp up the smokiness, there's plenty of great oak-smoked cheeses in the Northumberland area to try, but any decent mature cheddar will do the trick. Maybe substitute creme fraiche for the heavy stuff, but hey, they're your arteries.

However you try them, you really must give these little darlings a go. Bronzed and lovely, glistening on the plate, these are not your boil-in-the-bag uglies. An absolute delight from a part of the country that is filled with joys and wonders.

We have been in The North, and I think I need to go on a diet.

 

Swallow Fish and L. Robson will both deliver to your door, should the notion of a six-hour drive to pick up some kippers not sound appealing. Frankly, I think you're missing out.

 

Hit The North

The Northumberland Coast. Border country. North of here, and you're dealing with rebellious Scots. It is a place where the air and light are pure, where the skies are a riot of stars at night. The people are warm and generous. The food has the tang of the sea air, and the richness of the fertile land from which it has been harvested. And the sights… well, I'll let you judge for yourselves.Seahouses harbour, NorthumberlandOn watch, Bamburgh Castle, NorthumberlandThe Keep, Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland

 
Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland

 

Andrew Burton,'Light Vessel', Cragside, Northumberland.

 

Imogen Cloët,'Illumine', The Dining Room, Cragside House, Northumberland

 

Imogen Cloët,'Illumine' (detail), The Dining Room, Cragside House, NorthumberlandGreen Man, Cragside, Northumberland

 

Cragside Through The TreesOwl Spirit, Cragside, NorthumberlandBridge, Berwick, Northumberland

 

The King In The North, Cragside, Northumberland (photo credit: Joe Gilliver)

We are in The North, and in this point in proceedings, I don't wanna go back.

 

Hit The North

The Northumberland Coast. Border country. North of here, and you're dealing with rebellious Scots. It is a place where the air and light are pure, where the skies are a riot of stars at night. The people are warm and generous. The food has the tang of the sea air, and the richness of the fertile land from which it has been harvested. And the sights… well, I'll let you judge for yourselves.Seahouses harbour, NorthumberlandOn watch, Bamburgh Castle, NorthumberlandThe Keep, Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland

 
Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland

 

Andrew Burton, Light Vessel, Cragside, Northumberland.

 

Imogen Cloët, Illumine, The Dinig Room, Cragside House, Northumberland

 

Imogen Cloët, Illumine (detail), The Dining Room, Cragside House, NorthumberlandGreen Man, Cragside, Northumberland

 

Cragside Through The TreesOwl Spirit, Cragside, NorthumberlandBridge, Berwick, Northumberland

 

The King In The North, Cragside, Northumberland

We are in The North, and in this point in proceedings, I don't wanna go back.

 

Some Notations On The First Appearance Of The Twelfth Doctor

in which yr hmbl whatever teases out his feelings on the new series by writing about them.

Changes ahoy! New Doctor, new Tardis control room, new titles and music. I still think Murray Gold’s score is ladelled on with a trowel. The theme lurches ever closer to the KLF/Timelords version (DOC-TOR WHO-OOH! OY! DOC-TOR OO!) and replacing the time tunnel in the title sequence with timey-wimey iconography is a choice with which one will have to make peace. The new throne room is, however, a big, thick helping of lovelieness. You’ve redecorated. I like it.
As for the man himself… well, it’s Peter Capaldi, innit? You know what you’re gonna get, and you know it’s gonna be quality. His take is admirably bug-eyed and Baker-esque, and for the first time in a long time I think we’re seeing a Doctor who has seen and done an awful lot in his time. Man, those eyebrows.
NuWho has always worked best at parsing some of the more unexplained elements of the mythos, and “Deep Breath” has a mostly successful dig around the notion of regeneration–specifically, the idea that The Doctor might have more of an input into how he looks following the fireworks than we’ve all been led to believe. The wacky costumes and strange behaviour have always been a shrewd distraction, and many of the Doctor’s foes have been defeated through the simple act of underestimating the man they face. With this regeneration, I get the feeling that he’s putting all that aside. This is one scary dude who’s sick of playing games.
On that appearance change: there’s an element of playing up to Capaldi’s most famous role. “I’m Scottish! That means I get to shout at people!” Those of us who didn’t like the notion of Malcolm Tucker settling into the TARDIS are just going to have to get used to it. Personally, I love the idea of Capaldi keeping his accent. After all, we’ve already had a Northern Doctor.
The whole thing with a companion having to re-discover her relationship with the Doctor is something we’ve seen before, but it’s given a twist in “Deep Breath” by giving the old incumbent the chance to explain what’s happened directly. A neat touch, and again one that explores the notion of just how involuntary regeneration is for The Doctor. By stripping the pretence of romance away from the relationship, we’ll hopefully get a more playful take on the dynamic between Clara and the man in the box. Am I alone in thinking the Catherine Tate/David Tennant era was the most innovative and interesting of NuWho? “I just want a mate.” “You want to MATE?” More like that, please.
I could have done with a few more of Ben Wheatley’s trademark psychedelic touches, but I appreciate that he’s working to a very precise brief and constraints. The colour flashes we see as Clara struggles to hold her breath in the hall of robots was pretty inspired but, for the most part, I’d forgotten that Wheatley was even directing until I saw his credit at the end. I see Michael Smiley’s in next week’s Dalek story. Can’t imagine how he got that gig…
I haven’t even got around to talking about the story yet. Any season-opener, particularly one where a new Doctor arrives, has a plot that’s secondary to the main event, and this one did feel a little slung together when we weren’t talking to the Doctor and Clara. Recycled bads, even ones from one of Tennant’s finest moments, always feel like a retrograde move. However, any ep that features Vastra, Jenny and Strax is always welcome. Way past time for a spin-off series, I say.
As for Michelle Gomez–I can’t be the only one to see the parallels between Missy’s capering in the garden and the hardcore mugging of John Simms as the Master. I’ve been a fan of hers since Green Wing, and I think we’re in for a treat wth her as the season’s major threat.
Generally? Yes, very happy. And there still aren’t many shows out there that could treat the spontaneous combustion of a tyrannosaur in Victorian London as a minor plot point. Here’s to more inspired lunacy this autumn!

 

The August Soundtrack Special!

Eat My Crescendo!

This month on The Speakeasy, Rob and Clive are joined by actual honest-to-heck film composer Neil Myers. Along with adagio and strings from the mighty Keith Eyles, we highlight composers we think are unfairly overlooked, and pick out a soundtrack each that’s a bit of a hidden gem.

First movement and opening titles, everyone…

Here’s a Spotify playlist with a lot of what we’re talking about…

 

and a few that Spotify couldn’t help us out with.

Cobra by Sylvester Levay

The Haunting Of Julia by Colin Towns

Perfume by Johnny Klimek, Tom Twyker, Reinhold Hell

To find out more about our very special guest, check out http://www.neilmyers.com.

The American Burger

The chunk of time between sixth form and college was tough for me. I didn't get the grades I needed for university, so I had to stay behind while a lot of my friends, the best and brightest of my year, went off to study. My girlfriend was one of those that left. She went to Cambridge, and she found someone else. Someone who was, you know, there. I read the Dear Rob letter on a busy Victoria Line train into work. I burst into tears in a packed tube carriage.

Like I said, tough times.

Family life was equally interesting. Mum and Dad had split up while I was studying for 'A' Levels, and as I studied for retakes, I realised I needed to take some time away from the tumult of life with my mum and brothers. I had become one of those sensitive teenagers who wrote poetry and moped constantly. With a broken family home and my romantic life in tatters, I suffered as no young man ever had before or would after.

Christ, I was insufferable.

Dad, at the time, was living in a small house in Wanstead, and I moved in over that summer of 1985 to get my head together and sort out enough of an improvement in my grades to get the heck out of Essex. It was a peaceful time. I looked after Dad's shop (he was even good enough to call me the manager) to earn my rent and a little beer money, wrote and studied.

And Dad started to teach me how to cook. It was, he said, an essential skill for when I set off on my own. Also, he'd had to bloody learn when mum kicked him out, so he was going to pass the pain on. He had a limited repertoire, gleaned mostly from the two cookbooks on his shelf, but one treat was always his American Burgers, a recipe he'd found in a newspaper and carefully noted down in his round, solid cursive.

Common knowledge now is that burgers are at their best treated simply, with care taken as to the mix of fatty and lean meat used. Back then, Dad used what he had, knowing that the flavours and spices that went into the burger would give it the right taste. They became a weekly treat for us, one that we would often cook together, with the tape player blasting out Bruce Springsteen.

The other week, TLC and I drove up to Essex to visit the 'rents. Time has been kind. Mum and Dad got back together during my first year at college, buying a new house and making things right with each other. I had done enough to get a place at the Dorset Institute Of Higher Education (now Bournemouth University) and packed my bags for the south coast in the autumn of 1986. In one of those bags was the notebook in which I had cribbed my favourite recipes from my time with Dad. The American Burger was in there, of course. It was a connection to home, and to a peaceful, healing time.

Dad doesn't cook very often anymore, but when he does the grub is always good. We had a sort of indoor barbecue on the Saturday night, and he pulled out the big guns. The American Burger was on the menu. He still has the notebook in which he wrote the recipe, stained and brown from decades of use. The Burger tasted just as delicious as it always had. I had no Proustian moment connecting me to the tumultuous past, no great epiphany. But I have fond memories of cooking with my Dad in that summer, as he and Mum gently negotiated a truce, then the rebudding of a romance.

I'd like to share that recipe–as best I can, anyway. You can't get the Knorr onion soup mix it recommends any more, so you'll have to manage with what you can find. Dad uses an Ainsley Harriott mix, if that's any help. If you do have a fatty mince blend, then you can probably get away without the egg. But try it as is, just to give you an idea of the flavours of my bumpy adolescence.

 

AMERICAN BURGERS

1lb minced beef
half-package Knorr dried onion soup mix
one raw egg
seven squirts, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
three squirts of Tabasco
one tablespoon of Daddie's Sauce
four shakes of garlic salt
half a chopped onion

 

Mix together. Makes 3

Cook in hot frying pan, cover, 2-3 minutes each side.

Extras:

white sesame-seed bun
iceberg lettuce
Kraft cheese slices

 

Theories Of Invisibility: The Zero Theorem

Hands up who knew there was a new Terry Gilliam movie out.

(Hanging a red flashing spoiler alert on this one)

 

Possibly overshadowed in the light of Gilliam's involvement in the Python comeback that you might just have heard of, The Zero Theorem peeked meekly over the parapet for a very limited cinema engagement before emerging on Blu-Ray and VOD this week. Now, there is a school of thought that considers if a Gilliam film is poorly publicised, it's usually more interesting than his work-for-hire studio stuff. You might get a Tideland, but you might get a Fisher King. And after all, it's Terry Gilliam. The Zero Theorem should be worth a look… right?

Well, yes, but with big fat caveats. It dosn't come within sniffing distance of his best work, sadly. This is no Brazil-in-waiting. It shares the same retro-futurist visual style as the film that made his reputation, but doesn't have the same heart and vigour. If anything it's bleak and bitter film that offers little hope, while cribbing hugely from other, better films.

Qohen Leth: crazy name, crazy guy.

Let's plot-dump. Qohen Leth is a data analyst working for a soul-less corporation called Mancom. The Management of the company, embodied in one shark-suited individual, sees a use for Leth in one of Mancom's major projects: the solving of the titular Zero Theorem. But the solution of that particular puzzle has major implications for Qohen, that might just have something to do with the phone call he's been waiting for his entire life.

If you read that précis and think that The Zero Theorem is Gilliam does cyberpunk, then you're not far off the mark. The future here is one of advertising screens that chase you down the street, of software that comes in test tubes, of hacking with a gamepad. It's a world of echoing retrofitted spaces, crumbling buildings lit in neon colours. There's more than a few nods to the Blade Runner esthetic, with the occasional shock of the old: Qohen commutes to work in an old Routemaster, plastered in video-ads.

As with all SF, The Zero Theorem deals with the present day as much as the future. The problem is that we are all living in a science fictional world now, which dilutes the satirical bite of Gilliam's observations. The video-ads we see in the opening moments of the film are a common sight these days. Qohen attends a party where the guests seem more interested in their tablets and phones then in having fun with each other. Again, hardly a searingly original indictment.

The Zero Theorem: in there somewhere

The common Gilliam tropes–the outsider, the quest, the damaged hero healed by love–are all present and correct in The Zero Theorem. If only we could give a damn about the central character. Qohen Leth, played with a shaven head and a vacant stare by Christophe Waltz, is frankly unlikable. His tics and weird mannerisms, such as referring to himself in the third person, are a broad parody of introverted behaviour. He's a cypher, a black hole. Which is kind of the point, but you find it difficult to give a damn about a guy who just wants to stay in and wait for a phone call. It's the problem with any film that largely deals with the life of the mind: how do you portray the unseeable?

We're not helped by visualisations of Qohen's data-mashing skills, which involve moving blocks with bits of equations on them into place on a huge 3-D jigsaw. It's the sort of thing that belongs in Johnny Mnemonic, and looks like a rejected concept from The Lawnmower Man. Yes, that bad. If I was feeling generous, I could say that these sequences have a touch of Minecraft about them. Maybe Gilliam is making another point about our lives now, about how we use incredibly complex algorithms in the service of simple and mundane tasks. Or maybe I'm just reaching, and he or his scriptwriter, first-timer Pat Rushin, couldn't come up with a less cliched bit of visual shorthand. At least he doesn't show Qohen's face backlit by lines of green, scrolling text.

I'm a big Gilliam fan, and the cast list shows I'm not alone. He's managed to corral a big-name star in Waltz, and snags cameos from actors like Ben Whishaw, Peter Stormare and Matt Damon. The movie looks as you'd expect a Gilliam film to look, a world of crammed-to-bursting visuals. Mélanie Thierry gives an affecting and eye-catching performance as love-interest Bainsley.

But he's retreading old ground, and even his usual visual flair feels like it's been done before in other, more interesting films. In the end, the film collapses in on itself, becoming a ham-fisted rumination on the nature and rewards of faith. It doesn't really end. It kind of finishes, with a nod to the devastating conclusion of Brazil, but none of the impact. Does the Zero Theorem get solved? Does Leth come to a greater understanding of the world? I have no idea. Worse still, I don't care.

Mélanie Thierry: eye-catching

The Zero Theorem is a locked box with a set of keys, none of which fit. I really, really wanted to like it and I really, really couldn't. I felt like I was being kept at arms length, never allowed to engage, never given the chance to do anything but look at the pretty pictures (and in it's defence, The Zero Theorem is very pretty). Which is a shame because his science-fictional skew on the Gilliam Dreamspace, that place where fantasy and reality intertwine and meld, had the potential to be very interesting. Instead it feels fumbled, uncertain, bottled up where it should be arms wide and yelling, sat on the beach when it should be soaring in the sky.

I welcome the news that Gilliam's mythical, long-awaited Don Quixote movie may finally come off the starting blocks. Hopefully we'll see the old, wildly inventive and gleefully satirical cinematic madman back at play, tilting at windmills, embracing the great quest. I hope that The Zero Theorem is simply a case of Gilliam holding fire, keeping his powder dry for the journey ahead. If not, then I worry that the constant battles, tragedies and disappointments that have been so much of his life as a film-maker have finally beaten him down, and turned him bitter, cynical and cruising on past glories.

But I hope not. I really do.

 

 

 

A Quick Summer Traybake

Those working weekday dinners are such a bind. The clock's ticking from the moment you get in the door to the second that food hits the plate. You want something that's nutritious, tasty and above all quick. Is it any surprise that, as the hardest-working nation in Europe, we've fallen back on ready meals, pasta or pizza? When you've done a full day's work, gathering up the energy to sort out dinner is tough.

But there are ways and means. Although I'm the first to admit that I sometimes fall back on rigatoni with sauce from a bottle, there are other alternatives for that dull Wednesday evening when the tempation is high to roll past M&S or the chippy. How about this summer traybake–really easy and full of the flavours of this golden season?

As you walk in the door, get the oven on and preheating to 200C, and put a pan of water on to boil. I have been known to do this before I take my jacket and shoes off. Now you may kiss the partner and tickle the cat.

Once the water's bubbling, throw in some salt, then a handful per person of new potatoes. They'll need ten minutes to parboil. Now grab a sturdy roasting tray. Chuck in some chicken thighs or breasts, cut into slightly bigger than bitesize pieces, a thickly sliced red onion, and cherry tomatoes. Leave them whole. If you don't have cherries, normal size ons are fine, but quarter them.

Once the spuds have had their ten minutes, drain them and throw 'em in with the rest of the meat and veg. Mix everything up and give it a generous seasoning and a good glug of olive or rapeseed oil. Fresh herbs would be nice here too: robust thyme or fragrant rosemary. Oregano works as well.

Then just pop the whole lot into your hot oven, and set a timer for twenty minutes. Time for a beer, perhaps.

After twenty minutes, check the tray, and give everything a stir around. The potatoes should be golden at the edges, the onion soft, the chicken a bit sticky. If it's all looking a bit pale, just give it another ten minutes. Bear in mind that the spuds won't go as crispy as roasties, but they will go fudgy and soft. Half an hour in total is all this dish'll need at absolute maximum.

Once time's up, just mix everything up a bit, squirt over a little lemon juice, sprinkle on some parsley and serve. Looks good, eh?

Now, this dish is really tweakable. You could use little pork chops or thick fish fillets to replace the chicken (if you're using fish, no more than twenty minutes in the oven). If you're feeling bold a whole fish would work beautifully. You could add mushrooms, peppers, some whole garlic cloves, maybe parsnips or steamed sweet potatoes as the weather cools. Have a play, put in the flavours that you love and make it your own.

That's better than an M&S curry, isn't it?