Duchess of Malfi 2000 - Theatre Review

Part of L’s attempts to introduce the mad scientist to culture.

Spoilers throughout.

The details of the production can be found here - The Duchess of Malfi | Almeida Theatre

It was a modern dress production featuring a stark set design with tiling, heavy use of black and white, and a video screen to highlight key messages. I really liked the set design - it was clean and effective without overwhelming the acting. L was less kind, wanting to know “if the 90s had called, and asked for their Avant Guarde ideas back”.

I didn’t like the climactic fight scene. I understand the message they were trying to convey, ‘blood begets blood’ and so on, but there is a fine line between “over the top” and “silly” and the end fight fell over that line. My main thought after a tragic finale shouldn’t be “how on Earth do the costume department handle matinees?”

Which is unfortunate, because the acting was good. My favourite bit of business was Antonio telling Delio about one of the later children, and Delio said “congratulations” and his body language said “you do it to yourself, you do.”

L did think the villainous brothers were a bit underdone, and we both noticed the play lost steam after the Duchess was murdered. However, that might be a structural flaw in Webster’s script rather than this specific production; as this is the only version I’ve seen, I have no point of comparison. [L here, it is the play, Act 5 is famously a mess]

If you want to see what actual theatre critics thought, there are links here -
What's On Stage
The Guardian
Time Out London
Londonist
City AM

The Londonist article has the best pictures of the set and cast, even if it’s the least positive review.

It was a good way to dip my toes into theatre that isn’t Shakespeare.

Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece - exhibition review

"Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece" was an experimental exhibition at the National Gallery that ran in winter 2019/2020. Full details can be found here. 

It was centred around the Virgin of the Rocks. Reading that article, do I find it hilarious that the National Gallery exhibition said nothing about the Louvre version generally being regarded as the “more made by Leonardo” one? Of course I do. 

L took me following previous Leonardo-related adventures. 

The exhibition had four distinct parts. 

The first put the Virgin on the Rocks in context. Lots of stuff about the why and the background, interestingly presented in some mirrored cubes in multiple languages. 

The second, and least successful to my mind, was the “Studio” section, which I think was supposed to be about the how. The problem for me, was that it seemed to reflect mid-Victorian views on what an artist’s garret was supposed to be like, rather than a renaissance studio. I’ve always imagined Leonardo’s studio as a massive, bustling space full of students and materials, rather than the dark quiet empty space presented here (I have no idea if this is actually true, but still.) 

I really liked the third section, which was all about shadows and how they look. Like most people, I dabble in drawing, and I find shadows and a sense of depth to the objects I draw to be the most difficult thing (don’t worry, no terrible sketches will be shown). I found this section to be really good at showing (not telling) how light and objects interact. 

The final section was the painting itself. The curators did a very good job of keeping the crowds down here and letting the audience sit peacefully and enjoy looking at the painting. The CGI used to simulate the altarpiece the painting may originally have sat in was a little distracting, but once you’d got used to the rotation of potential altar pieces, it was also quite soothing. 

Overall, I’d say it was an interesting experiment in setting an exhibition around a single painting, but with some flaws.

Film Review - Star Wars IX - The Rise of Skywalker

A summary of my review: Well that film didn't work 

Spoilers for all of the Star Wars films dotted throughout 

I have some sympathy for the people who had to try to pull this together, because The Force Awakens was a pallid retread of A New Hope, then Rian Johnson pulled The Last Jedi in a completely different direction (don't get me wrong, I think the Last Jedi is the best of the sequel trilogy but it's a terrible Star Wars film) and they then had to make a film to try to wrap up the story. 

Unfortunately, it felt like none of the different parts of the film fitted together. 

I'll use the title as an example. The Rise of Skywalker - excellent strong title. 

Utterly meaningless within the context of the film. 

Name me one Skywalker who rises in this film? By the end of it, they're all dead. (Yes, I know my genre conventions, if there is no body, they're coming back, if there is a body, they might still come back, if there's a body and they're the Master, check behind the door, but for the purposes of the film, they're dead.) Fine, Rey calls herself Skywalker (and Luke and Leia would support her in that) but there is no rise, there's just her giving things up in the desert. 

Killing Kylo Ren is the easy narrative option. It feels cheap. The harder, more interesting option, would feature good guys trying to figure out where he fits in a better new world, surrounded by people he tried to kill and whose friends and relatives he succeeded in killing. 

There's a few other parts like that, where you can feel them choosing the easy way out rather than trying something and I think that's the weight of being Star Wars. See also, mysteriously reappearing Palpatine. 

There's also the lengths Hollywood will go to, to not show Finn and Rey kissing. I see you and what you're up to, Disney. 

From a purely stylistic point of view, I'd re-cut the cavalry charge scene. I think I know what they're trying to do, but the way it intercuts with the rest of the space battle takes away from them both. 

There's a serious emotional disconnect between what's going on on the screen and me in this film. 

An example, they blow up Kijimi and no one cares (this isn't hyperbole. The planet blowing up doesn't even make it into the summary of the film - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Rise_of_Skywalker). It's not lack of time spent with the planet and its people; we never see Alderaan in A New Hope, but we feel when it is destroyed. That connection is completely missing here. 

Because of that lack of connection, which I blame on them setting up three main characters then never letting them interact with each other much after the first film (I have a theory about the why of that in my sequel trilogy summary post that I am in the middle of writing), all the emotional weight of the film has to be carried by Chewbacca and C3PO. Despite my love for the characters, this is not a good sign. 

(I am a fully paid up member of the "Chewie should have got a medal at the end of A New Hope" campaign and the bad thing that happens to him is why I stopped reading the Star Wars EU novels, while nothing in the new trilogy got to me as well as that moment where C3PO, knowing the risks, decides that the Rebellion needs him to find out what that text means.) 

It's not that there aren't bits that I love. 

Evil once again sounding British and sudden unexpected Richard E. Grant. 

I like both the Hux reveal and his reasoning. I know people complained that it was a bit thin but he is completely the sort of person who would betray a cause just so someone he hated didn't win. Also, a non-Sith who can hide his feelings from a Sith through hate alone. That's going some! 

I love Lando. 

Adam Driver's mega-watt smile. There's reams to be written about the sequel trilogy being unbalanced by Kylo Ren, but oh the five-to-ten minutes of Ben Solo that we did get ... (I am a simple creature and I like a good pseudo-sword fight). 

And there's these occasional hints of a much darker version of the film underneath, and that's a much more intriguing film. It fits in with DJ in The Last Jedi. Examples include Poe being a Spice runner.

There is also no way you will ever convince me that the vision of Han that Kylo sees isn't Luke pretending to be Han, not Han himself. Like, it makes no sense for it to be Han, Han is not a Force user and it's hard even for Force users to do that. But Luke, making one final bid to save Rey, that works, and it make him a much more manipulative character than the rest of the film is willing to let him be. 

There's so much interesting potential wasted. 

Rise of Skywalker doesn't work as itself, it doesn't really work as a Star Wars film, it's a damp squib of an ending to the series and collapses under the weight of being Star Wars.

Budapest by Day

Once I realised where the hotel was relative to Buda Castle, I had an idea. (People who know me are now playing the beginning of Beethoven's fifth in their head) 

I start work at 8.30. If I got up early enough, I could do a quick tour of the outside of the castle and come back down in time to start work. 

It also gave me the opportunity to travel in a funicular carriage - an unexpected delight!  

I got the first funicular up to the castle in the morning, which meant I saw sunrise over Buda Castle.  

It was a proper "all-timer" of a memory. 

One thing that got me is I knew who the statue was without looking. Now I'm sure it's because the statue is the same as - or really similar to - the statue in the Heldenplatz, but I didn't need to see the plaque to know that's Prinz Eugen. 

(Having looked this up while writing this post, I've discovered that the first funicular now leaves at 8. I'd like to believe I would have gone up the stairs if there had been no funicular. I would have missed out on something spectacular if I hadn't.) 

I did an hour wander around the outside of the castle. Map of the castle so you can sort of place the next few photos. 

And yes, it was quite foggy. 

The next three photos are from Buda castle facing Pest. 

They move from left to right.

   

View directly across the Kettenbrücke from the castle. You can also see several of the big fancy hotels.

 

Two photos of the Matthias Church.  

I acknowledge the church overall is impressive, but I do love that style of roof excessively. I blame the Stefansdom. 

And finally the Fisherman's Bastion.  

It's such a delightfully different structure to find in the middle of a castle complex. 

As you can see in that last picture, people were starting to appear at the Castle District which was a good sign that I needed to get back down to the hotel to start work on time. Which I did.

Top 10 Films of 2025 - Now With Explanations

I saw 14 films in the cinema in 2025. 

It was an odd year, because none of the 14 are actively bad. I would say 9-14 suffered from not doing anything interesting with their premises. I would actively recommend films 1-3 to everyone, 4-5 to some people and 6-8 if you're feeling in the mood for that particular genre of film. 

As usual, I am also naming a film I saw for the first time last year but that was not released in the last year. In May I was in Brussels for work and was lucky enough to meet up with nwhyte who blogs at From The Heart of Europe.  He recommended the Comic Art Museum (https://www.comicscenter.net/en/home), which was completely worth it. 

There I saw 'Gertie the Dinosaur'. I am linking to the Wikipedia page because there is a full-length version of it on there - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertie_the_Dinosaur 

She's just so charmingly silly. 

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria: 

a – did the film do what it set out to do? 

b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score relative to budget. 

c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are? 

d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria! 

(As a note, film 13 is that low down because I could see the leading actress's wig tape. You are a Hollywood film, you can afford someone to check that.) 

1 - Flow 

It's another one of Zilbalodis's nightmare Edens. And it's so good. It's horrific and beautiful and wonderful, and I nearly shouted "Capybara, get out of there" twice in the cinema. 

2 - Mickey 17 

I want to put a content warning on this - it is disgusting and horrid in parts. It needs to be for the story to work. 

It is a satire on modern consumerism and politics and rather obvious - we are in a time that requires obvious. On the other hand, it has the Creepers, Nasha and young Pattinson once again showing that he can act. 

3 - Superman 

You want to know when I fell for this version of Superman? Because I can tell you. "He's not even a good dog, but he's out there alone and he's probably scared." 

That's my vision of Superman too. 

I was always going to enjoy it because James Gunn writes stories that work for me but I didn't expect to enjoy it so much. I enjoyed liking Superman and Lois, and Perry. I did not expect to love Mr. Terrific as much as I did. 

4 - F1 

I am the target audience for this. And I loved it. I suspect that if you were not the target audience, you would find this was insipid. 

On the other hand, being an F1 nerd means I spotted all the things they got wrong. Like every single one of the stunts Sonny Hayes pulls is already against the rules, and in at least two cases, I watched the race where the rule was created. 

5 - Roofman 

I saw Roofman with D. It is not the heavy-on-the-comedy comedy drama the adverts promised. It is much better. It's about a weak man, trying to do his best, in a less than ideal world. Channing Tatum is very good in it. Kirsten Dunst is even better. 

6 - Nosferatu 

Not even kidding when I said this was the most frustrating film in 2025. 

The music, scenery, cinematography and Aaron Taylor Johnson are all outstanding. 

The script, the leads, and the use of both sinister Gypsies and fridged women in the year of our Lord 2025 are not. 

The direction seems to think there are five different films. They do not interlock well. 

7 - Predator: Badlands 

Not quite sure what to feel about Predator being an action comedy rather than a horror. But it was enjoyable fighting and explosions nonsense when I needed it. 

There's a lot to be said about how it explicitly positions the androids as robots not their own beings despite Thia and Tessa. Then again, I was worried about Bud so I think the film did what it intended to. Plus, you know, the universal truth - mothers are worse! 

8 - The Phoenician Scheme 

Arguments can be made that this ought to be a couple of positions higher, but I don't think a series of really nicely mounted set pieces can count as a good film, and it does coast on Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera and Benicio Del Toro's charisma and talent. 

9 - Thunderbolts/New Avengers 

Am I being a bit mean, given I liked it? Possibly. Am I marking it down because I was once again Kurylenko-blocked by a Marvel film? Yes. 

On the other hand, this was very much like rice cakes. I like rice cakes. They fill a gap. But they're not the basis of a solid diet. 

10 - Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning 

Not its fault that it didn't live up to Dead Reckoning. But it really didn't. And one glorious returning character does not make up for that.

Formula 1 2025 - Turnip or Triumph

2025 was a mixed year for F1. 

The drivers title was close, the constructors was not. There was some racing, even between the title contenders, but most races weren't close. There were some excellent results (podiums for Hulkenberg, Sainz, Antonelli and Hadjar) and some appalling ones (Ferrari, repeatedly Ferrari). 

In my 2025 F1 round up, I thought I'd highlight three triumphs and three utter disasters from the year. 

I will begin with the triumphs. 

   

Max Verstappen - His driving this season will gain him more kudos than the driving in at least two of his World Title winning seasons. 

Whoever designed that McLaren - Zak Brown has been curiously reluctant to mention Rob Marshall and Neil Houldey when talking about the car so I felt they deserved some praise now that I've found their names. The car won the Constructors title with 6 races (and 3 sprint races) to go. That's good work. And they did it without any flagrant, 'all-our-competitors-have-complained', engineering widgets. 

Isack Hadjar - After a deeply unpromising start at the Australian Grand Prix (Did Not Start due to accident on formation lap), he ended up being second best of the rookies, despite being in Red Bull Scuderia B. Red Bull main had better not mess him up next year. 

I am also going to give a bonus triumph here, please imagine a laurel wreath with a little heart on it, to Anthony Hamilton for supporting Hadjar when his own team didn't. While maybe basic human decency should be the minimum expected, in a world sadly short of it sometimes, it should be celebrated. 

Now to the turnips - the actively bad things about this season:

   

That Ferrari: I do actually like the noble turnip as a vegetable but I have no better way of describing that car. It is appalling. It is beneath Ferrari as a team and has broken the spirit of two drivers who deserve better. 

Helmut Marko: For providing zero meaningful support for drivers for either team whose surname was not Verstappen. Your comments, particularly about Hadjar, were unhelpful. 

Alpine in general: The car was horrid, but that isn't why they're here. Gasly mostly learnt to manage the car by the end of the season. Colapinto didn't. 

Given that poor Jack Doohan got replaced after 6 races for getting nowhere with the car, I remain confused why Colapinto didn't, unless it was the money from his sponsors and the patronage of Flavio Briatore. 

Briatore himself earns the poison turnip - dear F1, I love you. I love you because of your engineers who have never found a rule they didn't try to find a loophole in, your drivers and your unceasing nonsense. Why have you let Briatore back in? He doesn't deserve it. 

(All pictures come from OpenClipart-Vectors at Pixabay. The turnip is from here OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay and the laurel wreath is from here OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay)

Saints Ahoy - Game 30, 2024 season round up and an overall summary of the whole project

Game 30 itself: 

Saints, despite having a pretty pants season overall, still reached the 2024 playoffs. 

And somehow only lost by one point, in golden point extra time, to a Warrington team who'd had a pretty solid season overall. A Warrington team we'd lost to twice, 10-24 and 16-2 (or a combined score of 12-40) 

Full match report here: https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2024/09/28/spirited-saints-beaten-in-golden-point/ 

Going through the data visualisation for this game, the 30th and last game of the season. 

There were 7 point scoring moments for Saints. 

Who scored for Saints in Game 30?  

There is something very apt about there being a Tommy Makinson special in his last game for Saints. 

How many point-scoring moments the players were present for?  

Which Saints players are together when Saints score? Only 10 players are on the network graph.  

The 10 players are the ones in the dark purple patch in the matrix graph. 

Looking at which players were present when Saints conceded: 

There were 8 point-conceding moments.  

The who is present when Saints concede matrix does the same thing that the scoring matrix does, where it doesn't put all the players in the same colour together. There are only 9 players on the concession network graph. Rounding up the whole season 

There were 210 point-scoring moments scored and 148 point-scoring moments conceded 

When do Saints score: Unsurprisingly, Percival is way in the lead, because as well as scoring tries, he's also Saints's kicker. That's also, I think, why Bennison is that high, because he also kicks when Percival can't. 

Who is present when Saints score?  

It is clear that there's the very often present, then a chunk of often present, followed by the injured and their replacements. 

An interesting visualisation I haven't shared before, because I wasn't quite sure what it added, but I'm sharing now because as an end of season piece is when players are present at point-scoring moments.  

I'm not quite sure how to interpret it, but it's interesting that the graph shapes can almost be grouped into clusters. The clusters aren't based on position, or anything obvious like that. 

Looking at the which players are together when Saints score matrix at the end of the year. 

Following game 30, the shape has changed significantly. Where previously it had gone (radiating up from the bottom right) darkest, most often together area, then paler and paler as you move up or to the left, now there's a medium dark border at the upper left as well. This cluster has to be players who play together often when Saints score, but not as often with the darkest bottom right cluster.  

I know that Knowles, Bennison and Batchelor all had either injuries, suspensions or are first reserve, which means it makes some sort of sense, but it's interesting that the pattern has only come out right at the end of the season. 

The equivalent network graph looks like this: Looking at points conceded, this is when Saints concede.  

There is no obvious pattern. 

Who is present when Saints concede?  

Here is the shape of when the players were present when Saints conceded.  

There is less of a pattern than in the equivalent figure for when players were present when Saints scored. 

This is what the matrix for who is present when Saints concede.  

The edges between the different areas of "played together" have got a lot fuzzier in this one over time. It still looks very much like the top left quarter of a mosaic of the sun. Interestingly, the "dark top and left border" that the "point-scoring moments" equivalent developed is not present here. 

The equivalent network graph looks like this: Comparing players's position on the "present when Saints score" vs their position on the "present when Saints concede" graphs - in a purely ranking based analysis not the number they were present for, there's some interesting numbers. 

The players with the greatest difference between present when Saints score vs when they concede are: Hurrell and Percival were present for relatively fewer concession moments than scoring moments. Whitley and Delaney were present for relatively fewer scoring moments than concession moments. 

I am sure that's skewed slightly but interesting none the less. 

2024 Summary: 

I think, taking 2024 and 2025 into consideration, as a Saints fan I have to accept that this is one of the rough (ish) parts we take with the smooth. For whatever reason, Saints have not been playing like themselves (except in fits and starts like *that* try against Leeds in the playoffs in 2025 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/articles/cn95qgeyn3lo). 

Lack of results for Saints always worries me. Now with the IMG rankings nonsense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMG_Grading_for_the_British_Rugby_Football_League), it worries me more, because Saints's supporter base is never going to be huge because of the size of the town. There's us, and Wigan, Leigh, Warrington and Widnes within a 40 minute driver and Oldham and Salford not much further out, so limited chance for expansion. So our "fandom" (yuck!) score will always have a ceiling, as will our ability to diversify our income streams, while the thing Saints the club do well (community work) counts for the least. We need to do well to maintain our ranking. 

As always, I am pleased to see Saints bring on young players, for instance Harry Robertson who got his debut in the 2024 away match against Wigan has gone on to be the Super League Young Player of the year in 2025. 

I am very sad about some of the players who left at the end of 2024, even if it made sense for people at their various stages of life - https://www.seriousaboutrl.com/st-helens-confirm-seven-player-exits-with-one-major-name-omitted-from-list-97627/ 

What did I get from the season-long data visualisation project? 

Not what I expected, which is a good reason to have done the project. 

I was expecting a clearer separation between the players who were played often and those who weren't, because if you asked me as an external viewer I know who I would have put in each of those groups.  The data tells me I was wrong on my placement. 

In terms of point-scoring, it highlighted the people I expected, and how high Bennison is really highlights the importance of conversion kicking. 

I was hoping to see a pattern in when players played e.g. these two are our props for minutes 0-20, 21-40, 41-60 and 61-80, but that didn't happen, even before the injury disasters. 

I did see how important the non-first team players are to covering for those injuries because you could see players moving in and out of the network graphs over the course of the season. 

Experiment definitely worth doing. 

If you have enjoyed reading these, the following charities are definitely worth contributing to: 

The Steve Prescott Foundation - https://www.steveprescottfoundation.co.uk/ 

Motor Neurone Disease Foundation - https://www.mndassociation.org/get-involved/donations/rob-burrow

Top 10 Films of 2025

 My usual end of the year list of the top 10 films. Explanations coming in a week.

1 - Flow

2 - Mickey 17

3 - Superman

4 - F1

5 - Roofman

6 - Nosferatu - I don't normally put any explanations in this version of the post but this was the most frustrating film of the year. It has literally been every position on this list from 2 to 8 depending on how I feel on the day. It may move before next week. It may move before the next hour.

7 - Predator: Badlands

8 - The Phoenician Scheme

9 - Thunderbolts/New Avengers

10 - Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

Formula 1 2025 - Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

 Part of everyone's suspicion of how neatly everything came together for a finale at Abu Dhabi is they have paid for the final race, presumably in the hope of getting excitement.

And this year they still didn't get it.

They did get tension.

A horrible building tension, with a lot of "are the McLaren strategy team going to screw this up?"

Spoiler - they didn't.

Which makes me, if not happy, relieved.

Obviously, I wanted Ferrari to win, but that went out of the window early on.

After that, I don't really mind. None of the drivers I actively cheer for had any chance so I was neutral for the finale, which is a very odd sort of feeling.

If we're talking about which of the final three I think is the best driver - that's Verstappen. This title does not change that.

At the same time, I was relieved, because I feel there would have been actual and lasting psychic damage to the McLaren team if one of them hadn't won. As to which driver, I'm papaya-neutral.

L is very happy because Norris was his favourites of the wave of rookies Norris was in (mine is Russell. It remains the right choice.).

A Data Visualiser's Lament - World Cup 2026 version

While there are many good reasons to be happy about the expansion to 48 teams (say hello to Curacao, Jordan, Cape Verde and Uzbekistan) and reasons to be unhappy about it (they have blatantly made it easier for the big teams to qualify, only Italian [hand gestures] has prevented all the big teams already being in), I fear I may have the most pathetic reason for objecting.

Bother, I have to put 48 x 26 players into my Gephi chart by hand.

I suspect my diagrams will be late.

There must be a way to do it automatically, but I have not found it yet. 

James Ashford wrote a really nice post on how to do all of this with Python - https://james.ashford.phd/2023/08/25/analysing-the-2023-fifa-womens-world-cup-with-graph-theory/ and I swear I will learn Python at some point.