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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton
@jmcfire.bsky.social
83 followers 91 following 1K posts
"...a poet of the tower blocks" - What's on. Theatre 🎭 and Film 🎬, Academic 📚. Author of Fat Souls, Divine Vision. Views my own. https://linktr.ee/jmcfire
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · Nov 30
My two most recent play publications - Divine Vision: William Blake in Felpham and The Pilgrim's Progress - are available from TSL publications:
tslbooks.uk/product-tag/...
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 7h
The House That Screamed (1969) is a stylish, uneven hybrid of girls’ school melodrama and proto-slasher, topped off by Lilli Palmer’s icy authority and lovely baroque affects & sets. letterboxd.com/jmcfire/film...
A ★★★ review of The House That Screamed (1969)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
letterboxd.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 1d
The ENO's new production of Britten's Albert Herring felt to me as if they're serving up the very last of the summer wine. substack.com/@jmcfire/not...
JMC Fire (@jmcfire)
Albert Herring was one of the two Britten operas I’d never seen, so I caught up with it last night at ENO. Sometimes a piece is wrong for the time of year, the venue, or the age – and this felt like s...
substack.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 2d
open.substack.com/pub/jmcfire/...
Breaking Whitemore's Code
Alan Turing portrayed in a secular saint's play
open.substack.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 2d
New Substack: Breaking Whitemore’s Code
Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code offers an example of a secular saint’s play. A new epilogue turns its quiet hagiography into noisy sermonising – and reveals much about contemporary sanctity, and sanctimoniousness.
Link 👇
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 2d
substack.com/profile/1399...
JMC Fire (@jmcfire)
In his book God is an Englishman, Bijan Omrani manages to not only cover the entire spectrum of influence which the English Christian church has had on British life - its culture, its laws, its tradit...
substack.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 2d
I highly recommend Bijan Omrani's God is an Englishman, a far reaching survey on what Christianity has done for us, and what it might still potentially do.
Fuller thoughts linked 👇
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 2d
The Pasolini-scripted Bawdy Tales (1973) teeters between earthy vitality and disgust, a filthy, fascinating bridge from the Trilogy of Life to Salò. Has all of the carnality, killing, spotty youths and gory castration your heart could possibly desire. letterboxd.com/jmcfire/film...
A ★★★½ review of Bawdy Tales (1973)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
letterboxd.com
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 3d
Not lovely Diane Keaton! Sublimely funny in Woody Allen films, heartbreaking as Kay in The Godfather films, a feisty Louise Bryant in Reds. Always wonderful in everything. RIP.
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 4d
Madhouse (1974), which I've waited years to see, is a self-referential Vincent Price horror with some great moments , but its weak script squanders a fine cast and its promising meta premise. letterboxd.com/jmcfire/film...
A ★★★ review of Madhouse (1974)
The last in the series of veteran-led horror pictures made by American International Pictures, beginning with House of Usher in 1960. Vincent Price, the perennial star of these offerings, plays an act...
letterboxd.com
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 6d
In my latest for The Critic, I write about the dramaturgical problems with the didactic drama Jonathan Pryce pitched to the Guardian earlier this week. thecritic.co.uk/the-pryce-is...
The Pryce is wrong | James Martin Charlton | The Critic Magazine
Despite (and often because of) their many odd ways, I like actors. You might reckon that’s a good thing for a playwright. I usually get on with them, and the talented ones are like gold dust.
thecritic.co.uk
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 6d
Wicked Stepmother (1989) is a grotesque curiosity and Bette Davis’s sorry swansong, its doomed shoot and dire script collapsing into cinematic hell. boxd.it/biDE41
A ★ review of Wicked Stepmother (1989)
A supposed fantasy comedy about a witch (or two) going around ripping off and killing families. As such, it plays out like a particularly poorly written and directed 1970s Disney live-action romp, ful...
boxd.it
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 7d
jmcfire.substack.com/p/the-path-t...
The Path to Dachau
A visit in 2010
jmcfire.substack.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 7d
Substack: The Path to Dachau. The first in an occasional series of archive posts from previous blogs, this piece of travel writing tells of a visit I made to Dachau in 2010.
Link 👇
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 8d
Steve (2025) is a chaotic if well-acted bore that mistakes intensity for insight; like its troubled teens, it could use a bit more self-discipline. I came away more convinced than ever that Nordic social science models are catastrophic. letterboxd.com/jmcfire/film...
A ★★ review of Steve (2025)
It’s 1986 and Steve runs a school for disturbed older boys, an experimental unit along a Finnish model. The technique seems to be that the teachers bond with the kids, who also get some talking cure, ...
letterboxd.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 9d
John Woodvine was Malvolio in the first Shakespeare I ever saw on stage, an RSC Twelfth Night in 1980. A wonderful performance, my classmates and I’s sides ached with laughter. I am eternally grateful to him for that Induction. RIP.
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 10d
The Pyx (1973) is a haunting Canadian mystery/horror sustained by Karen Black’s intensity and a powerful sense of unease, even if it doesn't quite hang together. letterboxd.com/jmcfire/film...
A ★★★ review of The Pyx (1973)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
letterboxd.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 11d
Mosquito Squadron (1969) is a routine late-war adventure weighed down by cheap production values and a limp romance, with Charles Gray adding limited fruit flavour. letterboxd.com/jmcfire/film...
A ★★½ review of Mosquito Squadron (1969)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
letterboxd.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 11d
Some info here. Looks like they added some songs. Predictably, Beverly Cross co-wrote the book. www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_h/hans...
Hans Andersen
www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 11d
Oh yes.
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 11d
How have you never seen it? It was on TV constantly when we were kids. Haven’t watched it for years, and can only recall the songs. They staged it at Palladium with Tommy Steel in the 70s.
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 11d
The McKenzie Break (1970) is solid POW drama with a twist - Germans escaping from a camp in Scotland. The main protagonist/antagonist dynamic is pure Arden - rectilinear vs curvilinear man. letterboxd.com/jmcfire/film...
A ★★★ review of The McKenzie Break (1970)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
letterboxd.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 12d
This is an extraordinary scene with Lammy in Manchester. It plays out just like Shakespeare. We’re neck deep in history now, and we know what that entails - Shakespeare was very eloquent on the matter. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRrP...
'Shame on you': Deputy PM heckled at Manchester synagogue vigil
YouTube video by Sky News
www.youtube.com
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 13d
substack.com/@jmcfire/not...
JMC Fire (@jmcfire)
Troilus and Cressida is one of the toughest of Shakespeare’s plays to pull off. One of the first revisionist works in the Western canon, it takes the Homeric/Chaucerian view of the Trojan War and turn...
substack.com
jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 13d
Troilus and Cressida at Shakespeare's Globe is disappointing staging that leans too broad, but almost worth seeing for Samantha Spiro’s inspired Patroclus.
Link 👇
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jmcfire.bsky.social
James Martin Charlton @jmcfire.bsky.social · 14d
Matthias & Maxime (2019) is that dreaded entity, French-Canadian arthouse cinema; a sensitive, tasteful, and sanitised romance that takes faffing and avoidance to absurd extremes - and lengths. letterboxd.com/jmcfire/film...
A ★★★ review of Matthias & Maxime (2019)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
letterboxd.com