Show & Tell: Tea with the Dames
All:
It’s November in the Granite State, which means we will soon be frozen into a granite state. And with the mid-term elections over, what we have to look forward to this month is Thanksgiving, which unfortunately has been nearly lost in the flood of advertising for a two-month holiday that might as well be called ChristmasGiving.
And it will not surprise you at all to learn that I have an antidote to both the Electoral Hangover and the Holiday Overload, and that it’s a movie playing at The Music Hall Loft.
The movie is called Tea with the Dames, and it’s a documentary about four British actresses sitting around talking. They talk about their early struggles, their triumphs, their missteps, the challenges of the acting craft, and other topics. They tell jokes, crack each other up, and generally dish, bitch, commiserate, compliment, and have a wonderful time like the good friends they all are.
Oh, their names? It’s Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins, and Dame Joan Plowright. Together they own a groaning shelf of awards and honors. And collectively, they will warm your heart.
The discouraging part of the whole enterprise is that tickets in The Loft for this love-fest are going fast, and may, in fact, already be gone. I hope this will be a signal to TMH to bring the movie back to warm us in January or February. We’re going to need it.
As noted in last week’s invitation, we have managed to salvage a couple of discussion opportunities in December, snatching two choice morsels from the jaws of the Holidays.
The first film is The Great Buster, an homage and appreciation of Buster Keaton. That will show in the Loft on December 11. The second film, just in time for your 2018 homework for The Oscars, is A Star is Born, which will show in The Historic Theater on December 26 (which is an uncharacteristic Wednesday, don’t forget).
I don’t know yet what wonders The Music Hall will offer us in 2019, but I have every confidence that they will indeed be wonderful.
I hope to see you there … often.
Paul Goodwin
TMHMG