The Review Show - The Song Of Lunch

Germaine Greer, Rosie Boycott, China Mieville and John Mullan mark National Poetry Day with a review of The Song of Lunch - a new TV dramatisation, starring Alan Rickman & Emma Thompson, of Christopher Reid's poem, screened on BBC Two earlier in the evening.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Review
• Poetry
• Song
• Of
• Lunch
• Alan
• Rickman
• Emma
• Thompson

[emilyannethorne]

i'm sorry but these "experts" are just pompous, self-important NOOBS.

it's too predictable? obviously! this is the narrative of real life, and real life is more often than not plainly, excruciatingly predictable. this film succeeds because it's full of the painful truth, not because it's some mystery novel for Christ's sake!

[IceSingerLucy]

I love alan and poetry and i thought the whole peice was outstanding!!

[RobzFanpire]

"Actors these days don't know how to speak free verse" ...Really? Thats funny to say that Alan has had years of experience on stage doing shakespeare etc.

[LicoriceLain]

@emilyannethorne They have probably studied more work than you. Regardless, you seem to be intolerant of viewpoints not your own which would explain why you felt to characterize all four of them as "just pompous, self-important NOOBS".

[Marwood91]

I think I enjoyed it so much because I could relate to all the self indulgent monologuing, and possibly because I'm a bit of a drunk.

[jerramy]

@emilyannethorne - I agree totally, and they don't even see that they are exactly like the character Alan Rickman portrays in the dramatization, people who have become "stuck in the poem". They are so wrapped up in the punctuation and the rhyme and meter and the mastery of words that they can no longer see that in the end it is supposed to be real life that those words are describing. They don't even live in the real world any more, they live stuck up their own arses.

[jerramy]

The dialogue wasn't delivered as prose!? Had it been delivered as prose then it would have been just a recitation of the poem, not a dramatization. It was a very drab and unimaginitive soap opera!? It was real life spoken in beautiful language conveying a wealth in few words. These people are pompous asses (jealous writers) who are trying to push ordinary people away from an accessible form of poetry (dramatization) so they can keep it for the elite (themselves and their friends).

[GaffneyGNR93]

Did she just call Alan Rickman dull? I'm sorry but what do these 'experts' know about ACTING? How can she say that?

[karik333]

@emilyannethorne

EXACTLY! This was a short film about the truth of life, how we try to resist change and eventually realize that resisting change will get us trapped in a certain state of mind. For a film to be successful, it doesn't have to be unpredictable. Rickman is a successful and talented actor beacuse his films convey such universal truths.

In the words of Oscar Wilde, "The things the world calls immoral are the things that show the world its own shame."

[Kat151]

@emilyannethorne also the the comments of the first guy are actually the most damning, given that he effectively claims 'The Song of Lunch' is the opposite of 'soulful and expressive'.

[Kat151]

@emilyannethorne Christopher Reid sucks. I have always hated his poetry and am so glad people aren't kissing his arse for once!