"Yesterday" / "Seen" at The Other Room

Richard Curtis is adept at spinning an entire comedy screenplay out of a one-line idea. “Yesterday” is his latest, based on the idea that after a freak, worldwide power-outage, only one person – failing singer-songwriter Jack Malick, played by Himesh Patel – is able to remember that the Beatles exist, and is thus in a position to pass their classic songs off as his own. Patel is charmingly dorkish and even Ed Sheeran is effective in a cameo (as himself), but the heart of the film is Lily James as Malick’s (inexplicably single) friend/manager. There are plentiful cheesy moments, and the premise isn’t fully explored (perhaps because this would complicate things hugely), but the whole thing is lifted by director Danny Boyle’s trademark visual flourishes. “Yesterday” is really all about the love and power of music, though, and it is this spirit which elevates it into feel-good territory.

"Yesterday" poster

I got the chance to get some more theatre-directing practice this past weekend, working on a short piece by Mike Leitch for an evening of readings, under the “Seen” banner at The Other Room Theatre. In collaboration with young actors Geri McNamara, Robin Harper and T.O.R.’s Nerida Bradley, I think we managed to make the most of an emotionally resonant script, one of diverse trio of shorts (the others being by Nicholas Currie and Claire Boot) which played, as it turned out, to a full house, which was very gratifying.