"Once Upon A Time In... Hollywood" / "Annie" / "Club Tropicana"

Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood” is a meticulously assembled love letter to a vintage Hollywood on the brink of change in the late 1960s. It tells the tale of a few days in the real and professional lives of an almost-washed-up action star, Rick Dalton – brilliantly played by Leo DiCaprio - and Cliff Booth, his even more obsolescent stuntman (Brad Pitt), whose lives intersect (eventually) with those of fresh-faced, optimistic Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), and the sinister faux-hippies of Manson family. It is leisurely, almost meditative in tone, at least until the violent, history-rewriting climax. Beautifully done.

Most local theatre-makers appear to have disappeared off to Edinburgh; thus, the only work I’ve got to see in recent weeks are large-scale touring musicals at the Wales Millennium Centre. Most recently was the 1930s-set Broadway classic “Annie”,  which I found quite cheering; a little less so was 1980’s pop-fest “Club Tropicana” – a somewhat more cynical confection.

Craig Revel Horwood in "Annie" (photo: Paul Coltas)