Film
Love Actually Live in Concert
- Director
- Richard Curtis
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 135 mins
For the record industry, Christmas is a time for shifting ‘Best Of’ compilations to people who don’t normally buy records. With 2003’s Love Actually, the film industry followed suit. Here, for the benefit of those who don’t usually visit the cinema, is the ultimate seasonal Richard Curtis remix: all their favourite bits from previous romcoms in a slightly different order. During the first ten minutes, there’s Hugh Grant, a wedding, a funeral, a character whose sexuality will provide a twist, some comedy swearing and Love Is All Around. With the likes of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, Curtis established a reputation as this country’s most reliable writer of hit romantic comedies for and about the middlebrow, urban white middle classes. So it’s absolutely no surprise to find that this, his directorial debut, doesn’t tinker with the formula. Apart, that is, from the inclusion of a couple of black characters (nice middle class assimilated ones, obviously), possibly in reaction to the barrage of criticism he faced for making a film about Notting Hill which didn’t feature a single black face.
Personal taste aside, it’s difficult not to admire the hard-nosed calculation behind this lazy, crowded, overlong, feelgood ensemble piece, whose multiple, intertwined story strands begin five weeks before Christmas. Curtis doesn’t just stick to ripping off his own work, either. There’s the big scene with Hugh Grant embarrassing himself at a school play (About a Boy), while Bill Nighy reprises his amusing turn from Still Crazy as a washed-up old rocker desperate to secure the Christmas number one with a terrible piece of recycled crap (don’t even think about going there, metaphor-lovers). Nighy’s strand is the most fun, followed by Grant’s turn as a PM in love – wholly unbelievably – with his tea-lady (Martine McCutcheon). Other stories, such as the one-joke yarn featuring Martin Freeman feel slight and underdeveloped. What passes for grit in these things is supplied by a hint of infidelity and some unthreatening mental illness. Them as likes this stuff will love every minute. Unwilling partners are likely to emerge feeling slightly nauseous.
The Colston Hall’s event sees Craig Armstrong’s score brought to life by a full orchestra. The first show on December 2 has now sold out, so a second one has just been added on December 12.
is needed now More than ever
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