Category Archives: Scotland
Edinburgh Castle, January 2022.
Gunpowder, Treason & Plot (2004) is Robert Carlyle at his most Robert Carlyle.
For the exposition, I thought this one of the worst performances I’d ever seen. It was like Carlyle watched Richard III – play or any movie – and decided to limp about like Crookback for the duration of a gunpowder plot. And spice it up with a bit of Begbie. His James VI/I is a foul-mouthed little bastard with no grace or manners, an opportunistic cockroach who would murder an OAP for a bag of sugar.
I was thinking this and then I thought: this is 1603+. These creatures chucked one another onto bonfires and ripped their entrails apart. And the same sort would do the same today if they could. And then I got the genius of the performance.
Carlyle is keeping it real.
This is the only place I could find it. It’s very good, and with a young(ish) Michael Fassbender as Guy Fawkes:
Obligatory annual Waverley snap.
Best job I ever had. My duties consisted of putting ramps on trains, turning off my radio and hiding in the ScotRail toilets whenever there was a crisis, and occasionally pointing an annoying member of the general public in the wrong direction or directing them to an incorrect platform if they vexed me.
Brilliant times.
Somewhere in Leith.
Everything is a little out of focus. Robin Williams in Deconstructing Harry (1997) inspired me.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 