The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (12A) ***
Dir: Mike Newell
With: Lily James, Matthew Goode
Runtime: 124 minutes
FROM the director of Four Weddings and a Funeral comes a pleasant if predictable tale of wartime courage and love. Lily James plays Juliet Ashton, a young writer who has made her name with lighthearted capers and is in search of something more serious to write about. Ashton believes she has found such a thing when she comes across the titular society, set up during the Nazi occupation of the island, but why are the members so reluctant for their story to be told? Handsomely rendered, Newell’s picture is likely to delight fans of Mary Ann Shaffer’s bestseller while leaving others intrigued and gently entertained. Oh, and good luck remembering that title at the box office.
Funny Cow (15) **
Dir: Adrian Shergold
With: Maxine Peake, Paddy Considine
Runtime: 103 minutes
BY ’eck it’s grim up England’s north. If you were not aware of that already, Adrian Shergold’s comedy drama will quickly remove any doubts. Maxine Peake plays a comedian retracing her life through flashbacks to her miserable childhood and equally unhappy marriage, and excerpts from her stand-up routine. Apart from running through every cliche in the book about the unhappy clown, Shergold’s film provides work for every northern actor who ever lived (including Stephen Graham, John Bishop, even Kevin Rowland of Dexy’s Midnight Runners gets a look-in). Peake is as watchable as ever, but this is tired stuff.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here