Arty biog of England's master of the mundane.
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The World According to Mike Leigh is a lovingly and painstakingly researched account of the life and work of the king of suburban strife. As the casual reader however, I get the distinct impression that this a book by a theatre critic for other theatre critics. For instance, the second paragraph of chapter 8 begins: "Even starker plays, like Babies Grow Old and Ecstacy, are imbued with a playful sense of a non-referential theatricality which subliminally acknowledges the exact topographical circumstances of performance. " What absolute twaddle. In addition to this, we get comparisons between the work of Leigh with that of Shakespeare, Beckett, and Dostoevsky. Bugger me. All these years I've been under the illusion that Leigh's appeal lies in the fact that he's an ordinary bloke who produces extraordinary works about ordinary people in ordinary situations. Amongst the more interesting revelations is that Leigh (along with Ken Loach) produced several of the McDonald's TV adverts. This immediately brings to mind the scenario of Keith and Candice-Marie Pratt issuing a stern "brown rice" style reprimand. I have my own theory about Mike Leigh, a brief synopsis of which runs thus: Leigh is God. Net-curtained England is the centre of the universe, and we are destined to live as extras in His great play which is life itself. Discuss.
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