This tender tribute to dancing/mime/commedia dell’arte masters Barry and Joan Grantham is as candy and nostalgic as elderflower cordial. Married for donkey’s years, the couple are someplace of their 80s or 90s. This movie is airily unspecific about such particulars, though each clip displaying considered one of their movie appearances is accompanied by a date, some going again to the Nineteen Forties.
Manchester-reared Barry began out as a “ballet boy”, skilled with famed dancer Stanislas Idzikowski whom he nonetheless refers to as his “beloved grasp”, and even appeared in Powell and Pressburger’s The Purple Sneakers in 1948. Joan, from the extra genteel house counties, was a second or third technology musician and got here up via the enterprise as a dancer as properly, but additionally tickled the ivories; now she largely performs accompaniment on the piano within the couple’s studio as they practice varied grownup pupils within the mysteries of commedia, diction and efficiency typically.
The scholars interviewed right here clearly adore them, and discuss with endearing, gushy enthusiasm in regards to the expertise of studying from them. Director Audrey Rumsby, one of many Granthams’ college students herself, clearly shares that affection however well upholsters her movie with a wealthy seam of archive footage and authentic animation that goes properly past the title couple themselves. Consequently, the film gives a brisk, environment friendly primer on commedia dell’arte, from its roots in Italy and on via Molière and Shakespeare, on to vaudeville and Max Miller, and proper as much as James Corden and One Man, Two Guvnors. Mates of the Granthams supply additional perception about using masks and performing expertise. The entire package deal works a deal with for theatre geeks, mime followers and lovers of “eccentric dance.”
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