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An appropriate adult refers to an adult who acts in loco parentis for a child, or in this case an adult, Fred West, who claimed to have some degree of learning difficulties. Emily Watson plays Janet Loach, Fred West’s appropriate adult. The case initially being investigated is the killing of his daughter Heather, which in the police interviews he freely admits, but later retracts. Fred West played by the appropriately named Dominic West, quickly...

Savage Grace (2007) directed by Tom Kalin, shown on BBC 2. In many ways this was more compelling viewing than ‘Appropriate Adult’. Perhaps that had to do with expectation. I read the blurb about a mother trying to save her son from homosexuality. At once my mind jumped ahead and thought of some kind of religious angle: beatings, prayers, the kid getting locked up and berated for having such ungodly feelings and failings (c.f. Jeanette Winterton’...

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) shown on BBC 2, and directed by Mark Herman, is based on an adaptation of the book-which I have not read- written by John Boyne. Asa Butterfield plays eight-year-old Bruno, the son of a concentration camp commandant. Jack Scanlon plays Schmuel, a Jewish child of the same age, who is interred in the camp. An unlikely friendship develops. This is the fulcrum on which the story turns. Only, for me, it doesn’t.

The Field of Blood is a novel by Denise Mina, set in early 1980’s Glasgow, adapted into two one hour features for BBC by David Kane, who also directs. The cast list comes straight from Still Game. They play the kind of reporters on a Daily rag that you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night: hard drinking, free smoking, no good fucks who think compassion is some kind of new drink. In other words, spot on. Peter Capladi is lurking in the back...

Is Bill Nighy the new Dame Judi Dench? Any film that requires a British actor requires a Nighy in the same way that any female role requires a Dench. Stephen Poliakoff’s (2009) Glorious 39, recently shown on BBC2, had a Nighy, as did David Hare’s Page Eight. As any passing numerologist or cabbalist will tell you the relationship between 39 and 8 leaves a 7, which is the number of creation and of a pieiad. * 8 is also the number of goals that...

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This is a book written by Lucy Mathen. The first line of the introduction tells you she is a pain in the arse. I wish there were more pains in the arse like her. It tells of why she set up the Second Sight charity to help cure blindness in India. Not a penny is spent on administration - it all goes directly to benefit those in need. This is a remarkable tale and we urge you all to buy a copy of The Runaway Goat - all the monies you spend go...

Oscar winner for best foreign film 2009. Masahiro Motoki is the first link in what is perfection. He is cast as a cellist, Daigo Kobashaki, who achieves his life long ambition to play in an orchestra in big town Tokyo. Just as suddenly as success is grasped then it and the orchestra are dissolved. He is left with the realization that as a musician he is at best mediocre and he can no longer afford the 40 million yen that he has paid for his...

The Lovely Bones (2009)is based on the best selling novel of the same name by Alice Sebold. Typically, it was said to be unfilmable because the 14 year old protagonist dies early in the book, murdered by her paedophile neighbour and spends a lot of time flitting and flirting about heaven and earth with the boy she might have loved, given a chance. Unfilmable means that a cardboard set with the wind moving the props that stand in for heaven-lite...