Settled down last night to continue my appreciation of Cabin Pressure by listening to the third episode of season 1 – “Cremona”.
Wasn’t expecting the joys of listening to Benedict Cumberbatch sing Sinatra, even if it was only a brief snatch of the song “Come Fly With Me”. Benedict needs to sing more often. He has a beautiful singing voice.
The premise of “Cremona” is that MJN are flying a movie star, one Hester Macauley to Cremona to make a film. Of course it’s a given that Arthur is a fan of hers. He fanboys all over the place. Martin isn’t any better. He’s smitten. And he has the best line. Martin: Please, call me Madam – MARTIN.
John Finnemore has been very clever with this episode. It is extremely funny. As in roll off the couch and onto the floor funny. It is also very sharply observant on the subject of actors and their fans.
Hester Macauley is not a nice person who treats her fans with scorn. While her fans may be a little weird, they do seem pretty harmless, well, Arthur is one of them after all. Arthur is a lot of things, but dangerous isn’t one of them.
I particularly liked Carolyn’s comments on the subject, after Hester has ripped into Arthur:
Carolyn: I apologize, madam, but . . . Can I congratulate you on the hard-line manner in which you dealt with the menace?
Hester: What?
Carolyn: Oh, it’s just that so many people, faced with someone shyly telling them they liked their work, would simply have smiled and said “Thank you” but not you. You let the bastard have it with both barrels! Well done, you!
And well done, John Finnemore!
Don’t want to give too much more away if you haven’t listened to “Cremona” yet, but I have to say that the episode also provides the finest display of manipulative genius by Douglas Richardson I have heard so far.