Sweet Nothings

More preview screenings to warm the heart and save us from the autumn rains, or something. First up: Untouchable , the Weinsteins’ latest French acquisition now being aggressively peddled on a social media outlet near you. This is an odd couple tale of posh paraplegic Phillipe (François Cluzet) and his working-class carer Driss (Omar Sy), who is hired on a whim and of course brings about much mutual discovery and understanding for the pair despite their chalk’n’cheese origins. The whole thing hinges on the character of Driss, and luckily in Sy – who served his apprenticeship in TV comedy – they’ve found an actor who can clown with the best of them but is imposing enough to convince as a guy who hasn’t lead the most law-abiding of lifestyles up to this point. Having said that, realism is definitely not on the menu here. This is classic feelgood fare in which a man disabled from the neck down gets stoned, driven around Paris at ridiculously high speeds and has his ears fo...

Dexys - Birmingham Symphony Hall, 12 September To the uninitiated - that is, anyone whose knowledge starts and ends at Come On Eileen , maybe extending to their rib-tickling performance of Jackie Wilson Said on Top of the Pops in front of an image of burly darts star Jocky Wilson - this Dexys tour would have been a curious experience. What's up with the singer's diction, they might very well ask. What happened to the Midnight Runners bit of their name? And why does a diminutive guy in the dungarees and pencil moustache seem to inspire such rabid devotion in a hallfull of old men? Being a mere thirtysomething, I wasn't there from the beginning. From reading up on the interviews and the period details though, and more importantly from listening to the records, I started to gain some idea of the impact that Kevin Rowland and his band must have had. Rowland (left) and chief sidekick Pete Williams share a chuckle An 80s band carefully cultivating a particular image wa...