Sunday 6th April 2008 @ Cube, Bristol

Classic film nights are always my favourites at the Cube. Tonight we are treated to the utterly bonkers delights of Terry Gilliam – he of Monty Python animation and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas fame. The evening gets rolling with a forty minute “documentary” which is actually just a showreel of the Gillmiesters best animation work. As mind-bendingly hilarious every sketch is, 40 minutes is a bit of a slog and when we finally get onto the nights feature – Jabberwocky – there is palpable relief in the small cinema.

Jabberwocky is a fantasticly imaginative look at the dark ages with of course a bit of Monty P sillynessness (like knights playing a hide and seek tournament) but Gilliam doesn’t shy away from showing the real gruesome and dark edge of this time. A fresh faced Michael Palin is our hero and we follow him as he is reluctantly swept along on a bonkers adventure through bogs, castles and until he faces the fearsome Jabberwocky itself!

www.microplex.cubecinema.com

Matthew Whittle www.matthewwhittleblog.blogspot.com

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.