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You Can’t Reheat a Soufflé

I think it was Paul McCartney who, when asked if the Beatles would ever reform, said, “You can’t reheat a soufflé.”  However, at this moment in time, the entertainment business seems to be constantly bombarding us with reheated soufflés.

What am I talking about? Well, take for example the new Indiana Jones movie. I was a huge fan of the first three films and was really looking forward to Indy’s return. But it really was a case of Indiana Jones and the Lost Plot.  I was extremely disappointed in a film that to me resembled one long chase sequence and ninety minutes in which I was glancing at my watch. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was a great movie—well plotted, superbly acted, and a fitting way to end the trilogy.

Another recent example is the Sex and the City movie. Now I know guys aren’t meant to like this show, but I have to say I quite enjoyed the TV series. It was funny and sharply written, so when my wife, who was a great fan,  suggested we go and see the big screen adaptation, I said yes. What we saw was probably one of the worst films we have seen for a long time. The witty TV scripts were replaced with a tedious plot line; the witty dialogue was all but lost, and there was a fart gag and upset tummy routine that made me think I was watching Carry On Sex and the City. Interestingly, Manhattan, which was a prominent feature of the TV series, was reduced to an homogenous city, with Starbucks and Pret a Mangers that could have been anywhere. This was a film where material rewards were the emotional high points. I swear I heard a girl sobbing as Carrie bought her assistant  a designer handbag of her very own.

The last time I shed a tear in the cinema was at the end of the wonderful Cinema Paradiso. when all the clips that have been cut out of the village’s films shows are edited together and projected. No, I tell a lie: I think the last time I shed a tear was a couple of weeks ago, paying nearly 50 dollars for two tickets, two cokes and a bag of popcorn. Yes, dear American chums, that’s how much it cost for a night out at the cinema in London Town! So you see, I really do expect to be entertained when I take my seat.

But it’s not just films that offer the reheated soufflé experience. A couple of years back, a friend of mine very kindly bought myself and my wife two tickets for Mel Brooks’ musical, The Producers. Once again I enjoyed the film, but the stage version... give me a break! Okay, I was under the impression that the premise of the film was to produce a Broadway musical that was so bad it would close immediately. So now we have a stage musical version and the musical highlight is the big number and set piece “Springtime For Hitler,” as it is in the terrible musical in the film. However, spread around that are some of the worst songs I have ever heard in a musical, a bunch of paint-by-numbers songs that really were dreadful but, this time, not deliberately! My wife fell asleep in the first half and we both would have left were it not for our friends. Then they made a film of the stage musical. That’s three helpings from the same dish! 

I believe Mel has done the same thing with one of my favourite comedy films of all time, Young Frankenstein. And yet another of my favourites has suffered the same fate, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Please, no more, I beg you! What’s next? The film based on the stage adaptation of the musical film, based on a stage play, based on the computer game, adapted from a premise written on the back of match box?! ARGGGHHH!

There is one soufflé that has not only been reheated successfully, it far outstrips the original. What am I talking about? Doctor Who, that most British of TV science fiction. Writer Russell T. Davis has pulled off a real coup and has skillfully overseen the rebirth of what has been a much loved staple of Saturday evening television for over forty years. How has he done this? By writing and overseeing scripts that engage children and adults alike both intellectually and emotionally and never patronize. I really wish that anyone engaging in a similar project would take notice of this success.

Now then, I feel like a trip to cinema. What’s on? Journey to the Centre of the Earth, anyone? Come on, it’s in 3D!

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