Cooking with Puccini - SkinnyFest 4
Less loveable rogue than creepy weirdo, his performance will appeal only to people who think the word breast is hilarious
| 14 Aug 2006
1 star
To find out about the life and music of Giacomo Puccini, born in Lucca in 1858, buy a CD of Tosca or something and check out his entry on Wikipedia. Do not try to kill two birds with one stone by attending this dire musical biopic. In it, the Italian composer is the guest on a cookery show called Living with Lynsey, giving him the opportunity to recite biographical details, cook and tinker on a piano. Jeffrey Mayhew, also responsible for the script, plays Puccini as a cynical old Mancunian, a decision which reaps zero comic reward. Less loveable rogue than creepy weirdo, his performance will appeal only to people who think the word breast is hilarious and relish such jokes as: "Why do men keep their brains in their trousers? So they can get them out quickly." At one point, chided by Lynsey for his womanizing ways, the maestro responds: "They were all grown women – well, most of them." Which rules out 'harmless fun' as a defence. The music lurches between bland and screechingly painful, and the whole cookery show conceit seems designed only to give a modish veneer to this tedious charade.
To find out about the life and music of Giacomo Puccini, born in Lucca in 1858, buy a CD of Tosca or something and check out his entry on Wikipedia. Do not try to kill two birds with one stone by attending this dire musical biopic. In it, the Italian composer is the guest on a cookery show called Living with Lynsey, giving him the opportunity to recite biographical details, cook and tinker on a piano. Jeffrey Mayhew, also responsible for the script, plays Puccini as a cynical old Mancunian, a decision which reaps zero comic reward. Less loveable rogue than creepy weirdo, his performance will appeal only to people who think the word breast is hilarious and relish such jokes as: "Why do men keep their brains in their trousers? So they can get them out quickly." At one point, chided by Lynsey for his womanizing ways, the maestro responds: "They were all grown women – well, most of them." Which rules out 'harmless fun' as a defence. The music lurches between bland and screechingly painful, and the whole cookery show conceit seems designed only to give a modish veneer to this tedious charade.