Never Apologize

Bearing in mind that Malcolm McDowell knew Lindsay Anderson for nearly 30 years, I was amazed when watching his one-man show that he couldn't come up with better anecdotes than the ones he shares here with a courteous but hardly riveted audience.

Lindsay Anderson was a respected but relatively obscure figure in cinema, he only directed seven feature films and none of them achieved sufficient commercial success to put him on the map. As Anderson's fame and recognition could never be the justifications for this project, you would imagine that there must have been a wealth of fascinating detail that got this the green light.

But there isn't any. This is just a dull affair performed in front of an American theatre audience who most probably came to see Alex from A Clockwork Orange and didn't mind the fact that they would be listening to reflections on someone they knew little about and whose work was barely acknowledged in the United States.

Unfortunately, there is little of interest, the stories aren't worth recounting, they're not funny and polite laughter is the most powerful reaction that comes from an audience whose lack of rapport with McDowell makes for awkward viewing.

Worst of all, McDowell leaves a very bad taste in the mouth with his decision to end the chapter about the late Rachel Roberts with a truly vulgar, demeaning story from the 1973 Cannes Film Festival that mocks the mental illness and despair that would eventually culminate in her suicide.

This is nothing more than a tedious scrapbook of unmemorable memories.