Latest news with #EmmaThompson
Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Times
I turned my mum's old flapjack recipe into a £3m business
Becoming a first-time foodie entrepreneur in their fifties would be daunting for some, but not so for Carol Myott, who launched her bakery business, Flapjackery, at the age of 55 after noticing a gap in the market. It was a brave yet savvy move. The company, which sells treats made according to a 1960s recipe from Myott's mother, had sales of £3.1 million last year with profits of £320,000. Celebrity customers include the actress Dame Emma Thompson, who bought 100 flapjacks for a film crew shooting near Flapjackery's Falmouth store in Cornwall, and TV presenter Dermot O'Leary, who visits the Wells shop in Somerset 'every year after Glastonbury to stock up'. Traditional British comfort foods are making a comeback in these uncertain times, with sales of 1990s retro crisps surging and pease pudding back on restaurant menus. Flapjackery is among those winning through delivering a taste of nostalgia. Myott, now 65, and her friend Sally Jenkin, 62, launched the business in the west Devon market town of Tavistock in 2015, and have grown from five to 15 stores since 2022. Myott expects revenues of £3.8 million this year, fuelled by new openings and online sales of the firm's gluten-free flapjack recipes made from simple ingredients: butter, Tate & Lyle golden syrup, and Mornflake oats. • 'There's a critical risk the southwest will face neglect' 'It's about going back to your childhood, isn't it? And what your parents used to give you and that home comfort feel,' Myott said. 'My recipe came from my mum — I've still got the recipe book. 'All these flapjacks you get in shops are always cheap and horrible and full of nasties, and I thought a flapjack should be made as it always used to be: from real ingredients that you can pimp up with all sorts of different flavours and additions.' Myott grew up in her family's restaurant in Nantwich, Cheshire, and hoped to go into the business. But with her parents selling up to fund their retirement, she headed to London to work in marketing, and later wound up running a printing company in Surrey providing clients with letterheads and leaflets. At the age of 50, she decided to call it quits, move to Devon with her beagles and open a B&B. 'I hated printing — it was a horrible business,' she said. 'I hit 50 and thought, 'I don't like what I'm doing — I need to change things.' ' The idea for Flapjackery came about by chance. Myott is a foodie and wanted to meet people, so she decided to start baking from home for the local country market, where she met Jenkin. 'I found that flapjacks were quite popular,' Myott recalled. 'I also used to trawl around all the food festivals and thought, 'Why is nobody doing flapjacks?' ' She suggested launching a standalone market stall and Jenkin agreed. 'When I first mentioned the idea to people, they thought we were mad,' Myott said. The pair started out selling at markets, but sales really kicked off after they noticed that flapjacks were a hit at large events and trade shows. 'The very first event we went to, we sold out and realised that we'd probably hit on something that was going to work. 'Being naive, I then booked the Good Food Show, the Royal Bath and West Show and the Devon County Show, all within the first four months … We turned up with our old Volvo, our paste tables and sheets for tablecloths … We sold out of everything we'd taken on the first day, so had to go back and cook all night.' The founders also launched a website and became aware they had 'a gifting product' that people would order online for birthdays and other special occasions. Myott said: 'Sally and I used to sit down and brainstorm. We'd think up ideas — silly things like, 'Why don't we put a Bakewell or a brownie topping on top of a flapjack?' ' • Dark chocolate, cranberry and coconut flapjack recipe The pair quickly realised that they could no longer cater for demand from home. They secured a lease on a commercial kitchen for just £3,000 through buying a failing 'personalised funeral cake' business with a fully fitted unit. 'We took a leap of faith,' Myott said. The increased capacity made it possible for the founders to open their first store in Tavistock in 2018. A friend was looking to get out of a lease on a local shop, and they decided to go for it. The opening went well, and by early 2020, Flapjackery was turning over about £750,000. Then Covid hit. 'We went from £750,000 down to almost zero overnight,' Myott recalled. Her team pivoted to online sales and commissioned a revamp of Flapjackery's website — paid for on a commission basis to save on costs — which kept the business going. After the first lockdown, the Tavistock store began 'ticking over quite happily'. The founders decided to invest the firm's revenues in opening two more stores in Wells and Minehead in Somerset — in part to ensure they could keep their events manager employed while large events remained on hold. Rapid organic growth and 12 more store openings followed. The company has not taken any external investment, Myott said, and she and Jenkin have put in only about £7,000 of their own savings. The entrepreneur puts Flapjackery's success down to factors including creating a model that requires just one member of staff per shop, looking for stores with cheaper rents off the main high streets, and enlisting the help of friends and family. She said: 'If somebody's ill, my sister will drive down to Cornwall and open the shop for us. 'We picked locations with high footfall and a reasonably affluent local community. We're always just slightly off a main high street, so the rents are lower.' When it was opening its second store in 2020, Flapjackery was quoted £60,000 for a refit, but managed to get set up for a fraction of that cost with the help of a friend's son, a theatre designer who was out of work. 'It was a really cost-effective way of doing it,' Myott said. 'We still have the [basis of] that original design in all our shops.' The company has also looked to tap into the appetite for gluten-free products. 'People [with this dietary need] are just so excited when they find us, because suddenly there's a shop where they can buy anything they want.' Today, Flapjackery employs 65 people, sells 25 options with flavours such as Eton mess and caramel latte, and is looking to expand further. Jenkin retired in 2024 to spend more time with her grandchildren, and sold her shares to Myott's brother Hugh, 64, and niece Sophie Myott, 33. The larger team now want to 'grow the company quickly so no one steps in and does what we're doing', Myott said. Plans include moving into retail through selling products in farm shops and garden centres. It is hoped this will 'enhance the brand', but the idea is that wholesale partners will sell different ranges to those stocked in Flapjackery's own stores to avoid cannibalising sales. Flapjackery also recently released dog flapjacks so that pets 'can have a treat too'. Longer term, the team are exploring openings in the US and Australia Myott said: 'We're always looking at different ways we can reimagine flapjacks, but the main thing is quality — it's the one thing I will not compromise on. And we use local products wherever we can.' As for her own future, she plans to move into a part-time role next year. 'I'll still be involved with the company but hopefully not working five days a week. I want to be able to spend time with my dogs on Dartmoor.' She hopes Flapjackery's success will inspire other later-stage entrepreneurs to start a firm. 'I think it shows you're never too old … If you want to do something, just give it a go and see. You need lots of luck, but it's the support of family and friends that really helps.'
Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Greg Wise: ‘It wasn't love at first sight when I met Emma'
Actor Greg Wise, 59, grew up in Northumberland. He met his wife, the actress Emma Thompson, on the set of the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility. They have an adopted son, Tindy, and a daughter, Gaia, who is an actress. He has starred in The Crown and the BBC's Cranford, and lives in London. Would you say 'nepo baby' to a doctor whose parents were both doctors? No. I was brought up in a house of two architects and I trained as an architect. Our daughter is a young actor. We were never not going to have a daughter who wanted to be an actress. If a household seeps a certain profession through every pore, you're going to pick up on that as a child. She's the spitting image of a young Emma, and played her in a film.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Locarno Director on ‘Dracula,' Jackie Chan and Hosting a Film Festival With the World 'in Flames'
The 78th edition of the Locarno International Film Festival has a lot to offer movie buffs. There is auteur cinema, both from established and new voices, big-screen classics, plus experimental fare, Cannes highlights, and stars like Jackie Chan, Emma Thompson and Lucy Liu who will receive fest honors. Some of the more high-profile titles screening at this year's fest, running Aug. 6-16 in the picturesque Swiss lakeside town, include Dracula by Romanian director Radu Jude, the latest from Abdelletif Kechiche, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, this year's Cannes winner, Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident and Legend of the Happy Worker, which was executive produced by David Lynch and directed by veteran editor Duwayne Dunham, who worked with Lynch on Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet. More from The Hollywood Reporter YouTube Heading to Mipcom as TV Market Embraces Creator Economy 'I Saw the Face of God in the Jet Wash,' Cornwall, Callum Turner, Truth, and Super 8 Adventures: A Chat With Mark Jenkin Tomorrowland Main Stage "Severely Damaged" After Catching Fire, Festival Set to Continue Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro is the man who is once again in charge of serving up an eclectic lineup full of 'the pleasure of cinema,' as he likes to say, to festival audiences and industry attendees alike. Nazzaro spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how Locarno78 will reflect the state of the world, screening a timely-sounding TV series, bringing the controversial Kechiche to Locarno and how special it is for him and Locarno to honor those big stars. Congratulations on the great lineup. Any insight you can share into how tough it was to put together what looks like an exciting mix of serious art-house films, from established and new voices, more offbeat-sounding fare, as well as broader-appeal movies? We were extremely tough on ourselves, and unfortunately, the selection process was also very harsh, because a lot of films that we loved didn't make the cut. Sometimes I say that the quality of a selection is as good as the films that did not make the cut. In unveiling this year's lineup, you noted that the festival does not take place in a vacuum. How is the state of the world reflected in the 2025 ineup? This is something that really kept our minds busy all the time, because we are all complex beings. As someone who belongs to a lineage of cinephiles, we always try to protect our cinephilia from the outside world, especially people like me who have grown up in Italy, where there is this ideological mortgage coming from our cinephile ancestors with political engagement and a political outlook on the films and whatnot. So we try to break free of this cage. But somehow, everything that is going on in the world keeps asking you questions. So, what really is the place of a certain film in this specific moment? I really wish I could just be in my own mental space where cinephilia reigns supreme. But then you have to ask yourself serious questions: how do you pick a film and contextualize a film in the framework of a world that seems to be falling apart? I know this sounds a bit sanctimonious, because we still have the privilege of going into a dark cinema and watching a film. But how do we not abuse this kind of privilege, and how do we not make it just a selfish thing? I know this sounds terribly abstract because it does not have a straight answer. But it goes back to the fact that cinema is at its most political and free when it is completely 2025 will also feature two films that seem to refer to the Gaza conflict: by Palestinian director Kamal Aljafari in the main competition and Israeli director Eran Kolirin's in an out-of-competition slot. Why did your team pick these two, and did you select films from different perspectives on purpose?It would be wrong on so many levels to think that one thing evens out another thing. It would be the worst mistake to do something like that. It would be terrible. We have a film about Gaza, because it's a film that was supposed to be Kamal Aljafari's first film, when he was looking for a friend in Gaza, around the early years of the 2000s, when the so-called largest open-air prison in the world was creating the preconditions of the unspeakable tragedy that we are witnessing today. And the reason why we picked that film as programmers was that we see a filmmaker who, while he thinks he's making something, he's actually creating his very own archive of himself, his family, his land, his homeland and so on. This material somehow got lost, and then Kamal retrieved it again, and it's a very fascinating story. And somehow this material has become timely. We also have the new film by Eran Kolirin, who is an extremely outspoken Israeli filmmaker. That is not a film about Gaza. It's really a film about the Israeli and Jewish Zionist identity. It shows: 'What we were, what we thought we were, what we have become.' And it's a completely no-budget film in black and white. It's a film made in sketch episodes. And it's terribly prophetic in a Bron is doing double duty at Locarno this year. He has the documentary in an out-of-competition slot, and his series , about the Iran-U.S. nuclear talks at Lake Geneva in 2015, which sounds so timely. It's not the first series you screen at Locarno, but it's still rare. How did that decision come about? This is the second time in my years that we will show a series. We also screened, a couple of years ago, an Italian teen TV series called Prisma, which was a very big success for Amazon. The Deal is interesting. I got an email with the six episodes. I usually look into something just to have a taste of what it is. I was immediately hooked. Director Jean-Stéphane Bron is known as a documentary filmmaker, and suddenly he's in this environment where he creates this six-episode TV series about the behind-the-curtain dealings of the 2015 Lausanne Iranian nuclear deal talks. It's extremely interesting, and it's also eerie in a way, because when we picked it up, I thought this is a really interesting Swiss production about something International, and it looks a bit like 24 or The West Wing, this kind of American political TV series. Then history creeps up on you, and suddenly it happens again. History is quicker than cinema. So, we go back to your earlier question. We felt that history was urging us, pushing us, as if [to say]: 'It's not good enough. You have to do better.' Suddenly, when we were watching, I was telling my team: We need to be able to ensure that the films we select will also tell, retrospectively, something to someone who will study what happened in Locarno while the world was in flames. I didn't simply want the idea that even with the world going out of balance, we were just involved in our tiny cinephile squabbles. We wanted to have films, cinema, that look head-on into is again showcasing a range of cinema today, including comedies and some outrageous-sounding films. Can you talk a bit about why it's key for you to not solely focus on serious, even gloomy, art-house fare despite Locarno's strong art-house reputation? My team and I always try to create a program that is as diversified as possible. I don't want that after 11 days, people go back home and say the only thing they saw were long takes and people staring into a void. I want people to go on a ride, on a trip. So you can have challenging films and funny films, you can have documentaries, and you can have genre films, but not because of a high priest of eclecticism. A comedy is there because it's an interesting film. And if a film takes three hours to get its point across, and we select it, it's because we sincerely believe it is a film that needs to be enjoyed on its own terms. As you can also see with Dracula, Radu Jude resists, stoically, the temptation to make beautiful films. And I mean that as the highest possible praise! And, luckily, we have extremely intelligent genre filmmakers who don't care about sticking to the rules of so-called genre filmmaking and go their own crazy ways. Are there any countries represented in Locarno for the first time this year or represented again after a long break? We finally have Japan in the competition again. For certain reasons, we didn't manage to get a film for a while, and it was really weighing heavily on my mind. I thought we should try to find one, because we receive a lot of film submissions, but we also actively look for films since all of us have a large network. And we found Sho Miyake's Tabi to new Abdellatif Kechiche film, , the final movie in his trilogy, is probably one of the most controversial selections for this year's fest. Kechiche, who won the Palme d'Or in Cannes in 2013 for , has been confronted with criticism of harsh and controversial working conditions on his sets, as well as a sexual assault allegation, which he denied, and a probe which was dropped. Why did you decide to screen his new film at Locarno despite all this? We are obviously all aware of what happened, the backlash, and the aftermath of it, and so on. But then we got in touch with the producers, and we had an opportunity to see the film. And the film is in no way controversial. The film is simply a reminder of the tremendous talent that Kechiche is. It's such a staggering talent — the film seems to be light-footed, light-hearted, and quickly made as if it had been shot in an afternoon among friends. It was like when you drink a glass of natural still water, which is fresh, and then you think: Oh, I never tasted water before. What I mean is I think the film deserves a chance. It does not mean that we condone certain behaviors. The official stance of Locarno is very clear on that. But the film is not about this. It's about something else, and I think it deserves to be shared. It's a wonderful film. Let me return to the theme of the timeliness of the Locarno lineup and how it fits into the state of the world. Miguel Ángel Jiménez's , starring , will world premiere on the Locarno Piazza Grande. The film feels like a reference to our time's discussions about the power of rich people, given all the current talk about tech billionaires. Any insight on what made you bring that film to Locarno? It's a very old story about a patriarch who does not want to share his wealth, including with his daughter and offspring. It's a story about greed. It's a story about living in a world of your own making. It's also very Greek. It's about an ogre that lives on an island, and everybody is willing to please this ogre. So it's a story that resonates with ancestral echoes. Willem Dafoe plays this character with extreme gusto, and he [channels] some great, great actors, but I don't want to give it away. But when you say [billionaires] today, obviously, there are those names that pop into your mind inevitably. And if people see it that way, I cannot say anything against that. Locarno will also welcome some big names who will receive honors this year: Jackie Chan, , , Milena Canonero and . How did you decide who to honor this year? It's really about the wish of having a larger family. As a Hong Kong cinema fan — I've written three books on Hong Kong — Jackie Chan is a dream come true. Lucy Liu is one of the greatest actors in the world. Emma Thompson is a genius — craft and talent incarnated. Milena Canonero, it goes without saying, is a Renaissance genius. So it's really not about the fetish of the names. It's really about the pleasure of having these people become part of the Locarno of The Hollywood Reporter The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Solve the daily Crossword
Digital Trends
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
If you have to watch one Disney+ movie this July 2025, stream this one
Unlike most streaming services, the movies available on Disney+ tend to conform to a fairly standard mold. You've got a lot of big franchise films and a lot of movies aimed at children, and not a whole lot in between. If you're looking for something a little more robust, or at least aimed at adults, you might want to check out Saving Mr. Banks. The movie tells the story of Walt Disney's quest to adapt Mary Poppins and his various attempts to woo the author of the book series it's based on, P.L. Travers. While the film is undeniably a little hagiographic, here are three reasons you should check it out. Recommended Videos We also have guides to the best new movies to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on HBO Max, and the best movies on Disney+. It features an incredible Emma Thompson performance Few performers are more capable of playing a cynical, hard-hearted woman than Emma Thompson, but even so, her performance in Saving Mr. Banks is remarkable precisely because she manages to be incredibly charming despite her character's cynicism. Much of the movie is framed around Disney's attempts to prove that his company and personality are more than a stunt designed to rake in profit. Ultimately, the movie's heart is with Travers, a woman who poured everything she had into her work and does not want to see it destroyed. It emphasizes Disney's good qualities There are plenty of things that Saving Mr. Banks either does not address or just straight up lies about. Walt Disney was famously anti-Semitic, and Travers didn't actually care for the final version of Mary Poppins. Even so, Saving Mr. Banks is persuasive in selling you the best parts of what Disney is about. The movie is an argument for the importance of telling stories because of what they mean to the people who craft and consume them. Does it help that telling those stories makes people richer? Sure, but that doesn't mean the stories themselves aren't important. It will remind you just how good Mary Poppins is There are definitely pros and cons to a movie relying on the legacy of another. Saving Mr. Banks mostly gets away with reminding you about the greatness of Mary Poppins. This movie definitely wouldn't exist if Mary Poppins had been a disaster, and in fact, this movie will deepen your appreciation for Mary Poppins and all the weighty ideas it's playing around with. Although there's plenty of whimsy at work in that movie, the core story is one of a man — who has almost no connection to his children — realizing that they are the thing in his life that actually matters. You can watch Saving Mr. Banks on Disney+.
The Guardian
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Everybody's favourite manic pixie dream aunt: Celia Imrie's 20 best films – ranked!
Emma Thompson's Mary-Poppins-with-warts is a dog's dinner of a movie, but Celia Imrie amuses herself (and occasionally us) with a broader-than-usual turn as the widowed Mrs Quickly, who is pursuing a father of seven (Colin Firth) forced by his aunt to marry within 30 days or face penury. Imrie cites this as one of her favourite roles, despite having a live tarantula on her head in one scene and a wriggling worm in her mouth in another. Among Imrie's earliest credits was this exploitation horror about a secret, sadistic correctional institute for young women. Barely glimpsed amid the frenzy of whipping, she tries to alert the outside world by throwing a Bible from a window. 'Whenever I am in one of those awful out-of-the-frying-pan situations where you escape only to end up back where you started, I still use the phrase: 'How House of Whipcord!'' she recalled in her 2012 autobiography, The Happy Hoofer. A casting director spotted Imrie opposite Harold Pinter in his play The Hothouse and recommended her to George Lucas for the tiny role of the fighter pilot Bravo 5. She wore rust-coloured jodhpurs, but, on Lucas's orders and to her chagrin, no lipstick: 'I did my bit and fired my guns, but I haven't a notion what side I was on, who I was firing the guns at, who I was hitting and whether or not we won.' Nothing very much for Imrie to do as Una, the best chum of Bridget's mother, beyond presiding over the barbecue and offering to sieve the gravy, but she gets the occasional faux pas and adds generally to the impression of a high-calibre cast free of dead wood. She returned for extra helpings in the sequels. Feeling more like a victory lap than a fully fledged movie, this allows Imrie to reprise her sitcom role as Claudia Bing, the PR rival to Jennifer Saunders' Edina Monsoon. It is Claudia who blows the whistle after Edina apparently kills Kate Moss by knocking her into the Thames, and Claudia who prevents Jon Hamm from rushing valiantly to the model's aid. Imrie was kitted out in 'full rustic wench costume' for this time-travelling folkloric fantasy, but Christopher Lambert was too weedy to lift her on to his horse for the intended goodbye kiss. Instead, she simply grabs his calf and jogs beside him 'while delivering the dialogue that I should have been doing as we galloped along together'. There was more drama for her off-screen than on: she was briefly snatched from her hotel by a man who declared himself intent on continuing the Pictish tradition of kidnapping women. This The-Omen-meets-The-Da-Vinci-Code potboiler stars James D'Arcy as the cryptographer uncovering a plot to revive the antichrist. Po-faced Terence Stamp and Udo Kier have considerably less fun than Derek Jacobi, seen fleetingly as a librarian who brandishes a pair of cotton gloves and promises to check Isaac Newton's papers 'for stains and so on'. Imrie is the hero's mother, burnt to a crisp in only her second scene and squeezing out her final words in a high-pitched squeak. Most of the razzle-dazzle in this part prequel, part sequel comes courtesy of Cher, who makes her entrance by helicopter. But Imrie lets her hair down as the vice-chancellor of Oxford university on graduation day. Once Lily James, as the young version of Meryl Streep's character, Donna, has warbled her share of When I Kissed the Teacher and zoomed off across the quad, Imrie leaps from the stage trailing a canary-yellow feather boa and trilling: 'What a mad day!' In this London-set lesbian romcom, the newlywed Piper Perabo leaves her husband for the florist (Lena Headey) who supplied their wedding bouquets. As the bride's mother, Imrie nails the character in her haughty opening lines: 'Darling, tell your father he can't wear that suit … I've seen better dressed crab.' But there are nuanced delights to come, including the thawing of relations between Imrie and her husband (Anthony Head) during the sort of last-minute race through traffic that was compulsory in Britcoms of the Richard Curtis era. If there were ever a movie star in dire need of a spell at a Swiss spa resort, it's the sickly looking Dane DeHaan. In this horror inspired by Magic Mountain and Shutter Island, he is the executive sent to retrieve a colleague, only to find madness and murder afoot. Imrie, first seen doing a crossword with her fellow bathrobed guests, dispenses gobbets of backstory about the institute's sinister origins. With prim lips and loaded stares, she delivers her portentous dialogue with aplomb. 'There is a terrible darkness here,' she warns DeHaan. Next stop: the morgue. Emerging from the Cape Cod fog like a mermaid, Imrie plays one of the wacky catalysts for a disillusioned writer's journey of self-discovery, offering a slogan for every occasion: 'Who wants the burden of control?' 'If we can't show our feelings, we might as well be men!' She has a fine rapport with the film's lead, Karen Allen (of Raiders of the Lost Ark), but her character is essentially a manic pixie dream aunt who twirls coloured scarves, whoops among the waves and impishly ignores the 'Do Not Enter' signs around the lighthouse. Imagine Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe , but served as a side, not a main. With Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson, this Brits-in-India getaway is the Avengers Assemble of older British character actors. Imrie gets the slimmest pickings plot-wise, as the grandmother who opts for Jaipur rather than an eternity of babysitting. She packs her shrewd smirk and that reliable libido (on securing an airline upgrade: 'I had to flirt so hard with the travel agent it was practically phone sex') and gets several other choice lines, complaining about getting old ('I don't want to be the first person they let off the plane in a hostage crisis') and offering terse advice on how the unhappily married Nighy could celebrate his 40th wedding anniversary ('Perhaps a minute's silence?'). A 2015 sequel offered her character a glimmer of romance. Or Outnumbered: The Movie. The writer-directors Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin preserve the partly improvised nature of their kids-say-the-darnedest-things sitcom while replacing its stars, Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner, with David Tennant and Rosamund Pike. The 'sit' in this 'com' is the birthday party of their dying grandpa (Billy Connolly). After he expires on the beach in the company of the children, Imrie is called in from the child welfare unit. Reacting with understated incredulity to the kids' tales of Viking funerals and the Norse god Odin, she rounds up their crayon drawings as evidence. Mary Norton's adventure novel about a tiny resourceful family who live in the skirting boards and hide from 'human beans' has been the source of numerous adaptations, including Studio Ghibli's Arrietty in 2010. This inventive British version, with Imrie and Jim Broadbent delightful as the parents and John Goodman in full panto mode as the hissable developer threatening their home, is a charmer. Gemma Jackson's production design is a special highlight. 'It was fabulous walking around the gigantic chair and table legs and sitting on huge cotton reels,' said Imrie. In a structurally daring biopic scripted by Frank Cottrell Boyce and carved into two contrasting perspectives, Imrie plays the tenacious mother of the cellist Jacqueline du Pré (Emily Watson), encouraging competition with her sister Hilary (Rachel Griffiths). 'If you want to be together, you've got to be as good as each other,' she insists, establishing a pattern of rivalry that splashes over into their love lives. In her early scenes as the grieving mother Mimi, Imrie makes you realise that, with the help of some heavyweight roles, she could have approached the gravitas of her pal Glenda Jackson (she was Goneril to Jackson's Lear in 2016). Just look at her deep grooves of experience and regret, her instant access to purse-lipped froideur. That dissipates as Mimi helps to launch the west London patisserie her late daughter never got the chance to open and tensions vanish beneath a dusting of feelgood whimsy thicker than several inches of icing sugar. But Imrie is highly watchable in her flirtations with the neighbourhood inventor (Bill Paterson), whom she invites up for coffee. If it isn't decaf, he says, he'll be 'up all night'. Cue the naughty Imrie twinkle: 'Lucky me.' This haunted-house horror stars Florence Pugh and Ben Lloyd-Hughes as bogus ghostbusters hired to rid a country mansion of the screams of the wee poppets who were murdered there. Imrie was their foster mother, her son the killer, so it's no surprise when she announces that the brats had it coming. What is striking is how she maintains her cool, and keeps the volume down, even once she turns torture-porn-style aggressor. 'It's quiet time now,' she whispers, approaching her victim's mouth with a needle and thread. It all goes a bit wild after she whips the hacksaw out. Time has been kind to this factually inspired Britcom about the Women's Institute members – played by stars including Helen Mirren, Julie Walters and Linda Bassett – who strip for a charity calendar, ruffling feathers but raising enough to fund an entire leukaemia ward at their local hospital. Eventually, they end up in Hollywood, hob-nobbing with Jay Leno and the thrash metal band Anthrax, of all people. Imrie gives lots of comic side-eye as she works out with a hot young trainer in preparation for the big shoot; she is the only one to express disappointment that her breasts will be tastefully concealed in the final product. 'Yours good, are they?' asks Mirren, to which she coolly replies: 'They're tremendous.' Accept no Imrie-tations. Imelda Staunton is the hoity-toity snob ('Lady Nevershit', as she is referred to) who flees her cheating husband and moves in with her wild-swimming, dope-smoking, bisexual sister, Bif (Imrie), in the latter's council flat, as well as joining her and classmates Timothy Spall and Joanna Lumley at the local dance group. Imrie is in free spirit mode again, but more complex here than in Year By the Sea – although, weirdly, both films show her boogieing to the Big Bopper's Chantilly Lace. Until cancer puts paid to her Extinction Rebellion vim, she exudes sexual swagger. 'Thirty minutes and I'll be good to go,' says her date, waggling a blister pack of Viagra. 'I'll get you there in 10,' she grins. The only feature to be directed by the Orkney-based poet and film-maker Margaret Tait gave Imrie an early dramatic lead. She plays Barbara, a discontented photographer puzzling over the life and death of her mother, who drowned years earlier. Was it sleepwalking or suicide? Sifting episodes from her own and her mother's childhood, Barbara dreams of flying, wrestles with guilt ('I should have been able to stop her, or save her') and spars with her own lover, played by the perpetually sanguine Jack Shepherd. This gives Imrie room to exhibit her brittle, indignant intelligence and to sigh an awful lot. With her faintly formidable air, it's easy to imagine she could have become the next Charlotte Rampling.
