Yeah, I am aware just how much this “blog” is becoming an occasional chat with a load of little movie reviews thrown in! Must try harder….

But I do have to mention Charlie And The Chocolate Factory… I am a Dahl devotee since I was an ickle one and my knowledge of the original movie version stretches to me doing a line by line reading when I caught it on Channel Five in our hotel in Athlone last night (more of Athlone later.) So when I heard ‘remake’ I was worried…. “Don’t mess with a classic, Hollywood!” is my usual refrain in these circumstances. There are rare exceptions though…

Excluding Planet Of The Apes (and everyone has an off year) Tim Burton is one of my favourite directors working today. He had me at “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice…” Having the man I consider to be “the most talented actor of his generation (c)” play the lead helped too and praise the Lord it has all paid off spectacularly.

It’s as gorgeous visually as you would expect, funny, true to the original material (up to and including using Dahl’s original songs for the Oompa Loompas set to music by Danny Elfman) and has Johnny Depp up his performance bar by another two or three notches as if that were possible. It’s not giving anything away to say that effect it had on the breakfast show crew (and my 7 year old) when he arrived onscreen was akin to seeing Roy Keane hold up the World Cup…. Well maybe just shy of it…

He plays Wonka, the ultimate child trapped in a man’s body, as contemporary society’s equivalent – Michael Jackson. He has to be seen to be believed… Yes, I do object to the unnecessary Burtonesque subplot about Willy’s dentist father but it’s worth it to see Christopher Lee strut his stuff one more time… Go. Now!!!

Great last couple of days – we were treated like royalty (they must not get much excitement at this time of year!) by all in the Radisson Athlone when we had our second Rick And Ruth Live Breakfast there this morning. Thanks to the full house we had, the band of the 4th Western Military Command (God, I hope I got that right – they have rifles!) and Senator Mary O’Rourke who all made for a jammed couple of hours… These things really are a doddle to do and yes, we will be coming to a town or city near you over the next couple of months. We’ve already got so many places wanting us to pop round that we could book ourselves up well into the New Year if we wanted to and we’re already in the process of doing so… Look out Sligo, Waterford, Cork… 🙂

Holliers beckon (we’re both off the two weeks beginning August 15th) and a brief thought as to why we’re both heading at the same time for those bored or obsessed enought to care 🙂 We had thought about taking weeks off seperately and bringing in a guest co-host for the weeks either of us was away but then another thought drifted across the breakfast table one mornin’…

“Why give half a show for 4 weeks when we could both go away and be refreshed at the same time after 2?”

Kind of makes us proud to be the shortest holiday takers in glorious RTE Radio…. Actually no, that’s a heap of crap – we’re only allowed to take 2 as we’re only in the job a wet 4 months! Nonetheless we already have some pretty fun huge competitions and our first 2 R&R Live! shows of the new season lined up… God, the organisation is legendary (and we would both stress feck all to do with us but the stirling work of Jenny our producer and Lindy our Broadcast Assistant behind the scenes.)

Manana (or sometime soon after that, I swear!),

R

PS Much love to all of those who mailed me after the last entry – you all do exist!! :-)))