Enron at the Noel Coward Theatre in London

The mind-boggling complications of high-finance, stock shares and hedging are brought to life in comprehensible laymen terms in ’Enron.’

Focusing on the rise and fall of the corrupt American Energy company that changed the face of business before collapsing to its insolvent knees in 2001, Enron transcends us into the world of finance and the subsequent irregularities business and politics thrive on. Playwright Lucy Prebble expertly redefines this difficult subject matter to simplify how hiding real facts and producing phantom figures is a possible metaphor, or cause, of our current financial plight.

Following the meteoric rise of Enron under the leadership of dynamic Chief Operating Officer, Jeffrey Skilling and his ambitious and eager to please Chief Financial Officer, Andy Fastow, we are given a detailed insight into how Enron attempted to hoodwink the business world by hiding their assets in shadow companies to effectively push the price of shares in their company up.

Though the subject matter is as dry as it is intriguing, director, Rupert Gould invites light entertainment by way of barber shop quartets singing stock market prices, eclectic musical interludes and a dazzlingly choreographed star wars style routine, complete with light sabres, to explain the deregulation of electricity in the California fiasco that left one of America’s best known states in darkness.

Consequentially, the light show in Enron is awe-inspiring, with illuminated rods lining the stage and a giant translucent centre-piece that projects political video footage, is used as the stock market indicator and effectively as a screen for off stage characters to oversee action on stage.

What this all amounts to is a fast paced, informative and part-time witty production chronicling contemporary issues. Samuel West superbly transforms Jeffrey Skilling from a nerdy ideas man into a uber-confident world player before sinking into the desperation of his demise. The stunning Amanda Drew ignites the stage with high-powered sexuality and is shafted in more ways than one by her corrupt counter-part.

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A Movie of 'Airwolf'?

I wonder if they will make a movie of ‘Airwolf’. According to someone in this forum, a script is already being worked on. It wouldn’t surprise me. Hollywood are so low on new ideas they will drag anything back into the light of the present day if it will make them a few extra dollars.

Someone else in the discussion made another valid comment; the helicopter in the original TV series was a pretty cool cucumber at the time, but today’s choppers can do everything that it did. If there is a new film going to be made then the helicopter will have to be something very, very special. And if that is the case then the movie will be heavily reliant on CGIs. Yawn.

It all makes me wonder why the film industry is so lacking in original themes for movies. After all, just how many remakes of old television shows have there been? Oodles of sitcoms have been reinvented for films and they have turned every comic you can think of into a movie; and not just the ones about superheroes. Even cartoons are not safe! There was a movie of ‘Tom and Jerry’ with drawings that sucked and they have made awful ‘live actor’ versions of ‘Scooby Doo’ (twice) and ‘The Flintstones’. In fact, a large amount of modern remakes have turned out to be absolutely atrocious; think about something like ‘Starsky and Hutch’ and then tell me I’m wrong...

So, you can probably fully expect to see a movie of ‘Airwolf’. It may even come out just after the new ‘A Team’ hits the cinemas...

Boring old Hollywood; when will you finally come up with something that is a bit more interesting?

Aren’t cinemagoers tired of seeing the same old things time and time again?