My Master Builder review – Ewan McGregor's cheating starchitect is torn down
Henrik Ibsen's Icarus-like architect is indubitably the patrician protagonist of his play The Master Builder. The women of that play revolve around him like acolytes, from his obliging wife to an infatuated bookkeeper and, controversially, the romanticised figure of Hilda, who reminds him of 'kisses' between them when he was a renowned builder and she just a child.
In Lila Raicek's modern take, his wife – clever, accomplished and angry – is the fulcrum. Henry Solness (Ewan McGregor) is a 'starchitect' and Elena Solness (Kate Fleetwood) is the head of a publishing empire who has arranged a dinner, inviting Henry's long-estranged student, Mathilde (Elizabeth Debicki), with whom he had a tryst 10 years ago, when the Solness's young son had just died. Love then was mixed with grief. Now it is reignited when Mathilde reminds Solness of what they meant to each other, retrospectively. 'All that grief and all that rapture,' says Solness, as his memories come rushing back.
Directed by Michael Grandage, this is Ibsen-adjacent rather than an adaptation or straight translation. Mathilde is given power and agency: she is a journalist and has written a novel inspired by her affair. There are throwaway references to Norway but the play is set in the Hamptons, with a lovely symbolist set by Richard Kent whose design has flecks of David Hockney in the flat blue sea in the backdrop and a modernist white slatted structure in the foreground which represents the chapel that Henry has rebuilt (it burnt down 10 years ago and took the life of his young son).
This is very much a play about the consequence of infidelity on a marriage, and a wife's pained rage (Ibsen's Hilda was apparently inspired by real-life associations he had with younger women). Fleetwood is magnetic as Elena and she eclipses McGregor, who is boyishly earnest in his relationship with Mathilde, despite playing the older man. He seems genuinely in love and does not have the bearing of the narcissist he is supposed to be.
There is not quite the chemistry between Mathilde and Henry either, although both actors are able in their parts. Mathilde's novel is called Master and there is some effort to evoke psychosexual power dynamics between them, but this does not contain enough heat.
The script reckons with the problematic aspects of Ibsen's play in many ways but also complicates them. There is talk of Henry's grooming of the young Mathilde and Elena tries to create a #MeToo moment of public shaming but Mathilde is reluctant to define her experience as such.
The clash between father and son, from Ibsen's play, is dealt with in passing between Henry and Ragnar (David Ajala), an influencer and rival architect, rather than with Henry's son. Instead, female camaraderie, treachery and generational difference is explored. Elena's assistant, Kaja (Mirren Mack), mocks her so-called feminism and Mathilde speaks of how Elena 'slut-shamed' her after her affair with Henry, while Elena herself mocks the younger women for all their talk about agency and power. A debate around the good/bad feminist is opened up in their judgments of each other but it sounds rather conceptual.
The play is full of plot, especially in Elena's many machinations. There are moments of great intensity, mostly in the scenes featuring Fleetwood, and real candescence to the writing at its best. The focus on the women is interesting and intriguing, even though it means Henry feels rather spare to the drama. This is a story not of genius men building castles in the air for their princesses but of what destruction they wreak in their homes in so doing. Really, it is the drama of The Master Builder's Wife.
At Wyndham's theatre, London, until 12 July
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Metro
10 hours ago
- Metro
I'm a seasoned sex worker, but once it went wrong and my client nearly died
I've been thinking about the time I went to a dungeon in North London, and was quickly reminded why I avoid such establishments. Thing is, I nearly killed a man. I'm not usually one for dungeons. There's too much equipment, too many things to get wrong and make you feel a twerp: I really haven't the spatial awareness for domination proper. Domestic discipline, my speciality, requires only a stern look and a hairbrush. Proper BDSM is all leg irons, tubes, locks, cages, queening stools and horse speculums, and the uneasy realisation an ignorant idiot like me could do some real damage. Still, it's a day out. My client, Henry, who's in his mid-sixties, knows all about dungeons having played all over the world, and gives me a guided tour of all the gear, which I promptly forget, and never fully understood anyway. This one contains a wrestling arena, an enormous array of bondage equipment and a bedroom for overnight playdates. This was back in March 2022, and Henry was a client who wanted more extreme BDSM play, although he wouldn't admit where his penchant for being tortured came from. He'd turned up all excited about a fur-lined hood, with two tiny holes for his nostrils, which attached round his neck with a complicated fastening system he couldn't operate himself. So, obediently I'd pushed the beast over his head and buckled it tight round his throat, before securing his ankles to the bed and beginning to flog his feet with one hand, while checking his emails with the other. Breath play is wonderful but you do need to know what you're doing. Using just hands, or my bottom on their face, does feel more manageable, but hey what the client wanted, he got. Moments passed and then came a muffled moan from the bed. 'Actually, could you get this hood off? I'm struggling to breathe a bit.' 'Righto!' I said, with an air of perky competence. But I couldn't get the hood off. The fastenings were impossibly tight, and the more I tried, the tighter it got. Henry started to struggle, and shout, then more alarmingly, went quiet. 'I'm just running downstairs for some scissors!' I said, with a perky competence I'm was now far from feeling. I hitched up my pencil skirt and kicked off my heels and actually, properly, ran – and believe me , I never run. While I hunted through the kitchen I considered my options. I was alone in the building. No one on the street knew what happened at this property, which is exactly how the owners wanted it. How long can a man live without oxygen, and how on earth had I found myself in this idiotic position? I could be prosecuted if he dies, I thought, like that chap who was mummified in a sex game and his mummifiers were done for man slaughter. Even if he doesn't die, I could be done for Actual Bodily Harm – that happened to a pal of mine. God, I thought. Why were there no damn scissors? Why did he have to tell me he'd voted Tory all his life? If he survived he was going to assume this incompetence was deliberate. While I hunted and worried I heard some groaning from upstairs, which somewhat reassured. Ah, scissors, thank God! I ran back up. He was thrashing on the bed, his hands round his neck. 'Keep still!' I said, firmly, and started trying to cut. But the strap was made from solid leather, and the blunt blades made almost no impression. More Trending Happily, my frantic squirming fingers did, and entirely by accident, the buckle released. I yanked the hood off his head. We stared at each other, and I realised I was shaking, violently, from fingers to knees. He was genuinely fine. I was fine, eventually. The two tiny holes were apparently closer to his eyebrows than his nostrils, which explained the unnerving air absence. We took ten minutes to calm down before he insisted play began once more. We even tried the hood again, could you believe, although I insisted the strap should not be employed. View More » Of course, I didn't offer a discount and kept the £450 for the three hours of my time. A few weeks later he requested another session together, although I kept the scissors handy for that one. Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: I dumped ex for being boring in bed — but my new girlfriend's sex fantasy is too much MORE: My farts make me £20,000 a year – I'm blown away by the demand MORE: OnlyFans confirms Bonnie Blue 'permanent ban' after porn star's latest sex stunt
The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- The Herald Scotland
Ford determined to tap into Livingston's Detroit mentality
On the streets of the Motor City defiance has become a state of mind. Tommey Walker, a local designer, launched a 'Detroit vs Everybody' fashion brand in 2012. Two years later rapper Eminem produced a song by the same name on his Slim Shady XV album. The phrase is a symbol of the underdog spirit which helped Michigan's industrial capital survive a government bail out of an ailing automobile industry in 2008. Located 15 miles west of Edinburgh, Livingston has no history of producing cars. Outwith a bewildering number of roundabouts, there is no real history of building anything at all. Yet, when the great great grandson of Henry Ford began casting around for a football club to buy, he looked at the east of Scotland and found a scaled-down version of Detroit. Livingston FC were punching above their weight. Their support base was low, their artificial pitch was unpopular, their style of football was unloved, they'd been embroiled in expensive legal disputes with shareholders, cash was short and their only government bail-out came during Covid. Calvin Ford studied all of this and, the more he looked, the more he liked it. Here was a club which could have slotted straight in to his native city and fitted in perfectly. (Image: SNS Group)'We have taken a lot of heat in Detroit for being this nasty place,' Ford tells Herald Sport in his first lengthy interview since taking charge. 'The reality is that Detroit is an incredible place. A phoenix continuing the rise from the ashes and I am an incredibly proud Detroiter. 'I love this city and when I look at Livingston I see the exact same mentality. 'I see it as Livingston vs Scottish football. It kind of all plugs into us being the bad-boy team. 'This gritty, hard-working blue collar club led by a team like Davie Martindale and, you know what? That's what attracts me most. I love it.' The Livingston vs Everybody spirit helped Martindale's team to fight back from two goals down and overcome Ross County to secure promotion to the SPFL Premiership via the play-offs. After a season in the Scottish Championship there were no flags or banners or fireworks to celebrate their return to the top flight. When other teams speak of Livingston they do so through gritted teeth and Ford, for one, hopes they never change. 'We are gonna come in and we are going to have this blue-collar mentality and I think we are going to surprise a lot of people back in the Premiership,' predicts the new owner. 'I love the grit, I love the hard nose. We are going to be that team that's going to come and track some mud on your nice white carpet and leave some nasty stains.' His great great grandfather Henry introduced the first Ford assembly line in 1914, revolutionising automotive production and paving the way to mass production. While Detroit never claimed to be part of the wild west, Calvin – son of Edsel Ford II, Henry's great grandson – paints a picture of Lee Van Cleef chewing on a cigar to extend his vision of the New Livingston. 'It's like when you find yourself in this old western saloon. 'Somebody comes through the swing doors and makes everybody stop and look and think. 'And they're going, 'who the hell is that?' 'I kind of see Livingston being that guy at the doors and I like that. 'I like being the disruptor and whether it's social media or wherever there is this phrase that goes around saying that Livingston are not liked, not wanted, not bothered. 'I love that. That's what we represent and I want us to embrace that.' Calvin Ford with Livingston CEO Dave Black (Image: Alan Harvey - SNS Group) When fans of Celtic, Rangers, Hearts or Hibs think of Livi it tends to be in unflattering terms. An awkward, hard-working, physical nuisance with a worn-out pitch, bigger clubs with more money and trophies walk through the doors of the Set Fare Arena and hold their nose. Snapping up a majority shareholding from Baycup Ltd – some shareholders still contend that it wasn't Baycup's to sell in the first place – Ford has agreed to replace the old, outdated artificial surface in time for the new season. This time next year he could be forced to rip that out as well, rendering this summer's outlay an expensive waste of money. Premiership clubs have voted to ban plastic pitches and show no sign of relenting, despite talk of a challenge. Undeterred, brimming with enthusiasm, Ford could really use more hours in the day. A father of three – the youngest is just 20 months – his day job is heading up Pentastar Aviation, the aircraft charter and maintenance operation purchased by his father from Daimler-Chrysler. He also serves on the board of the CATCH charity, working with two local children's hospitals and is a director of Henry Ford Health, a notfor-profit healthcare organisation in Michigan. With all this going on it comes as a surprise to learn that he ever found the time to watch Succession, HBO's saga revolving around Scots expat media magnate Logan Roy and his squabbling offspring. 'I loved that scene in season two,' he laughs. 'Logan's son Roman buys Hearts and of course Logan Roy was a Hibs fan, so that was a terrible mistake by Roman. 'But, you know, I don't think I'm another American making a terrible mistake at all. 'One of the things that was most attractive to me about Livingston is that you have this club west of Edinburgh sandwiched in between behemoths like Hearts and Hibernian and Celtic and Rangers. 'Livingston are right there kind of in the middle and all I ask myself is, 'what can this become? 'How do we disrupt Scottish football in a really cool way? 'What do we need to do to stay in the Premier League and really be a disruptor? 'Historically speaking that's challenging because you have these traditional classic big Scottish clubs on either side. 'But why can't we disrupt? Why can't we be a club that does something and I think there is a real opportunity there for us to do that.' Consolidation in the top division is the first target, Europe the next. He texts David Martindale day and night and Livi have been busier than any other Premiership club in the opening days of the transfer market, snapping up Stevie May, Graham Carey, Cammy Kerr, Connor McLennan, Zak Rudden and Shane Blaney. 'I think the Europa Conference League is something that we can do and I think becoming a top-five team is something that we can do. 'I have said that to Davie and he understands that and believes it too. 'Year one I want to be competitive in the Premiership. I want to make sure that we are back there next year and I think we are putting together a team right now that can absolutely do that.' Read more: He has a vision of a sust ainable club, standing on its own two feet and that's easier said than done when the average attendance can be less than 4000. Plans to draw sell out crowds to a small town where fans leave for Edinburgh and Glasgow on a fleet of buses every week pose the kind of challenge his great great grandfather might have baulked at. 'There is this enclosed stadium and I immediately thought, 'what's this going to look like when we fill this place with 9000 Livingston supporters?' 'I think we can get there. I really do. 'It's about giving the Livingston community a football club that they can be a proud of. 'A team that can combat the Hearts and Hibs bits of Edinburgh and Rangers and Celtic in Glasgow. 'I'm a realist. I understand that it's going to take a while to build that back but we have the foundations in place.' The battle for hearts and minds is already underway. His father Edsel is close friends with a legendary Formula One champion who is now the proud owner of a Livingston home shirt. 'Sir Jackie Stewart is obviously a very famous Scot and I think he has a history of being a Rangers fan. I want to convert him into being a Livingston fan. 'I don't think it will ever happen. But I did send him a Livingston jersey as a birthday present...' The family firm's blue oval is one of the most readily recognisable corporate emblems on the planet and, as a younger man Ford admits to taking his background for granted. His 11-year-old son has woken up to the fact that being a Ford in Detroit is a little like being a royal in Windsor. The name comes with expectations and responsibilities and scrutiny he once wore with a casual indifference. Older and wiser, he now cares too much about the family reputation to start throwing silly money at Livingston. 'Back in the day I thought my surname was neat and said, 'that's wonderful.' And probably didn't give it much of a second thought. We all grow up, we all mature, we all evolve. 'I understand now that when you grow up in Detroit and you are a Ford that does that comes with some subjective expectations. I guess it does. 'I was an employee of the motor company for a while but now I find myself an advocate of the company and the family and I am very proud of what Ford does and what we stand for. 'And, when I look at what we want to do at Livingston, I keep Ford Motor Company in mind. 'This is an evolution. I'm not going to come in and pump billions of dollars into it, but I do think that we can create and build and sustain something at Livingston much like Ford has done for the 123 years it has been around.'
The National
2 days ago
- The National
Why regime change is required at Club 1872 not just Rangers
Popping down to his local Esso garage and picking up a box of Milk Tray and a bunch of flowers out of the bucket in the forecourt was never going to cut it. No, it took an arduous trek across the Alps in a blizzard and then three days of kneeling outside a castle in northern Italy in the snow wearing nothing more than a sackcloth for the medieval ruler, who had been excommunicated for his sacrilegious act, to be welcomed back in to the bosom of the Catholic church by his old nemesis. Henry's penitential 'Walk to Canossa' in 1077 is regarded by historians today as being the ultimate apology, the mummy and daddy of mea culpas, the gold standard of contrition. It is fair to say the amende honorable offered up by Club 1872, the Rangers supporters' group who at one point in the not-too-distant past were the second largest shareholders in the Ibrox club with a stake of 10.71 per cent, earlier this week fell some way short of it. Read more: 'We sincerely apologise to contributors for our relative silence,' read a statement on the group's official website which revealed they had held a 'very positive meeting' with new chairman Andrew Cavenagh, chief executive Patrick Stewart and other senior executives. Director Euan Macfarlane echoed that sentiment in a series of posts which he put up on the social networking website X (formerly Twitter) which gushed about Cavenagh being a 'supremely impressive individual' and stated 'we're confident in our new custodians more than ever'. He wrote, 'I would reiterate our apology for a long period of silence.' The reasons given for the complete lack of contact with their members during the past six months were 'regular changes to senior decision makers' and 'confidentiality considerations and sensitivities' while a 'live takeover' was in play. That sounded fair enough. Best not to interfere and muddy the waters during a complex and delicate process. Right? Wrong. Brassed off Bears were, unlike Pope Gregory VII when Henry IV came, quite literally, crawling a millennium ago, unwilling to forgive and forget. This is a quality family newspaper which is read by nice little old ladies and impressionable children alike. So it would be wrong to publish most of the online responses to the long overdue missive. Here, though, are a handful of replies which are printable. (Image: Ross MacDonald - SNS Group) What a waste of time for our chairman and chief executive. A new leadership team needs to take over. I am ready to pull my contribution. Hopefully you will get chased. Resign from your positions and let others take charge. Nobody trusts you. Absolute jokers. Only in it for yourselves. Crawl back under your stone. A complete reboot is required. Club 1872 was launched back in 2016 when separate fan ownership groups Rangers First and the Rangers Supporters Trust merged. Dave King and his associates had seized control of the Govan institution from a despised and distrusted regime the year before and optimism abounded. Membership and contributions steadily increased early on along with their shareholding. Their ultimate goal – to own 25 per cent plus one share and so have the power to veto any major decisions – seemed an eminently achievable objective during those heady days. It did not take long, however, for things to unravel in spectacular fashion. Complaints about communication, transparency, governance and independence have been rife since. The number of members has nosedived as the unhappiness with the group's stewardship has risen. An acrimonious attempt to oust the board four years ago resulted in the police being called in. Those who currently hold sway undoubtedly, regardless of the frequent accusations which have been levelled against them, want Club 1872 to play a key role at Rangers moving forward and the Ibrox club to flourish on and off the park. But there is no future for the organisation with its current custodians in place due to the distrust which, rightly or wrongly, exists among the support. Regime change is required. Read more: The Fan Advisory Board (FAB) have shown they are an independent body and are far from toothless since coming into being two years ago. Their actions during the Graeme Souness tifo row last season, to give just one example, underlined that. They let directors know in no uncertain terms what they thought of their condemnatory statement and swiftly made that public. Some supporters would be happy to continue with just FAB representing their interests and feel it would be for the best if Club 1872 sold up and closed down. But far too much money has been spent by far too many people for far too long for that to happen. Plus, being a significant shareholder gives them, even with a new owners snapping up a 51 per cent stake, a different kind of influence. Rangers fans are positively ebullient just now about what lies ahead under the 'supremely impressive individuals' who will take control at an EGM in Glasgow on Monday morning. With good reason. The new hierarchy seem to have the ambition, the means and the smarts to make a real difference. That said, there was mass euphoria when Craig Whyte came in, when Charles Green took over and when King rode to the rescue. It remains important for supporters to wield some power going forward. This honeymoon period won't last forever. But a Papal pardon wouldn't absolve the current Club 1872 directors from their sins, real or imagined, of the past.
