FILM OF THE MONTH

Each Slow Dusk

By Dave Andrews

A murder mystery set in Oswestry! A body is discovered at the foot of the Wilfred Owen statue in Cae Glas Park in the middle of town. Detective Chief Inspector Gary Probert - temporarily transferred, against his will, from Telford to Oswestryunexpectedly finds himself heading up a baffling investigation.

DCI Probert is determined to solve the crime before his superiors call him back to Telford at Christmas but time is running out for him. In the meantime, he starts to fall in love with his new home. And then there’s his new running partner, the attractive Elizabeth with her lovely hair and firm views.

Surge (15)

STREAMING NOW ON IPLAYER AND ELSEWHERE

Ben Whishaw is possibly most well-known nowadays as the voice of Paddington Bear in 2014 and 2017’s excellent family films, or as Q in the last three James Bond films. In 2020’s astonishing thriller ‘Surge’ he is on screen virtually every second of a frantic 90 minutes and gives an award winning and career best performance too.

Whishaw plays Joseph, a security guard at a London airport with an uneventful life. He’s a tightly coiled spring, his job at the airport is a series of stressful and hurried interactions with the public and his relationship with his parents is highly strained. One day he simply cracks, leaves his job in the middle of a shift and sets out on a day long spree of rule breaking, encompassing everything from fare dodging to bank robbery.

What makes ‘Surge’ so gripping is the sense of movement and momentum created by Whishaw and first time director Aneil Karia. This a film that is always going somewhere. Like a pinball, Joseph ricochets off situations and crises large and small, his frustration at the world around him almost unbearable. Such is the sense of propulsion created that even a scene where he is stymied by a minimum charge for a credit card purchase and an out of order cash machine while trying to buy a TV cable, is as thrilling as any bank heist. Your awareness that here is a man with boundaries has you watching with a sense of growing unease at what might follow, and by the time he slumps onto the floor at his second bank robbery of the day and the credits roll, you may well feel a sense of relief. I did. Unpredictable, exciting and moving, ‘Surge’ is a worthy film of the month.

By Michael Hudson

Dave Andrews is Reader and Writer in Residence at Oswestry Library. Each Slow Dusk is his twelfth book and his story-telling experience certainly shows. He cleverly combines a carefullyworked crime novel with a tale of growing romance as DCI Probert tries to come to terms with his past. A masterful story and it’s a delight to read about familiar landmarks in a book which is a very positive advert for our town.

£9.99 in local outlets or from the author at daveauthor54@gmail.com

Poetry

Nesting Time

By Valerie Arrowsmith

In a corner of my garden where it’s quiet and undisturbed, Such commotion and excitement and fluttering of birds

Gathering twigs and twill and twine, Dried grasses and soft moss to line, Yes, you’ve guessed, it’s nesting time!

From the ash tree, to the conifers, where the ivy clings the wall

Hydrangea, purple Clematis and Honeysuckle tall, When you’ve found your ideal mate You’ve got to find the ideal place

To build your nest at nesting time.

In a cosy nest they lay their eggs.The waiting has begun.

Then chicks begin to crack their shells and pop out one by one!

Gathering titbits in their bills,

They’ve got some hungry tums to fill, No time to rest, it’s nesting time!