I've spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks in front of my TV drinking in the thrills and spills of the Winter Olympics.  I loved it all but am unlikely to emulate the teeniest, weeniest Olympic manouevre  when I get onto the slopes in Austria next month.

One of the events I enjoyed most was the figure skating and coincidentally or not the film I, Tonya which deals with the notorious attack on an American skater to prevent her taking part in the Lillehammer games in 1994 was showing at the Cameo.  Tonya Harding was banned from competitive skating for life because of her involvement.  The film paints a picture of Harding's upbringing by an unloving, fiercely pushy mother and her physically abusive marriage which inspires a great deal of sympathy for her, or it did in this spectator.

I've seen more films recently in a bid to maximise the benefits of my Cameo membership before it runs out.  They are asking what seems to me too much for renewal this year.  One was another abrasive mother daughter relationship, fictional this time, entertainingly told in Ladybird complete with happy ending.  While in Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri the daughter is already dead and the black comedy is the tale of how the mother tries to force the cops to get off their butts and find her killer.  It's very funny.

I wasn't so keen on Phantom Thread, despite it being lauded by the critics.  While it's very beautiful and well acted and all that it was a bit dull.

The Grads had a couple of shows in the SCDA one-act competition this month and I managed to see them both and enjoyed them both and they came first and third which must be the best result we've had for some time.  I'm in the Grads production of Macbeth which is now in rehearsal though so far it's been focussed on jaw, jaw, jaw  Luckily I missed the session in which we were asked to associate a song with our character (in my case characters since I'm two) and blether about various other odds and sods.  I'm all for getting on with the action and drawing out character and relationships and meaning in the process.

That's on in May.  One of our Fringe shows will be a new play called Skirt written by Claire and it had its first airing at a readthrough last week.  She's tried quite successfully to pack a multitude of what we might loosely describe as women's issues into a piece intended to run for an hour and twenty minutes. Men do get a look in with some nice parts.