The spirit of Almod

In the theatre programme notes for the new play based on Pedro Almodóvar’s film, All About My Mother, the playwright Samuel Adamson observes that the play’s protagonist, Manuela, is drawn towards the world of theatre by an unexpected event. Back in 1999, although I didn’t know it at the time, my own life was about to imitate Almodóvar’s art. Perhaps calling a simple trip to the cinema ‘an unexpected event’ might itself seem a touch theatrical, but little did I expect that catching a flick on a Friday night in Sydney would spark the beginning of a journey that (not unlike Manuela’s) would draw me to the world of theatre, in the guise of a West End theatre producer.

It was in the summer of 1999 that I found myself sitting in a chic art-house cinema, watching a Spanish film that had just won almost every accolade for cinema invented, completely unaware of the impact the film I was absorbing was about to have on an impressionable, aspiring soon-to-be producer. All About My Mother packs an emotional punch that, on first viewing, leaves its audience reeling after the sudden and unexpected death of its young leading man just 15 minutes into the film, providing the catalyst for a rollercoaster ride through Almodóvar’s unique and irresistible world of women, desire, actresses and motherhood. Personally, the film left a rather more lasting impact — one that two years later would inspire a bold approach to Almodóvar’s film production company, to seek out the theatrical stage-adaptation rights.

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Rod Liddle

Sack the judges

Much of the Spanish director’s work is inherently theatrical and none more so than his 13th film, All About My Mother, a homage to theatre and actresses alike, laden with theatrical inspiration and references. From Mankiewicz’s All About Eve to Cassavete’s Opening Night, and Lorca’s Blood Wedding to Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire — all interlinked and layered in an astonishingly complex web of part tragic/part comic emotion and drama.