What's on

The last seven days have involved a fair amount of sitting and watching. Last Thursday, the National Theatre's hit production of One Man, Two Guvnors came to us via Cineworld relay, a brilliant evening of comedy. You forget how exhilarating farce can be, when done well. Getting back late meant I had to catch up on Friday with the final episode of The Killing: Nordic noir couldn't be more of a contrast, yet this has been just as exhilarating in its own unique way. Dare I get immersed in the second series? It's at the extreme scary end of my spectrum.

Another contrast (on Sunday evening) was the opening episode of Series 2 of Downton Abbey. You don't want to like this, I find, but you can't help being won over; and that must be to the credit of Julian Fellowes, whom I can't say I know, but recall meeting more than 40 years ago: he had hair then (see photograph).

Finally, last night there was The Secret in their Eyes at our Film Society, another brilliant evening: it won the Oscar last year for best foreign-language film, which is no surprise considering its masterful script and combination of humour, romance and hair-raising suspense.