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Ayrton Senna documentary criticized for not being new



Ayrton Senna documentary, Senna: No Fear, No Limits, No equal is drawing the ire of viewers for not having been just released. The once lauded film documenting the life of the tragic Formula One racing driver, is, critics point out, now 13 years old. The documentary production team is scrambling to launch a defence of their work since it does in fact appear that the film isn’t new.


In 2012, Senna: No Fear, No Limits, No Equal, was chronologically new. At its launch, one of film maker Asif Kapadia’s people repeatedly referenced the newness of the work when questioned about its originality. ‘This is a new documentary. It is new. And so, we hope, in having made it very recently, that it will remain new. New Senna. New documentary. New newness.’ But now that his film has aged, Kapadia’s team is backtracking. ‘Look, we never ever maintained that Senna: No Fear, No Limits, No Equal was in its essence new. It wasn’t about newness. Or required newness qua newness.’


But critics point out that Kapadia’s new documentary, Senna: Newness qua Newness, again plays on the theme of newness as a strategic selling point. ‘I,’ said one. ‘I,’ he repeated, warming to his theme, ‘I think that Kapadia is a busted flush. The problem with his new work is there’s nothing new about it.’ Essentially new or in its essence new? ‘Old.’


Fans of the Brazilian motoring ace have called for a boycott of Kapadia’s works, including all future new ones. ‘For this guy to ever produce anything truly new, he’s going to have to be the newness he wants to see.’ Meaning? ‘Meaning he knew we knew the new doc wasn’t new new, just a new old version he knew not to be new.’


* Senna: No Fear, No Limits, No equal is out 13 years ago.




Speed Shakespeare gets rave reviews



A ground-breaking performance of Shakespeare's Richard Third opened to rave reviews in London tonight. The performance lasted only seven minutes, which was hailed as an unofficial world record. In other ways the performance was completely conventional, in that it did not diverge from the original script in any way.


The archaic phrases of the original work were spoken in a form of language and accent that would have been recognised in that era, and no compromise was made for those members of the audience who may have been unfamiliar with the Bard's original words.


However, the speed of delivery was far in excess of the relaxed pace that historians say was customary at the time. Anyone who may have encountered the great author for the first time would be forgiven for failing to catch a single word of the dialogue. In fact, even seasoned veterans were caught sneaking a look to catch up with the place in the story. Anyone new to the performance had no hope of picking up the subtle ideas or the deep insights inherent in the play.


All this is unimportant, said the producer, Tim Swiftly-De-Liver. "Oh anyone can understand Shakespeare" he proclaimed. "It's the universal language. It speaks to all people, at all times, in all situations" he said hand-wavingly. "And this way you get to the pub before last orders"





Match of the Day institutes “Dive of the month” competition



Long running football highlights show Match of the Day announced today that it’s supplementing its famous “Goal of the month” competition with another one to find the month’s best dive ie where a player convinces the referee he’s been fouled in order to win a penalty. 


“Scoring goals from open play is obviously an important part of football,” said presenter Mark Chapman today. “But increasingly so is the carefully crafted dive. It’s no easy matter to convince the ref you were genuinely trying to score when a defender cynically brought you down, especially these days when VAR should make it impossible to con match officials this way. “So we thought it was time to recognise the tremendous work done by certain individuals in this area.”


However, critics have pointed out that there can hardly be any suspense when it’s obvious Liverpool will win every month, the only question being which of their forwards spends the most time needlessly horizontal in the opposing box.


A trial run of the competition in January 2025 initially put Mohammed Salah marginally ahead of Cody Gakpo, Darwin Nuñez and Diogo Jota, until close examination of match footage revealed that on one occasion a defender genuinely did make contact with Salah, and he went down for a valid reason.


”I’d never have believed it,” said Chapman, “but if you slow the footage down, you can see it clearly. Shame - it would have been a contender for dive of the season.”




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