At the time of Plath’s death, he was still living with his mistress, Assia Wevill, who herself later committed suicide.”If he thought that he could come back like that she would have felt insulted,” says Mrs Becker. I certainly wouldn’t have given up my very well paid career as an actor if I didn’t think my directing career was going to go places.”‘Cooped’: BAC, London SW11 (020 7223 2223), Tue to 9 June. Oh, and he’s working on adapting Spymonkey’s talents to the TV – although Peepolykus and the Right Size have both tried and, so far, failed to make the leap to the small screen “But I wasn’t directing them,” he purrs “I think I know how to do it I’ve worked in TV a lot. “We get good crowds in the provinces and all the oldies love it just as much. I’m much more interested in what people are not good at than what they are good at.”So can Cal McCrystal break through the fringe’s glass ceiling and follow comic theatre predecessors Complicite into the mainstream? He hopes so. If someone’s got an ego problem or whatever, I want to see that rather than the fact that they can juggle. “Your clown is the thing about you that your friends make fun of behind your back.

My objective is to get the audience to laugh, and I will do that any way I can.”He prizes gags above stories “I find story a bit boring. Now Spymonkey – who, says the director, “express my work better than any company I’ve worked with” – is among a handful of companies whom the British Council regularly export to all corners of the globe. The resulting slapstick classic was one of the fringe hits of the mid-Nineties, and suddenly McCrystal was hot comic property. I think it’s their job to give me a job.”Happily, his swagger is justified.

Attack of the Clones will inevitably perform at the box-office, but for all its digital sheen, it’s a clanking rustbucket through and through.It’s painful to think that Lucas has devoted 25 years to masterminding this impersonal cycle of nonsense; if not for the millions, you might think it a wasted career. Among the humans, Christopher Lee and Ian McDiarmid give of their august best, and McGregor is rather less pallid than last time, but Samuel L Jackson is manifestly struggling to stay awake until the cheque arrives.For all its technological dazzle, the film is lamentably slipshod. Yet for all its obsessive eye for digital detail, in other areas the best you can say is that it’s slightly less of a grind than its predecessor The Phantom Menace.
Despite the much-vaunted epic conception of the Star Wars mythos, there’s little coherent narrative, just the usual mystifying imbroglio of intergalactic politics: “I’ll get to the bottom of this plot quickly,” swears Ewan McGregor’s earnest Obi-Wan Kenobi, and if he can, good luck to him. Fortunately for us, the real Jim Carrey is never likely to make that choice.’The Majestic’ is out on Friday. In The Majestic Carrey’s character recalls a movie plot but still can’t remember who he is: “You mean you can remember movies but not your own life?” says Laurie Holden. Unfortunately, given his “healing” tendencies in his straight movies, Carrey also sometimes seems to think he’s Christ too. The gurning lies underneath.Carrey is a man clearly possessed by voices – the trashy voices of American pop culture we all hear inside our heads: Captain Kirk, John Wayne, Bugs Bunny, Elvis, Lucille Ball.

He even almost succeeded in rescuing the rubber codpiece meltdown that was Batman Forever (1995), with his toxically camp interpretation of The Riddler Alas, Carrey’s ambitions are “bigger” than such roles allow. Hence the Jimmy Stewart preoccupation.Carrey’s success of course has come largely through his maniacal, edgy, inspired, disturbed/disturbing – and gurning – performances in films such as Dumb and Dumber (1994), Ace Ventura Pet Detective (1994), The Mask (1994), and Liar, Liar (1997). It opens 11am-6pm daily except Monday (until 8pm on Wednesdays). At the other end of town, and the opposite extreme, is the Mus?d’Art Contemporain, a collection housed in a beautiful old warehouse complex at 7 Rue Ferrere (00 33 5 56 00 81 50). The most intriguing sight is the V?s de Laussel ­ a prehistoric relief of a pregnant woman The museum opens 11am-6pm daily except Monday. Borrow an English guidebook to the museum at the ticket desk.