LIVING

Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro relocates Akira Kurosawa's 1952 masterpiece Ikiru to London, where Mr Williams (Bill Nighy, magnificently understated but bristling) is a management functionary in the council's planning office. For 30 years, he has ensured that there is no antagonism and no voices raised in his office, sliding anything that requires action – such as a mothers' petition for a playground - to the bottom of his in-tray. Only when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer does it hits him how much of his life he has squandered. He tries debauchery in the company of a louche writer (Tom Burke), inhales some optimism from a pretty young co-worker, Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), and then resolves to do something worthwhile: get that playground built. It isn't a decisive victory – the office continues to be moribund without him – but there's plenty of hope in Mr Williams's revival.