The post I meant to make yesterday

So - Coraline was delightful. Very strange - Coraline was played by an older woman who kind of reminded me of Susan Boyle, the double-casting did not always work the way you would expect it to and featured a lot of gender-bending, the cat's costume made no pretense at being a cat (although the body language was spot-on), the score was played entirely on out-of-tune toy pianos, and most of the singers were not particularly good singers. Only, it worked perfectly. The feeling of the book was conveyed beautifully, in a strangely cluttered minimalist way. I was impressed, and charmed.