THERE has been a small, invisible tweak to our website which means that booking online should be more of a pleasant experience. I have to say that it makes my job maintaining things easier, too.

The Milton Rooms, in Malton, has The Crocker Brothers on Friday. The Crocker Brothers have been playing and singing bluegrass music for more than 40 years and are widely regarded as one of Britain’s leading acoustic bluegrass bands.

The highlight of my year follows the next weekend with the Cajun Festival. I have to get all of my expensive “toys” out for this gig as I will be doing the sound again.

I can’t wait for what is a brilliant festival of colour, sound, dance and a really nice international mix of people. There is a mix of bands who are stalwarts and some new. I will bring more on this next week.

We have only managed to watch one film and that with no speech in it at all. We are on catch up this week. However, we have had a lot of feedback from people leaving who have said they think The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is even better than the original.

A few emotional (in a good way, I think) people leaving who have loved seeing the film. Richard Gere has gone down exceptionally well. The overall message is that it is well worth watching and we are getting the audiences to show the way it is loved. There have been comments along the lines of so good to see a film that doesn’t have people who “haven’t seen any life”. Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judy Dench, Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy all represent the retired section of the population.

The bubble seems to have burst a little with Fifty Shades of Grey and audiences have settled to much more normal levels. We are playing Big Hero 6 from Disney and Shaun the Sheep Movie from Aardman and it is interesting that again this week the more popular film nationally is Big Hero 6, but with us, at the Palace Cinema, it is definitely Shaun the Sheep Movie, which is number one in the family films.

I find it amusing with the title of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel the way it can be read – The Second Best, Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Second, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. An amusing title in its own right I think.

We will find the answer when we get to see it.

Films from Friday

Chappie (15) stars big-hitting actors Sigourney Weaver and Hugh Jackman and is set in the near future, where crime is patrolled by an oppressive mechanised police force. Chappie is a police droid stolen and given new programming, becoming the first robot with ability to think and feel for its/himself.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (PG and number one in the top 10) carries on for another week (and more beyond).

Fifty Shades of Grey (18 and number two in the top 10) carries on for another week one show a day.

Big Hero 6 (PG and yet again number four in the top 10) continues at the weekend.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (U and yet again number five in the top 10) is staying for another week at weekend matinees, as well as a tea time showing during the weeks.

Theory of Everything (12A and number 10 in the top 10), with its Oscar now justly for the Best Actor, carries likewise in staying on for a matinee in screen three on Friday and Monday to Thursday only.

Coming very soon – Still Alice (12A) the film for which Julianne Moore got her Oscar on March 13.

Insurgent from the Divergent trilogy (12A) has a preview on March 19. Here Beatrice Prior is required to confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance threatening to tear society apart all with the help of the others on her “side”.

Live stage productions

Love’s Labour’s Won, the second part from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, is live this evening – some seats available at the front.

Then we have the very exciting production with Maxine Peake as Hamlet (12A) sold-out for the performance on Monday, March 23, but we do have seats available for the encore performance on Sunday, April 19.

We are down to 11 seats available for NT Live: A View from the Bridge (12A) with Mark Strong on Thursday, March 26.

ROH Live Opera: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (12A) – about the three criminals on the run who find they can go no further when they find a city – Mahagonny – the city of gold.

Mahagonny is live on Wednesday, April 1, at 7pm, with plenty of seats still available for this opera.

There is a fantastic new season from the National Theatre live to cinemas to be announced with a production starring an Oscar nominee on the 16th of this month.