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“When making this record I was referring to a lot of records I grew up on such as ‘Tapestry,’ Carole King; ‘Blue,’ Joni Mitchell; ‘Bryter Layter,’ Nick Drake — so for me this record feels very nostalgic.

The World Championship had lived a nomadic existence before promoter Mike Watterson took it to the Crucible almost half a century ago, heeding the advice of his wife, Carole, who had watched a play in the theatre and felt it had just the right attributes to stage a snooker event.

Ms King has joined forces with Carole Gould, whose 17-year-old daughter Ellie was stabbed to death at her home in Calne, Wiltshire, in 2019, by Thomas Griffiths after she ended their relationship.

There are scenes whose dialogue, with a little adjustment, could have served Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, or Carole Lombard and John Barrymore; it’s the world as once scripted by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur or Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, if not quite to that level, and the combination of theatrical speech and location shooting — in and around New York’s Lincoln Center and the Palais Garnier and Salle Favart in Paris — makes for something interesting.

As soon as the nostalgic strains of Carole King’s “Where You Lead” kicked off, I felt like Mark S. in the elevator at Lumon, shrugging off the news of the day and plunging down the sanitized corridors of Stars Hollow.