She's nervy and direct, as quick as ever, and the two boys — they are men but still very boyish — fall in love with her all over again.
The Monteverdi Choir and soloists, directed as ever by John Eliot Gardiner, took the risk with Bach's St Matthew Passion and excelled.
Elsewhere, hardy perennials Beasts – directed as ever by Pappy's lord of misrule Tom Parry – present Mr Edinburgh 2016, a sketch show masquerading as a (sports? beauty? comedy?) contest.
If Pearl Jam was always a place for Vedder to unpack his dirty laundry, a song like "Lukin," written about a stalker that drove their car into his home, felt as simple and direct as he ever got.
When we saw Stephen King's 1986 cult classic Maximum Overdrive - the only film King ever directed, as well as wrote - we were so overcome with awe and delight that we just had to find a way to pay homage.
And if you happened to see her in the past year, frail and bald and as direct in the eye as ever, you knew that there was no effacing the knowledge of death, or the fresh understanding of life that that knowledge gives.
But Terry played just as hard as ever, directing his teammates, never letting up on the Arsenal strikers — oblivious, it seemed, to everything else.
Of course, it takes more time, but it's also much more direct and – as far as television ever can be – "natural".
Thus the final scenes are of Angie recruiting yet more "casuals" direct from the Ukraine: Loach, as ever, resists the temptation to supply neat solutions and happy endings where there are none.
There are love songs to Doris, his wife of 30 years, which are as direct as anything he's ever written.
