The Clinic at the Almeida: A disjointed play that asks the Big Questions September 15, 2022 The Clinic has all the right ingredients to be a solid state of the nation play. Dipo Baruwa-Etti’s new work is probing, well acted, dramatically staged. But somehow the pieces just don’t fit together, the souffle doesn’t rise, and the result is frustratingly disjointed. It’s a play that asks Big Questions about the modern black [...]
Mike Leigh: ‘The Queen dying is emotional but King Charles? That’s another matter’ September 15, 2022 For a man seven-times Oscar nominated for films about so-called ‘ordinary’ people, Mike Leigh certainly plays the part. We meet outside the newly opened Garden Cinema, but there’s no blacked-out car to deliver perhaps Britain’s most famous living director. Instead, Leigh appears from around a street corner, alone, clasping a folded chair under arm. If [...]
See How They Run: Saoirse Ronan shines in this twisty whodunnit September 15, 2022 Cinema trends come from unexpected places. After decades as a mainstay on Sunday afternoon TV, the whodunit seemed to take off in Hollywood after the success of Murder On The Orient Express and Knives Out. Both were the start of forthcoming trilogies, and hoping to replicate that success is murderous comedy See How They Run. [...]
Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva sees the superhero genre get the Bollywood treatment September 15, 2022 Rooted in ancient Indian mythology, Ayan Mukerji’s Disney-produced Hindi-language fantasy Brahmāstra — Part 1 of a planned trilogy — has taken eight years and one pandemic to hit the big screen. It is set within the ‘Astraverse’ — where natural elements are controlled via weapons (Astras) by a secret society called the Brahmānsh — and [...]
Wonderville is the capital’s enchanting new Cabaret bar September 15, 2022 There’s honestly very little funnier than awkward suburban dads getting flirted with by overly ostentatious female performers. Especially when they’re dressed in tiny scraps of clothing. Brits are awkward, and then there are suburbanites that get dressed up to go into London to see a cabaret show. They are awkward. At new London cabaret venue [...]
World Sight Day September 14, 2022 | City Talk World Sight Day 2022 | #LoveYourEyes This month, the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) launched its Love Your Eyes global campaign. The goal of this year’s campaign is to raise awareness of the social and economic impacts of blindness across the world. Across the world, many suffer from poor eye health. As a result [...]
The Score is a strange and unusual musical – but not in a good way September 14, 2022 The Score’s writer-director Malachi Smyth has sketched an idea of what the British Wild West could look like, and it has a stylish twist: singing gangsters. When the central musical segments work, they’re captivating, making The Score’s tone feel daringly out-of-the-box. But the meat of this movie fails to score. Credit to Smyth for pulling [...]
Bodies Bodies Bodies is a slasher satire of gen-Z egoists September 14, 2022 Incorporating elements of slasher horror, whodunnit, and dark comedy, Halina Reijn’s English directorial debut Bodies Bodies Bodies distinguishes itself with a wry smile in a genre often overwrought with cliché and predictable storytelling. The latest offering from A24 — who graced our screens with unexpected gems like Everything Everywhere All At Once and last year’s [...]
Handbagged at the Kiln Theatre is a timely new show about the Queen September 14, 2022 This article is the first in a new series called The Lowdown, where we speak to writers, directors and actors to get the lowdown on their latest creative project And they say that life imitates art… Handbagged, a show featuring fictional accounts about the Queen’s weekly meetings with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, had always planned [...]
Very lively in Venice: Having a ball in the city of water September 13, 2022 Every Italian has their favourite region of their home country they believe to be aesthetically and culturally superior. Part of the reason is the dizzying variety of culture, cuisine and architecture, which differs dramatically from region to region, the result of foreign invasions that chopped up the boot-shaped country a dozen centuries ago. But even [...]