A Doll’s House at Lyric Hammersmith review: Ibsen classic rejuvenated by relocation to India September 23, 2019 There has been a fashion in recent years to take 19th century European dramas and relocate them to modern-day India, where it is imagined that their overt classism, sexism, paternalism, and obsession with family and honour, will seem less anachronistic. The results have been varied – from the fun and frivolity of the Jane Austin-masala [...]
The King of Hell’s Palace at Hampstead Theatre review: a blistering political thriller September 23, 2019 The King of Hell’s Palace is a gripping political thriller, rooted in family drama; an exposé of the corrupt business practices that emerged in China following Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. In the early ‘90s, the Chinese economy was liberalising, consumerism was on the rise, and the clamour for export-led growth encouraged some budding entrepreneurs to [...]
Antony Gormley at the Royal Academy: An existential crisis has never felt so invigorating September 23, 2019 This giant Antony Gormley retrospective feels like the artist’s unified theory of everything. The works are drawn from four decades of output, but feel so indelibly fused with the famous halls of the Royal Academy you can barely imagine them elsewhere. Gormley bends and shapes the gallery to his will like a potter at a [...]
Peckham judged the world’s eleventh coolest neighbourhood September 18, 2019 “This time next year we’ll be in the top ten” Peckham has been named the world’s eleventh coolest neighbourhood in the 2019 Time Out Index. The south London hotspot may still be more globally famous for the antics of Del Boy and Rodney but a new generation of chefs, baristas and bartenders are turning it [...]
Downton Abbey film review: If you’re a fan of period dramas, this may be your Avengers September 13, 2019 Four years on from the final episode, Downton Abbey returns for more nostalgia and vicarious luxury. It’s 1927, and the reason for our return is the arrival of King George V and Queen Mary to the big house. This impending brush with royalty causes no end of chaos among the Downton residents, with the upstairs [...]
A Very Expensive Poison at the Old Vic review: A rare breed of play from the creator of Enron September 13, 2019 Part love story, part police procedural, part political satire, A Very Expensive Poison gleefully defies categorisation. Recounting the final days of Russian dissident Alexander Litvenenko, it takes a dark and complex subject and turns it into an utterly engrossing, formally experimental romp that wears its close to three hour run-time with surprising alacrity. Loosely based [...]
William Blake at Tate Britain review: A trip into the mind of a true revolutionary artist September 13, 2019 William Blake isn’t just an artist, he’s a figure almost as mythical as those he committed to paper, a part of the pop culture lexicon whose influence extends far beyond the works he left behind. He was famously plagued by phantasms: strange, demonic creatures that inspired his most iconic works. They appeared to him throughout [...]
Blair Witch game review: Bloober Team over-stretches with this ambitious but flawed tale September 11, 2019 There are moments in Blair Witch that live up to the promise of the source material, recreating the sense of suffocating panic that comes from being lost and alone. It’s an area in which Polish games developer Bloober Team has form: in psychological horror Layers of Fear, doors would flicker out of existence when you [...]
It Chapter 2 film review: Stephen King adaptation limps over the line September 6, 2019 Pennywise the dreadful clown is brilliant as a twisted metaphor for our childhood fears. He is less brilliant as a literal space alien who can only be defeated through some arcane Native American ritual. Alas, that’s where Stephen King’s bulging 1,200-page novel ends up. It proved to be the undoing of the 1990 TV mini-series, [...]
Hansard at the National Theatre play review: Political drama is a blistering debut September 6, 2019 George Osborne was in the audience for this blistering political drama by debut playwright Simon Woods, no doubt taking some credit for lines such as: “It’s so easy to mistake an expensive education for a genuine understanding of the world”. Hansard – the title taken from the verbatim record of everything said in Parliament – [...]