The Lion King ‘live action’ remake is a solid cover version but one that’s outshone by the classic July 19, 2019 The Lion King (PG); Dir. Jon Favreau; Three Stars All together now: “Naaaaaaaaants Ingonyamaaaa…”. There are few opening lines that inspire a sense of nostalgia quite like the opening to The Lion King, a fact Disney is betting an awful lot of money on in its latest remake of one of its old classics. With [...]
Equus at Trafalgar Studios review: A fresh take on this sexy, horse-blinding drama July 19, 2019 Everyone knows Equus as the play about the boy who gets off on riding horses. It follows Alan Strang, a 17-year-old trying to navigate his aberrant sexuality under the influence of his overbearing religious mother and disciplinarian socialist father. Martin Dysart is the psychiatrist tasked with treating him after he blinds six horses with a [...]
The director of Super Mario Brothers makes her first feature in 26 years and it’s not what you’re expecting July 19, 2019 Tell It To The Bees (15); Dir. Annabel Jankel; 2 Stars Based on the novel by Fiona Shaw, Tell It To The Bees is set in a small Scottish town in the 50s, where kindly doctor Jean (Anna Paquin) takes in single mother Lydia (Holliday Grainger) as her housekeeper. The two soon begin a relationship, [...]
Making Noise Quietly is a war film that forgoes guns and explosions to focus on those left behind July 19, 2019 There are many dramas about the devastation of war as viewed by those on the front line. Fewer, however, look at the effect of war on those back home. Making Noise Quietly is divided into three stories from three different eras – the first concerns a meeting between a conscientious objector (Luke Thompson) and a [...]
Peter Gynt at the Olivier is a toe-curling, overlong adaptation of Ibsen’s mad epic July 11, 2019 Before the curtain rose for this reimagining of Ibsen’s allegorical play Peer Gynt, audience members were surreptitiously snapping pictures of the set, presumably to impress their Instagram followers. “I’m at the theatre! #culture”. How appropriate for a play (originally a poem but adapted soon after) that asks if a life can be fulfilled simply by winning the [...]
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is an unbridled summer joy July 11, 2019 Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is one of three London companies presenting the Bard’s most mischievous and magical comedy this summer. How, then, does director Dominic Hill make his Dream stand out? From the outset, it’s a fresh, fun interpretation. It opens to a Riot Club-esque dinner party, with flashing lights and blaring music. The [...]
Noises Off at the Lyric Hammersmith is a farce in all the wrong ways July 5, 2019 Noises Off is either the worst professional production I’ve seen in some years, or something so groundbreakingly metatextual that I am simply unable to comprehend its brilliance. Noises Off is clearly a huge success; at least historically. The farce debuted at the Lyric in 1982, before going on to multiple runs in the West End [...]
Midsommar review: follow up to Hereditary is an unqualified triumph July 5, 2019 The instant Midsommar finished, I knew I would need to see it again. It has that rare, painterly quality of great horror, the sense that the images you’re seeing will never leave you. Director Ari Aster’s debut Hereditary had it too, though Midsommar is probably the superior film. It has a richer, more constituted vision, [...]
Arctic film review: A grim but powerful slog through the frozen wilds June 28, 2019 A minimalist tale of man-versus-nature, Joe Penna’s debut feature immerses us in the daily routine of Overgard (Mads Mikkelsen), the survivor of a cargo-plane crash in the Arctic (actually, Iceland). How long he has been stranded in the frozen wastes is uncertain, as we join his story in media res, but his missing toes suggest [...]
The Damned at Barbican review: More of the same good stuff from Ivo Van Hove June 28, 2019 The Damned continues Dutch theatre director Ivo van Hove’s obsession with adaptations, with his oeuvre now including four Bergman screenplays, versions of Oscar-winning films Network and All About Eve, and now four works from Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti. And while this French-language play occasionally veers close to a van Hove ‘greatest hits’ compilation, it’s excellently performed by [...]