Basquiat: Boom for Real at the Barbican charts the astonishing ascendancy of New York’s hippest 80s scenester September 21, 2017 His works fetch more at auction than those of any other American painter – one sold this year for £85m – but Jean-Michel Basquiat remains an outsider in the world of contemporary art, written off by many as little more than a precocious street artist with connections. And, in this country at least, you could [...]
Rachel Whiteread at Tate Britain review: A wonderful collection of objects that find beauty in the everyday September 14, 2017 If we could all find someone to look at us the way Rachel Whiteread looks at an empty loo roll, the world would be a happier place. Few artists find quiet beauty in everyday things like she does. While her contemporaries like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin were creating sculptures filled with live flies or [...]
Mother! film review: Darren Aronofsky’s brutal new film is as dark as it is hilarious September 14, 2017 Nobody who’s seen Requiem for a Dream or Black Swan expects an easy ride from Darren Aronofsky, but his latest film still manages to blindside you, setting up what first appears to be a gentle farce before sucker-punching you with some of the most gleefully heinous imagery you’re likely to see this year. It follows [...]
Follies review: Five stars for this masterful production of Stephen Sondheim’s love letter to the Broadway revue September 7, 2017 “I’m just a Broadway Baby/Walking off my tired feet/Pounding 42nd street/To be in a show…” sings Hattie in Follies, Stephen Sondheim’s love letter to the Broadway revue. Yet this show isn’t about starstruck youths dreaming of their name in lights, but the far more fascinating lives of ageing stars and what happens to them when [...]
Lost for words: The indie bookshop has weathered many storms, from the rise of Amazon to rising rents. But its future has never looked so perilous September 7, 2017 Prospero’s Books stood on Crouch End Broadway for 10 years. I remember it, though not well. The bookshops of my childhood memories are all vaguely similar – they were places where I’d be both happy and bored. To hear locals tell it, there wasn’t any sign that Prospero’s was in trouble. It seemed to plod [...]
It 2017 film review: New version of the Stephen King classic starring Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the killer clown buckles under the weight of expectation September 7, 2017 Tim Curry made such a lasting impression as Pennywise in the 1990 version of Stephen King’s It that it’s easy to forget what a terrible, steaming heap of garbage the rest of it was. The made-for-TV miniseries was a clown-car of a show, with pieces falling off left, right and centre – awful pacing, bad [...]
Atomic Blonde film review: Charlize Theron dazzles in this exercise in style over substance by director of John Wick August 11, 2017 Every few years a movie comes along that rewrites the rule-book for the Hollywood blockbuster, sending out tonal and stylistic ripples for decades to come. There was Die Hard with its dry, flawed protagonist John McClane, the Bourne series’ perpetual-motion shaky-cam, the Matrix’s use of bullet time. And in 2014 there was John Wick. Combining [...]
Shin Godzilla film review: A delightfully silly, politically astute return to the schlocky origins of the world’s favourite monster August 11, 2017 He may be approaching retirement age, but 63-year-old Godzilla can still bring home the bacon. A big-budget Warner Bros movie pitting him against fellow monster King Kong is currently in the pipeline, and Bryan Cranston’s 2014 reboot made more than $500m at the box office. Shin Godzilla – or “Godzilla Resurgence” as it’s translated for [...]
Project Mayhem theatre review: Dalston immersive event has a violent charm but lacks narrative ambition August 9, 2017 The first rule of this immersive theatre production is: I’m not allowed to reveal the name of the source material. The second rule of this immersive theatre production… You get the picture. Project Mayhem, as it’s not-very-subtly named, is the latest show by Secret Studio Lab, a company that sounds like, but is not, a [...]
Allelujah! review: Alan Bennett’s NHS play at the Bridge Theatre is cosy and cautionary all at once July 27, 2017 It’s often said that the NHS and the BBC are the twin religions of Britain. If there’s a triplet, it’s probably Alan Bennett, who’s decided to make the health service the subject of his first new play in five years. Allelujah! isn’t quite as sprightly as it sounds, being set on a geriatric ward, but [...]