Gordon Ramsay interview: Michelin stars, overtaking the French and why his new restaurant, Le Pressoir d’Argent, is something special November 9, 2016 “If I’d tried to open this restaurant 15 years ago, I’d have been shot, hung upside-down and had my bollocks put in that thing over there, the pressoir d’testicle.” Finally, I thought. So measured – serene even – was the Gordon Ramsay sitting opposite me, I’d started to wonder if his famously filthy lyricism had [...]
Nobu interview: the sushi tycoon talks about family, Robert De Niro, and how his new Shoreditch hotel will be a game-changer November 8, 2016 According to Madonna, you can tell if a city is going to be fun by whether there’s a Nobu in it. The brainchild of Nobuyuki Matsuhisa and Robert De Niro – or just plain “Bob” – the brand has an uncanny knack of courting the beau monde. Even after 22 years, in which time more [...]
Lewis Hamilton on hanging out with Tom Cruise, getting advice from Kanye West and staying up late – then killing it on the track November 7, 2016 "I’m very much an outsider,” says Lewis Hamilton. We’re cruising around east London in the back of a pearlescent white Maybach, when I put it to him that he’s different to the other drivers in Formula One. He dresses differently, acts differently, hangs out with a different entourage; he’s the only driver who could be [...]
Amadeus review: Mozart is an insufferable little turdperson in this pathos-laden account of inter-composer rivalry November 4, 2016 When the brilliant and tortured Italian composer Antonio Salieri enviously considers Mozart’s final requiem – his masterpiece – the forsaken musician howls to God, “what need to mourn a man who will live forever?” In this excellent revival of Peter Schaffer’s pathos-sodden 1979 play, Salieri is the studious and distinguished muso whose work has been [...]
The Nest at the Young Vic: this play with a PJ Harvey soundtrack never quite clicks November 4, 2016 The Nest is the story of a couple preparing for the birth of their first child. It has slick dialogue, fine acting, simple but effective sets, and an impressive original score by PJ Harvey, but somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Based on a 1975 German work by Franz Xaver [...]
Titanfall 2 review: Giant robots fighting one another has never been this fun November 4, 2016 Titanfall is a futuristic, multiplayer shooter about hyper-gymnastic soldiers who can perform cool parkour stunts, running along walls and leaping between buildings like well-armed squirrels. They’ve also got giant mechs: armoured walking tanks that they frequently use to pummel one another to death. While this sequel’s colourful and vibrant sci-fi setting feels fresh against the [...]
Here’s everything that happened in last night’s Apprentice episode November 4, 2016 In last night's episode candidates attempted a brand new task: crowdfunding some cycling products. Essentially, all they had to do was set up a crowdfunding page, pull off a snazzy PR stunt at a train station and pitch the products, which were already good, to some bike shops. Easy, right? Wrong, because even simple tasks are rendered impossible in the [...]
The Accountant review: Ben Affleck stars in silly but fun throwback to 90s straight to video thrillers November 4, 2016 David Fincher’s Gone Girl has done for straight-to-video thrillers what Wes Craven’s Scream did for the slasher movie. All of a sudden there’s a lucrative niche for acceptably trashy, middle-class mind-candy, paving the way for the likes of The Girl on the Train and now Ben Affleck vehicle The Accountant. It follows the apparently mild-mannered Christian Wolff, a [...]
Nocturnal Animals: Tom Ford’s second film is a heartbreaking tale of loss and vengeance November 4, 2016 Tom Ford has been doing interviews recently decrying materialism, which is a bit like Michael Fish admitting that the weather is a lie. Ford’s second film – after the heartbreaking A Single Man – continues the theme: possessions won’t make you happy, life is short, don’t waste it chasing the consumerist dragon. Where A Single [...]
James Ensor at the Royal Academy: a mercurial painter of the grotesque October 27, 2016 In the paintings of James Ensor, life is dour and murky while death is a riot of colour and expressive brush-strokes. In one of the first pieces in the Royal Academy’s exhibition two women sit taking afternoon tea (Afternoon in Ostend, 1881) in an oppressively brown room, as if the bourgeois scene is so interminably [...]