She Said review: Dancer Tamara Rojo presents three powerful and engrossing ballets rolled into one stunning performance April 14, 2016 Sadler's Wells | ★★★★★ Tamara Rojo, lead principal dancer and artistic director of the English National Ballet, says in over 20 years of dancing she’s never been in a ballet made by a woman. Here, she sets about redressing the balance, presenting three roughly hour-long, self-contained ballets, all choreographed by women. Thankfully, all three are [...]
The Jungle Book review: An all-star revival of a family classic with a monkey so unfathomably large it will blow your mind April 14, 2016 Dir. Jon Favreau | ★★★★☆ Think about the biggest monkey you’ve ever seen. Now double it. Now make it seven feet taller. Now triple it. Hold on, slow down, are you mad? That monkey’s much too big. But dial it down just a notch or two and you’ll be picturing an ape on par with [...]
Boy at the Almeida review: a flawed portrait of listlessness and poverty April 14, 2016 Almeida | ★★★☆☆ Boy takes place on a winding conveyor belt, with actors and props spinning before the audience like dishes at an especially dour branch of Yo Sushi. What starts out as a sexual health clinic becomes a bus stop then a housing estate then a park then a street outside a nightclub. Often [...]
Is the V&A’s Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear wunderbra or a load of pants? April 14, 2016 V&A | ★★☆☆☆ After the blockbuster success of David Bowie Is and Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, the V&A returns with another exhibition that’s sure to draw in the punters. Because it’s about underwear and includes the word “undressed”. But while the title hints towards something a little salacious, the delivery is an exhaustive, often dry, slightly repetitive [...]
Tate Britain’s Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979 is worthwhile if you’re prepared to work for it April 14, 2016 Tate Britain | ★★★☆☆ When you enter this exhibition, you’ll see a pyramid of oranges stacked up in front of you, giving the gallery a pleasant citrusy aroma. Go over and pick one up – this is allowed – and hold it in your hand for the rest of the time you’re there. You’ll want to [...]
Tate Modern unveils its plans for a brave new art world but admits it still has £30m financial black hole April 14, 2016 A group of more than 500 singers will greet the first visitors to the new Tate Modern gallery when it opens in June, underlining its new focus on live and performance art. Following that visitors can look forward to being corralled by horseback police in the Turbine Hall courtesy of Tania Bruguera's Tatlin's Whisper, as well as experiencing experimental sculpture from Tokyo, social [...]
NASA’s stunning series of free space tourism posters offers a glimpse at the imagined future of interstellar travel April 12, 2016 NASA’s Voyager mission left Earth in 1977, taking advantage of a once-every-175-year alignment of the planets to take a grand tour of the solar system. Using a manoeuvre called a gravitational assist, the tiny probe swung itself around Jupiter like a slingshot, zipping past Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, picking up speed each time until it was [...]
Boulevard, Robin Williams’ last movie, is a muted tribute April 7, 2016 Dir. Dito Montiel | ★★★☆☆ While not the last film he shot, Boulevard has the sad distinction of being the late Robin Williams' final on-screen role, arriving just over 18 months after the actor’s death. He plays Nolan, a married bank employee whose existence has become a simple, sad matter of plodding through the days, [...]
Timothy Spall excels in The Old Vic’s The Caretaker April 7, 2016 The Old Vic | ★★★★☆ Harold’s Pinter’s first big hit, The Caretaker, is a frenetic comedy about three social outcasts, all woefully incapable of communicating with each other. This claustrophobic play takes place inside a leaky loft conversion strewn with lofty piles of newspapers and a host of unfinished DIY projects. It’s exhausting just looking [...]
X at the Royal Court review: a terrifying, claustrophobic space horror that comes unravelled April 7, 2016 Royal Court | ★★★☆☆ The best science fiction is virtually always a vehicle for social commentary, a metaphor for talking about the here and now. Alien can be read as an advocation of abortion; Dune reflects the geopolitics of the Cold War-era oil industry; Dawn of the Dead is a critique of consumerism. But, crucially, you [...]