Teddy Ferrara review: a tangled play exploring homophobia, bullying and hate in the wake of tragedy October 15, 2015 Teddy Ferrara is a play that manages to say a very small amount about a great many things. It’s set around an American campus on which a dizzyingly comprehensive catalogue of LGBT issues are being tackled in the wake of a student suicide. To unpack, Christopher Shinn’s play explores homophobia in both its standard and [...]
Art review: Frank Auerbach, Tate Britain October 8, 2015 Walking through Frank Auerbach’s retrospective at Tate Britain is rather like flicking through a family photo album. It’s full of personal subjects that change incrementally over decades, of self-portraits, friends, his wife Julia and Mornington Crescent, where his studio has been since 1954. There’s also another reason to get up close and personal with [...]
Goya: The Portraits explores the legendarily dark artist’s less nightmarish output October 8, 2015 GOYA: THE PORTRAITS NATIONAL GALLERY RATING ★★★★☆ Goya is perhaps best known for his scary painting of a giant naked fella munching down on a little man, voraciously chomping his arm and head off with the wide-eyed expression of somebody who’s just remembered he left the patio door unlocked. It’s spooky business round Goya’s house, [...]
Suffragette movie review: Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan star in this worthy tribute October 8, 2015 Cert 12A | ★★★★☆ “If we give women the vote, where will it end?” says a disgruntled Cabinet minister in Suffragette. “They’ll be wanting to be Members of Parliament next.” Well, here we are, not quite at the end, but closer to it than we were in 1912, when a faction of the women’s suffrage [...]
Medea, Almeida Theatre review: This tragedy will hit home, even if Euripides is all Greek to you October 8, 2015 The Almeida has saved the fiercest play in its ambitious Greek season for last. Medea – widely considered a proto-feminist text – was never going to be the hardest tragedy to drag into the 21st century. Even so, playwright Rachel Cusk’s modern re-telling is uncomfortably familiar. Her version of the titular Medea is a playwright [...]
Sicario movie review: Emily Blunt is embroiled in a brutally violent cartel drug war in this cloak and dagger thriller October 8, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ Benicio Del Toro rocks some seriously distracting camel-toe in one harrowing scene, but that’s only the third or fourth most visceral image in Sicario. It’s a violent drug cartel thriller in which Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, a steely FBI door-kicker who finds herself drafted into a highly secretive, off-the-books government [...]
The Walk movie review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt flies high in this vertigo-inducing IMAX 3D spectacle October 2, 2015 Cert PG | ★★★★☆ Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts on a wig and smiles enigmatically in this film about Phillipe Petit, the Frenchman who stunned onlookers and the world by walking a wire between New York’s Twin Towers in 1974. Director Robert Zemeckis tells the story of Petit’s training, and the plan that saw him and a [...]
The Birds theatre review: Avoid this play like you would avian flu October 1, 2015 The Birds Leicester Square Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ The first thought that goes through one's head before a stage version of The Birds is: I wonder how they're going to make the birds happen. Notoriously difficult to work with, birds – all beak and feathers and malevolent intent. Wicked little pseudo dinosaurs. But after sitting through this painfully [...]
Macbeth movie review: Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star in this emotionally stunted Shakespearean spectacle October 1, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★☆☆☆ Rumour has it that Michael Fassbender has been going around calling this film adaptation of Macbeth “the Scottish film”, after the actorly tradition. Presumably, something dreadful happens to you if you say Shakespeare’s title, like Malcolm Tucker shoves a thistle down your oesphagus. Whatever happens to you, it’s a ridiculous, thespy [...]
The Martian movie review: Matt Damon brings life to Mars in Ridley Scott’s new film October 1, 2015 Cert 12A | ★★★★☆ When returning from a manned mission to Mars, it’s important to check that you’ve got all of your Matt Damons with you. Look underneath your seat. Check any nearby craters for hidden Damons. Because like some sort of interplanetary Home Alone, The Martian proves that it’s all too easy to leave the [...]