Theatre review: Constellations is a beautiful and sad play about life’s possibilities July 16, 2015 Trafalgar Studios | ★★★★☆ A disconcerting and comforting thought: everything that has ever happened, every permutation of what could possibly take place, is taking place now, forever, and stretched back infinitely into the past. It’s a point drummed softly but precisely home in Nick Payne’s thoughtful play Constellations, in which bee-keeper Roland and cosmologist Marianne [...]
Film review: True Story lacks direction July 16, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★☆☆☆ True Story takes a fascinating premise and does its best to drown it with clumsy story-telling and a lack of clear direction. The film, which really is based on a true story, begins with two men on opposite sides of the world introducing themselves as Michael Finkel from the New York [...]
Theatre review: The Mentalists is overblown and overstretched July 16, 2015 Wyndham’s Theatre | ★★☆☆☆ Long before the crowd-pleasing slapstick of One Man, Two Guv’nors, outrageous phone-hacking satire Great Britain and musical Made in Dagenham, there was The Mentalists. Playwright Richard Bean debuted this short play back in 2002 and now it’s back for a limited run. Only this time his success has ensured it’s in [...]
Film review: Self/less is slick but not memorable July 16, 2015 Cert 12A | ★★★☆☆ Immortality is rarely given a positive spin in Hollywood – from mopey vampires to haunted Wolverines, it appears living forever ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The latest to tread this path is Tarsem Singh’s Self/Less, in which a dying businessman (Ben Kingsley) pays for a secret, expensive procedure to [...]
Film review: Ant-Man is entertaining but forgettable July 16, 2015 Cert 12A | ★★★☆☆ Ant-Man is an entertaining but largely forgettable romp set on the peripheries of the rapidly expanding Marvel universe. It follows Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), an earnest ex-con who accidentally steals a suit that can shrink him to the size of an ant (it also allows him to talk to ants). He’s [...]
Perfect Saturday July 16, 2015 AUSSIE BREAKFAST FARM GIRL Forget fry ups, treat your hangover to a nutritious breakfast at new opening Farm Girl. Set up by 26-year-old Rose Mann, it brings the food of her rural upbringing in Melbourne to Portobello Road. Open Tuesday to Sunday, serving breakfast all day, thefarmgirl.co.uk SUMMER LOVIN’ HACKNEY VILLAGE FETE St John-at-Hackney Church [...]
Art review: Soundscapes add new dimension to old masters July 9, 2015 National Gallery | ★★★★☆ “Discover a new way of experiencing paintings,” says the promotional material for Soundscapes, the new exhibition at the National Gallery. Such proclamations risk any soundscapes being drowned out by a cacophony of tutting from critics. “Do we really need a new way of experiencing paintings,” you can hear them imploring. “What’s [...]
Film review: Ted 2 is a barrel of silly laughs July 9, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★☆☆ It hasn’t been a great year for adult comedy. Will Ferrell/Kevin Hart collaboration Get Hard underwhelmed, while films such as Unfinished Business and Hot Tub Time Machine 2 had critics seething and audiences shrugging. Next up, Ted 2, Seth MacFarlane’s sequel to his $500m 2012 hit about immature Bostonian John (Mark [...]
Theatre review: To Kill A Mockingbird July 9, 2015 Barbican | ★★★★☆ When great books are adapted for the stage, a great deal can be lost in translation: a couple told me during the interval, for instance, that after seeing a stage version of To Kill A Mockingbird, their son spent a fruitless afternoon in the library looking for “Tequila Mockingbird”. There’s little chance [...]
Theatre review: A Number July 9, 2015 Young Vic | ★★★½ This revival of Caryl Churchill’s 2002 play takes place in a sealed glass box, the audience gazing voyeuristically in like scientists observing participants in an experiment. A man and his son (played by real life father and son John and Lex Shrapnel) are in a state of distress – they have [...]