Perfect Saturday July 30, 2015 BRUNCH TIME THE ELK IN THE WOODS The best brunch in Camden is quite an accolade given the number of pubs in the area selling quality nosh, but that’s what people say about the Elk in the Woods, a foodie boozer with extra character. Go for the Elk sausage skillet for an unusual take on [...]
Film review: No knock-out blow for Southpaw July 23, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★☆☆☆ There’s an exchange that takes place in every boxing movie ever, in which the trainer takes his hot-headed young buck aside, points to his fist and says, “it’s not about this” and then taps his temple and says,“it’s about this.” The message: mind over muscle. Thought over fight. Well, what [...]
Film review: Maggie is a nuanced entry to the zombie canon July 23, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ There are no one-liners or knowing winks in this Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie movie; it’s a bleakly plodding, quietly affecting drama that’s not so much interested in moments of terror, but what happens when they subside. On the face of it, the premise is familiar: a “necroambulist” virus that turns people into [...]
Film review: The Legend of Barney Thomson July 23, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★☆☆ Robert Carlyle’s directorial debut is a grotesque carnival of murder and excess that consistently entertains but eventually trips up on its own wild ambition. It follows the titular Barney, a spiritless Glasgow barber guilty of the only sin that’s beyond redemption in his home-town: having nae banter. When he accidentally murders [...]
Theatre review: American Idiot July 23, 2015 Arts Theatre | ★★☆☆☆ Green Day and musical theatre seem like odd bedfellows until you consider that both are fun, infantile and the kind of thing that no self respecting adult would confess to enjoying. When the two came together for 2010’s Broadway production American Idiot, the show won two Tony awards and a Grammy; [...]
Film review: Inside Out July 23, 2015 Cert U | ★★★★☆ Kids are notoriously difficult to read. Try asking one whether they like school or turkey dinosaurs and all you’re likely to get is a non-committal shrug. But Disney Pixar’s latest animated feature will make you completely reassess the way you talk to pre-teens as it fires you right into the turbulent [...]
Perfect Saturday July 23, 2015 COFFEE COME-UPS THE BLACK LAB If you can’t function in the morning without a cup o’ joe then head to Clapham’s endlessly trendy Coffee House ‘The Black Lab’. Once you’ve had your morning fix of liquid gold head over to nearby Clapham Common for a Saturday morning stroll. Visit blacklabcoffee.com SUMMER COCKTAILS TOWN HALL YARD [...]
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 [...]