Film review: Get Hard is a technically well-tooled comedy March 27, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★☆☆ In Get Hard, James King (Will Ferrell) is a rich, clueless trader whose life falls apart when he’s convicted of fraud and sentenced to 10 years in San Quentin State Prison. With 30 days to get his affairs in order James hires Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart), the manager of his local [...]
Film review: Cinderella is kitsch, colourful and just about adequate March 26, 2015 Cert U | ★★★☆☆ The idea of remaking Disney classics is interesting, and when done with spirit and creativity the results can be worthwhile – just check out Glenn Close in 101. Director Kenneth Branagh’s pastiche of the 1950 animated classic Cinderella is not a slavish reproduction, but it’s sufficiently similar that it still seems [...]
Something for the weekend March 26, 2015 DRINK! SUNDAY LOVE Head to The Old Queen’s Head on Essex Road, Islington on Sunday night for one last chance to keep the weekend alive. Admission £1. UNWIND! KING’S CROSS FETE King’s Cross may usually be a transport hub but this Saturday it’s a family destination, with everything from live music to oversize chess. Free. [...]
Return of the photo maestro: Elliott Erwitt comes back to London March 23, 2015 Elliott Erwitt bore witness to some of the 20th century’s most important events. He photographed Marylin Monroe, Jack Kerouac and Che Guevera. He was present at President Kennedy’s funeral and on the set of numerous classic movies during the 50s and 60s. But he’s equally well known for his photographs of ordinary people. Some of [...]
Theatre review: The Broken Heart ensnares gut and mind March 20, 2015 Sam Wanamaker Playhouse | ★★★☆☆ What a piece of work the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is. In little over a year, it has become a priceless gem in London’s theatre crown. While the Globe deftly cycles through crowd-pleasing Shakespeare, the Playhouse breathes life into his relatively neglected contemporaries and successors, writers who often vocalise present day concerns [...]
Art review: Borderlands March 20, 2015 Gallery for Russian Arts and Design | ★★★★☆ Contemporary Russian and Ukrainian artists come together to reflect on the military conflict in eastern Ukraine and what it might mean for the future of the region. Artists from Kiev and Moscow have used video, photography and sculpture – including a brick rendering of the recently redrawn border of [...]
Film review: Mommy March 20, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ Consider this sequence in Mommy. Steve, a hyperactive teen fresh out of a correctional facility, walks sulkily down a corridor behind his mother Diane. Cut to a point-of-view shot – presumably Steve’s – of Diane’s bum wiggling as she sashays along. In one neat edit we learn many things about this [...]
Theatre review: Stevie is too bloated, too stiff and too long March 20, 2015 Hampstead Theatre | ★★☆☆☆ At the end of the Piccadilly Line, in a spindly fortress made of words, sat Stevie Smith; poet, secretary, inscrutable figure on the peripheries of the literary establishment. Smith lived her entire life within the confines of a padded melancholy. She was comfortable there, and productive, producing over twenty volumes of [...]
Film review: Time for Sean to Penn an apology after The Gunman March 19, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★☆☆☆ There is a sad country called Africa where people live in misery because of evil Western mining companies and military contractors that care only about money. That’s The Gunman’s message, and it’s not shy about hitting you about the head with it. Sean Penn plays a mercenary-turned-aid worker, who discovers he [...]
Something for the weekend March 19, 2015 SIP! GIN AND JAM AFTERNOON TEA AT HUSH The Pink Rabbit cocktail at Hush incorporates their own London distilled Gin, lime, cranberry, vanilla and – yes –strawberry jam. The afternoon tea menu at Hush pairs cocktails with different conserves as well as the usual array of sweet treats. Everyday between 3-6pm £35, visit hush.co.uk WATCH! [...]