Theatre Review: My Night with Reg, Donmar Warehouse August 8, 2014 ★★★★☆ Kevin Elyot’s 1994 play charts the romantic entanglements of a group of gay university friends, now well into their 30s, set against the backdrop of the Aids crisis. It explores issues of love, loss, infidelity and insecurity, and how they are all tainted by the shadow of the disease. The Donmar’s new production is [...]
Film Review: Welcome to New York August 8, 2014 ★★★★☆ Welcome to New York is a grotesque character study of the French head of a world bank – not to mention Presidential hopeful – who stands accused of raping a maid in a New York hotel. Director Abel Ferrara’s film is certainly bold. In fact, you wonder how he got away with it: the [...]
Film review: Mood Indigo July 31, 2014 ★★★☆☆ Mood Indigo is a return to form for the tirelessly creative French director Michel Gondry, albeit one with some rather large caveats. The surreal, densely-packed opus combines the DIY aesthetic of his Be Kind Rewind with the darker, more psychological tone of the sublime Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (and, thankfully, nothing at [...]
Film review: A Promise July 31, 2014 ★★☆☆☆ Director Patrice Leconte’s A Promise is an implausible, often ridiculous period drama revolving around a predictably doomed love affair. Richard Madden stars as brooding Friedrich, an ambitious clerk in a steelworks in early 20th century Germany. He catches the eye of the boss Herr Hoffmeister, played by an austere Alan Rickman, who recruits Friedrich [...]
Film review: Guardians of the Galaxy July 31, 2014 ★★★★★ The Guardians of the Galaxy marketing team have been flogging their horse so long and hard it’s a wonder it’s not already dead. With hype so merciless and protracted, the latest Marvel movie seemed destined to disappoint. Factor in that it’s based on a relatively minor branch of the Marvel comics universe and stars [...]
Theatre review: A Streetcar Named Desire July 31, 2014 ★★★★★ Is there room in that hot, sweaty, studio-flat for more than one great performance? Gillian Anderson runs away with it in this, Benedict Andrews’ brilliant, sultry, disorientating, modern dress production. There are strong supporting turns from Vanessa Kirby and Ben Foster but Anderson owns the stage with a captivating interpretation of the fantasist Blanche [...]
Review: The Purge 2 July 24, 2014 What would happen if, for one night a year, you were able to kill whoever you wanted and get off scot free? That was the shaky premise behind last year’s The Purge. It’s set 20 years into the future where crime is so rife that the US government sanctions an annual 12-hour period for the [...]
Review: The Importance of Being Earnest July 24, 2014 Lucy Bailey’s reimagining of The Importance of Being Earnest at The Harold Pinter Theatre sees an am-dram company rehearsing a chaotic version of the titular play. The result is a terrible production about a terrible production of a brilliant play – an unfortunate irony that would probably have raised a wry smile from Wilde himself. [...]
Review Disobedient Objects at the V&A July 24, 2014 The balaclava, the placard, the loudspeaker – the instruments of protest are well-established. Except they aren’t. As this exhibition at the V&A shows, the methods and means by which people have made their voices heard have been unimaginably varied. Think protest, and most people think violence, but the overriding impression given by the objects on [...]
Theatre Review: Medea July 24, 2014 A WOMAN driven by rage and jealousy to slaughter her children in a chillingly premeditated act of murderous revenge. In Greek tragedy, Medea is the ultimate portrayal of female wickedness – in Carrie Cracknell’s production at the National, it is not the wickedness but voicelessness which strikes us. “How could it end in any way [...]