Trompe L’Oeil review: Trump is the butt of the joke again October 5, 2023 How many fringe theatre and cabaret shows have made Donald Trump the butt of their jokes? Surely it’s in the thousands. It must hard to offer fresh material, so kudos to Trompe L’Oeil for finding new life in him yet. In this musical cabaret the former president is played by Emer Dineen, who portrays a [...]
Old Friends review: Sondheim honoured in show bursting with love October 4, 2023 Old Friends review and star rating: ★★★★★ What drew Bernadette Peters, living legend of Broadway, aged 75, after a half-century-long career in New York, to finally make her West End debut? Especially given she’ll make a considerably worse salary here compared to financially flush Broadway? A knees-up to celebrate musical impresario, Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim passed [...]
Picture a Day Like This at the Royal Opera House: A beautiful ode to hope October 3, 2023 What does it mean to look for a miracle? Hope, as a uniquely human impulse, is the focus of composer George Benjamin and writer Martin Crimp’s latest operatic endeavour, Picture a day like this. This eagerly anticipated fourth collaboration between Benjamin and Crimp marks a departure from their grander operatic triumphs. Picture a day like [...]
Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play: A tough slog at the Young Vic September 28, 2023 Kimber Lee’s Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play had me right up until the moment when it didn’t. It’s a work filled with righteous indignation about the portrayal of Asian people in popular fiction, from Madam Butterfly to Miss Saigon to a thousand other white, colonial fantasies about mystical “orientals”. The same story is essentially acted [...]
Harry Potter star Michael Gambon, who played Dumbledore, dies September 28, 2023 Michael Gambon, the actor who played Dumbledore in most of the Harry Potter films, has died. The 82-year-old passed away after a short bout of pneumonia in hospital, his family has said in an announcement. Gambon played the Hogwarts school headmaster Professor Dumbledore in six of the eight Harry Potter films. Sir Michael Gambon was [...]
The Creator review: why this slick new action film is well worth your time September 28, 2023 Hollywood loves a bogeyman. In the 80s, films like Red Dawn and Rocky IV had antagonists in the Soviet Union. The internet, climate change, and terrorism are also drawn upon to provide villains. In the 2020s, AI has taken up that mantle. We’ve already seen Tom Cruise chase The Entity in the latest Mission: Impossible [...]
The Old Oak is ‘the last’ Ken Loach movie – but is it any good? September 28, 2023 A fter 55 years of directing modern classics including Kes, Carla’s Song, and I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach makes what he says will likely be his final film. Set during the cultural assault course of 2016, The Old Oak is about a pub in County Durham, set amid rising tensions as Syrian refugees are welcomed [...]
Fair Play film review: Netflix goes all Basic Instinct with new erotic thriller September 28, 2023 Thirty years ago, Erotic Thrillers were all the rage as movies like Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, and Eyes Wide Shut titillated and intrigued. It’s a less popular genre these days, but Netflix is hoping for a revival with new film Fair Play. Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich play Emily and Luke, two financial analysts at [...]
Derren Brown Unbelievable review: Good ideas in a show that needs work September 27, 2023 Derren Brown Unbelievable review and star rating: ★★★ Derren Brown may have one of the most quietly sustaining careers in showbiz. It’s been 23 years since he first popped up on TV, during a noughties era that famously saw him shoot himself in the head in a live game of Russian roulette and correctly predict [...]
Beautiful Thing, Stratford East, review: the Heartstopper of the 1990s September 25, 2023 Beautiful Thing review and star rating: ★★★★ It’s a dangerous game, hauling up relics from the past and refashioning them for contemporary tastes, especially when the subject matter is this sensitive and ever-changing. Beautiful Thing was a 1993 play that was adapted for the screen in 1996 about two teenage boys who fell for one [...]