The Aeronauts film review: Felicity Jones shines in this good old-fashioned adventure November 8, 2019 A template is emerging for films starring Eddie Redmayne, and The Aeronauts fits it. It’s a period piece (in this case, the 1860s), everyone is endearingly upper-class, and proceedings are dominated at all times by an overriding sense of whimsy. It is based on the true Victorian adventure story of scientist James Glaisher (Redmayne) and [...]
Doctor Sleep film review: Returning to the Overlook Hotel is a joy in this mid-tier horror November 1, 2019 Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining. He didn’t like the way Kubrick’s film existed purely in the realms of psychological metaphor, and he didn’t care for the unsympathetic portrayal of the Torrance family (I suspect Kubrick’s brusque treatment of King, refusing to even read his original screenplay, had something to do with [...]
RSC’s As You Like it at the Barbican: Fresh and flirtatious but too self-conscious November 1, 2019 The Royal Shakespeare Company’s first offering from its ensemble season at the Barbican takes us on a journey from the royal court, deep into the Forest of Arden. It’s a playful, mad, physical comedy, with a number of laugh-out-loud moments and some strong performances. Speech and tone are casual and the production feels modern, fresh [...]
Botticelli in the Fire at Hampstead Theatre review: A giddy nihilistic romp November 1, 2019 Botticelli in the Fire is a giddy nihilistic romp. A pyrotechnic period drama that vigorously thrusts its way into a position of contemporary cultural relevance, somewhere between Brexit and RuPaul’s Drag Race. Jordan Tannahill’s script is Shakespearean in its regard for historical fact and Brechtian in its regard for the fourth wall, a mish-mash of [...]
The Antipodes at the National Theatre: An excruciating look at the creative process November 1, 2019 Writing stories is hard. This seems to be the message behind Annie Baker’s new play The Antipodes, an excrutiating, self-indulgent insight into the misery of the creative process. The entire play takes place in a nondescript conference room, in which a bunch of writers fawn over an aging director reminiscent of George Lucas. His methods [...]
24/7 at Somerset House review: The story of a world in flux November 1, 2019 For an exhibition about how fragmented and confusing modern life can be, 24/7 at Somerset House has an appropriately short attention span. The flashing, clattering, often overwhelming show bounces from subject to subject, medium to medium, tackling issues as diverse as screen addiction, mass surveillance, light pollution and sleep disturbance. It tells the story of [...]
Sorry We Missed You film review: Ken Loach’s attack on the gig economy feels important to watch November 1, 2019 Sorry We Missed You is the latest offering from director-slash-social-critic Ken Loach; a polemic against the false promises of the gig economy and the brutal reality of life on a zero-hours contract. Its protagonist is Ricky (Kris Hitchen), who gets a new job as a delivery driver because he wants to buy a house for [...]
Artist Gavin Turk on getting arrested, collecting junk and trying to save the planet October 30, 2019 A generation of artists and musicians and filmmakers are starting to engage with climate change in the way creators in the mid-1960s engaged with the anti-war movement. You couldn’t move during this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy, for instance, without falling over an oblique reference to the planet dying. But in the case [...]
Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits at the Royal Academy review: There’s genius at play, but it’s shrouded in darkness October 25, 2019 Wandering through the life of Lucian Freud, from awkward teen to darkly handsome young man to disheveled old artist, I was reminded of Nietzsche’s famous line, “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” The longer you spend in the presence of Freud’s self portraits, taking in their raw, [...]
Bridget Riley at Hayward Gallery review: Art meets psychology in this brain-bending exhibition October 25, 2019 Bridget Riley, one of the defining figures in the op art movement of the 1950s and 60s, was as much a psychologist as she was a painter. Her works aren’t really about what’s on the canvas (although her flawless brush strokes are certainly nice enough) – they’re about the sensations they provoke, the strange, hypnotic [...]