Culture complements commerce, so let’s celebrate the City’s thriving artistic scene February 24, 2020 As lord mayor of the City of London, my role is primarily business-focused. But I am also passionate about arts and culture, and with so much of it on our doorstep, Londoners are truly fortunate. In fact, championing culture is a key part of my mayoral theme. And to underline its importance, I am looking [...]
The Visit at the National Theatre review: Lesley Manville shines in this overly-long drama February 21, 2020 Dürrenmatt’s revenge tragicomedy arrives at the National’s Olivier Theatre in an adaptation by Tony Kushner, transporting the drama to post-war America. In the state of New York, in a poverty-ridden town appropriately named Slurry, the town’s residents are desperate for a break. They pin all their hopes on the return (or rather, the visit) of [...]
Greed film review: Steve Coogan sets out to prove greed is not good February 21, 2020 I’m a member of an very in-exclusive club: people whom Sir Philip Green has called a c**t. There was no real malice behind it – I was writing a story about his fashion brand and that was simply the way he spoke to the media. Still, there was something cathartic about watching Michael Winterbottom and [...]
Push film review: A challenging look at gentrification around the world February 21, 2020 Property developers, look away now. If you’ve never felt the slightest bit icky when buying a £4 cup of coffee in a formerly working-class neighbourhood, you’re probably not going to like Swedish filmmaker Frederik Gertten’s new documentary, Push. It’s all about gentrification, and whether we have the right to live affordably in a major city [...]
Call of the Wild review: A heartwarming trek through the uncanny valley February 20, 2020 Throughout his acting career, Harrison Ford has built a reputation for acting alongside large hairy things, whether they be a Wookiee copilot or Sean Connery at peak beard. Now the man stars alongside Buck, a sled dog made not of flesh and bone but a veil of polygons, generated by powerful graphics processors and wrapped [...]
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales on Nintendo Switch review: Gwent is back and it’s never felt so good February 17, 2020 Gwent, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. The Witcher 3 is one of the truly great open-world games, mind-boggling in its scope and masterful in its execution. But there were times when it felt like elaborate padding around the in-game pastime, Gwent. I clocked over 300 hours in this [...]
Steve McQueen at Tate Modern review: Dramatic retrospective muses on what it means to be human February 14, 2020 I’m not sure anybody has perfected the art of translating video installations into blockbuster gallery retrospectives, but the Tate Modern comes pretty darned close. Having Steve McQueen as your subject helps, of course. He’s the man with the Midas touch, a Turner-prize winning artist turned Oscar-winning director. The Tate collects pieces from after his 1999 [...]
Nora: A Doll’s House review: Elaborate reworking doesn’t do Ibsen’s classic justice February 14, 2020 The works of Ibsen are perennial candidates for a thorough reimagining, his quietly devastating studies of class struggle and women’s rights depressingly relevant for each subsequent generation since he started writing in the mid-19th century. A 2018 production of The Wild Duck at the Almeida, for instance, featured actors speaking as “themselves” as it explored [...]
Death of England review: Rafe Spall dazzles in this timely portrait of the resurgent far-right February 14, 2020 Rafe Spall asserts his credentials as one of the finest stage actors around in this percussive, often hilarious one-man play about working class racism. He plays Michael, an Essex flower-seller whose oily patter masks a vast well of toxic emotion. He’s the guy in the pub who’s all smiles until he’s kicking the life out [...]
Sonic the Hedgehog review: Everyone’s second favourite videogame mascot’s gotta go faster than this February 14, 2020 There’s a point about halfway through the Sonic the Hedgehog movie in which Sonic farts unexpectedly, forcing the viewer to reckon with the notion that he has a functioning anus. I’m no prude – farts are one of the most sophisticated forms of humour there is – but being made to conceptualise the sphincter of [...]