Zaha Hadid at Serpentine Sackler Gallery review: a surprising, inspiring look at a true great December 9, 2016 Zaha Hadid’s iconic buildings can be found everywhere from Beijing to Brixton, a distinctive baroque modernism that curves organically across some of the most famous skylines. Less well known are the notoriously fiery architect’s paintings, many of which pre-date her first completed project. They are collected for the first time in this Serpentine exhibition, commissioned [...]
This lively adaptation of Pride and Prejudice squeezes twenty characters out of two actors December 8, 2016 Jane Austen’s novels are about the macrocosm in the microcosm. They are about the discreet play of agendas that turn a regency drawing room gathering into an epic battle of wills, for those lively enough to read between the lines. Johannah Tincey’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice explores this polite, compact ferocity by casting two [...]
Once in a Lifetime at the Young Vic review: Harry Enfield fails to set fire to this dated Hollywood comedy December 8, 2016 Recent years have seen a slew of productions about Hollywood, from the magic of its inception in Travelling Light to its seedy latter days in Speed-the-Plow. Falling chronologically between the two is George S Kaufman’s bawdy 1930 comedy Once in a Lifetime, which charts the upheaval brought about by the arrival of the “talkie”. In [...]
Buried Child at Trafalgar Studios: Ed Harris shines in this searing portrait of a decaying America that’s the perfect prelude to Trump December 8, 2016 Buried Child, first performed in 1978, feels like it was written for the dog days of 2016. Sam Shepherd’s quietly crushing portrait of entropy and despair is concerned with those disillusioned white working classes that have dominated the news agenda since 8 November. It’s about the death of the American dream in the wake of [...]
Aladdin at Lyric Hammersmith is the playful reinvention that combines flying carpets with Brexit jokes December 6, 2016 Some pantomimes rely on hiring former celebrities to lure in the crowds – “Where are the best years of my career?” “Behind you!” This production has no need for such gimmicks, having instead a tight script that playfully reinvents a classic, high-energy dancing, inventive use of pop songs, engaging performances, and lots of audience participation. It [...]
Edinburgh: a city of lights offering a box of delights December 6, 2016 | City Talk The festive season is a magical time. Comforting childhood memories of twinkling city centre lights, carol singers and sipping hot chocolate mingle with familiar festive music and echoes of the butterflies once felt before meeting Santa in the local department store. Today, the hot chocolate might have been supplanted by a mug of warming mulled [...]
Robert Rauschenberg review: Tate Modern show is a whirlwind art history lesson but the man behind the work remains elusive December 2, 2016 Robert Rauschenberg has catholic tastes. He’s a bubbling cauldron of ideas – one of which is a literal bubbling cauldron – with little threading them together beyond a ceaseless, sometimes maddening desire to make things. All kinds of things: a white-painted canvas, sculptures built from salvaged junk – derided as “funfair” fodder by his contemporaries [...]
Moana review: Disney’s newest animation is a celebration of another culture rather than a mining of it December 2, 2016 Disney films have taken a perverse turn in recent years. Its live action movies – Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, the Jungle Book – are aping its animations, while its animations are becoming increasingly realistic. Nowhere is this more apparent than Moana, the studio’s latest musical blockbuster, whose CGI characters seem more real than half the [...]
Snowden review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt shapeshifts into everybody’s favourite whistleblower December 1, 2016 There’s much to enjoy about Snowden. Chief among them is Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s transformative turn as the NSA contractor turned superstar whistleblower, in which he valiantly – and at first distractingly – drops his voice a full octave and assumes the unique pout of man who’s been exiled to Moscow forever. The performance elevates an otherwise [...]
This House review: Sharply scripted and performed with blistering wit December 1, 2016 At a time when our political parties could only be more adversarial if they started dropping cartoon anvils on one another, This House offers a fascinating and historical insight into a comparatively chummy parliament still ticking along with some sense of post-war unity. Charting the travails of the Labour government of 1974-79 (preceding Thatcher’s reign), [...]