Blood, guts and dead foxes abound in bio-disaster horror Human Animals May 26, 2016 Who doesn’t love foxes? Those pointy orange chaperones of the night. Those bushy tailed wardens of the bins. Not quite a dog, but not quite a cat either, so-called scientists have yet to explain away their alluring vulpine mysteries. In dystopian horror Human Animals, the foxes (along with the pigeons and the mice and every [...]
Why drinking isn’t really as much fun as you think: It’s more about the socialising than the boozing May 26, 2016 Scientists have finally put a number on just how much better drinking can make a given situation — and it looks like people are right when they say you don't need alcohol to have a good time. People were asked to rate their happiness on a scale of one to 100 at various points throughout the day for [...]
This Is Living is a David Nicholls-style weepie starring This Is England’s Michael Socha May 20, 2016 This is Living | Trafalgar Studios | ★★★★☆ This is Living is a weepy in the David Nicholls mould, effectively and sometimes shamelessly pressing the audience’s emotional buttons; at least a third of the people there on opening night were openly sobbing. The two-man play begins with Michael (Michael Socha, This Is England) standing over [...]
X-Men: Apocalypse review: James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender can’t salvage this incoherent X-jumble May 19, 2016 X-Men: Apocalypse takes the franchise’s hard-won chips and bets them all on tumbling pyramids and slo-mo explosions. It sells the X-Mansion for a bag of CGI beans. It’s an incoherent jumble, lacking any kind of authoritative vision; a collection of disparate elements that rub uncomfortably against each other, more closely resembling a fan-made super-cut than [...]
A Hologram For The King starring Tom Hanks is a feel-good frolic for those who admire easy charm May 19, 2016 A Hologram For The King | ★★★☆☆ Tom Hanks is enjoying something of a renaissance, courting Oscar once again with both Captain Phillips and last year’s Spielberg reunion Bridge of Spies. His new film, based on the 2012 Dave Eggers novel, sees him playing a charismatic American businessman looking to seal a tech deal in a [...]
The Rose and the Ring at The Charterhouse: How to enjoy country opera within the Square Mile May 19, 2016 The Rose and The Ringw | The Charterhouse | ★★★★★ Country-house opera is a peculiar experience. You dress up, park your car on a rich Englishman’s estate, drink champagne and have a picnic, all the while being immersed in the operatic experience. The Charterhouse hosted a City-based version last week with a riotous production of [...]
Jeff Koons: Now at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street gallery features Three Ball 50/50 Tank, Balloon Monkey (Blue) and Bowl With Eggs (Pink) among other star attractions May 19, 2016 Jeff Koons: Now | Newport Street gallery | ★★★★★ Whatever your opinion of Damien Hirst’s own artwork, it’s hard to fault his activity as a collector and proprietor of the fantastic Newport Street gallery. A strong start with his debut exhibition of John Hoyland paintings continues in this blockbuster survey of Jeff Koons: Now. Hirst’s [...]
David Baddiel’s My Family: Not the Sitcom at The Menier Chocolate Factory is deeply personal, cathartic and very, very funny May 19, 2016 David Baddiel – My Family: Not the Sitcom | The Menier Chocolate Factory | ★★★★☆ A couple of years ago, after a long hiatus, David Baddiel returned to stand-up. Fame: Not the Musical was a wide-ranging investigation of what it means to be famous; it wove together personal anecdotes and dick jokes to produce a show [...]
Doom 2016 review: Bethesda’s demon-blasting Martian hellscape is the best shooter of the year so far May 18, 2016 The Battlefield franchise sparked a fevered debate this week over its decision to stage its upcoming first-person shooter in the trenches of the first World War. Should a conflict synonymous with futile loss of human life be used as the setting for casual entertainment? Should any war, for that matter? The makers of Doom face [...]
Punk 1976-1978 at the British Library review: from the Sex Pistols to Vivienne Westwood, this new exhibition charts anarchy in the UK May 18, 2016 British punk, with its DIY attitude and rejection of establishment values, seems like an unlikely subject for an exhibition at the British Library. In fact, the musical and cultural phenomenon, which crashed into the public consciousness in 1976, was a wake-up call for authors and academics, who had previously given the British music scene far [...]