Billy Zane talks Zoolander 2, the future of Hollywood and having the ghosts of Picasso and Hemingway hanging over him February 4, 2016 Billy Zane is drawing me a diagram of his Theory of Everything. He’s on his fourth draft and a little pile of crumpled sheets of paper are piling up beside his Bloody Mary. It’s a kind of business model for the creative industries, a way to bring together media, advertising, luxury goods and philanthropy, dotted [...]
Oscar Wilde’s grandson Merlin Holland on Dorian Gray, censorship and posthumous pardons February 3, 2016 After years in the back room, Oscar has finally found his way onto the Oxford English syllabus,” says Merlin Holland, with both pride and indignation. Most of us in this noisy cafe off Carnaby Street wouldn’t be on first name terms with Oscar Wilde, but as his only living grandson and the sole executor of [...]
Brace yourselves, City folk, pick-up artist Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh is coming to town February 2, 2016 Jilted lovers and misogynists often find February’s romantic festivities hard to swallow, so to keep solidarity up they’re meeting at the Royal Exchange this weekend. Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh, a self-proclaimed “pick-up artist” who was famously interviewed by the BBC over the Men’s Rights Movement and his attempts to teach blokes to chat to womenfolk, is organising [...]
Yen at the Royal Court review: A candid exploration of teenage poverty, sexuality and neglect January 28, 2016 Royal Court | ★★★★☆ In the new post-Benefits Street dispensation, references to “poverty porn” have become commonplace. Initially this meant a sort of guilty pleasure at watching the pitiful antics of a presumably scrounging underclass, but the term has become ever less metaphorical. Earlier this month social commentators flaunted their sincerest outrage at popular trouser-free [...]
Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse at the Royal Academy review January 28, 2016 Royal Academy | ★★★★★ At the turn of the century the concept of the modern garden – a tended, cultivated individual plot to be enjoyed as a respite from urban life – increased in popularity throughout Europe and the US, with fervent intellectual interest in botany. The Royal Academy captures the artistic reaction to this in [...]
Herons at the Lyric Hammersmith review: a soaked stage sets the scene for this brutal play January 28, 2016 Lyric Hammersmith | ★★★★☆ It’s testament to Billy Matthews’ excellent performance in Herons that, just a few minutes into the play, I wanted to clamber up on to the flooded stage and punch his character in the face. He plays Scott, a feral, hateful teen who wages a warped campaign of bullying and wild aggression against [...]
Spotlight film review: a real-life story that’s as slow and forceful as a steamroller January 28, 2016 15 | Dir. Tom McCarthy | ★★★★☆ The Da Vinci Code was ridiculed for the moment Tom Hanks cried, “I need to get to a library. Fast!” In Spotlight, a trip to the library is a genuinely exciting proposition. It’s a nuts-and-bolts examination of the Boston Globe’s exposé of systematic child abuse within the Catholic [...]
Getty Images Year in Focus 2015: “The best images of the year” reviewed by our Picture Editor January 28, 2016 The Getty Images Gallery | ★★★★★ Getty Images’ Year in Focus 2015 retrospective showcases the best work by the picture agency’s staff photographers who operate at risk and under high pressure across news, sport, entertainment and portraiture. Refugees arrive in Europe (Source: Getty Images) The escalation of the refugee crisis over the last year makes for [...]
Robert De Niro in Dirty Grandpa, Paul Sorrentino’s Youth and Patricia Riggen’s The 33 reviewed January 28, 2016 Dirty Grandpa 18 | Dir. Dan Mazer | ★★★☆☆ Robert De Niro plays a recently widowed army vet who tricks Zac Efron into driving him to Florida to chase young women. Who'd have thought that De Niro would spend the latter half of his career dropping N-bombs and making dick jokes? But while it's not [...]
The Picture of Dorian Gray at Trafalgar Studios review January 22, 2016 Trafalgar Studios | ★★★☆☆ This year is the 125th anniversary of Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. When it was first published, its sexual ambiguity and frequent drug use caused outrage among Victorian society – but then, what didn’t? – and the text was hastily censored by the author. This version, adapted by [...]