Escaped Alone: Caryl Churchill’s incisive take on four women’s friendship has an absurdist streak February 4, 2016 Royal Court | ★★★★☆ At 77, Caryl Churchill isn't so much slowing down as paring down, Pinter-style. Lately, the veteran dramatist – prolific as ever – has been trimming her running times and discarding the grand experimental gestures of her early work, while keeping her wit and moral seriousness. Escaped Alone hews to the trend: [...]
The Master Builder starring Ralph Fiennes at the Old Vic is a masterful adaptation February 4, 2016 The Old Vic | ★★★★☆ Being an Ibsen play, The Master Builder has its fair share of existential angst, with nods to the bitter futility of the human condition, which compels us to drag ourselves through the misery of life, all the while dreading the only thing that will finally relieve us of the torment. But [...]
Dad’s Army review: The film version of the classic TV show is far from doomed February 4, 2016 If there’s a better film to watch with your father than Dad’s Army, I can’t think of it. “I was sceptical in ‘68, but it turned out to be my favourite programme,” noted mine. Certain quarters have given this film a hard time, decrying its feeble humour and comfortingly predictable plot – involving a German [...]
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom review: a powerful and blues-driven exploration of 1920s race relations February 4, 2016 National Theatre | ★★★★☆ In this National Theatre production of August Wilson’s 1982 play, larger than life blues legend Ma Rainey commits her performance of Black Bottom to vinyl, in a troubled recording session that becomes an incisive metaphor for black American experiences and white exploitation. (Black Bottom, if you were wondering, was the 1920s’ answer [...]
L’Etoile at the Royal Opera House review: Chris Addison stars in this daft but enjoyable production February 4, 2016 Royal Opera House | ★★★★☆ This is the first time the Royal Opera House has staged Emmanuel Chambrier’s opéra bouffe L’Etoile, and it’s clear the production team has gone to great lengths to make it accessible, while acknowledging that the story is anything but. It’s essentially a hyperactive farce, where practically everyone is in disguise [...]
Iphigenia in Splott at the National Theatre review: A pitch perfect performance from Sophie Melville February 4, 2016 Temporary Theatre, National Theatre | ★★★★★ In Ancient Greece, Iphigenia was sacrificed by her father, King Agamemnon, to conjure up a wind so his ships could sail to Troy. Despite the passing of millennia, she’s still a lamb to the slaughter in this new play set on the streets of modern day Splott in Cardiff. Hooded [...]
Goosebumps review: A mediocre attempt to cash in on the 90s horror series February 4, 2016 Dir. Rob Letterman | ★★☆☆☆ If you grew up in the 90s, the pseudonym RL Stine will conjure images of creepy critters including the egg monsters from Mars and Grool, a toothy sponge who lives under the sink. Goosebumps books sold over 350m copies in their heyday, but that was way back in 1997. Which begs [...]
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 [...]