Art review: Borderlands March 20, 2015 Gallery for Russian Arts and Design | ★★★★☆ Contemporary Russian and Ukrainian artists come together to reflect on the military conflict in eastern Ukraine and what it might mean for the future of the region. Artists from Kiev and Moscow have used video, photography and sculpture – including a brick rendering of the recently redrawn border of [...]
Film review: Mommy March 20, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ Consider this sequence in Mommy. Steve, a hyperactive teen fresh out of a correctional facility, walks sulkily down a corridor behind his mother Diane. Cut to a point-of-view shot – presumably Steve’s – of Diane’s bum wiggling as she sashays along. In one neat edit we learn many things about this [...]
Theatre review: Stevie is too bloated, too stiff and too long March 20, 2015 Hampstead Theatre | ★★☆☆☆ At the end of the Piccadilly Line, in a spindly fortress made of words, sat Stevie Smith; poet, secretary, inscrutable figure on the peripheries of the literary establishment. Smith lived her entire life within the confines of a padded melancholy. She was comfortable there, and productive, producing over twenty volumes of [...]
Film review: Time for Sean to Penn an apology after The Gunman March 19, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★☆☆☆ There is a sad country called Africa where people live in misery because of evil Western mining companies and military contractors that care only about money. That’s The Gunman’s message, and it’s not shy about hitting you about the head with it. Sean Penn plays a mercenary-turned-aid worker, who discovers he [...]
Something for the weekend March 19, 2015 SIP! GIN AND JAM AFTERNOON TEA AT HUSH The Pink Rabbit cocktail at Hush incorporates their own London distilled Gin, lime, cranberry, vanilla and – yes –strawberry jam. The afternoon tea menu at Hush pairs cocktails with different conserves as well as the usual array of sweet treats. Everyday between 3-6pm £35, visit hush.co.uk WATCH! [...]
Your cultural guide for spring 2015: Must-see theatre, film, music and visual arts events March 17, 2015 We pick out the must-see theatre, film, music and visual arts events that you just can’t miss, even if the heat wave arrives. FILM ANT-MAN 17 July Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish may have jumped ship, but there’s still plenty to look forward to with the upcoming release of Ant-Man. Paul Rudd leads [...]
The other Alexander McQueen exhibition: Can’t get in to Savage Beauty? Try Showstudio March 16, 2015 A week after Savage Beauty opened, a smaller show gives us McQueen at his edgy best. Rumours are rife that it’s impossible to get a ticket to Savage Beauty, the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. That’s not true – turn up on a week day before work and you’re likely to [...]
Theatre review: Antigone starring Juliette Binoche March 13, 2015 Barbican | ★★☆☆☆ A new translation of Sophocles’ ever-resonant Antigone by poet Anne Carson is one thing, but add cinematic icon Juliette Binoche and director du jour Ivo van Hove – whose rapturously received A View From The Bridge recently transferred to the West End – and you have what sounds like a guaranteed success. [...]
Art review: RCA Secret March 13, 2015 Royal College of Art | ★★★★☆ Want to get your hands on a Grayson Perry for £55? Head down to RCA Secret, the annual exhibition of postcard-sized drawings, collages and photographs by the world’s leading artists. Now in its 21st year, the show is so-called because the 250 postcards are signed on the back, [...]
Film review: Suite Francaise March 13, 2015 Cert 12a | ★★★☆☆ Suite Francaise is a handsome adaptation of the Irène Némirovsky novel Dolce, written during the Second World War before she was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942. The unfinished work was eventually published by Némirovsky’s daughter in 2004, and became a critical and commercial phenomenon. While the film doesn’t live up to [...]