Tour de France: Wines from Ventoux to enjoy as you watch the race July 6, 2023 With the Tour de France returning on Saturday, it seems fitting to consider Ventoux, a place where cycling and wine meet. Ventoux, one of the most celebrated stages of the Tour de France, has a long history with the sport, the Tour having ascended the summit eighteen times since 1951. Mont Ventoux, or La bête [...]
A Strange Loop writer Michael R. Jackson on creating the buzziest musical since Hamilton July 6, 2023 A surprise hit in the US, A Strange Loop has now landed a huge London run. Adam Bloodworth speaks to the man who dreamed it up while working as an usher on Broadway Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, becoming the second ever musical to win the accolade. The [...]
Pixar’s Elemental shows how the animation studio needs to work harder July 6, 2023 Elemental arrives on these shores with the unwanted title of worst performing Pixar movie. Struggling to compete with Spider-Man: Into The Spider-verse, can the family comedy drawaudiences here? It imagines a world in which the elements – earth, fire, water, and air – are people living happily in separate communities, avoiding contact with each other. [...]
Mission Impossible: Tom Cruise is back but this franchise is showing its age July 5, 2023 Barbie vs Oppenheimer may be the summer showdown everyone’s talking about, but one movie legend would like to remind you that he’s back. Despite some occasional headline-grabbing bouts of odd behaviour, Tom Cruise is one of the last true movie stars, someone who can get crowds to turn up based on his name alone. But [...]
SlowBurn review: Restaurant in a Walthamstow jeans factory is an unexpected joy July 5, 2023 Nothing says gentrification quite like a restaurant that pops up three times a week in a jeans factory in a commercial estate at the bleak end of Walthamstow. Blackhorse Road is one of those enclaves of London that town planners forgot about until a few years ago, during which time it has gone from a [...]
World’s fastest track car: £1m McMurtry Spéirling EV returns to Goodwood July 4, 2023 The Goodwood hillclimb record-breaker is entering production. Only 100 examples of the electric McMurtry Spéirling Pure will be made.
Rolls-Royce Spectre review: Driving the electric dream July 4, 2023 The Spectre offers the comfort and craftsmanship of a traditional Rolls-Royce, but with electric power. Is it the best EV in the world?
The Super-8 Years: A compact and worthwhile film July 4, 2023 Annie Ernaux ascended to the top of the literary world following her 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature, and is best known to film fans as screenwriter of 2021 award winner Happening, an adaptation of her novel. These accolades come after decades of success as a writer, the beginnings of which are examined in this short [...]
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken review July 3, 2023 If you have children that haven’t stopped singing Part of Your World since seeing The Little Mermaid, prepare for more underwater obsession. Produced by DreamWorks Animation, the folks behind Shrek and How To Train Your Dragon, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken has a lot going on beneath its awkward title. X-Men actor Lana Condor voices Ruby, [...]
WOW!house at the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour review July 3, 2023 Sometimes your job as a writer is to critique, or nitpick – or at least to recommend improvements. At other times – and this should be done with a sigh after much internal questioning – it is to upbraid. Very rarely, your only duty is to praise and recommend – to add footfall and eyeballs [...]