Everybody’s Talking About Jamie review – fuzzy but heartfelt September 21, 2021 Everybody may be talking about Jamie, but it’s unlikely to be in a cinema foyer. Original studio Disney were intending a theatrical release until as late as May, when the film was sold to Amazon for its streaming service and a limited cinema run in the UK. The adaptation of the West End hit was [...]
Gunpowder Milkshake – Karen Gillan’s action comedy is great fun September 20, 2021 While she may be better known as a supporting player in the Jumanji and Marvel franchises, Karen Gillan has offered some impressive lead performances on the big screen. She impressed as the director and star of 2018’s overlooked drama The Party’s Just Beginning, and in the David Dastmalchian-written All Creatures Here Below. This week, she [...]
Camp Siegfried at the Old Vic: As bright and bouncy as brainwashing gets September 20, 2021 A true story about the indoctrination of American teenagers into fascism sounds like a heavy evening of theatre, but the Old Vic’s Camp Siegfried is as bright and bouncy as brainwashing gets. Set in the titular Long Island summer camp in 1938, it follows two unnamed teenagers who meet on the outskirts of a dance [...]
Going nuclear: Bentley Continental GT Speed vs top-secret missile base September 20, 2021 The flagship Bentley Continental GT Speed is an ideal car for exploring a disused nuclear weapons facility, says Tim Pitt.
Flower power: 2021 RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show at the Saatchi Gallery September 18, 2021 Botanical illustrations have a somewhat unfair association with geriatric pastimes and biology textbooks. In a new exhibition at Chelsea’s Saatchi Gallery, the Royal Horticultural Society brings a fresh spin on the form by grouping a 200-strong selection of paintings, drawings, and photographs that showcase the diversity of flora. The product of an open call, works [...]
Is God Is at The Royal Court: A fireball of rage and guilt September 17, 2021 A fireball of rage and guilt, Aleshea Harris’ Is God Is is a modern-day biblical epic on a small scale. It’s a play that actively shirks categorisation, inviting comparisons to both the Old Testament and the trappings of Jacobean drama, but also to Spaghetti Westerns, Afropunk, and hip-hop. The play begins with fire, both literally, [...]
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021 is the best in years September 17, 2021 British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, coordinator of the 253rd Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has managed something extraordinary: he’s created a show that actually makes sense. Where the Summer Exhibition – once again shunted to the autumn thanks to Covid – is usually a maddening, overwhelming jumble of artworks, this year there’s a thread of urgency and [...]
Try fine German wine at fabulous Somerset House September 16, 2021 Eva Fricke’s wines are much sought-after, often going for as much as £3,000 per half-bottle at auction. Her Lorcher Krone Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese 2019 is the first wine to score 100 points from the respected American publication The Wine Advocate. Only eighteen bottles are in existence. Now you can sample some of her wares alongside those [...]
Going grey gracefully: How to make silver hair work for you September 16, 2021 Last week, I wrote about the trauma I endure when going to the hairdresser. However, there was an upside. As the barber’s scissors danced around my head, he remarked that I had thick hair. I agreed, without wanting to seem boastful of something utterly outwith my control. But I ventured the opinion that, while I [...]
Tudor-inspired gin Six Wives is gin fit for a king September 15, 2021 Six Wives is a small-batch, hand-crafted gin inspired by traditional botanicals. It is the brainchild of Simon Marjoram, a marketing director, who had the idea while walking his two Schnauzers down the towpath towards Hampton Court. Its bottle is a nod to the fate of Henry’s spouses – divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. And [...]