Double let-off for Northampton Saints over George North concussion inquiry and European Champions Cup team selection December 21, 2016 Northampton have escaped punishment despite being told they were wrong to allow wing George North to resume playing a Premiership match after he suffered a head injury. North, who has a history of concussions, was cleared to continue this month’s fixture against Leicester, amid concerns he may have been knocked out again, after being assessed by [...]
Art at the Old Vic is a breezy dissection of male friendships December 21, 2016 Perhaps it takes a woman to really grasp the nuances of the modern man. French playwright Yasmina Reza’s comedy about male friendship is so on the nose you can take any three of your man-friends and fit them neatly into the three archetypes so proficiently and entertainingly represented here. Rufus Sewell plays Serge, a posturing [...]
Saint Joan at the Donmar is a stylish but forgettable modern retelling of the Bernard Shaw classic December 21, 2016 Gemma Arterton is the star attraction in this stylish but ultimately forgettable production of Bernard Shaw’s dense and unusual play. The action is positively shoehorned into the present day, with the court of the future King Charles becoming a trading house called Dauphin Holdings. This unexpected twist provides the backdrop for some excellent early jokes, [...]
Time to kill over the holidays? Here are the best games of 2016 December 21, 2016 Superhot A first-person shooter in which time only moves when you move, Superhot strips down gunfights to the fundamentals. Each level is a short Jon Woo-style action film vignette – a bar brawl, a heist – in which you plan your moves precisely, dodging gunfire and grabbing weapons in mid-air as they fly from the [...]
Mary Stuart at the Almeida is the perfect play for these Wolf Hall and The Crown-obsessed times December 21, 2016 The British pop-culture landscape is dominated by kings and queens, from Henry VIII in Wolf Hall to Elizabeth II in The Crown, so the time is ripe for a revival of this lyrical tale of political intrigue and regicide. Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams are Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, with a coin-toss deciding which [...]
Silence review: Martin Scorsese’s newest release is a misty, religious masterpiece that’ll haunt you for days December 21, 2016 Birdsong fills a black screen at the start of Silence, thousands of tiny wings beating ever louder, obscuring our vision. This assault on the senses is a fitting start to Martin Scorsese’s new film, which examines in painstaking detail to what degree external forces can shatter a person’s spirit. The action centres around Andrew Garfield’s [...]
Jonny Bairstow, that World Twenty20 final and Virat Kohli: Chris Tremlett’s guide to the best of 2016 December 21, 2016 England player of the year It took Jonny Bairstow a while to find his feet in Test cricket but he has dug England out of trouble on many occasions this year. The 27-year-old didn’t score a century in his first 21 Tests but racked up three during 2016 as well as eight half centuries. He [...]
Australian Open 2017 prize money: Earnings boost to lower levels in bid to spread tennis wealth December 21, 2016 More prize money will be up for grabs than ever before at next month's Australian Open, after the Grand Slam increased its fund by 14 per cent to AUS$50m (£29.4m). The winner of the tournament, which starts on 16 January, will receive AUS$3.7m (£2.2m) — AUS$300,000 more than last year's winner Novak Djokovic was paid. The [...]
Assassin’s Creed review: Confusing garbage even fans won’t forgive December 21, 2016 I am a cool and popular dude, so I have played pretty much all of the Assassin’s Creed games. From the first one, in which you play a man who runs around on rooftops stabbing popes, to the most recent one, in which you play a man who runs around on rooftops stabbing French aristocrats. [...]
Passengers review: In space no one can hear you be a massive creep December 21, 2016 A contender for one of the most misleading trailers of the year, Passengers is not so much about Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence tootling about the cosmos on a broken ship. Rather, it’s about one man’s selfish decision to doom a woman he fancies by prematurely yanking her out of her hyperspace sleeping pod for [...]