Last-gasp Sarries dispatch holders Exeter to claim LV=Cup silverware March 22, 2015 SARACENS match-winner Ben Spencer insists the club’s underpinning unity came to the fore as his side secured the LV=Cup with a last-gasp 23-20 victory over defending champions Exeter at Franklin’s Gardens yesterday. Scrum-half Spencer, who received his first career yellow card shortly before the break, slotted over a last-minute penalty after two tries from full-back [...]
Schmidt revels in title tension March 22, 2015 IRELAND coach Joe Schmidt believes the manner of his side’s heart-stopping Six Nations triumph will prove a sizeable investment, despite causing short-term palpitations. Holders Ireland claimed back-to-back titles for the first time since 1949 after beating Scotland 40-10 at Murrayfield, a points differential which England ultimately failed to overhaul against France. Schmidt said: “It was [...]
Manchester United win means Liverpool must make history to qualify for Champions League March 22, 2015 With Manchester United taking home three points from their trip to Anfield, Liverpool will need to make a small slice of Premier League history if they are to qualify for next season’s Champions League. Thanks to two Juan Mata goals and Steven Gerrards’ rapid red card, Louis van Gaal’s side inflicted a first league defeat [...]
Theatre review: The Broken Heart ensnares gut and mind March 20, 2015 Sam Wanamaker Playhouse | ★★★☆☆ What a piece of work the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is. In little over a year, it has become a priceless gem in London’s theatre crown. While the Globe deftly cycles through crowd-pleasing Shakespeare, the Playhouse breathes life into his relatively neglected contemporaries and successors, writers who often vocalise present day concerns [...]
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! [...]
Hodgson: Euro failings nothing to worry about March 19, 2015 ENGLAND manager Roy Hodgson has attempted to douse fears that the repeated failure of Premier League clubs in European competition is evidence that they have been left behind by continental rivals. Manchester City’s schooling by Barcelona on Wednesday saw them follow Arsenal and Chelsea out of the Champions League and, allied to Everton’s Europa League [...]