New: Covid breach means England – Barbarians clash OFF October 23, 2020 England’s long-awaited return to action will have to wait after the RFU confirmed today a planned game against the Barbarians at Twickenham this Saturday has been called off. Twelve Barbarians players broke the ‘bubble’ in place before the game to eat at a central London restaurant earlier this week. The RFU has now confirmed there [...]
FC Nordsjaelland: How a Danish club’s global outlook has helped it to weather the Covid crisis October 23, 2020 An Englishman with no experience of running a football club and no track record in Scandinavia was always going to attract scepticism when he took over one of Denmark’s top teams. Throw in a wildly unconventional ownership model and radically idealistic notions of how the sport should be run and it is no surprise Tom [...]
Pixie review: Tarantino meets Sligo in charming Irish heist October 23, 2020 Certain images can sell a movie almost without context: Jack Nicholson grinning through a hole in a door, or John Travolta and Uma Thurman doing the twist. Pixie may not be as iconic as those movies, but its accompanying show of Alec Baldwin, dressed as a priest and brandishing a firearm is certainly enough to [...]
The Secret Garden review – death by 1,000 adaptations October 23, 2020 Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel The Secret Garden has been adapted numerous times for film, television and the stage, with the most recent being a 1993 version produced by Francis Ford Coppola. Times have changed, but the allure and magic of The Secret Garden was enough for the producers of the Harry Potter and Paddington [...]
Summer of 85 – François Ozon’s latest is a nostalgia ride October 23, 2020 French director François Ozon (Frantz, By The Grace of God) goes back thirty five years for his nostalgic teen drama Summer of 85. Félix Lefebvre plays Alex, a 16-year-old facing a serious police charge relating to the death of his friend, David (Benjamin Voisin). With the help of his teacher, he is able to piece [...]
The Week in Sportbiz: Rugby fans in ticket rush for Lions’ Japanese Test, plus Uefa’s Euro 2020 delay silver lining October 22, 2020 Demand for attending live sport remains very strong in the time of coronavirus, if the British and Irish Lions are anything to go by. Some 35,000 rugby fans have already registered interest in tickets for next July’s home Test against Japan, which was only announced yesterday, City A.M. has learned. That means Murrayfield’s 67,000 seats [...]
Nico Rosberg to renew rivalry with Lewis Hamilton in new electric racing series Extreme E October 22, 2020 Former Formula One rivals Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are set to cross swords again in new motorsport series Extreme E. Rosberg has followed old Mercedes F1 adversary Hamilton in launching his own team in the all-electric, off-road competition. The German, who retired from racing after winning the F1 title in 2016, has invested in [...]
Robert Zemeckis The Witches is a dark Dahl triumph October 21, 2020 Readers over a certain age will remember losing sleep over the 1990 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book The Witches, in which Anjelica Huston donned hideous prosthetics that are still unsettling to this day. It perfectly captured the spirit of Roald Dahl’s storytelling, which always towed the line between wonder and abject terror. Robert Zemeckis (Back [...]
Manchester United chief throws down gauntlet to Premier League over Project Big Picture October 21, 2020 Manchester United chief Ed Woodward has publicly warned the Premier League that the club have not given up on plans to reshape English football. Project Big Picture, a radical overhaul of the domestic game drawn up and championed by United and Liverpool, was defeated in a vote of top-flight clubs last week. Woodward called on [...]
Manchester United lose £23m as coronavirus cuts revenue by £120m October 21, 2020 Manchester United suffered a £23m loss as revenue plunged by almost 20 per cent for the year ending 30 June. Annual income fell to £509m, from £627m the previous year, as the coronavirus outbreak saw football suspended. All three of Manchester United’s main revenue streams were hit during the fourth quarter, when most games were [...]