Shrewsbury 2-2 Liverpool: League One side’s comeback shows that the FA Cup is alive and well amid renewed questioning January 26, 2020 Teeth gnashing about the death of the FA Cup is nothing new. Every season there are opinions voiced and column inches filled by people mourning the decline of English football’s most historic cup competition. Nobody cares about it anymore, the argument goes. Premier League teams aren’t giving it the respect it deserves. Crowds are too [...]
South Africa v England: How Mark Wood battled injuries and lengthened his run-up to ease the strain on his body January 26, 2020 Before this week Mark Wood had not played consecutive Test matches since July 2017. As much as he wanted to, his body simply would not allow it. Since making his Test debut for England in May 2015, Wood’s career has been defined as much by injuries as his talent. This, after all, is only his [...]
Mike Ashley in talks to sell Newcastle United for £340m January 26, 2020 Retail tycoon Mike Ashley is in talks to sell Newcastle United football club to a consortium including Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund for £340m. The billionaire owner of Sports Direct – recently renamed Frasers Group – bought Newcastle United in 2007 but is now in talks with a group led by British financier Amanda Staveley [...]
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote review: Terry Gilliam goes balls-to-the-wall in this kaleidoscope of imagination January 24, 2020 Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote begins with a title card: “After 25 years in the making… And unmaking”. He’s not kidding – Gilliam started work on the film in 1989, it entered full production almost a decade later with Johnny Depp starring, only to see illness and floods destroy the work and [...]
Picasso and Paper at the Royal Academy review: A daft name adorns a roller-coaster of form and imagination January 24, 2020 With Picasso and Paper, the Royal Academy confirms what we have suspected all along: the diminutive Spaniard did, in fact, make use of the material we know as ‘paper’. Sometimes he drew on it, other times he cut it into funny shapes. You could never tell what he was going to do next, when it [...]
You Stupid Darkness! at Southwark Playhouse review: a quietly life-affirming apocalypse comedy January 24, 2020 You Stupid Darkness! is a harrowing comedy about four volunteers, crammed into a dank call centre, filling the midnight to 4am slot on Wednesday mornings at Brightline; a dial-in emotional support service helping callers come to terms with the apocalypse. Things have been getting worse for a while now. The world isn’t ending with a [...]
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie musical review: Major changes revive this popular musical January 24, 2020 Popular musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is switching it up for 2020, with some major cast changes, including a new Jamie. Based on the 2011 documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is an inspirational coming of age tale about a young man taking his first high-heeled steps into the fantastical world [...]
The Personal History of David Copperfield review: A gentle period comedy that lacks Armando Iannucci’s signature bite January 24, 2020 Armando Iannucci’s filmography is a roll-call of some of the best satire of modern times, from his early days on The Day Today and Alan Partridge, right up to 2017’s deliciously dark The Death of Stalin. The common thread binding them together is a gleeful hostility. Iannucci clearly thinks politicians, on the whole, are a [...]
The Welkin at the National Theatre review: Hilarious, tragic and utterly harrowing January 24, 2020 Lucy Kirkwood’s new play at the National Theatre is a revelation: hilarious, tragic, harrowing and utterly compelling. Set in the mid-18th century, it confronts contemporary issues with a ballerina’s lightness of touch, without compromising its place as a period drama. It follows the case of a young woman who’s been found guilty of a terrible, [...]
Saracens’ relegation from the Premiership is a sad moment for English rugby and salary cap rules must change as a result January 23, 2020 Saracens are being relegated and, putting the specifics aside for a moment, I think that is a sad state of affairs for English rugby. Former chairman Nigel Wray has apologised for his actions in failing to comply with the Premiership salary cap, but I have sympathy for him. In many ways what he did – [...]