Chris Tremlett: Honours are there for the taking for England in 2019 with the World Cup and Ashes approaching January 2, 2019 England begin 2019 in a great place: full of confidence and with honours there for the taking. The tour of the West Indies, which starts this month, is followed by the 50-over World Cup and the Ashes, which are both on home soil. It is a combination which presents a brilliant opportunity. Having beaten India [...]
Manchester City are ready to halt the Liverpool juggernaut and get their Premier League title defence back on track January 2, 2019 It was at this stage last season that Liverpool ended Manchester City's unbeaten run in the Premier League with a 4-3 win at Anfield. Until then City had looked unstoppable, but they came undone when visiting Anfield on 14 January and have been unable to beat Liverpool in three attempts since. Thursday night's trip to [...]
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse review: The missing link between comics and live action superhero films December 21, 2018 My love affair with comics started not with the works of Stan Lee or Alan Moore or even Tim Burton, but with Saturday morning cartoons; X-Men: The Animated Series; Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends; Silver Surfer. And while the often brilliant spandex movies that have been churned out on an industrial scale over the last [...]
Ollie Phillips: Johnny Sexton’s outstanding Ireland and dominant Saracens lead my 2018 roll of honour December 20, 2018 There is only one place to start a look back at rugby in 2018 and that’s with its best side. Ireland have been the undoubted stars of the last 12 months. They may not have overtaken New Zealand as No1 in the world rankings, but their first ever home win over the All Blacks last [...]
Welcome to Marwen review: A visual triumph but a soggy, mawkish film December 20, 2018 Welcome to Marwen takes some of the most impressive character animation since Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa and welds it to a film so saggy and lacking in introspection that even those glorious visuals soon lose their lustre. It tells the true story – insert your own inverted commas – of Mark Hogancamp, a reclusive artist suffering [...]
Cardiff City v Manchester United: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hopes to spark happy new era at old stomping ground December 20, 2018 When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer parted ways with Cardiff City in September 2014, the Norwegian could not have envisaged the circumstances of his return. Solskjaer, in his own words, “stepped aside” at Cardiff due to a “difference in philosophy” with owner Vincent Tan, but the brutal reality is that he had failed during his nine-month spell [...]
Sweat at the Donmar Warehouse review: This Pulitzer winning play is a comprehensive dissection of de-industrialised American heartlands December 20, 2018 Following the US Presidential election in 2016, a slew of reporters were hastily dispatched to the backwaters of de-industrialised America to discover why large sections of the working class population there thought Donald Trump was the answer to their problems. They needn’t have made the trip. This play by Lynn Nottage, first performed in 2015, [...]
The Favourite: Olivia Colman is extraordinary as Queen Anne in this provocative period drama December 20, 2018 Anyone remember Queen Anne from history class? Me neither, but if Olivia Colman’s blistering portrayal of her is anything to go by, I can see why. The last of the Stuarts, she spent her final days in the early 18th century severely depressed following the death of her husband and 17 children, and hobbling about [...]
Super Smash Bros Ultimate review: A stylish Switch brawler, and a comprehensive celebration of the series December 20, 2018 The Super Smash Bros series has been around since the halcyon days of the Nintendo 64, which launched – you might want to sit down for this – 20 years ago. The original starred characters from a bunch of disparate Nintendo games beating seven shades of shandy out of one another, and as the series [...]
Saracens trip to play Exeter Chiefs will be the toughest test yet in their 22 game unbeaten run December 20, 2018 Saracens face the biggest obstacle yet in their quest to go the season unbeaten when they visit Sandy Park to face Exeter Chiefs on Saturday. The Premiership's top two teams will go head-to-head for the first time this season in what is the most significant match of the campaign to date. Exeter and Saracens have [...]