John Akomfrah: Purple at the Barbican review: An astonishingly ambitious attempt to chart the anthropocene October 6, 2017 The Barbican’s Curve gallery is essentially given over to a single, epic, six-screen video that attempts to chart the history of humanity from the turn of the last century, and show how we’ve impacted upon the world around us. This wildly ambitious project is undertaken by documentary-maker and artist John Akomfrah, whose resulting video montage [...]
Why cinema is doomed: The picture house may think it has weathered the storms of piracy and streaming, but the real cliff edge is still to come October 5, 2017 In April of last year, AMC, on the verge of buying out Odeon and becoming the largest cinema chain in the world, announced it was considering allowing people to use their phones during screenings. Its CEO, Adam Aron, justified this by saying, “When you tell a 22- year-old to turn off their phone, they hear [...]
After the Rehearsal / Persona review: An emotionally wrought, powerhouse of an Ingmar Bergman double-bill September 28, 2017 The biggest cheer at the end of this exceptional double bill wasn't for the three actors who had endured an unusually intense evening, but for the tall, handsome, grey-haired form of Ivo van Hove, the Dutchman who might just be the best theatre director working today. He certainly earned the plaudits for this super-stylish, emotionally [...]
Iconoclasts at the Saatchi Gallery review: This repeatedly fascinating collection of pieces is in search of a unifying theme September 28, 2017 Iconoclasm is an apt subject for an exhibition in 2017, when nary a venerated institution remains unscathed. But if you’re hoping for a coherent argument about its place in the modern artistic canon, you will leave the Saatchi Gallery disappointed. If, however, you’re happy to simply enjoy the works of 13 vastly different artists without [...]
Basquiat: Boom for Real at the Barbican charts the astonishing ascendancy of New York’s hippest 80s scenester September 21, 2017 His works fetch more at auction than those of any other American painter – one sold this year for £85m – but Jean-Michel Basquiat remains an outsider in the world of contemporary art, written off by many as little more than a precocious street artist with connections. And, in this country at least, you could [...]
Rachel Whiteread at Tate Britain review: A wonderful collection of objects that find beauty in the everyday September 14, 2017 If we could all find someone to look at us the way Rachel Whiteread looks at an empty loo roll, the world would be a happier place. Few artists find quiet beauty in everyday things like she does. While her contemporaries like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin were creating sculptures filled with live flies or [...]
Mother! film review: Darren Aronofsky’s brutal new film is as dark as it is hilarious September 14, 2017 Nobody who’s seen Requiem for a Dream or Black Swan expects an easy ride from Darren Aronofsky, but his latest film still manages to blindside you, setting up what first appears to be a gentle farce before sucker-punching you with some of the most gleefully heinous imagery you’re likely to see this year. It follows [...]
Follies review: Five stars for this masterful production of Stephen Sondheim’s love letter to the Broadway revue September 7, 2017 “I’m just a Broadway Baby/Walking off my tired feet/Pounding 42nd street/To be in a show…” sings Hattie in Follies, Stephen Sondheim’s love letter to the Broadway revue. Yet this show isn’t about starstruck youths dreaming of their name in lights, but the far more fascinating lives of ageing stars and what happens to them when [...]
Lost for words: The indie bookshop has weathered many storms, from the rise of Amazon to rising rents. But its future has never looked so perilous September 7, 2017 Prospero’s Books stood on Crouch End Broadway for 10 years. I remember it, though not well. The bookshops of my childhood memories are all vaguely similar – they were places where I’d be both happy and bored. To hear locals tell it, there wasn’t any sign that Prospero’s was in trouble. It seemed to plod [...]
It 2017 film review: New version of the Stephen King classic starring Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the killer clown buckles under the weight of expectation September 7, 2017 Tim Curry made such a lasting impression as Pennywise in the 1990 version of Stephen King’s It that it’s easy to forget what a terrible, steaming heap of garbage the rest of it was. The made-for-TV miniseries was a clown-car of a show, with pieces falling off left, right and centre – awful pacing, bad [...]