Film review: Shaun the Sheep February 6, 2015 Cert U | ★★★★☆ When the farmer in charge of Shaun’s farm goes AWOL, the herd set off on a daring adventure into the world of human beings to find him. At times it’s hard to keep track of which sheep is which, but that doesn’t matter – Aardman’s plasticine world is lit up with an [...]
Art review: Marlene Dumas at Tate Modern February 6, 2015 Tate Modern | ★★★★★ Working from photographs, South African figurative painter Marlene Dumas doesn’t represent life, she gives it. Indeed, it’s tempting to see her paintbrush as a defibrillator, jolting dead images to life. But no-one is being raised here; she doesn’t resuscitate her subjects so much as give them an afterlife, investing the long [...]
Theatre review: Di and Viv and Rose February 6, 2015 Vaudeville Theatre | ★★★☆☆ The programme for the Vaudeville Theatre’s production of Di and Viv and Rose features two pages of anecdotes from a wide range of women, from doctors to preachers, MPs to celebrities, about how they met their best friends. Infusing them all is a sense of effortlessness, of falling into friendships that [...]
Film review: Selma depicts a pivotal moment in Martin Luther King’s life February 6, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ Selma does what Lincoln did so successfully and what Long Walk to Freedom made the mistake of not doing – instead of compressing a great life into two small hours, Ava DuVernay’s Martin Luther King biopic depicts a pivotal fragment of that life, one in which the greatness of the whole [...]
Art review: Christian Marclay January 30, 2015 White Cube Bermondsey | ★★★★☆ This is Christian Marclay’s first solo London show since 2010’s legendary The Clock, the 24 hour video montage of film clips including clocks, watches and people telling a time perfectly synchronised with the real world. Though none of these works reach the dizzy heights of that masterpiece, there’s still plenty [...]
Film review: Trash is Richard Curtis’ best work since Blackadder Goes Forth January 30, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ Trash is a noir-ish political thriller that draws attention to the deep social and economic problems of the developing world without sacrificing on plot. It’s a welcome surprise from the director of Billy Elliot and the writer of Love Actually about children living and working in a Brazilian dump. Pursued by [...]
Film review: Kingsman recalls the days when spy movies were fun January 30, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★★ Kingsman is the best Bond film Roger Moore never made. Gentlemen spies in immaculately tailored suits battling flamboyant villains bent on global destruction; the plot is pure Moonraker, albeit with an origin story, class warfare, better jokes and flashier production values. The team behind Kick Ass have created a pop-culturally literate, [...]
Theatre review: The Ruling Class at Trafalgar Studios January 30, 2015 Trafalgar Studios | ★★☆☆☆ Britain’s poshness obsession reaches new heights in The Ruling Class, a 1968 Peter Barnes play that shows its age in every scoffing caricature and fusty, laboured punchline. Aristocratic power may be super-relevant in today’s poshocracy, but the fact that it’s topical doesn’t mean this play has anything profound to say. Somewhere [...]
Do new figures tell us the financial future of the UK? January 30, 2015 As average citizens, it has become rather hard to ascertain whether we should be positive about the future of the British economy or not. One morning we turn on the news or pick up the paper to see reports of an upturn in fortunes, only for this to be quashed just days later with stories [...]
Art review: Rubens and his Legacy at the Royal Academy January 23, 2015 Royal Academy | ★★★☆☆ How do you celebrate an artist when you only have access to a meagre handful of his best works? You curate an exhibition dedicated to his “legacy” and fill it with the works of every great, good and terrible artist ever to have had a passing thought about said artist. [...]
