By: Steve Dinneen

Life&Style Editor I'm the editor of City A.M. The Magazine, and editor of the daily newspaper's Life&Style section. We cover food, wine, going out, culture, technology and travel. I'm also the head judge of our Toast the City awards that celebrates hospitality in the Square Mile. Find me on X @steve_dinneen

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Uncle Vanya at the Almeida is brilliantly acted, cleverly staged and gratifyingly reinterpreted

February 19, 2016

Almeida | ★★★★★ Anton Chekhov is a cornerstone of modern theatre, one of the fathers of realism; he eschews action in favour of mood and character, and while his Uncle Vanya is an undoubted masterpiece, the prospect of three and a half hours of Russian misery isn’t necessarily the most enticing prospect. Rejoice then that [...]
Performing for the Camera at Tate Modern works as a history lesson but says little about the here and now

February 19, 2016

Tate Modern | ★★★☆☆ Performing for the Camera asks – and generally answers – a series of questions about the role of photography in the artistic process. Does it capture or create? (The latter). Is the result different from the performance? (Yes). Does being observed, as in particle physics, somehow alter the performance itself? (Yes). These [...]
Street Fighter V review: a promising but unfinished update that’s plagued by gargantuan bosoms

February 17, 2016

The Street Fighter franchise is so iconic to a generation of players, so steeped in warm, fuzzy nostalgia, that updating it requires a surgeon's touch. You can't keep making the same game, but its success lies in its simple mechanics, stored deep in the muscle memory of our fingers. If a Street Fighter II aficionado can’t pick [...]
Frenchie in Covent Garden and Native on Neal’s Yard are both fantastic

February 16, 2016

NATIVE Neal's Yard, Covent Garden Tel: 0203 638 8214 FOOD ★★★★☆ | VALUE ★★★★★ | ATMOSPHERE ★★★☆☆ Cost for two with two rounds of beer: £50 – – – – – – – – – – – FRENCHIE 16 Henrietta St, Covent Garden Tel: 0207 836 4422 FOOD ★★★★★ | VALUE ★★★☆☆ | ATMOSPHERE ★★★☆☆ Cost [...]
The End of Longing review: Could Matthew Perry’s new West End play BE any more like Friends?

February 12, 2016

The Playhouse Theatre | ★★★★☆ It’s unfair to judge someone’s work based on a project they were involved in many, many years ago. But Matthew Perry, writer and star of new West End play The End of Longing, mentions Friends in the very first sentence of his programme notes, so he’s kind of asking for it. [...]
A Bigger Splash sees a manic, nude Ralph Fiennes on the form of his life

February 12, 2016

Dir. Luca Guadagnino | ★★★★☆ This sun-drenched comedy-thriller was one of the highlights of last year's Venice Film Festival. Tilda Swinton plays Marianne, a global rock star whose quiet life on an Italian island with her lover (Matthias Schoenaerts) is shattered by the arrival of Harry (Ralph Fiennes), Marianne's record producer ex, and his newly discovered [...]
Deadpool film review: fresh and funny but fails to break new ground

February 11, 2016

Dir. Tim Miller | ★★★☆☆ Deadpool was born out of the comic book nadir of the early 1990s, when super-hero books tended towards the morose and the self-indulgent. It was a time when muscles were big and boobs were bigger. Rob Liefeld's wise-cracking mercenary Deadpool, AKA Wade Wilson, was a breath of fresh air amidst the [...]
Firewatch day one review: a spectacular, touching and innovative game

February 9, 2016

Firewatch | PC, PS4 | ★★★★☆ There’s a paradox at the heart of Firewatch. It’s about the epic, unfathomably massive, dangerously potent world of nature. And it’s also about the tiny, dark, often unbearably sad world inside our heads, a place even the most gloriously saturated of sunsets can’t always illuminate. These twin factors, two sides of [...]
Trumbo sees Bryan Cranston peddling contraband. Again.

February 4, 2016

Dir Jay Roach | ★★☆☆☆ Bryan Cranston plays a brilliant, put-upon middle-aged man who is forced into peddling contraband in order to provide for his family. This time his drug of choice isn’t meth but Hollywood scripts, which he’s banned from writing – along with dozens of others – because of his Communist party membership. [...]
The Master Builder starring Ralph Fiennes at the Old Vic is a masterful adaptation

February 4, 2016

The Old Vic | ★★★★☆ Being an Ibsen play, The Master Builder has its fair share of existential angst, with nods to the bitter futility of the human condition, which compels us to drag ourselves through the misery of life, all the while dreading the only thing that will finally relieve us of the torment. But [...]

‘Dual squeeze’: FCA approvals for e-money licences plummet

Man City Women’s MD on Bunny Shaw, WSL salaries and new £10m investment

Campanelle hopes to pick up Toast the City Best Restaurant win

By: Steve Dinneen

All 1138 Articles

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