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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Saint George and the Dragon at the National Theatre: A fairytale for adults that’s not half as clever as it thinks it is

October 13, 2017

What a time to stage a proper state-of-the-nation play. With record inequality, rising nationalism and the prospect of limping from the EU without so much as a trade deal, this is the perfect time to mull over exactly what it means to be British. And for a while, Rory Mullarkey’s new play looks like it [...]
Loving Vincent film review: An astonishing artistic achievement that’s so overwhelming it borders on psychedelic

October 13, 2017

Van Gogh’s paintings have long served as inspiration for animators. I’ve wandered through virtual reality versions of his Paris bars, the lights glowing with distinctive halos, and various filmmakers have attempted to realise the movement implied by the painter’s brush strokes. But Loving Vincent does it on a whole other level. It’s a labour of [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
iPhone 8 review: Eclipsed by the iPhone X, is Apple’s “other” iPhone at risk of being forgotten about?

September 27, 2017

The iPhone 8 is a conundrum: it’s an excellent phone, a hero handset, but one that’s destined to be the bridesmaid and never the bride. Launched on the same day as the all-new, all-singing, all-dancing iPhone X, the iPhone 8, which looks virtually identical to every premium Apple handset since 2014, is the plain sibling, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]

Air fare price warnings mount as regional airports set for rocketing tax bills

Why Snap thinks 2026 will be Sport’s most connected and branded year yet

The Italy holiday taking in amazing skiing and a lesser-visited city

By: Steve Dinneen

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