Mike Leigh
Blu-ray: Bleak MomentsSunday, 12 December 2021
That Bleak Moments exists at all is largely due to Albert Finney; the BFI funded Mike Leigh’s 1971 debut to the tune of £100, as an "experimental film", and Finney’s production company supplied the rest of the £18,000 budget. Shot on location in... Read more... |
Blu-ray: NakedSaturday, 11 December 2021
Naked (1993), the fifth and finest feature film written and directed by Mike Leigh, remains a searing, eerily prescient look at Britain on the verge of a social and economic breakdown.Maybe even a verbal breakdown, too, for Leigh, unlike any... Read more... |
The Pirates of Penzance, English National OperaSunday, 10 May 2015
When ENO announced its return to Gilbert and Sullivan, rapture at the news that Mike Leigh, genius Topsy-Turvy director, would be the master of wonderland ceremonies was modified by its choice, The Pirates of Penzance. Last staged at the Coliseum –... Read more... |
DVD: Mr TurnerFriday, 27 February 2015
Nothing pinpoints the Oscars' absurdity more than the absences of Mike Leigh’s masterpiece as Best Film candidate, of Timothy Spall from the Best Actor list - New York and London critics as well as Cannes made some amends – and even of Marion Bailey... Read more... |
Mr TurnerFriday, 31 October 2014
There's been much talk about Late Turner, to co-opt the name of the exhibition now on view at Tate Britain covering the last 16 years in the English artist JMW Turner's singular career. And as if perfectly timed to chime with those canvases in... Read more... |
Abigail's Party, Menier Chocolate FactoryFriday, 09 March 2012
Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party: comedy classic or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with added sneering? Ever since its first appearance on stage in 1977 and its subsequent record-breaking broadcast as a BBC Play for Today with an eye-widening 16... Read more... |
Grief, National TheatreWednesday, 21 September 2011
A new play by Mike Leigh is always an event. So there was a palpable excitement in the air at the Cottesloe Theatre (the smallest and most intimate of the three National Theatre auditoria) when his latest opened last night. With a cast that includes... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Director Mike LeighTuesday, 20 September 2011
There is somewhere called Leighland, where people may be ineffably sad or existentially cheerful, old or young, live in a high rise or a semi. But they are all recognisably inhabitants of the world famously conjured up over a long period of... Read more... |
Ecstasy, Hampstead TheatreTuesday, 15 March 2011
Film-maker and playwright Mike Leigh simply doesn’t do revivals. His method of working - which involves a group of actors improvising characters and situations until a story emerges - runs contrary to any notion of returning to a play after its... Read more... |
DVD: Another YearWednesday, 23 February 2011
Another of Mike Leigh’s finely nuanced ensemble pieces features some of his repertory players - including Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville and Ruth Sheen - who have developed their roles and dialogue in collaboration with the director. Those who... Read more... |
Another YearWednesday, 03 November 2010
Mike Leigh's Another Year traverses the four seasons beginning with spring, and yet the mood is autumnal throughout. People don't sunbathe or picnic or build bonfires or for the most part respond in any particular way to the passage of time. Instead... Read more... |
