Reviews
Simon Munk
Superheroes and videogames should be a match made in heaven – the primary colour characterisations; the non-stop action and combat; the backstories sketched on a napkin, but then gradually filled in over multiple issues; the superpowers, analogous to classic videogame "power-ups". It's strange then, that videogame superheroes have had such a tough time of it in general.It's also strange to see this third edition in the series floundering so badly in the wake of two inventive and original games that flamboyantly and successfully mixed freeroaming city exploration and action reminiscent of the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Anyone who secretly liked High School Musical or is a fan of Mean Girls or Glee will find something to like in Darren Stein's candy-coloured high-school satire, which detonates some teenage culture bombs (albeit some of them years behind the curve) while giving some hearty laughs.When quiet and unassuming Tanner (Michael J Willett) is outed, suddenly he becomes hot property for the school's clique queens – Mormon princess 'Shley (Andrea Bowen), sassy drama diva Caprice (Xosha Roquemore) and bitchy blonde Fawcett (Sasha Piertse). If they all sound like stereotypes, you're absolutely right Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
If nothing else, this second series of Jed Mercurio's brutalist police thriller has done wonders for Keeley Hawes. Not that she was in much need of a career pick-me-up, but the way her haunted portrayal of the much-abused DI Lindsay Denton has brooded over the story like a funeral shroud deserves to land her a few gongs and is doubtless already bringing in heaps of job offers. Arriving as it has in the midst of continuing revelations about the murky innards of real-world British policing, LoD2's depiction of murder, corruption and conspiracy within the force has gained additional Read more ...
Veronica Lee
If anybody is daft enough to argue that the television licence fee isn't worth it, then just usher them before this superb mockumentary, brought to you by the team behind Twenty Twelve.Now that the Olympics are but a pleasant memory, London 2012 head of deliverance Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville, again mastering the art of suppressed exasperation) has been appointed as head of values at the BBC. It's a job - as David Tennant's languid commentary informs us – that was created in the wake of “recent learning opportunities at the Corporation” (a beautifully subtle reference to the Jimmy Savile Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Political farces always start with a distinct disadvantage — the reality is so much sillier than the fictional version. Never mind, if anyone can make a stage comedy funny it is Ray Cooney, who is not only one of the most entertaining playwrights of our age, but also a national treasure in his own right. This play, originally written in 1984, predates the recent dip in the popularity of MPs, and also features a neat cameo appearance by its author.Here laughter is a poor substitute for orgasmThe set-up is classic. A Cabinet Minister, called Richard Willey (yes, really), wants to have sex with Read more ...
Naima Khan
When was the last time you took a swipe at someone, and I mean a real swipe - a physical, emotional, cruel, unapologetic swipe of the sort that comes thick and fast in Vicky Jones's exhilarating new play, The One? The three-hander returns the actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge to the site of her solo (and Olivier-nominated) triumph, Fleabag, only this time in a play written by the colleague who directed her last time out.Waller-Bridge's Jo and partner Harry (Rufus Wright, last year's David Cameron in The Audience) met when she was his student and he her lecturer, and they've been living in Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
The National Gallery has produced a revelatory and unprecedented exhibition which shows us an array of paintings from cabinet size to mammoth by a long acknowledged star: Veronese, probably the most flamboyantly exciting artist at the heart of the Renaissance in Venice.Paolo Caliari (1528-1588) known as Veronese in honour of his native city, was born in Verona the son of a stonecutter, and was originally destined to be a sculptor. Changing media, it is his 30-plus years or so in Venice at its artistic heights at the heart of the 16th century, that made him a force to be reckoned with, Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Given the world’s most famous crime organisation hails from Italy, it’s odd that we associate the best crime movies with elsewhere, notably Hollywood (not least its quintessential Mafia films, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II). But Italian directors have been contributing some memorable additions to the genre of late. And following The Consequences of Love and Gomorrah comes the scintillating Salvo.It opens with a terrific extended sequence. As Salvo (Saleh Bakri) drives his boss (Mario Pupella) through the Palermo streets, he’s edgy, expecting trouble – as though trouble comes Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
The newly restored Royal Festival Hall organ was inaugurated in a celebratory atmosphere with this gala launch concert, which also marks the beginning of the Pull Out All the Stops organ festival.The varied programme included works for solo organ, as well as combined with brass and choir, and included two world premieres composed specially for the concert, one by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and one by the late John Tavener. Four organists took turns (John Scott, Jane Parker-Smith, Isabelle Demers and David Goode), two conductors (Jessica Cottis and Sam Laughton), plus Alison Balsom, the combined Read more ...
kate.bassett
Maybe, just maybe, Noël Coward is scarier than you think. As a rule of thumb, when ghosts feature in plays, they're meant to be creepy as hell, calling for some horrid crime to be revenged, and/or a manifestation of the living characters' profoundly troubled thoughts. In Blithe Spirit – which opened last night, with Michael Blakemore restaging his 2009 Broadway production – Coward’s protagonist, Charles Condomine, finds that he's prone to apparitions. But he hardly seems mentally agonized by way of explanation.Ensconced in the drawing room of his timber-framed country house, Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
Director David MacKenzie has made a prison drama for those who don’t like the genre and an ace in the hole for those who do. Starred Up is an example of how quality filmmaking captures an audience no matter what the topic – and here, that quality includes skilful cinematography, a tight script and tremendous performances from both leading and supporting cast. The result is that we get to see how the horror of prison life reflects the violent pockets of society outside. This is a film that edifies and also gives hope – even if that glimmer is currently beyond the realms of reality.Like his Read more ...
Florence Hallett
Georg Baselitz might seem an unlikely connoisseur of 16th-century prints, but since the Sixties the controversial German artist has amassed a collection of chiaroscuro woodcuts to rival that of any museum. His interest in Renaissance prints emerged while on a scholarship to Florence, where he studied the work of Mannerist painters like Parmigianino, one of the earliest artists to realise the full potential of chiaroscuro woodcut, both as a highly expressive medium and as a means of transmitting his ideas. Supplemented by loans from the Albertina, Vienna, Baselitz’s extraordinary Read more ...