Reviews
fisun.guner
If you’re the kind of person who appreciates auto-recommendations based on previous purchases, then perhaps I could do worse than begin this review by saying:” If you liked The September Issue, you’ll simply love Bill Cunningham New York.” There are obvious similarities: both are Cinema Verité-style documentary profiles centred around New York and fashion, both present a series of talking heads, and both feature the formidable Anna Wintour, managing editor of American Vogue. Maybe it was The September Issue that gave Richard Press, Bill Cunningham’s director, the inspirational spark to make Read more ...
Emma Dibdin
Following ITV’s resounding victory in the battle of the masters ‘n’ servants period shows – Downton Abbey vs. Upstairs Downstairs, for the uninitiated – the Beeb are overdue for a retaliatory blow. And so the gauntlet has been thrown down, in the unlikely form of what might be the very blandest title ever conceived of for a romantic drama.When it was announced in September that both channels had commissioned programmes called Love Life, it wasn’t hard to see where the smart money was going. Press for the BBC’s outing (now renamed True Love and set to air in May) promises a set Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Those of a certain age will remember the television series 21 Jump Street, a huge hit for the then fledgling Fox network in America. It ran from 1987 to 1991 and starred Johnny Depp. The titular address was where he worked as an undercover cop, one of a team of youthful officers investigating crimes in high schools and colleges. Jonah Hill, who at 28 is far too young to have watched the original but no doubt caught one of its many reruns, is a fan and has now co-written, co-produced and stars in the film version.It may seem like a vanity project but it's actually an amusing venture: part Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
The British grand tourists not only fell in love with Italy. They fell in love with the landscapes of 17th-century ex-pat artist Claude Lorrain (1604/5-1682), depicting the Roman campagna in which the gods disported themselves. JMW Turner (1775-1851) also fell for the Frenchman, whose work he had seen in significant stately homes while visiting his patrons. Turner studied and copied, and it is the anatomy of this artistic love affair over two centuries that is exposed, to enchanting effect, in the National Gallery’s spring exhibition.Turner was marvellously ambitious. Rather like Picasso (who Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The world has heard of Schindler’s Jews, who were saved from the gas ovens by the patronage of an enlightened German industrialist. Socha’s Jews are not quite so celebrated. There are number of reasons for that. For a start, many fewer Jews were saved in this narrative, and their story has not found its own Thomas Kenneally - nor until now its Steven Spielberg. But most importantly their saviour would never be mistaken for any sort of moral pin-up, being a burglar and black marketer who stashed his booty in the sewers of Lvov.A non-fiction book called In the Sewers of Lvov tells of Socha's Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
In the age of Mumford & Sons we should recall that half a century ago, folk music wasn’t so much acoustic pop as agitprop, staunch leftwing propaganda. Singers such as Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger toured songs rife with witty, angry social discontent, incidentally setting in place the UK’s early gig and festival circuit. In the same way, in the broadest strokes, British politics was also a different beast, not a media competition to see who could make the least offensive – or meaningful – statement possible, but a theatre of ideas, the new left battling the old right, the faint whiff of Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
I always used to avoid any film that had Mark Wahlberg in it, because he seemed to have the acting skills of a park bench. Then I saw The Departed - because you have to see Marty's movies - and thought he was brilliant as the astonishingly foul-mouthed Sergeant Dignam. Now I've seen Contraband and regrettably, it may be time to revert to Plan A.Contraband is an over-long and laborious heist thriller, a remake of the Icelandic flick Reykjavik-Rotterdam but transplanted to New Orleans. The atmospheric hook is supposed to be its evocation of a grungy Louisiana low-life operating in the Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Like many a regular theatregoer, I have a little list of classic plays that I’ve never seen, or even read. One of these is, or rather was, Errol John’s evocatively titled Moon on a Rainbow Shawl. Written in 1953, this definitive “yard play” was a historic breakthrough for Caribbean playwrights in Britain. So it was with considerable anticipation that I went to this revival, which opened last night at Britain’s national flagship venue. But can this classic stand up to scrutiny?Originally, the 33-year-old Trinidadian-born John, who was working as an actor, won the Tynan-inspired Observer new Read more ...
Ismene Brown
This show was intended to be all about the men (see title). But it was the woman in motion who stormed off with the honours in this second edition of what has become tagged as the Sergei Polunin show. And a heavy, maternally hipped, middle-aged woman at that - step forward, the sensational Dana Fouras, a dancer of genius who blew every other performer off the stage in Russell Maliphant’s Two (including the hapless gentleman trying to duplicate her movements on the other side of the stage).Men in Motion Part 2 was surely an impromptu media event, created by the storm of press surrounding Read more ...
peter.quinn
Bringing together the most talented choirs, vocalists and musicians from across London and the UK, iGospel's two-day Sing Inspiration! Festival came to a close in spectacular fashion. Lurine Cato opened the concluding "Gospel & Soul" concert, showcasing her impressive five-octave range on “You Revive Me”, the first single from her forthcoming debut album. With one, ever higher, key change after another, Cato's deluxe pipes made some better-known pop singers sound like common-or-garden pub belters.Call-and-response sections with the audience can often be slightly tuneless, let's-get-this- Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Was it the players, or the play, that has made a phenomenon out of One Man, Two Guvnors, the prize-winning comedy now on its third London theatre and preparing to hop the pond to Broadway next month? Well, bacon and eggs(!), it turns out there’s life aplenty in Richard Bean’s Goldoni rewrite yet, even without the star wattage of James Corden and the insanely arched eyebrows of Oliver Chris.Recast (for the most part) in its move from the Adelphi to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, a fresh company allows for a fresh perspective on Bean’s Brighton-set narrative, which displaces commedia dell’ arte Read more ...
bella.todd
He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws… Ah wait now, that’s The Gruffalo. Mark Lanegan doesn’t have any of the above (although he does have tattooed fists and a considerable jaw, and past heroin addiction probably hasn’t played too well with the old teeth). But the grunge survivor turned celebrated American gothic bluesman is the gruffest man in rock, with a voice that makes Nick Cave seem like a bit of a pussy and Johnny Cash sound positively moisturised, and a complimentary reputation for hard living and hard dealing that warns baby music Read more ...