Reviews
Matt Wolf
The scintillating, commercially bold season of Pinter one-acts at the theatre bearing his name plays a particular blinder with Pinter Five (★★★★★), from which I emerged keen to engage with its mystery and breadth of feeling all over again. Pinter Six (★★★) is worth seeing, as well, and may pay added dividends for those who didn't catch its author's world premiere of his brilliantly spiky play Celebration in 2000 – a production unlikely to be bettered anytime soon. But those keen to savour the esoteric will be richly rewarded by what director Patrick Marber's triptych in Pinter Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
John Lanchester’s fifth novel begins with a kind of coded warning to the reader – and, perhaps, to the author too. Freezing conditions plague life on the defensive wall – or “National Coastal Defence Structure” – that protects a future Britain from incursions by climate-change migrants in small boats. The weather invites fancy metaphorical comparisons. This cold may feel like “slate, or diamond, or the moon”. Yet those punishing temperatures are really “just a physical fact… Cold is cold is cold.” Likewise, The Wall teases us into a range of tempting, figurative interpretations. It may be a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Without the necessary distance, characterising last year through its pop music is a mug’s game. A gulf of 50 years would bring some perspective. Nonetheless, in spite of that interval there are difficulties in creating a fitting soundtrack to 1968 – especially when using its singles as the emblematic markers.The difference between pop and rock had been codified in 1968, and the album was the chosen means of expression for many musicians. Even so, regardless of the emergence of underground or album-format shows and stations, song-centric pop radio was still the means to reach a wider audience Read more ...
Matt Wolf
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade: that bromide is about the only one absent from the astonishingly bad Life Itself, which in actuality might require a stiff drink to make it through the film intact. Folding together an interconnected set of stories told across continents and out of sequence, writer-director Dan Fogelman (of TV's This Is Us) hurls one tragedy after another at his hapless characters, none of them so serious that they can't be caught up in the tidal wave of triteness. By the time we're informed, near the end, that "life brings you to your knees", you may well be full of Read more ...
Ralph Moore
In the proverbial melting pot, this film has all the right ingredients. Steve Carell, playing aspiring artist Mark Hogancamp and occupying a similar space and place as Tom Hanks did in Forrest Gump, even shares that film’s director here, Robert Zemeckis. Based on the award-winning documentary Marwencol from 2010, Marwen, it transpires, is a made-up town occupied by toy dolls and Mark’s vivid imagination. Back in the real world, Steve has already been busy on the promo trail here in London (and indeed across the globe) selling his new wares, but more of that Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
Diversity, and the need for more of it, is a hot potato in the theatre arts. Kudos, then, to English National Ballet and its director Tamara Rojo for the 23 nationalities represented within its ranks. And for the poster advertising the company’s current revival of Swan Lake which pictures African-American first artist Precious Adams in swan queen pose. But hold the applause for a moment. It turns out that Adams isn't down to dance the lead on any night in the run.I was not alone in feeling misled by the publicity poster. I and many others had thought: hey, fantastic, ENB is Read more ...
Tom Baily
This is a love that begins sweetly, turns terrible, and is told with unflinching directness. Directed by Catherine Corsini, An Impossible Love is based on a novel by Christine Angot (known in France, and increasingly elsewhere, for her powerful autobiographical fiction), which is in turn based on Angot’s own troubling early life and family experiences. If the film is too direct – an anti-melodrama melodrama – it is only because it is honest and treats emotional extremes with great fidelity.It all begins with romance, as Rachel (Virginie Efira) – working class, Jewish and beautiful – meets the Read more ...
Jo Southerd
It’s been a great year for music: trailblazing and unforgettable EPs from Stella Donnelly and boygenius; the triumphant returns of Robyn, and Janelle Monáe; flawless albums from Kurt Vile and Tunng; stunning re-imaginings from St Vincent and Waxahatchee; and confident debuts from Snail Mail and The Orielles.My home Welsh scene continues to bubble, with much-loved new works from heroes Gruff Rhys and the Manics; national praise for Gwenno’s iconic Le Kov; and sparkling, significant debuts from fresher faces Estrons, Adwaith and Accü. Meanwhile, the stratospheric success of Boy Azooga’s 1,2, Read more ...
Saskia Baron
“Can you breathe?’ “Yeah.” “Shame, that”. Another ne’er-do-well is being banged to rights after a chase through container stacks in the dark. Luther is back, and he hasn’t upgraded his Volvo or changed his tweed coat – but we don’t really mind, do we? It’s a bit like Columbo, Miss Marple or Christmas dinner, the familiar ingredients are what we crave. Before the title sequence rolls, two distinct storylines have been set up and we’ll doubtless spend the four episodes working out how they intertwine (or not); but mostly, we’re waiting for Ruth Wilson to appear.There’s a perverted serial killer Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
It can be fascinating to see ourselves as others see us. In this case, Athens-born director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster) brings his acute eye to the English country-house period drama in a scintillatingly warped portrait of the dysfunctional court of Queen Anne.It’s the beginning of the 18th century, and England is struggling with the increasing costs of war with the French. The ageing and mentally erratic Anne (Olivia Colman) quails at the prospect of decision-making as preening politicians screech and chatter around her, wrestling for political advantage and Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The facts of Escape at Dannemora (Sky Atlantic) are notorious in America. Convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat escaped from Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Indeed a less enquiring version of the story might have been called Escape from Dannemora. But the preposition is key. This is about what happened inside the prison: the two escapees' grooming of their female supervisor Joyce “Tilly” Mitchell (Patricia Arquette, pictured below).That this was her story as much as theirs was established in the opening scene. It was shot from behind Mitchell with the lens Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
There’s no singing, no Hugh Jackman and no Anne Hathaway, and the dolorous tone of Andrew Davies’s new adaptation of Victor Hugo’s sprawling novel is established in the opening scene. It’s the aftermath of the battle of Waterloo in 1815, and the ruffianly Thénardier (Adeel Akhtar) is picking his way through the carpet of bloodied corpses covering the battlefield, rifling their pockets for valuables. To his consternation, one of his victims, Colonel Pontmercy, is still alive. But more about him in future episodes.Most of the limelight in episode one belonged to Jean Valjean, as he struggled Read more ...