Reviews
David Nice
If you're catering for wish fulfilment, you might as well go the whole hog. Some say that Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, in their latest peachy extravaganza, aim no higher than the cheesier fantasies of the late 1940s Hollywood they take into neverland. But there are two key aspects to consider, beyond the always tasteful cinematography, the fashions and the ever-present pastichey music. One is a true ensemble of 10 fine characterisations, roles for four oldies plus six young to youngish and decidedly glamorous aspirants. The other is that so much of Hollywood then created escapism in the Read more ...
aleks.sierz
During lockdown, some of the best online theatre has been shows that are specially created for this digital format. Much better than dull records of dramas that might have worked well on stage, but now seem sadly moribund and exceedingly slow on the laptop screen. So it’s good to welcome Midnight Your Time, which is remotely directed for streaming by Michael Longhurst, much lauded artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, after being reconceived by award-winning playwright Adam Brace, who wrote the original version of this one-woman show about a decade ago. Best of all, it features actor Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
It’s fair to say that humanity’s relationship with nuclear energy over the last 50 years has had more highs and lows than a Spanish soap opera. From the Manhattan Project to Hinkley Point, it’s been a controversial technology that has promised both humanity’s salvation and damnation.Now, first-time director Vicki Lesley’s easy-going documentary explores the post-war history of nuclear power. Captured with an odd degree of lightness, she makes an otherwise heavy subject accessible. Lesley tells the history of the atom as if it were a romcom. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are swiftly brushed Read more ...
Florence Hallett
Museums and galleries have found innovative and varied ways to keep their collections within reach, and to bring us the many temporary exhibitions forced to close by the virus. But even the most dedicated gallery-goer may by now be tiring of online talks and tours, which so often make unreasonable demands on both guide and viewer and increasingly feel like a very poor substitute for the real thing.For a breath of fresh air, try the Watts Gallery - Artists’ Village in the Surrey village of Compton, whose immersive online offering is as close to a day in the country as we might reasonably Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s hit comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) ended its fourth series in January last year, but this belated interactive special suggested there could be new life in it yet. Summarising Unbreakable… is possible but almost meaningless – “after 15 years imprisoned in an Indiana doomsday cult, Kimmy moves to New York, makes some very eccentric friends and becomes an inspirational children’s author” – but the infinite elasticity of the concept means that anything can happen.And so it proved here, as we rejoined Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) as she prepared to marry Prince Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Adapted by writer-director Derek Cianfrance from Wally Lamb’s 1998 novel, this HBO production (on Sky Atlantic) presents a huge canvas for Mark Ruffalo, who plays the twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey. He had a particular interest in I Know This Much Is True, since his own brother was murdered in Los Angeles in 2008. If nothing else he deserves accolades for sheer fortitude. Thomas is a paranoid schizophrenic who suffers increasingly traumatic episodes, while Dominick’s life is lived in the shadow of his brother’s illness and what it costs him to try to protect him.The depths of Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Jerry Seinfeld said in a recent interview that this Netflix special – 23 Hours to Kill – may be his last stand-up show. That's a shame, as there's much to enjoy here, even if he is retreading some old ground.Much of this material he performed during UK dates last year (and some of it he had also performed when he previously visited the UK, in 2011), but that's OK as far as it goes – he's still a very funny man, and his grouchy, world-weary shtick can bear some repetition.The show starts with – unusually for Seinfeld – a surprisingly showbizzy sequence, a filmed skit in which he dives out of a Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Russia came late to the coronavirus lockdown, and will be leaving early – this evening Vladimir Putin announced that national measures were coming to an end, though the disease still rages there. The country’s theatres were quick into action when the lockdown began, and throughout April and May have been offering plays, ballets and operas online. Publicity for these has been minimal, and English subtitles a rarity (there were none for this performance), but for those who could find them, and then struggle though the language barrier, they have provided a fascinating window on domestic Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
Like an asp eating its own tail, the National Theatre's 2018 production of Antony and Cleopatra, streaming on YouTube until 14 May, begins as it will end. Director Simon Godwin's first tableau is the play's finale: Cleopatra (Sophie Okonedo) lies in queenly repose, a snakebite on her neck; her servants, Charmian (Gloria Obianyo) and Iras (Georgia Landers), slump around her. How did this triple suicide come to pass, ask thwarted Caesar (Tunji Kasim) and Agrippa (Katy Stephens), before answering their own question: behold, and see.It's a neat trick for Godwin, a National semi-regular since 2013 Read more ...
David Nice
Could there be more tender, tactful or soul-nourishing signs of a new musical normal than these two 45-minute gems? We're nowhere near emulating the kind of live distance concerts members of the Bergen, Oslo and Czech Philharmonics have been offering for some weeks now, but it's vital to hope that we can at some point in the not too distant future.Especially when the programming has been as thoughtfully done as it has been here, with gravely beautiful openers, the riveting presence of the most compelling of young lyric-dramatic sopranos and the assured, low-key art-concealing-art of Read more ...
Caroline Maclean: Circles and Squares review - adventurous art, progressive living and a good gossip
Marina Vaizey
There was a moment in the 1930s when it seemed that contemporary art, as practised in Britain, might join the mainstream of the Western avant-garde. Caroline Maclean makes a lively examination of this uneasy decade, centring mostly on the circle of visual artists who lived in Hampstead and Belsize Park, in an account that approaches an artistic and personal concatenation of Carry On.Maclean’s entertaining book presents its serious subject in an easy colloquial style, inviting us into the adventurous art world in Britain (which was then so small that everyone knew everyone) as if into a good Read more ...
Boyd Tonkin
In retrospect, we will surely see that British battles over the Covid-19 lockdown harboured within them a bitter but half-hidden war of ideas. On one side, the behavioural scientists who first guided policy seemed to depend on a model of human beings as (in Rutger Bregman’s words) “selfish, aggressive and quick to panic”. Early signs, such as the spate of hoarding, served to confirm their stance. Then, after their belated tightening, the lockdown rules held much more firmly than government and its advisers foresaw. For most people, solidarity trumped self-interest. The desire to break loose Read more ...