America
Eating Animals review - a compelling tale of imminent disasterSaturday, 08 June 2019
Eating Animals begins as a David and Goliath tale of independent farmers versus industrial farming. Frank Reese specialises in rare-breed turkeys and chickens. He calls his farm the "Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch" because, for him, his traditional way... Read more... |
Late Night review - Emma Thompson star vehicle needs a serious rewriteThursday, 06 June 2019
“Get me rewrite!”: That’s likely to be a common reaction to Late Night, the well-meaning but surprisingly slipshod star vehicle for Emma Thompson set in and among the writing world of a New York late-night chat show that is hitting the skids.... Read more... |
Gloria Bell review - dancing away the heartacheThursday, 06 June 2019
With Gloria (2013), A Fantastic Woman (2017) and Disobedience (2018), Chile’s Sebastián Lelio has earned a deserved reputation as a sympathetic director of women. It may seem a strange move for him to remake Gloria only a few years after the Spanish... Read more... |
San Francisco Ballet, Liang/Marston/Pita, Sadler's Wells - elemental, ethereal and kitschy, tooTuesday, 04 June 2019
Sun, snow, and some unadorned silliness danced to the music of Björk: no one can accuse San Francisco of casting an insufficiently wide tonal (or climatic) net in this second of four programmes on view from San Francisco Ballet as part of their... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Track 29Tuesday, 04 June 2019
A chronic recycler, Dennis Potter fashioned five feature films from his earlier TV dramas and another from one of his novels. The best of them are 1985’s Dreamchild (from the BBC's Alice, 1965) and Track 29 (1987), which he adapted from the BBC... Read more... |
King Hedley II, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - concentrated, enveloping dramaMonday, 03 June 2019
The huge achievement of the last two decades of August Wilson’s life, right up to his death in 2005, was his “American Century Cycle”, in which he charted the African American experience over that time frame decade by decade, its action set largely... Read more... |
CD: Naomi Bedford & Paul Simmonds - Singing It All Back Home: Appalachian Ballads of English and Scottish OriginMonday, 03 June 2019
Outside the Palladium a couple of months back for Joan Baez’s farewell, I was given a flyer for this album – by Naomi Bedford herself it turns out. We had a brief chat which left me with a good feeling about the project and I was disappointed... Read more... |
Thunder Road review - potent and poignant debut featureThursday, 30 May 2019
This is a painful and poignant study of character-disintegration, and a triumph for its writer, director and star Jim Cummings. He plays small-town police officer Jim Arnaud, a man trying to do his best while a rising sea of troubles threatens to... Read more... |
The Starry Messenger, Wyndham's Theatre review - Matthew Broderick gets all cosmicThursday, 30 May 2019
A small-scale Off Broadway venture late in 2009, The Starry Messenger has arrived in London to mark the belated British stage debut of Matthew Broderick, the movie name much-loved on the New York stage. Reuniting the two-time Tony-winner with his... Read more... |
Booksmart review - teen sex comedy with shallow feminist credentialsWednesday, 29 May 2019
The release of Booksmart is perfectly scheduled for half term, this high school buddy comedy is guaranteed to tempt youngsters away from their exam revision. It’s fast and funny and packed with squirm-inducing sex gags and a peppy... Read more... |
Our Town, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review – small-town tale that raises profound existential questionsMonday, 27 May 2019
Our Town was written shortly before World War Two about a small town in America in the years leading up to World War One, yet it makes its extraordinary impact by focusing its lens on details as apparently unexciting as pond-water. Just as a... Read more... |
The Strokes, All Points East Festival review - let them entertain youMonday, 27 May 2019
Back in 2001, after the release of their debut album This Is It, The Strokes weren’t just the most fashionable band in the world, they were also regarded as the group that could “save rock”. That was asking quite a lot.This Is It was 36 minutes of... Read more... |
