England
Firebrand review - surviving Henry VIIIFriday, 06 September 2024
Life in Tudor times is a gift that keeps giving to film and TV people, even if the history has to be bent a little for things to make sense to contemporary audiences – Elizabeth (1998) and A Man for All Seasons (1966) being two of the more... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Laurel and Hardy - The Silent YearsTuesday, 03 September 2024
Though among the most successful film comedians of the early sound era, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s cinematic partnership had actually started in the early 1920s. It’s easy to overlook their silent short films, 15 of which are collected here.The... Read more... |
Medicine Festival review - sound and music healing in the depths of BerkshireFriday, 23 August 2024
I had been softened up for the Medicine Festival by a recent visit to the global music extravaganza WOMAD – a trio of us met a guy called Paul aka SpriITman – an ex-IT expert who after a health crisis realised he was a healer. Bear with me on this.... Read more... |
The Birthday Party, Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath review - Pinter still packs a punchSaturday, 17 August 2024
Before a word is spoken, a pause held, we hear the seagulls squawking outside, see the (let’s say brown) walls that remind you of the H-Block protests of the 1980s, witness the pitifully small portions for breakfast. If you were in any doubt that we... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Jaminaround 2024 - preview of the unique Dorset venue's second editionFriday, 16 August 2024
We’re in deepest Dorset, on the edge of the village of Cranborne. The sun has just set. A cluster of thatched rooves, ancient looking barns and outhouses.It could be a set for Game of Thrones, a reconstruction of pre-industrial times. Groups of... Read more... |
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent, Whitechapel Gallery review - photomontages sizzling with rageTuesday, 30 July 2024
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent at the Whitechapel Gallery includes many of the artists’s most iconic political photomontages. Beginning in the 1970s, Kennard created images that by speaking truth to power, gave protest movements like CND (... Read more... |
More Than One Story review - nine helpings of provocative political theatreMonday, 15 July 2024
A stark end-title at the end of this collection of short films sums up the dire situation the UK is in: one in five people,14 million Britons, are now living in poverty. This shocking statistic is one the enterprising people of the Cardboard... Read more... |
The Secret Garden, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - adaptation more edifying than beguilingSaturday, 29 June 2024
It's a bold move by Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to tackle Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, a story that's been notably adapted into films that pile on the visual beauty of its magical settings. This enterprising venue may be... Read more... |
Strike: An Uncivil War review - shame of the nationWednesday, 26 June 2024
Forty years later, they have haggard faces, grey hair if any, and sorrowful expressions tinged with incredulity at the outrages perpetrated against them. At one point, the burliest of them cries. One who struggled with drink and drugs says four of... Read more... |
The Moor review - Yorkshire chiller is ambitious but muddledSaturday, 15 June 2024
A number of films in recent years have added a distinctly local flavour to the folk-horror genre. Mark Jenkin was inspired by Cornish superstitions in the ghostly Enys Men and Kate Dolan’s underrated You Are Not My Mother was ripe with Irish pagan... Read more... |
Wilding review - a life enhancing experienceThursday, 13 June 2024
Imagine you’ve inherited a castle in West Sussex plus five square miles of farmland. You continue the family tradition of mixed arable and dairy farming, but the soil is so depleted that yields decrease, year on year. Even with the help of... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Duke of York's Theatre review - doomy and deathly, and much-hypedMonday, 27 May 2024
One of Shakespeare's longest plays gets gets served up fast and filleted courtesy the director of the moment Jamie Lloyd, who is second to none when it comes to revealing the hidden performance strengths of various (and very varied) stars.Last year... Read more... |
