Reviews
Ruby SparksFriday, 12 October 2012![]() From the makers of Little Miss Sunshine comes a funny, ethereal love story in the same vein as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sunshine’s not all they have in common.Calvin Weir-Fields (smash the surname and you get Weirds) is a bestselling... Read more... |
Desire Under the Elms, Lyric HammersmithFriday, 12 October 2012![]() Pity the A-level English student: for them the “rarely seen masterpieces” that creep onto the curriculum and into the theatres. Judging from the frequently giggling reaction of the audience last night of around 100 17- and 18-year-olds, Eugene O’... Read more... |
LFF 2012: UndergroundFriday, 12 October 2012![]() As Julian Assange continues to hold the world’s authorities at bay behind embassy doors, this new biopic offers Young Assange: a Melbourne teenager among the first generation of computer hackers, who cracked the Pentagon’s code on the Gulf War’s eve... Read more... |
XCOM: Enemy UnknownFriday, 12 October 2012![]() In the event of an alien invasion it really is important to learn to prioritise. And to juggle. In XCOM: Enemy Unknown you are plunged into the middle of just such an invasion. As the commander of an elite anti-alien unit you are responsible for the... Read more... |
LFF 2012: Normal SchoolThursday, 11 October 2012![]() Argentine Celina Murga’s two feature films to date, Ana and the Others and A Week Alone, mark her out as one of the most original voices in a country chock full of talent. Those films are concerned with individuals – respectively, a young... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Royal BalletThursday, 11 October 2012![]() The Royal Ballet’s autumn season began on Monday, but this was the eagerly awaited Swan Lake. Natalia Osipova, ex-Bolshoi, now principal with American Ballet Theater and the Mikhailovsky in St Petersburg, was making her debut as a guest with the... Read more... |
William Klein + Daido Moriyama, Tate ModernThursday, 11 October 2012![]() William Klein’s exhibition opens with Broadway by Light (1958), a celluloid elegy to advertising made in the days before neon. Myriad bulbs flash the names of brands like Coca Cola, Camel, Budweiser and Pepsi across New York’s night sky. Silhouetted... Read more... |
DCI Banks, Series 2, ITV1Thursday, 11 October 2012![]() Charm, politeness and glittering repartee are clearly not considered important qualities for the Yorkshire-based policepersons who work alongside DCI Banks. TV coppers are rarely a barrel of laughs but for this bunch, spitting, snarling and glaring... Read more... |
Damned by Despair, National TheatreThursday, 11 October 2012![]() Spain's Golden Age turns unaccountably to dross in Damned by Despair, the Tirso de Molina play that is a good half-hour shorter than the running time given in the programme but won't (in this production, anyway) ever be brief enough for some.... Read more... |
Danny Bhoy, Bloomsbury TheatreThursday, 11 October 2012![]() Danny Bhoy is big in Scotland and Canada and huge Down Under, as they say, but is a surprisingly unfamiliar name to many. I'm not sure, other than a lack of a television presence, why he's not as well-known throughout the UK as he should be: he's an... Read more... |
Who Do You Think You Are? - Celia Imrie, BBC OneThursday, 11 October 2012![]() Isn’t the title a misnomer? Who Do You Think You Are? is the genealogical branch of the celebrity industry. It’s not really about who the subjects think they are: it’s who we think they are that counts. Inspecting the family trees of slebz is... Read more... |
This House, National TheatreWednesday, 10 October 2012![]() Over the past few years, the 1970s have made a cultural comeback. On television, there’s been Life on Mars and White Heat, in the bookshops tomes by Dominic Sandbrook, in the theatre revivals of plays such as Abigail’s Party, all to the soundtrack... Read more... |
