Reviews
Mr Burton review - modest film about the birth of an extraordinary talentSaturday, 05 April 2025
Many know that the actor Richard Burton began life as a miner’s son called Richard Jenkins. Not so many are aware of the reason he changed his name. This film directed by Marc Evans explains how it came about.PH Burton (played by Toby Jones)... Read more... |
Restless review - curse of the noisy neighboursFriday, 04 April 2025
Horror comes in many forms. In writer-director Jed Hart’s feature debut Restless, it’s visited on middle-aged nurse Nicky (Lyndsey Marshal) by thirtyish Deano (Aston McAuley), the superficially affable toxic male who moves in next door with two... Read more... |
MobLand, Paramount+ review - more guns, goons and gangsters from Guy RitchieFriday, 04 April 2025
A year ago Guy Ritchie brought us the Netflix series The Gentlemen, and now here he is on Paramount+ with his latest romp through the verdant pastures of criminal low-lifery. It seems that top thespians are queueing up to bag a slice of Ritchie-... Read more... |
Ed Atkins, Tate Britain review - hiding behind computer generated doppelgängersFriday, 04 April 2025
The best way to experience Ed Atkins’ exhibition at Tate Britain is to start at the end by watching Nurses Come and Go, But None For Me, a film he has just completed. It lasts nearly two hours but is worth the investment since it reveals what the... Read more... |
Four Mothers review - one gay man deals with three extra mothersFriday, 04 April 2025
An Irish adaptation of Garcia Di Gregorio’s acclaimed 2008 film Mid-August Lunch, director Darren Thornton’s Four Mothers is the story of Edward (James McArdle) and his 81-year-old mother Alma (the excellent Fionnula Flanagan), who has had a stroke... Read more... |
The Importance of Being Oscar, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Wilde, still burning brightThursday, 03 April 2025
It’s a greater accolade than a Nobel Prize for Literature – one’s very own adjective. There’s a select few: Shakespearean; Dickensian and Pinteresque. Add to that list, Wildean. That’s all the more remarkable in the light of Oscar Wilde’s... Read more... |
Stiletto, Charing Cross Theatre review - new musical excessWednesday, 02 April 2025
That friend you have who hates musicals – probably male, probably straight, probably not seen one since The Sound of Music on BBC 1 after the Queen’s Speech in 1978 – well, don’t send them to Charing Cross Theatre for this show. But that other... Read more... |
Misericordia review - mushroom-gathering and murder in rural FranceWednesday, 02 April 2025
“Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” The Aesop-ian maxim roughly applies to Jérémie Pastor (Félix Kysyl) in Alain Guiraudie's Misericordia. Though unemployed Toulouse baker Jérémie doesn’t acquire the business that was run by his... Read more... |
Owen Wingrave, RNCM, Manchester review - battle of a pacifistWednesday, 02 April 2025
It’s quite ironic that the Royal Northern College of Music should have invited, as director of this, Britten’s avowedly pacifist opera, Orpha Phelan – whose version of his Billy Budd for Opera North nearly 10 years ago contained one of the most... Read more... |
Apex Predator, Hampstead Theatre review - poor writing turns horror into sillinessWednesday, 02 April 2025
Motherhood is a high stress job. Ask any woman and they will tell you the same: sleepless nights, feeding problems and worry. Lots of worry. Lots and lots. Writer John Donnelly, who has also experienced the stresses of parenthood, devotes his new... Read more... |
Balanchine: Three Signature Works, Royal Ballet review - exuberant, joyful, exhilaratingTuesday, 01 April 2025
Is the Royal Ballet a “Balanchine company”? The question was posed at a recent Insight evening to Patricia Neary, the tireless dancer who has helped keep the choreographer’s legacy intact since his death in 1983 and a living link with his teaching.... Read more... |
Howard Amos: Russia Starts Here review - East meets West, via the Pskov regionTuesday, 01 April 2025
Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruin of Empire, the journalist Howard Amos’ first book, is a prescient and fascinating examination of the borderlands of a bellicose nation. Focusing on the Pskov region, which juts out into eastern Europe, his... Read more... |
