Reviews
Matt Wolf
If you're going to cobble together an entirely pro forma film, it's not a bad idea to give Shirley MacLaine pride of place. At 83, this redoubtable pro is no more capable of falsehood now than she ever was. It means that, although individual moments of The Last Word may find you rolling your eyes, its central performance rivets attention from first to last. MacLaine plays Harriet Lauler, a snarly, walled-off divorcee of means who potters around her immaculate California pile of a home glugging wine and snapping at anyone unfortunate enough to cross her path (the household staff, for Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The precocious Steve Winwood joined the Spencer Davis Group when he was 14, when the Sixties themselves were still young, and hasn’t really stopped ever since. True, it has been nearly a decade since his last album of new material, Nine Lives, but he has toured with Eric Clapton and Tom Petty, pops up at assorted festivals and live events, and has put together a highly capable live band that can bend his songs into shapes you might never have thought possible. His voice and abilities on guitar and Hammond B3 organ (a wonderfully quaint instrument which looks like a small wardrobe) remain Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The Catholic Church hasn’t enjoyed a good press on screen lately. Nuns punished Irishwomen for their pregnancies in Philomena. Priests interfered with altar boys in Spotlight. And in The Young Pope a Vatican fixated on conservatism and casuistry elects a pontiff who sees himself as a rock star. Broken was Jimmy McGovern’s agonised absolution for a church in crisis.Over six parts on BBC One, Broken has felt like walking along half a dozen stations of the cross. McGovern’s portrait of a broken priest – and by extension, a broken priesthood – was exceptionally short on levity or solace. The Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
First introduced into the burgeoning “Marvel Cinematic Universe” in last year’s Captain America: Civil War, Tom Holland’s incarnation of Spider-Man is another triumph for this exuberant franchise (even if some might feel a pang for the fine and still-recent pairing of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone under director Marc Webb's helmsmanship). What the Marvel flicks have got, and their DC Comics rivals conspicuously haven’t, is a capacity for bringing some wit and a lightness of touch to their stories, no matter how much computerised spectacle is exploding all around.Holland, previously on the Read more ...
Heather Neill
German writer Daniel Kehlmann’s light-touch 90-minute comedy is a chic satire on the slippery business of making art – and especially on the difficulty of assessing it. Whose judgement matters, after all? This production now in the West End was first seen at the Ustinov Studio in Bath where director Laurence Boswell is making a habit of introducing the work of European playwrights previously barely known in the UK. Florian Zeller was a particularly spectacular discovery. His The Father and The Mother were translated by Christopher Hampton, who once more turns in a flowing, natural-sounding Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
William Christie chose a suitably light and breezy programme for this warm summer evening’s concert at St. John’s Smith Square. The concert was titled “Bach goes to Paris”, with works chosen to highlight the connections between the German master and his French contemporaries. But, more significantly, they showcased Christie’s deep affinity with French Baroque music, and the vibrancy and passion he brings to this repertoire.For Christie, Baroque music is always about dance, so it was fitting that much of this music derived from ballet. Christie gestures broadly from the podium, but rarely to Read more ...
Mark Sanderson
It’s half a century since homosexuality was partially decriminalised in England and Wales, so who better to cast his gaze over the lie of the land than stately homo Rupert Everett? The accomplished actor (and even finer diarist) started as he meant to go on in 50 Shades of Gay by disappearing down a manhole in Manchester. His mission? To relive the heady days of “cottaging” – sex in public conveniences – with a former copper whose job it was to catch men at it. And not a single mention of dear, departed George Michael.Cruising was a dangerous pursuit that could lead to exposure and ruin Read more ...
Marianka Swain
A memorable 2015 parliamentary select committee hearing asked Kids Company CEO Camila Batmanghelidjh and chair of trustees Alan Yentob whether the organisation was ever fit for purpose. Tom Deering, Hadley Fraser and Josie Rourke’s new verbatim musical – think This House meets London Road – asks the same not just of the charity, but of the political system itself and the way we treat the most vulnerable in this country.Kids Company was the feather in the cap of David “Big Society” Cameron, and thus, despite repeated warnings, received hefty sums from the Government, including a final £3 Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Oh those Victorians! Hail Prince Albert whose far-sighted ambition led to Albertopolis, embracing museums, galleries, universities and the Royal Albert Hall. And what in the early 21st century do you do with the Victoria & Albert Museum itself: one of the world’s greatest museums occupying higgledy piggledy buildings which have been a-building, expanding and growing topsy-turvy for more than a century and a half?In its largest building project since 1909, the museum continues to enhance, expand and change to meet different demands: demands from visitors, and demands from the objects Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
Appreciating art involves applauding experimentation, but when you break new ground you don’t always land on your feet. Case in point: Get Even, a game that tells an old story in a new way, and at times, pays a high price for attempting innovation.You assume the role of Cole Black, an apt name for a hired gun with a gruff Sean Bean-style northern accent, who regains consciousness in a deserted asylum with almost no recollection of his past, apart from the lasting memory of a young girl, held hostage, who had a bad encounter with a bomb vest. Under the guidance of an anonymous captor, Black Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Presumably it seemed like a good idea at the time. Broadcasting juggernaut Lord Bragg would undertake a sweeping survey of the way that television has transformed our lives and reflected British society in the last 70-odd years, soaring over dramas, documentaries, current affairs, soaps, reality TV shows etc with hi-def satellite vision. Clips of key programmes from the archives would cue up bouts of discussion among hand-picked experts.Only two major problems. At two hours it was far too long, yet paradoxically each section was much too short. It felt as if a collection of long lists had Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
Talk about survival: St Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad, now again St Petersburg, all the same city, has it nailed down. It was founded through the mad enthusiasm, intelligence, determination and just off-the-scale energy of Peter the Great in 1703, built on the bodies of around 30,000 labourers (not the 300,000 that later rumours have suggested) at the whim of an Emperor. You can visit his original wooden cabin there today; the nobles he ordered, on pain of forfeiting titles and wealth, to come and live in his new city had to build in stone.It has been at times the capital of Russia. Its Read more ...