Reviews
Dispatches: Escape from Isis, Channel 4Thursday, 16 July 2015
“Say your last words before you leave this life.” Somewhere in the so-called Islamic State, a woman was accused of adultery. Her father joined her accusers, then, as her shrouded body was lowered into a pit, picked up a rock and hurled it at her. We... Read more... |
Out of Chaos: Ben Uri - 100 Years in London, Somerset HouseThursday, 16 July 2015
The exhibition Out of Chaos is a powerful dose of specific human experience, here presented almost exclusively in the form of portraits and group scenes. The selection comes almost entirely from the more than 1,300 works of art owned by Ben Uri... Read more... |
Veep, Series Four, Sky AtlanticThursday, 16 July 2015
When Jim Hacker MP was unexpectedly promoted to the position of PM, the classic sitcom Yes, Minister required just a small tweak in title and it was pretty much business as usual, albeit with a grander sense of potential impact. When the shit hit... Read more... |
True StoryThursday, 16 July 2015
Truth isn't so much stranger than fiction as it is duller. That, at least, is the abiding impression left by True Story, the debut film from the adventuresome theatre director Rupert Goold that by rights ought to be considerably more exciting than... Read more... |
Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners, BBC TwoThursday, 16 July 2015
If Britain has created a national myth about slavery, it’s surely been centred on the pioneering abolitionists whose actions in the early 19th century led first to the ending of the slave trade across the British Empire in 1807, later to the... Read more... |
Constellations, Trafalgar StudiosWednesday, 15 July 2015
Life, the universe and everything… in 70 minutes. You certainly can’t fault Nick Payne’s ambition, nor help but admire the dazzling inventiveness of his theoretical physics romcom with a side helping of artisanal beekeeping.This 2012 Royal Court hit... Read more... |
The Ecstasy of Wilko JohnsonWednesday, 15 July 2015
Wilko Johnson’s ecstasy started to fade when he was resurrected. The ex-Dr Feelgood guitarist seemed to be living out a surreal final chapter with an unavoidable end when his January 2013 diagnosis with inoperable cancer flooded him with the wonder... Read more... |
The WondersWednesday, 15 July 2015
Somewhere in rural Italy around the border of Umbria-Lazio and Tuscany, a family is trying to make the best of trying circumstances. Their mainstay is the production of honey. They have sheep. There are blackberries on their land. But money is short... Read more... |
13 MinutesTuesday, 14 July 2015
The plot to assassinate Hitler that everyone knows about was on 20 July 1944. It had its Hollywood moment in 2008 with Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise as Colonel Von Stauffenberg. That film unfortunately arrived on the coattails of... Read more... |
The Mentalists, Wyndham's TheatreTuesday, 14 July 2015
A Richard Bean play is always to be welcomed – he wrote England People Very Nice and One Man, Two Guvnors, two of the most enjoyably rambunctious comedies of recent years – but also with a note of caution. Sometimes, as with The Big Fellah... Read more... |
The Outcast, BBC One / Marvel's Agent Carter, FoxMonday, 13 July 2015
Adapted in two parts by Sadie Jones from her own 2008 novel, The Outcast (**) is a morbid tale of emotional sterility and many kinds of self-harm. Leaving his troubled childhood for an even worse young-adulthood, our "hero", Lewis Aldridge,... Read more... |
theartsdesk at the East Neuk Festival: Church strings, garden hornsMonday, 13 July 2015
A peninsular spirit of place and the greatest of instrumentalists drew me a second time to the eastern nook (hence the “Neuk”) of Fife. But could a second report for theartsdesk be justified – wasn’t the premise the same for the 11th East Neuk... Read more... |
