violence
Donald Rodney: Visceral Canker, Whitechapel Gallery review - absence made powerfully presentSaturday, 22 February 2025
Donald Rodney’s most moving work is a photograph titled In the House of My Father, 1997 (main picture). Nestling in the palm of his hand is a fragile dwelling whose flimsy walls are held together by pins. This tiny model is made from pieces of the... Read more... |
Hamlet, Royal Shakespeare Theatre - Luke Thallon triumphs as the state succumbs to stormsThursday, 20 February 2025
The date, projected behind the stage before a word is spoken, is a clue - 14th April 1912. “Why so specific?” was my first thought. My second was, “Ah, yes”.Sure enough, Akhila Krishnan’s video and Adam Cork’s sound floats us on a sea of troubles,... Read more... |
Cymbeline, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - pagan women fight the good fightSaturday, 25 January 2025
There’s not much point in having three hours worth of Shakespearean text to craft and the gorgeous Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as a canvas if you merely intend to go through the motions, ticking off one of the canon’s less performed works. The question... Read more... |
An Interrogation, Hampstead Theatre review - police procedural based on true crime tale fails to ring trueSaturday, 25 January 2025
In a dingy room with dilapidated furniture on a dismal Sunday evening, two detectives prepare for an interview. The old hand walks out, with just a little too much flattery hanging in the air, leaving the interrogation in the hands of the up-and-... Read more... |
The Lonely Londoners, Kiln Theatre review - Windrush Generation arrive in a London full of opportunities, but not for themFriday, 24 January 2025
As something of an immigrant to the capital myself in the long hot summer of 1984, I gobbled up Absolute Beginners, Colin MacInnes’s novel of an outsider embracing the temptations and dangers of London.Written a couple of years earlier and set a... Read more... |
The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, The Other Palace - all Greek to meSaturday, 30 November 2024
Percy Jackson is neither the missing one from Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, nor an Australian Test cricketer of the 1920s, but a New York teenager with dyslexia and ADHD who keeps getting expelled from school. He’s a bit of a... Read more... |
All's Well That Ends Well, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - Shakespeare at his least likeableMonday, 25 November 2024
"All’s well that ends well". Sounds like the kind of phrase a guilty parent says to a disappointed child after they’ve been caught in a white lie and bought them a bag of sweets to smooth things over. It’s a saying that betokens bad behaviour, a... Read more... |
ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetimeSaturday, 16 November 2024
Picture this: framing the stage are two pearlescent clouds which, throughout the performance, gently pulsate with flickering light. Behind them on a giant screen is a spinning globe, its seas twinkling like a million stars.Suddenly, this magical... Read more... |
Paris Has Fallen, Prime Video review - Afghan war veteran wreaks a terrible vengeanceThursday, 14 November 2024
You might assume that the “Has Fallen” in the title of this Anglo-French thriller connotes the presence of Scottish lunk Gerard Butler (as in Angel Has Fallen, London Has Fallen and Olympus Has Fallen), but there’s no Gerard in sight. Instead, in... Read more... |
Burnt Up Love, Finborough Theatre review - scorching new playMonday, 11 November 2024
Mac is in prison for a long stretch. He is calm, contemplative almost, understands how to do his time and has only one rule – nobody, cellmate or guard, can touch the photo of his daughter, then three years old, attached to his wall. Though he... Read more... |
Land of the Free, Southwark Playhouse review - John Wilkes Booth portrayed in play that resonates across 160 yearsFriday, 18 October 2024
Straddling the USA Presidential elections, Simple8’s run of Land of the Free could not be better timed, teaching us an old lesson that wants continual learning – the more things change, the more they stay the same.We open on the Booth family kids... Read more... |
Woman of the Hour, Netflix review - gripping drama follows a true-life Seventies serial killerThursday, 17 October 2024
“I knew he was risky, but like fuck it, everyone’s risky.” A young woman (Kelley Jakle) poses for pictures on a deserted mountain road in Wyoming in 1977, telling Rodney, a charming, award-winning photographer (Daniel Zovatto), about the boyfriend... Read more... |
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