1950s
Blu-ray: The Conquest of EverestTuesday, 30 May 2023
Studio Canal’s restored print of the 1953 documentary The Conquest of Everest is so sharp, so clear that initially it’s hard to believe that we’re not watching a studio reconstruction. Skies, snowscapes and sunlit uplands glow; it’s only in the... Read more... |
Ten Pound Poms, BBC One review - a new life in the Great Southern LandMonday, 15 May 2023
The Ten Pound Pom programme (or to use its official title, the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme) was devised to encourage British emigrants to Australia after World War Two. The idea was that the volunteers could escape from drab, rationing-... Read more... |
Jules and Jim, Jermyn Street Theatre review - a bohemian love triangle ends badlyFriday, 28 April 2023
It’s apt that this new play, with characters moving in and out of Paris either side of World War I, is staged at this intimate theatre, one that always has the ambience of a below-ground oubliette. These bohemians are not penniless and cold as were... Read more... |
Little Richard: I am Everything review - a riveting account of 'the brightest star in the universe'Thursday, 27 April 2023
Lisa Cortés’s fast-paced documentary Little Richard: I Am Everything opens with a TV interview made in 1971, 16 years after the rock 'n' roll pioneer became an overnight success with groundbreaking hits like "Tutti Frutti" and "Good Golly... Read more... |
Loving Highsmith review - documentary focused on the writer's lighter sideThursday, 13 April 2023
Since her death in 1995, Patricia Highsmith has prompted three biographies, screeds of often conflicting psychological analysis and now this documentary from the Swiss-born Eva Vitija. We hear the director say at the outset that by reading her then-... Read more... |
Magpie Murders, BBC One review - zinging TV adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's bestsellerSaturday, 08 April 2023
Finding a fresh twist on the traditional detective mystery is virtually impossible, but Anthony Horowitz has made a bold stab at it with Magpie Murders. This TV adaptation (which appeared on the BritBox streaming platform last year) has been... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: LivingMonday, 20 March 2023
Mr Williams (a wonderfully restrained, Oscar-nominated Bill Nighy) is taking time off work from his job in the Public Works department at County Hall in London. It’s the early Fifties and office life is very proper, with bowler hats and a strict... Read more... |
Guys and Dolls, Bridge Theatre review - exuberant new production of the 1950 masterpieceThursday, 16 March 2023
It now seems an inevitability that Marisha Wallace will be a frontrunner at next year's theatre awards, not just this year’s. Having barnstormed her way to a 2023 Olivier nomination for playing Ado Annie in the Young Vic’s Oklahoma!, her Miss... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Dave Brubeck Quartet - Debut In The Netherlands 1958Sunday, 19 February 2023
For Dave Brubeck, his Quartet’s first concert in the Netherlands was memorable. Getting to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw for the 26 February 1958 booking was difficult, possibly unfeasible. The band were travelling from Berlin, and arrived at the show a... Read more... |
Action Gesture Paint, Whitechapel Gallery review - a revelation and an inspirationTuesday, 14 February 2023
It’s not often that an exhibition makes me cry, but then it’s not often that a show reveals the degree to which we have been duped. Action Gesture Paint includes the work of some 80 women, half of whom I’d never heard of. Given that I’ve been a... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Padang Moonrise - The Birth of the Modern Indonesian Recording IndustrySunday, 29 January 2023
“Ka Huma” by Ivo Nilakreshna sounds as if a jazz band was taking on rock ’n’ roll. There’s a swing and sway, busy rhythm guitar and a lead female voice singing a yearning melody. An instrument which seems to vibes is in there. But there’s more than... Read more... |
Living review - Bill Nighy's masterpieceFriday, 11 November 2022
Living begins with a ravishing immersion in vintage footage of a lost world, primary colours popping on a Fifties summer’s day in Piccadilly. Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s opulent score adds to the poignancy of an orderly, comfortable England: the... Read more... |
