childhood
Owen Richards
With Netflix releasing Rebecca on Wednesday, who’d have thought that a kid’s film would be this week’s best adaptation about an estate haunted by the memory of the deceased lady of the manor? Written and directed by the team behind Channel 4’s National Treasure (a very different production), The Secret Garden manages to recapture the warmth and familiarity of a classic weekend family film, with just a pinch of darkness.Based on the classic children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, we find recently orphaned Mary (newcomer Dixie Egerickx) on the way from her parent’s Indian house to her Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Can this weekly lineup really now be three months old? As we move towards at least some degree of relaxation on the social restrictions that have long been in place, the offerings of theatre online continue to afford many a reason not to leave your laptop. National Theatre at Home has a particularly weighty (and timely) entry in its capacious rendering of Lorraine Hansberry's rarely glimpsed Les Blancs, whilst the Old Vic down the road places the music industry under the microscope via the Joe Penhall play Mood Music. You get recipe cards if you tune into Toast, not to mention the Read more ...
Owen Richards
It’s taken over 18 years for Artemis Fowl to reach the big screen, with Miramax originally buying the rights in 2001. Finally, Disney have brought the world’s youngest criminal mastermind to life, but was it worth the wait? Well, the fact it’s appearing on streaming service Disney+ rather than waiting for a cinematic release probably answers that question.Loosely based on Eoin Colfer’s popular novels and helmed by Kenneth Branagh, 12-year-old Artemis Fowl II (Ferdia Shaw) must save his kidnapped father by infiltrating the secret society of fairies, dwarves and goblins. Alongside his bodyguard Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Swaggering pirates, X marks the spot, a chattering parrot, “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum”? All present and correct. But Bryony Lavery’s winning 2014 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson for the National, directed by Polly Findlay, also features key updates and wonderfully creative ideas, plus a good blend of horror and humour. With a 10+ age recommendation, this lively two-hour piece is excellent lockdown family viewing.Crucially, the production’s gender rebalancing makes this fun for all: Stevenson’s protagonist Jim Hawkins becomes a thrill-seeking, androgynous, “smart as paint” girl, Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The National Theatre’s online broadcasts got off to a storming start with One Man, Two Guvnors – watched by over 2.5 million people, either on the night or in the week since its live streaming, and raising around £66,000 in donations. Let’s hope that engagement continues with their next offering: Sally Cookson’s dynamic adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, a Bristol Old Vic and National Theatre co-production which also toured the UK.Cookson’s devised work blows past the problems associated with transferring literature to stage. There is nothing stuffy or static about her version; on the Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The latest in Sadler’s Wells’ Digital Stage programme – an impressively assembled online offering to keep audiences entertained during the shutdown – is balletLORENT’s family-friendly dance-theatre production Rumpelstiltskin. It was streamed as a "matinee" on Friday afternoon, and is available to watch for free on Sadler’s Wells’ Facebook and YouTube for a week.The 90-minute work, first seen in 2018 and filmed for broadcast at Northern Stage, was the third successful collaboration between director Liv Lorent and then poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy – once again Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
With over one hundred books to her name and several hugely popular TV spin-offs, including the Tracy Beaker adventures, Jacqueline Wilson takes a no-nonsense approach to children’s fiction that reflects the realities of jigsaw families, mental and divorce. In 2012, in something of a detour from the rest of her work, she wrote a sequel of sorts to E. Nesbit’s beloved magical children’s classic, Five Children and It. Nesbit’s book has been adapted a myriad of times, including the charming 1990s BBC version and the less successful 2004 take with Eddie Izzard. It’s a familiar Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Benni, the central character in German writer-director Nora Fingscheidt's haunting new film, has a life of tragedy and violence. She’s the product of a dysfunctional family and an abusive childhood that has left her rage-ridden and incapable of controlling her anger. Playing Benni is talented newcomer Helena Zengel. Over the course of two hours she rages, weeps and wails across the screen in an utterly harrowing performance. Behind her waif-like appearance lies a fury that most people don’t achieve in a lifetime, much of which is conveyed Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The way that theatres and other arts institutions have leapt into action over the past week, providing a wealth of material online and new ways to connect with audiences, has been truly inspirational. Yesterday, the Hampstead Theatre re-released on Instagram a recording of its production of American playwright Lauren Gunderson’s I and You, specially filmed for IGTV and initially broadcast in 2018. It’s free until 22.00 on Sunday 29 March – and is well worth a watch.All stories have been recontextualised by the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent shutdown (have actors in TV dramas always Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
Welcome to New Mushroomton: a fantasy land that’s forgotten itself. This is how we’re introduced to Pixar’s Onward, which is set in a Dungeons & Dragons daydream of suburbia. Director Dan Scanlon’s film is a tribute to his late father, but it begins with a separate elegy. “Long ago,” we’re told, “the world was full of wonder.” Until the day that convenience killed magic — electricity was invented, spells cast aside. Today’s mythical creatures have become ordinary: trolls run tollbooths, gnomes are garden-variety.Such is life for Onward’s heroes, the elven Lightfoot family. There’s meek Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
Netflix’s Sex Education has returned to our screens and streams. The show made waves last year for its refreshing take on the teen comedy-drama. It took on abortion, consent and female pleasure — subjects strikingly absent from our actual high school educations. The result was a show that was always bingeable, sometimes educative, and oozing with sex-positive delights. Not everyone liked it. But those of us who did — teenagers all over again — could not stop talking about it. These are high expectations for a show going into its sophomore season. But thank God and thank Laurie Nunn: this is a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
This morning the largest annual, curated multi-arts festival in England launched and announced its programme of events. With Guest Director, British and Ethiopian poet-playwright-broadcaster Lemn Sissay, MBE, at the helm, Brighton Festival 2020 is themed as Imagine Nation and runs May 2-24. For the seventh year running, theartsdesk will be a major media partner, showcasing preview interviews and reviewing the best of the festival.No longer restricted solely to the city of Brighton & Hove itself, the Festival now takes place across the region with over 120 events, including 17 premieres, Read more ...