class system
Lynn + Lucy review - a bruising tale of female friendshipThursday, 02 July 2020
British director Fyzal Boulifa makes his feature film debut with a bruising account of female-friendship torn apart by personal tragedies and gossipmongers, on a council estate in Harlow. At under an hour and a half, Boulifa shows a gift for... Read more... |
Romantic Comedy review - a not-so-guilty pleasureSaturday, 09 May 2020
Only those who really love you can deliver the hard truths, and for filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey, that one love is romantic comedies. Better known as one half of band Summer Camp, Sankey is a self-confessed romcom expert, having watched nearly every... Read more... |
Helen McCarthy: Double Lives - A History of Working Motherhood review – doing it for themselvesSunday, 19 April 2020
Want to enact mass social change? Make it about children. About their health, their prosperity, their future. Make it about men; their security, their wellbeing. Make it about society. What benefits are there for the economy, the home? Just for God’... Read more... |
Flowers for Mrs Harris, Chichester Festival Theatre online review - a warmly open-hearted weepieMonday, 13 April 2020
18 months or so after it opened in Chichester, Flowers for Mrs Harris launches a sequence of streamed productions from the West Sussex venue just in time to allow a new British musical to join the ever-swelling ranks of theatrical offerings online.... Read more... |
Jane Eyre, National Theatre at Home review - a fiery feminist adaptationFriday, 10 April 2020
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... Read more... |
The Platform review - timely, violent and effectiveSaturday, 04 April 2020
Horror has always been a good vehicle for satire, from John Carpenter’s They Live to Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Some metaphors opt for the subtle precision of a surgical knife, and others the hit you over the head. The Platform on Netflix is the latter... Read more... |
The English Game, Netflix review - it's the toffs versus the workers in this version of sporting historySaturday, 21 March 2020
Julian Fellowes admits he knows little about football and has always hated sport in general, but this hasn’t prevented him from writing a TV series (for Netflix) about football’s 19th century origins. While his other new series, ITV’s Belgravia,... Read more... |
Military Wives review - the surprising true story of the women who rocked the chartsThursday, 05 March 2020
There’s a lot of plucky British charm to Military Wives, from Peter Cattaneo, the director who won the nation's heart with his debut film The Full Monty over two decades ago. His latest offering, starring Kristen Scott Thomas and... Read more... |
Pass Over, Kiln Theatre review - fierce critique of racist brutalityThursday, 20 February 2020
The Black Lives Matter movement is such an important international protest that it is odd how few contemporary plays even mention it. Since the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has been around since 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman who... Read more... |
Greed review - so-so satire of the über richThursday, 20 February 2020
Steve Coogan’s long partnership with director Michael Winterbottom is probably best known for The Trip and its spin-offs, involving Coogan’s comic culinary excursions alongside Rob Brydon. But for its serious undercurrents and disreputable... Read more... |
Parasite review - a class war with grand designsThursday, 06 February 2020
With the Oscars approaching, one film building momentum in the fight for best picture – and whose victory would delight all but the most blinkered – is the Korean Bong Joon Ho’s deliriously dark and entertaining black comedy, Parasite. It... Read more... |
Faustus: That Damned Woman, Lyric Hammersmith review - gender swap yields muddled resultsWednesday, 29 January 2020
Changing the gender of the title character “highlights the way in which women still operate in a world designed by and for men,” argues Chris Bush, whose reimagining of Marlowe’s play premieres at the Lyric ahead of a UK tour. It’s certainly a... Read more... |
