Cold War
Cold War review - a gorgeous and mesmerising romanceWednesday, 29 August 2018![]() Can we ever really know the passion that brought our parents together? By the time we are old enough to hear the story of how they first met, that lovers’ narrative has frayed in the telling and faded in the daily light of domestic familiarity. But... Read more... |
Jazz Ambassadors, BBC Four review - the cool warFriday, 04 May 2018![]() As the ice hardened in the Cold War of the mid-1950s, and the USSR mocked the USA for both its supposed barbarism and racial segregation, the representative from Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell Jr, had a bright idea. Instead of competing in the cultural... Read more... |
Chess, London Coliseum review - powerfully sung but still problematicWednesday, 02 May 2018![]() Its origins as a concept album cling stubbornly to Chess, the Tim Rice collaboration with the male members of ABBA first seen on the West End in 1986 and extensively retooled since then in an ongoing quest to hit the elusive jackpot. Following hot... Read more... |
The Shape of Water review - love in a Cold War climateWednesday, 14 February 2018![]() Guillermo del Toro has laid down markers as a wizard of the fantastical with such previous works as Pan’s Labyrinth and Crimson Peak (though we’ll skate nimbly around Pacific Rim), and now he has brought it all back home with The Shape of Water, as... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: When the Wind BlowsTuesday, 23 January 2018![]() Adapted by Raymond Briggs from his best-selling graphic novel, When the Wind Blows was released in 1986 and stands up so well that you’re inclined to forgive its flaws: namely David Bowie’s leaden theme song and an abundance of fairly flat black... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Miracle Mile - cult apocalyptic romanceFriday, 03 November 2017![]() To quote the genius sax player Dexter Gordon, "In nuclear war, all men are cremated equal" – or in this case, all adorable couples will burn as one. Anthony Edwards plays Harry, a not-so-genius trombone player who one sunny afternoon in Los... Read more... |
LFF 2017: The Shape of Water review – outsider s.f. and inter-species sex from del ToroWednesday, 11 October 2017![]() Fish out of water come in various guises in Guillermo del Toro’s Cold War fable, shown at London Film Festival. The Shape of Water riffs on The Creature from the Black Lagoon with its amphibious man-god, captured in 1962 to be cattle-prodded and... Read more... |
The Reagan Show review - engaging but frustratingMonday, 02 October 2017![]() The Reagan administration produced as much video content as the previous five administrations combined. That’s the claim early on in The Reagan Show, an engaging but ultimately frustrating documentary compiled entirely from archive footage by co-... Read more... |
John le Carré: A Legacy of Spies review - the master in twilight moodSunday, 10 September 2017![]() Over his long career – 23 novels, memoirs, his painfully believable narratives adapted into extraordinary films (10 for the big screen) and for television – John le Carré has created a world that has gripped readers and viewers alike. He has... Read more... |
DVD: Culloden / The War GameTuesday, 05 April 2016![]() The most radical of the directors who forged a “cinema of resistance” at the BBC in the 1960s, Peter Watkins completed two groundbreaking docudramas there – Culloden (1964) and The War Game (1965) – before the suppression of the second prompted his... Read more... |
Miss Atomic Bomb, St James TheatreWednesday, 16 March 2016![]() As settings for musical comedy go, this one promised some boom for your buck. Las Vegas in the early 1950s was just emerging as a magnet not only for hedonists and gamblers, mobsters and showgirls, but also for the personnel of America’s Atomic... Read more... |
Churchill's Secret, ITVMonday, 29 February 2016![]() When it comes to losing power, and powers failing, Michael Gambon has once again proved himself the ruler of choice. The actor who gave us his Lear when he was only just hitting his forties has had three decades of gurning and grouching to ready... Read more... |
