digital technology
Philip Ball: The Book of Minds review - thinking about the boxFriday, 17 June 2022Years ago, one of the leading mathematicians in the country tried to explain to me what his real work was like. When he was on the case, he said, he could be doing a range of other things – having his morning shave, making coffee, walking to a... Read more... |
Prehistoric Planet, Apple TV+ review - David Attenborough presents life on earth, 66 million years agoThursday, 26 May 2022With Jurassic World: Dominion due in June, which will mark the end of the “Jurassic” movie franchise, here’s Apple TV’s alternative, science-based history of dinosaurs and their world. It’s produced by Jon Favreau, a key player in the Marvel... Read more... |
Stuart Jeffries: Everything, All the Time, Everywhere - How We Became Post-Modern review - entertaining origin-story for the world of todayTuesday, 02 November 2021In his 1985 essay “Not-Knowing”, the American writer Donald Barthelme describes a fictional situation in which an unknown “someone” is writing a story.“From the world of conventional signs,” Barthelme writes, laying out for the reader this story... Read more... |
Sam Riviere: Dead Souls review – whip-smart literary satire with a techno tingeThursday, 13 May 2021In 1992 Martin Amis published a story, “Career Move”, in which the writers of sensational screenplays with titles like Decimator and Offensive from Qasar 13 read their work to empty rooms in shabby pubs. Meanwhile, wealthy and fêted poets pen verses... Read more... |
Kazuo Ishiguro: Klara and the Sun review - what makes us human?Tuesday, 09 March 2021Unsettling, unremitting and psychologically stark, Klara and the Sun has all the hallmarks of a traditional Ishiguro novel. Dealing with his familiar themes of loss and love and the question of what makes us human, the book follows the "life" of an... Read more... |
Don DeLillo: The Silence review - when the lights of technology go outTuesday, 08 December 2020Don DeLillo’s latest novella, The Silence, has been marketed with an emphasis on its prescience, describing the shocked lacuna of time around a devastating event whose repercussions are yet to be truly felt. It is a compelling short read, but a... Read more... |
Midnight Your Time, Donmar Warehouse online review – intimate and quietly movingThursday, 14 May 2020During lockdown, some of the best online theatre has been shows that are specially created for this digital format. Much better than dull records of dramas that might have worked well on stage, but now seem sadly moribund and exceedingly slow on the... Read more... |
Who You Think I Am review - Juliette Binoche dazzles as she wrestles with dual identitiesThursday, 16 April 2020With influences as diverse as Hitchcock’s Vertigo to 2010’s Catfish, Safy Nebbou’s genre-splicing French-language feature, starring Juliette Binoche, comes loaded with a heady mix of cheap thrills and surprising psychological depth.... Read more... |
New Music Lockdown Special 2: Lady Gaga, Gary Numan, Jess Gillam, Charli XCX and moreWednesday, 15 April 2020Another week of lockdown so another fresh and lively update on what’s out there, including an interactive orchestra experience, DJ sets, and a concert in your own living room. Dive in!One World: Together at Home – Curated by Lady GagaThe big event... Read more... |
Bubble, Theatre Uncut online review - educational, but unexceptionalTuesday, 24 March 2020It’s only been a week since London’s West End went dark, and theatres closed all over the UK, but it feels like months. Really. Like many, I’m in self-isolation, stressed by working online and worried about getting enough food and essentials, so it... Read more... |
The Haystack, Hampstead Theatre review - a chilling surveillance state thrillerFriday, 07 February 2020With counter-terrorism an urgent concern – and specifically how best to find, track and use the data of suspected threats, without sacrificing our privacy and civil liberties – it’s excellent timing for a meaty drama about the surveillance state.... Read more... |
Midnight Movie, Royal Court review - sleepless and digitalWednesday, 04 December 2019Eve Leigh is an experimental playwright who has tackled difficult issues for more than a decade. Yet most members of the public will know her, and her actor husband Tom Penn, as the neighbours who recorded an altercation between Boris Johnson and... Read more... |