family relationships
Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, BBC One review - still lives run deepWednesday, 24 June 2020
The eyes have it in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, which is in no way to discount this venerable writer's gift for words. Time and again in this vaunted series of dramatic solos, ten of which have now been remade alongside two new ones, a character... Read more... |
The Day After I'm Gone review - a subtle portrayal of a grieving father and his teenage daughterThursday, 18 June 2020
Yoram (Menashe Noy), a vet in a Tel Aviv safari park, knows how to treat a sick jaguar (startling to see such a magnificent beast in an oxygen mask) but he has no idea how to comfort his troubled 17-year-old daughter Roni (a powerful Zohar Meidan).... Read more... |
Banana Split review - likable if essentially timid romcomTuesday, 09 June 2020
Is friendship mightier and more durable than sex? That's the proposition put forward by the engaging if ultimately cautious Banana Split, the Los Angeles-set romcom in which two teenagers become friends unbeknownst to the long-haired himbo boyfriend... Read more... |
Days of the Bagnold Summer review - wry suburban dramaSaturday, 06 June 2020
Simon Bird's feature film debut as a director is a gentle, warm-hearted look at a mother and son's strained relationship as they are forced to spend the summer holidays together when the teenager's dad cruelly cancels a trip to see him and his... Read more... |
Theatre Lockdown Special 6: A prolific playwright, a timeless play, and speeches galoreThursday, 21 May 2020
Can we really be entering a third month in lockdown? Indeed we can, and culture, thank heavens, shows no signs whatsoever of leaving us in the lurch. This week's lineup of highlights offers a typically electic bunch, ranging from two sizable... Read more... |
Midnight Your Time, Donmar Warehouse online review – intimate and quietly movingThursday, 14 May 2020
During 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... |
Cuck review - tediously nihilisticFriday, 17 April 2020
Deep from the heart of Trumpland comes Cuck, a deeply unpleasant film about a totally repellent character. Directed and co-written by Rob Lambert, the film opened simultaneously last autumn in the States with Joker, with which it shares an... Read more... |
Tigertail review, Netflix - a story of immigrant opportunities, taken and missedFriday, 10 April 2020
“Crying never solves anything. Be strong.” An admonishment from a stern grandmother haunts this low key first feature film by Alan Yang (Parks and Recreation, Master of None), loosely based on his father’s 1950s immigrant experience of leaving... 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... |
Mark Townsend: No Return review - a masterclass in journalismWednesday, 08 April 2020
When Amer Deghayes departed for Syria in a truck leaving from Birmingham, a worker from a youth arts organisation in Brighton had been trying to get in touch with him. She wanted to inform Amer, an intelligent and creative 18-year-old who had once... Read more... |
Cyprus Avenue, Royal Court Theatre online review - a mind in mesmerising meltdownTuesday, 07 April 2020
One of the most blistering stage performances in recent memory gets a renewed lease on life with the streaming of the 2019 screen version, aired last autumn on BBC Four, of Cyprus Avenue, the David Ireland play in which Stephen Rea unravels to... Read more... |
Rumpelstiltskin, Sadler's Wells Digital Stage review - spins an engaging yarn for young audiencesMonday, 06 April 2020
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... Read more... |
