family relationships
Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special, BBC One - a big cwtch from BarryThursday, 26 December 2019
What joy to be back with the Shipman and West families, created by writing team James Corden and Ruth Jones. It has been 10 years since sitcom Gavin & Stacey left our screens, and in this Christmas special there was some catching up to do as the... Read more... |
So Long, My Son review - an intimate Chinese epicSaturday, 07 December 2019
Two young boys play by the water. Soon, one is dead. This enigmatic tragedy is the core of a four-decade Chinese saga of grief, guilt and love, at once intimately personal and scarred by the state’s grinding turns. Director Wang Xiaoshuai shuffles... Read more... |
Elizabeth Strout: Olive, Again review - compassion, honesty and communitySunday, 01 December 2019
Elizabeth Strout is fond of plain titles. Much as her stories are interested in subtlety – the quiet complications and contradictions of ordinary life – her books advertise themselves by means of telling understatements. Olive, Again ... Read more... |
The Wolf of Wall Street, 5-15 Sun Street review - energetic but to what end?Friday, 29 November 2019
Of all the groups you probably wouldn’t want to be part of, surely the hyper-adrenalised, hardscrabble populace of The Wolf of Wall Street, the Jordan Belfort memoir made into an amphetamine rush of a film by Martin Scorsese, must rank near the... Read more... |
Ivo Graham: The Game of Life, Soho Theatre review - privilege and parentingThursday, 21 November 2019
Ivo Graham's latest show The Game of Life follows on from his previous hour, in which he talked about passing a milestone in life and the prospect of starting a family. Now he is a dad, and uses domestic detail as the starting point for some fine... Read more... |
Dear Evan Hansen, Noël Coward Theatre review - this social outcast will steal your heartWednesday, 20 November 2019
Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen is an institution in the States, running on Broadway since 2016 and currently on its second year of a national tour. It also made a star... Read more... |
Mary Poppins, Prince Edward Theatre review - a lavish but old-fashioned revivalThursday, 14 November 2019
It’s been 15 years since Cameron Mackintosh’s stage musical version of P. L. Travers’ Mary Poppins made its West End debut. Now, the magical nanny returns to the Prince Edward Theatre, with Zizi Strallen (who also headlined the UK tour) succeeding... Read more... |
Benjamin Markovits: Christmas in Austin review – Essinger family reunionSunday, 03 November 2019
Paul Essinger has quit life as a professional tennis player and retired to his native Texas where, over the course of seven days, he and his extended family are due to spend Christmas at his parents’ family home. This is the straightforward premise... Read more... |
Vassa, Almeida Theatre review - delayed opening doesn't landWednesday, 23 October 2019
Even the mighty Almeida is allowed the occasional dud and it’s sure as hell got one at the moment with Vassa. Maxim Gorky’s 1910 play (rewritten in 1935) about a matriarch in extremis some years back proved a stonking West End star vehicle... Read more... |
Lungs, Old Vic review - deluxe casting and slick deliveryTuesday, 22 October 2019
Playing our monarch and her husband in The Crown has made actors Claire Foy and Matt Smith into TV drama royalty, so reuniting the pair onstage guarantees a hot ticket. What’s less clear is why Lungs, Duncan Macmillan’s rather thin 2011 play, merits... Read more... |
Ready or Not review - bloody awfulSaturday, 28 September 2019
Equal measures class system satire and Scream or Saw genre knockoff, Ready or Not is entirely appalling, except perhaps to those forgiving hipsters in the crowd who will view its ineptitude as some deliberate "meta" statement all its own.... Read more... |
Mother of Him, Park Theatre review – lean domestic drama unsure where it standsWednesday, 25 September 2019
Mother of Him was written a decade ago, but its most prescient moment happens in the first five minutes of Max Lindsay's production at the Park Theatre. Brenda Kapowitz (Tracy-Ann Oberman) presents a sheaf of papers to Robert (Simon Hepworth, ... Read more... |
