fantasy
Elf, Dominion Theatre review - hit musical revival slays it againSaturday, 26 November 2022Just about the three toughest tricks to pull off in the theatre are making a musical, making a family show and making characters so charming that even the most cynical in the house are pulling for the little guy (or not so little in this case). So... Read more... |
The Wonderful World of Dissocia, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - wild trip gets a welcome revivalSaturday, 24 September 2022Lisa has lost an hour in a (somewhat contrived) temporal glitch. As a consequence, her world is always sliding off-kilter, not quite making sense, things floating in and out of memory. A watchmaker (himself somewhat loosely tethered to reality)... Read more... |
Three Thousand Years of Longing review - be careful what you wish forSaturday, 03 September 2022Before there was cinema, there was story-telling around the fire with those who could spin the best yarns, conjure the most vivid visions, winning the love of their audience. George Miller has been bringing innovative and entrancing stories to the... Read more... |
Spider-Man: No Way Home review - The web-slinger returnsThursday, 16 December 2021A brief warning to readers: while effort is made to avoid spoilers, I would advise anyone who has somehow missed the massive amount of online speculation about the film’s plot to not read on. See the film first, and please come back. Right… on... Read more... |
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Duke of York's Theatre review - pure theatrical magicSaturday, 06 November 2021This show has been a long time coming. Neil Gaiman had the first inklings of The Ocean at the End of the Lane when he was seven years old and living near a farm recorded in the Domesday Book. Several decades later, he wrote a short story for his... Read more... |
The Magician's Elephant, Royal Shakespeare Theatre review - family musical doesn't fully deliverSaturday, 30 October 2021Trigger warnings have become commonplace in theatres these days, but few chill the blood like the description "a new musical" on a playbill. There are so many things to go wrong, so few ways to get things right and, never far away, the dissenters... Read more... |
Album: Ziúr - AntifateMonday, 03 May 2021It’s funny how the most high tech music can sound very traditional. In the case of producer / instrumentalist / occasional singer Ziúr, it’s the tradition of her hometown of Berlin that is expressed in her whirrs, clangs and mutated voices. Here –... Read more... |
Dream, RSC online review - gaming version unleashes revolutionary potentialWednesday, 17 March 2021Which of Shakespeare’s plays is most plagued by misperception? For my money, I would argue A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Most people encounter it at school age because of the ease with which it can be dressed up as a light comedy involving fairies. Yet... Read more... |
Courttia Newland: A River Called Time review - an ethereality checkTuesday, 05 January 2021It is near impossible to imagine what the world would look like today if slavery and colonialism had never existed, let alone to write a book on the subject. Courttia Newland sets himself this daunting task in his latest novel, A River Called Time.... Read more... |
Wonder Woman 1984 review - be careful what you wish forWednesday, 16 December 2020After months of watching movies on computer screens, how delightful to have a press screening at the Waterloo IMAX cinema, albeit under Covid restrictions. Not so delightful was the realisation that Wonder Woman 1984 is crying out for some editing... Read more... |
His Dark Materials, Series 2, BBC One review – upping the ante whilst retaining the magicMonday, 09 November 2020The first series of the BBC and HBO’s fantasy adventure His Dark Materials felt even more timely than when author Phillip Pullman first published Northern Lights twenty-five-years ago. The second season builds on the heady mix of philosophy and... Read more... |
The Witches review – new take lacks magicFriday, 30 October 2020A long shadow looms over Robert Zemeckis’ new take on Roald Dahl’s classic 1980s book The Witches, starring Octavia Spencer, Anne Hathaway and newcomer Jahzir Bruno. That shadow is cast by Nicholas Roeg’s strange and terrifying 1990 adaptation... Read more... |