friendship
Company, Gielgud Theatre review - here's to a sensational musical rebirthThursday, 18 October 2018![]() The most thrilling revivals interrogate a classic work, while revealing its fundamental soul anew. Marianne Elliott’s female-led, 21st-century take on George Furth and Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical comedy Company makes a bold,... Read more... |
Heathers The Musical, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - a sardonic take on teen angstThursday, 20 September 2018![]() This London premiere of Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s 2010 musical (based on Daniel Waters’ oh-so-Eighties cult classic movie, starring Christian Slater and Winona Ryder) had a development period at The Other Palace – no critics allowed... Read more... |
The Receptionist – London’s underground sex industry laid bareThursday, 19 July 2018![]() When director Jenny Lu graduated from university, the promise of a big city career quickly turned into a series of rejections. Around this time, a close friend of hers committed suicide by jumping off a bridge – unbeknownst to their circle of... Read more... |
Alkaline, Park Theatre review - faith, friendship and failureSaturday, 14 July 2018Britain is rightly proud of its record on multiculturalism, but whenever cross-cultural couples are shown on film, television or the stage they are always represented as a problem. Not just as a normal way of life, but as something that is going... Read more... |
Pin Cushion review - a twisted fable of daydreams and bulliesTuesday, 10 July 2018![]() On the surface, Pin Cushion is a whimsical British indie, packed with imagination and charm. But debuting director Deborah Haywood builds this on a foundation of bullying and prejudice, creating a surprisingly bleak yet effective film.Teenager Iona... Read more... |
The Jungle, Playhouse Theatre review - new territorySaturday, 07 July 2018![]() "I am dead," declares Okot before recounting the horrors he survived to reach Calais. Each time, he says, "I died." How many times can you die before you are truly dead? What is it that finally kills you? These are the questions at the heart of... Read more... |
Booby's Bay, Finborough Theatre review - a bit fishySaturday, 03 February 2018![]() Carry on out of London past the Finborough Theatre and you hit the A4. Follow it east as it becomes the M4, take a southern turn at Bristol for the M5 and you’re in the West Country. Bude and Bodmin, Liskeard, St Austell, Padstow, Mousehole, Newquay... Read more... |
The Lie, Menier Chocolate Factory review - fake news, real feelingMonday, 09 October 2017![]() A year after premiering acclaimed French playwright Florian Zeller’s The Truth, the Menier Chocolate Factory now hosts The Lie – which, as the name suggests, acts as a companion piece of sorts. Once again, we’re in a slippery Pinteresque realm... Read more... |
The Truth, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 17 March 2016![]() Infidelity, hypocrisy, disillusionment, betrayal – and yet this is by far the lightest of French playwright Florian Zeller’s current London hat trick. Premiering in 2011, and thus sandwiched chronologically between the bleak pair of The Mother (2010... Read more... |
Crashing, Channel 4Tuesday, 19 January 2016![]() Created and written by the abundantly talented Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who also stars, Crashing is set among a group of twenty- and thirtysomethings living in a disused hospital in London, which the characters are “protecting” – sort of legalised... Read more... |
DVD: Microbe and GasolineFriday, 18 December 2015![]() Michel Gondry’s last film, the unwatchably hyperglycaemic Mood Indigo (2013), was so arch and quirky it irritated more than appealed. Thankfully, Microbe and Gasoline resets the dial to the charm levels of 2008’s Be Kind Rewind. And things hadn’t... Read more... |
GirlhoodThursday, 07 May 2015![]() Confounding expectations from the first frames, Girlhood is the endearingly scrappy and staggeringly beautiful third film from French writer-director Céline Sciamma (Tomboy) and no relation to Boyhood. Intimate and exuberant, it's a coming-of-age... Read more... |
