legal drama
Just Mercy review - soul-stirring true story about race and justice in AmericaFriday, 17 January 2020
Just Mercy, the latest film from Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12), is based on a New York Times bestseller. It has a star-studded cast. It’s emotionally moving as well as intellectually accessible. But it’s no easy film to watch. “They can call... Read more... |
On the Basis of Sex review – real-life legal dramaWednesday, 20 February 2019
When the world is as crazy as it is right now, its political life dominated by dolts and villains, it needs a new kind of hero. That’s why Americans are embracing an octogenarian woman with more guts and integrity than virtually anyone at her level... Read more... |
If Beale Street Could Talk review - love defies racism in James Baldwin adaptationSunday, 10 February 2019
Films that show a young couple’s love deepening are rare because without personal conflict there’s no narrative progression. They're especially rare in the current mainstream American cinema since romantic dramas are commercially risky, though LGBTQ... Read more... |
Ralegh: the Treason Trial, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - gripping verbatim court caseThursday, 29 November 2018
Forget the cloak in the puddle. Never mind potatoes and tobacco. The children's book cliché of Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ralegh as he seems to have preferred in an age of changeable spelling) represents little of the real man and is at best misleading... Read more... |
Black Earth Rising, BBC Two review - Blick's new blockbusterTuesday, 11 September 2018
As writer and director, Hugo Blick has brought us two of the twistiest dramas in recent-ish memory (The Shadow Line and The Honourable Woman). Looks like he’s done it again here, if not more so, since the eight-part Black Earth Rising takes as its... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, BBC One review - this summer's watercooler dramaFriday, 13 July 2018
How well do you know the person you love? Are they someone completely different when you’re not around? This is the central question Eve Myles (main picture) has to answer in the BBC’s latest mystery drama. Faced with the sudden disappearance of her... Read more... |
Consent, Harold Pinter Theatre review - exhilaratingWednesday, 30 May 2018
Question: is Consent, transferred from the National to the West End, a sharp-tongued comedy or an acute reinvention of a revenge drama? There are more than enough smartly placed laughs throughout the tart, increasingly taut first act, to make you... Read more... |
Mood Music, Old Vic review - riveting critique of the music bizThursday, 03 May 2018
Playwright Joe Penhall and the music biz? Well, they have history. When he was writing the book for Sunny Afternoon, his 2014 hit musical about the Kinks, he had a few run-ins with Ray Davies, the band’s lead singer. A couple of years ago The Stage... Read more... |
The Split, BBC One, review - Abi Morgan’s densely packed divorce dramaWednesday, 25 April 2018
A few years ago Abi Morgan was everywhere. For the cinema she scripted Shame, The Iron Lady, The Invisible Woman and Suffragette. On television she adapted Birdsong and created The Hour and, most recently, River. But she’s mainly been quiet for a... Read more... |
The Good Fight review - 'flawless writing and acting'Friday, 28 April 2017
If Robert King and Michelle King, creators of The Good Wife, took the Joss Whedon line on sequels – “They are inevitably awful” – then we would not have The Good Fight (More4) gracing our screens. But, thankfully, this sequel (actually, more a spin-... Read more... |
DenialThursday, 26 January 2017
As alternative facts go, few are as grievous as the assertion that the Holocaust didn't happen. That's the claim on which the British historian (I use that word advisedly) David Irving has staked an entire career. Its day in court provides... Read more... |
Prom 45: The Makropulos Affair, BBCSO, BělohlávekSaturday, 20 August 2016
Karel Čapek, the great Czech writer who pioneered some of the most prophetic dramatic fantasies of the early 20th century, thought Janáček was nuts to want to set his wordy play about a 337-year-old woman to music. He could not have anticipated what... Read more... |
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