legal drama
An Interrogation, Hampstead Theatre review - police procedural based on true crime tale fails to ring trueSaturday, 25 January 2025
In a dingy room with dilapidated furniture on a dismal Sunday evening, two detectives prepare for an interview. The old hand walks out, with just a little too much flattery hanging in the air, leaving the interrogation in the hands of the up-and-... Read more... |
Presumed Innocent, Apple TV+ review - you read the book and saw the movie...Monday, 17 June 2024
Scott Turow published his cunningly-wrought legal thriller in 1987, and Alan J Pakula’s powerful movie version, starring Harrison Ford, appeared in 1990. Enough time has elapsed, perhaps, for Apple TV’s revised version of Presumed Innocent for the... Read more... |
Fatal Attraction, Paramount+ review - Adrian Lyne's bunny-boiler blockbuster expanded onwards and outwardsTuesday, 02 May 2023
Directed by Adrian Lyne, Fatal Attraction was the biggest-grossing film of 1987, and gave the world the term “bunny boiler”. Lyne isn’t aboard for Paramount’s new eight-part series, but the film’s screenwriter James Dearden is a major script... Read more... |
Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial, Ambassadors Theatre review - courtroom drama hits the back of the netThursday, 13 April 2023
“Wagatha Christie” – I salute the bright spark who coined the term – describes, for those who don't follow such fripperies, the social media spat between footballers' wives Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney (married to Jamie and Wayne respectively),... Read more... |
Legally Blonde, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - a joyous Gen-Z musical makeoverWednesday, 25 May 2022
The 2001 Reese Witherspoon-starring film Legally Blonde, upon which Heather Hach, Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s peppy Broadway musical is based, was something of a Trojan horse: a bubblegum-pink comedy with a feminist spine.Now Lucy Moss, co-... Read more... |
The Staircase, NOW review - addictive dramatisation of real-life murder investigationFriday, 13 May 2022
The real-life case of Michael Peterson and the death of his wife Kathleen in 2001 has generated a steady stream of TV documentaries, though this new series from HBO Max (showing on NOW) is the first time anybody has actually dramatised the story.... Read more... |
Prima Facie, Harold Pinter Theatre review - Jodie Comer sears the stageThursday, 28 April 2022
National statistics tell us that, in the year ending September 2021, 41% of rape victims in England and Wales eventually withdrew their support for prosecution. That justice is not always blind may have something to do with this.Indeed, as the... Read more... |
The Split, Series 3, BBC One review - the Defoes are back, more conflicted than everTuesday, 05 April 2022
After two years away, Abi Morgan’s acclaimed legal drama/juicy soap The Split returns for its third series, reuniting us with the closely knit, or, you might say, incestuous, law firm of Noble Hale Defoe.Ruth Defoe (Deborah Findlay) and her... Read more... |
The Merchant of Venice, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - enormous empathyThursday, 10 March 2022
The Merchant of Venice is a comedy, you say? Shakespeare, as ever, refuses to be confined to convenient boxes, his best plays’ extraordinary pliability and longevity a testament to the piercing eye he cast towards the slings and arrows that assail... Read more... |
Witness for the Prosecution, London County Hall review - return of Agatha Christie's gripping courtroom dramaFriday, 01 October 2021
Lucy Bailey's production of Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, first staged at County Hall in 2017, has a few years to make up on The Mousetrap's near 70, but it has already proved its staying power, despite the hiatus of the lockdown months.... Read more... |
The Collini Case review - it might be legal, but that doesn't mean it's justiceThursday, 09 September 2021
Adapted from Ferdinand von Schirach’s bestselling 2011 novel, The Collini Case is a riveting mix of character study and legal drama, carefully blended into a historical perspective reaching forward 60 years from the 1940s. At its core is the so-... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Marco KreuzpaintnerMonday, 06 September 2021
In 2011, Ferdinand von Schirach’s novel Der Fall Collini (The Collini Case) was published, its narrative of crime and punishment inspired by a law passed in Germany in 1968. Promoted by Dr Eduard Dreher, a former Nazi-era prosecutor who served in... Read more... |
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