love
Blu-ray: Hungarian MastersTuesday, 28 December 2021
Three films, each restored to glorious 4K, make up Second Run’s Hungarian Masters set. Billed as “essential works by three of Hungarian cinema’s most renowned filmmakers”, each film earns that praise in its own way.Zoltán Fábri’s ... Read more... |
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Duke of York's Theatre review - pure theatrical magicSaturday, 06 November 2021
This 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... |
Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of), Criterion Theatre review - bursting with wit, verve, and loveThursday, 04 November 2021
“We haven’t started yet!” Hannah-Jarrett Scott, dressed in Doc Martens under a 19th-century shift, reassures us as she attempts to dislodge a yellow rubber glove from a chandelier in the middle of the set of Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of).... Read more... |
Old Bridge, Bush Theatre review - powerful, poetic and profoundWednesday, 03 November 2021
Is the Bosnian conflict of 1992–95 the war that Europe forgot? Maybe, although most fans of new writing for the British stage will remember its massacres as the inciting incident for Sarah Kane’s 1995 modern classic, Blasted. Certainly, this... Read more... |
'The din is loud these days': playwright Cordelia Lynn on her imminent premiere at the Donmar WarehouseMonday, 11 October 2021
As I write this, we've just had our final day in the rehearsal room and are going into tech onstage next week with my new play, which is also reopening the Donmar not only to live performance but follows major renovations at their home address.It’s... Read more... |
Album: James Blake - Friends That Break Your HeartSaturday, 09 October 2021
There I was, gleefully prepared to give this a good kick-in but, annoyingly, it’s defied my expectations. I’ve come to associate James Blake’s singing with the worst excesses of I’m-so-vulnerable-me, post-Jeff Buckley, falsetto-voice-breaking, and... Read more... |
Metamorphoses, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - punchy, cleverly reworked classicThursday, 07 October 2021
Ovid was exiled – or to put it in twenty-first century terms, "no-platformed" – by an indignant Emperor Augustus for the scandal caused by his three-book elegy on love, Ars Amatoria. Most scholars believe the intrigue behind his banishment to be... Read more... |
How to Survive an Apocalypse, Finborough Theatre review - millenarian millennialsMonday, 04 October 2021
Despite its painfully relevant title, How To Survive An Apocalypse was written in 2016. If only Canadian playwright Jordan Hall knew, eh? The end times aren’t just creeping but hurtling towards us, these days. Luckily for those weary of Covid... Read more... |
Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Globe review - foot-stompingly good funWednesday, 11 August 2021
The best version of Twelfth Night I’ve seen is not called Twelfth Night. For sheer knockabout entertainment, nothing beats the 2006 film She’s the Man. But Sean Holmes’ production for the Globe’s summer season, brimming with song and physical comedy... Read more... |
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir: Magma review - love burns in debut novel from IcelandTuesday, 03 August 2021
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir’s Magma is certainly not an easy read. It describes, in short chapters, the obsessive and ultimately destructive power of an abusive relationship. It is, at times, patchily written (perhaps because we have been... Read more... |
L'amico Fritz, Opera Holland Park review - slow-burning love, Italian styleSaturday, 17 July 2021
“If this is love, then why have I fought it?” The stock romantic-comedy prevarications had a Greenwich Village setting in Bernstein’s Wonderful Town at Opera Holland Park less than two weeks ago. Last night, the place was nominally Alsace but the... Read more... |
Two of Us review - a lesbian love story with a differenceThursday, 15 July 2021
“Do you have a problem with old dykes?” demands Nina (the superbly ferocious Barbara Sukowa) of a bland, nervous young estate agent, halfway through this wonderfully original first feature from director Filippo Meneghetti. No, he stammers. “You see... Read more... |
