magic
Onward review - do you believe in magic?Friday, 06 March 2020
Welcome to New Mushroomton: a fantasy land that’s forgotten itself. This is how we’re introduced to Pixar’s Onward, which is set in a Dungeons & Dragons daydream of suburbia. Director Dan Scanlon’s film is a tribute to his late father, but it... Read more... |
Magic Goes Wrong, Vaudeville Theatre review - entertaining spoofFriday, 10 January 2020
Mischief Theatre's “Goes Wrong” oeuvre is now well established: broad humour combined with physical comedy and slapstick mishaps. Magic Goes Wrong, though, is the company's first outside collaboration – with American magicians Penn & Teller,... Read more... |
Michael Hunter: The Decline of Magic review - when mockery killed witchesSunday, 29 December 2019
During a single day of bloated idleness last week, I managed to watch three televised ghost stories, adapted from the works of Charles Dickens and a brace of Jameses: MR and Henry. Christmas, moreover, will have proved again to millions that Harry... Read more... |
Mary Poppins, Prince Edward Theatre review - a lavish but old-fashioned revivalThursday, 14 November 2019
It’s been 15 years since Cameron Mackintosh’s stage musical version of P. L. Travers’ Mary Poppins made its West End debut. Now, the magical nanny returns to the Prince Edward Theatre, with Zizi Strallen (who also headlined the UK tour) succeeding... Read more... |
Happy as Lazzaro review - magical realism from ItalyFriday, 05 April 2019
Italy has a romance with rural grit and innocence and – perhaps not surprising in a country where the links between village and city are still very strong: Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice) isn’t in any way derivative, but... Read more... |
CD: Mary Poppins Returns - Original Motion Picture SoundtrackTuesday, 11 December 2018
This is a soundtrack with vast shoes to fill. Frozen, The Lion King and Aladdin may be the best-selling Disney soundtracks but, alongside The Jungle Book, the original 1964 Mary Poppins has the most beloved array of songs. It takes chutzpah to try... Read more... |
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald review - mischief not quite managedFriday, 16 November 2018
Two years after the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we return to the Wizarding World once again for the next, somewhat convoluted, chapter in the five planned prequel instalments, with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald... Read more... |
CD: Imogen Heap - The Music of Harry Potter and the Cursed ChildTuesday, 13 November 2018
London’s Palace Theatre this week celebrated the thousandth performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opened there back in 2016. Like everything else JK Rowing puts her hand to, it’s been an outrageous success, taking the post-Hogwarts... Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2018 reviews: Home / The PrisonerMonday, 27 August 2018
Home ★★★★ Philadelphia-based theatre artist Geoff Sobelle has scored highly with two previous Edinburgh Fringe shows. Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl, way back in 2010, imagined the natural world wreaking ruthless... Read more... |
Disenchantment, Netflix review - Matt Groening show has promise after poor startFriday, 17 August 2018
It’s an event that only comes around once a generation: a new Matt Groening TV series. The Simpsons is rightly regarded as one of the greatest shows ever made. It changed the face of American television, and 10 years later was followed Futurama, a... Read more... |
Blu-ray: La Belle et la bêteFriday, 10 August 2018
Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la bête had been planned as a slice of wartime escapism, a distraction from the privations of war. The film was also a chance for Cocteau to give his male lead Jean Marais a less overtly sexy role than his fans were used... Read more... |
Mr Swallow - Houdini, Soho TheatreMonday, 16 January 2017
Nick Mohammed doesn't do things by halves as his chatty airhead alter ego Mr Swallow. Forget the scholarly approach of finely researched biographies of Harry Houdini (“boring!”); his “first-ever entirely true auto-biopic” of the magician and... Read more... |
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