sport
Trojan Women / Thrown, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 reviews - passionate all-women productionsFriday, 11 August 2023Trojan Women, Festival Theatre ★★★★★You can feel the white-hot intensity radiating from the stage virtually from start to finish of this remarkable, hypnotic production from the National Changgeuk Company of Korea and Singaporean director... Read more... |
Stumped, Hampstead Theatre review - Beckett and Pinter, waiting for DoggoWednesday, 28 June 2023Much of cricket comprises waiting – you wait on the boundary to hear news of the toss, you wait your turn to bat, you heed the call of your batting partner to wait to see if a run is on, you wait for the rain to stop. A friend once told me that he... Read more... |
Dear England, National Theatre review - filtering the national narrative through sportWednesday, 21 June 2023"Is everything loss?" the great Oliver Ford Davies once asked on the National's Olivier stage, in the closing moment of David Hare's masterful Racing Demon. That question informs another masterful play, James Graham's Dear England, newly opened... Read more... |
Villeneuve Pironi: Racing's Untold Tragedy, Sky Documentaries review - a macabre slice of motor racing mythologySaturday, 01 April 2023Netflix’s hit show Drive to Survive has proved that F1 can grab ratings, but Villeneuve Pironi: Racing's Untold Tragedy (Sky Documentaries) is a more esoteric offering.It’s a story from the annals of early-Eighties Formula One, in which filmmakers... Read more... |
Champions review - Woody Harrelson's latest hoop dreamTuesday, 14 March 2023In the sports comedy Champions Marcus and Marokovich (Woody Harrelson) is a basketball coach in the lowly G League. He has ambitions to coach in the major leagues, but a sight of his highly flammable temper is normally enough to conclude that... Read more... |
Creed III review - boxing cleverMonday, 06 March 2023This third Creed film outgrows Rocky, leaving Stallone’s bridging presence behind for a wholly renewed series. Starring again as Adonis Creed, the illegitimate son of Rocky’s late rival Apollo, Michael B. Williams’ directorial debut builds a richly... Read more... |
Drive to Survive, Season 5, Netflix review - fly-on-the wall F1 show may need a rebootFriday, 24 February 2023The backstage revelations about the politics and personalities that fuel Formula One have made Drive to Survive one of Netflix’s most reliable bestsellers, but on this fifth outing there’s a lurking sense that the novelty is wearing off.Viewers were... Read more... |
Stewart, Sky Documentaries review - touching and insightful portrait of Scottish race aceTuesday, 17 January 2023“Stupid, dumb and thick” was how Jackie Stewart felt he was characterised at school in Dunbartonshire, and it wasn’t until he was 43 that he was diagnosed as being severely dyslexic. By that time he’d won the Formula One World Championship three... Read more... |
Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams, BBC One review - Lancashire all-rounder adds new strings to his bowWednesday, 13 July 2022After the sensational reinvention of the England cricket team this summer, with their so-called “Bazball” technique, the second-best thing to have happened to the Summer Game is Freddie Flintoff’s new series.Here, the former dynamic all-rounder and... Read more... |
String v SPITTA, Soho Theatre review - rival children's entertainers battle it outMonday, 11 April 2022Spoofs of children's entertainment is a rich area for comics – whether it's the permanently drunk Jeremy Lion (Justin Edwards), or the permanently disappointed Funz and Gamez (Phil Ellis) – as they create adult fun in a seemingly innocent world. And... Read more... |
The Phantom of the Open review - charmingly incompetent golfer channels EalingThursday, 17 March 2022“No one can say you didn’t try,” shipyard worker Maurice Flitcroft (Mark Rylance) is told, shortly before bluffing his way aged 46 into the 1976 British Open, having never played golf before. The British love of the underdog is our popular cinema’s... Read more... |
Drive to Survive, Season 4, Netflix review - bitter rivalries on and off the trackSaturday, 12 March 2022Netflix’s fly-on-the-pitwall series has rapidly established itself as a vital ingredient in the tapestry of Formula One coverage, and is credited with giving the sport a huge boost in visibility and popularity, not least in the USA. This fourth... Read more... |