America
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Waxahatchee’s fifth album wasn’t intended as an escapist fantasy. Written shortly after Katie Crutchfield decided to get sober, Saint Cloud documents a journey towards self-acceptance; one woman’s reckoning with her past and its impact on the people she loves. But it’s a journey that is as literal as it is metaphysical, Crutchfield’s vivid lyrics and wide-open arrangements painting pictures of the places she has seen along the way: Memphis glowing in the sunlight as if on fire; tomatoes sold by the bag on a roadside in Alabama; homesickness on the crowded streets of Tennessee.After evolving, Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The way that theatres and other arts institutions have leapt into action over the past week, providing a wealth of material online and new ways to connect with audiences, has been truly inspirational. Yesterday, the Hampstead Theatre re-released on Instagram a recording of its production of American playwright Lauren Gunderson’s I and You, specially filmed for IGTV and initially broadcast in 2018. It’s free until 22.00 on Sunday 29 March – and is well worth a watch.All stories have been recontextualised by the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent shutdown (have actors in TV dramas always Read more ...
Graham Fuller
After Robert Altman re-established his critical reputation with The Player in 1992, he directed nine more films – including two of his most ambitious multiple-character works, Short-Cuts (1993) and Gosford Park (2001).In terms of notable speaking parts, his Kansas City from 1996 was a comparatively modest undertaking. Yet Altman's evocation of his Missouri hometown in 1934 as a nocturnal maelstrom of political corruption, Mob raids, and shaking jazz joints gave it an epic-intimate quality – like a Thomas Hart Benton canvas come to life. You can really believe you’re there, as the saying Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Surely there’s never been a more apt time for Sondheim’s great cry of defiance? “I’m Still Here” is sung by showgirl-turned-actress Carlotta in Follies (1971) – added during the Boston try-out in place of “Can That Boy Foxtrot”. Loosely inspired by Joan Crawford, it’s the ultimate anthem of showbiz survival.Carlotta looks back on a tumultuous career: “Plush velvet sometimes/Sometimes just pretzels and beer”. Musically, it’s a Harold Arlen pastiche, as Sondheim explains in Finishing the Hat, since Carlotta “would see her life as a flamboyant, torchy ballad”. Lyrically, it’s pure Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Here's an irony worthy of the work of Stephen Sondheim, an artist who clearly knows a thing or two about the multiple manifestations of that word. On the same day that he turns 90, namely today, Broadway is unable to host the keenly awaited American premiere, scheduled for this evening, of the gender-flipped Company that stunned London last year. The city's theatres there (as everywhere else) shuttered by the coronavirus, New York will have to bide its time until audiences can see the director Marianne Elliott's fresh take on the story of a Manhattan singleton, once male and now female, Read more ...
Markie Robson-Scott
The multi-talented Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar, Designated Survivor, House) took a two-year acting sabbatical in 2009 to work for the Obama administration. So he is, in theory, ideally placed to co-create, with Matt Murray, a semi-political TV sitcom about a New York City councillor.Councilman Garrett Modi (Modi is actually Penn’s real name) lets partying with Wall Street douchebags go to his head, is busted for driving on the expressway under the influence, then vomits on a police car and attempts to bribe the cops for a billion dollars. Of course, this goes viral and he’s soon pitching up Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
When the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison died last year, it was a chance to celebrate the remarkable life of a storyteller who shook the literary establishment. Her work, including her debut novel The Bluest Eye, broke radical new ground in depicting African American life. Now her life is the subject of a new documentary directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.This is a documentary that brims with love and admiration for Morrison’s work and life. All the critical biographical details are correct and present. Still, Greenfield-Sanders’ film is much more than a tick box Read more ...
David Nice
As RuPaul's best squirrel friend Michelle Visage, co-doyenne of the amused and amusing judges, put it, "that was some next-level shit". She was referring to a high point in the contest's weekly lip sync-ing finales, right at the end of the new season's first entertainment (on Netflix), but it's true of the majority of the 13 queens presented over two episodes to compete for the crown. Usually you detect a weak link or two, and they're gone in the first weeks; you never got to know who they were. But this time no-one was sent home, and the quality looked like the best ever - a return to form Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
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 begins with a separate elegy. “Long ago,” we’re told, “the world was full of wonder.” Until the day that convenience killed magic — electricity was invented, spells cast aside. Today’s mythical creatures have become ordinary: trolls run tollbooths, gnomes are garden-variety.Such is life for Onward’s heroes, the elven Lightfoot family. There’s meek Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
The Photograph, from writer-director Stella Meghie, tells twin tales. The first is all flashback and follows Christine (Chanté Adams, pictured below with Y'lan Noel), a young photographer balancing love and ambition. The second follows Christine’s daughter Mae (Issa Rae), who’s getting to grips with Christine’s death when Michael (Lakeith Stanfield) approaches her about her mother’s work. Soon, the narratives weave together: two love stories are set in train.The Photograph gives you its moral in the opening clip. “I wish I was as good at love as I am at working,” says Christina, Read more ...
Marianka Swain
There’s concept on top of concept in this revival of Jason Robert Brown’s beloved 2001 musical, which charts the ebb and flow of a relationship by juggling timelines: aspiring actress Cathy’s story is told in reverse chronological order, while aspiring writer Jamie’s moves forward. It’s an apt framing for a couple who are never on the same page, their dual ambitions and relative success wrenching them apart. Director Jonathan O’Boyle now adds another layer: this is an actor-musician production, with both performers playing the piano throughout, among other instruments.There are crystalline Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
In this aptly-titled series (BBC One), four British 20-somethings visit the USA to investigate the inner workings of the beauty industry. Perhaps not surprisingly, they discover that it’s a hotbed of greed and exploitation.Their first stop was the Beautycon exhibition in Los Angeles, a must-see gathering of 30,000 “beauty fans” and (ghastly neologism alert) online “influencers”. The latter included the glittering Kenneth Senegal, who can earn $14,000 by mentioning a cosmetic product in one of his videos. Chloe (a Belfast-based beauty blogger) and Casey (a fastidiously made-up gay man from Read more ...