England
Helen Hawkins
This 1981 two-hander was opened out for a film in 1986, starring Julie Andrews no less, with all its offstage characters given screen life. Thankfully it has been shrunk back to its original dimensions, with added modern ornamentation for this latest revival of it at the Orange Tree Theatre. Therapist Dr Feldmann has become a woman (Maureen Beattie), who emails her clients when appointments are missed and uses an iPad at one of the sessions; her patient, Stephanie Abrahams (Tara Fitzgerald), though, is the same devastated soul as in the original, a concert violinist who is six years into Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
The set of 2:22 A Ghost Story is open to the auditorium when we arrive and locates us at once in gentrification-land. We are in a slick kitchen with white chevron tiling, new units and an obligatory island; big skylights loom overhead and outsize glass doors lead to the back garden - and the foxes. Their mating screams will terrifyingly punctuate the action, at maximum decibels.Except… the more you look at this set (excellent design by Anna Fleischle), the more you start noticing strange details. The walls aren’t finished and layers of old wallpaper have been peeled off and left as they are; Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Sam Mendes assembled most of the ingredients necessary to make Empire of Light a wrenching English melodrama with a potent social theme. The stars are Olivia Colman, Colin Firth, Micheal Ward and Toby Jones. Mendes teamed with his usual cinematographer Roger Deakins, whose elegant panoramic images lend a grandeur to Margate’s faded glory. The town’s art deco Dreamland Cinema provided the main location of a movie admirably modest in scale. Fatefully, what the production didn’t have was a screenplay that ensured a consistent tang of verisimilitude. Though a heartfelt and well- Read more ...
mark.kidel
As our favourite rock stars become elders, there has been a steady flow of autobiographies, some ghosted, some authentically authored; more or less confessional, revisiting the ups and downs of life-journeys lived beyond the fatal 27th birthday that seems to have knocked an uncanny number of them out of play.Patrick Duff, the lead singer and songwriter for the Nineties indie band Strangelove is an unlikely survivor. Strangelove, emerged at the tail-end of Britpop, were much admired by Radiohead and Suede. They almost made it big. The band were very good, and their music has stood the test of Read more ...
Matt Wolf
I bow to no one in my affection for Matilda the Musical onstage, which I've loved across multiple iterations, from Stratford-upon-Avon to the West End and Broadway, and numerous cast changes, too.But Matthew Warchus's screen iteration of his Roald Dahl-inspired ongoing London hit is an entirely separate triumph in and of itself, smartly adapted and ever so slightly reconceived so as to sneak the occasional nifty political reference into its universal tale of childhood angst.As in the theatre, how can one not immediately warm to material in which the mere mention of literature excites the Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
“It was like Woodstock on steroids,” opines an expert in Netflix’s new release about the doomed marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (yes, another one).Not sure you remember anything of that description from your history lessons? That would be the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the lavish spectacle staged near Calais in 1520 for a summit between Henry and François I of France. This remark should tell you the key thing you need to know about Blood, Sex & Royalty. It’s probably not for you, unless you are vetting it on behalf of teenage offspring. Its mesh of costumed soap with Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Life is full of coincidences and contradictions. As I was walking to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was on his feet in the House of Commons delivering yet another rebalancing of individual and collective resources. On reading a couple of fine essays in the excellent programme, I saw the acknowledgement of the production’s sponsor, Pragnell.The first item that appears on the jeweller’s website is a pair of earrings retailing at an eye-watering £71,500. Which is to say that the inequalities that fired Charles Dickens’ anger in the 1840s are still with us in the Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Living begins with a ravishing immersion in vintage footage of a lost world, primary colours popping on a Fifties summer’s day in Piccadilly. Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s opulent score adds to the poignancy of an orderly, comfortable England: the country which has slowed the heartbeat and buried the soul of Williams (Bill Nighy), a civil servant called Mr. Zombie behind his back.South African director Oliver Hermanus’s last film, Moffie, dealt with two gay soldiers suffering under the apartheid army’s brutish order; screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Remains of the Day inspired perhaps the Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Now into its fifth season, Netflix’s royal pageant is entering that danger zone where once-majestic TV series suddenly find they’re running out of steam. Perhaps Harry and Meghan’s publicity-hogging shenanigans and the real-life loss of the Queen and Prince Philip have somewhat overshadowed Netflix’s quasi-fictional drama. Perhaps everybody has become sick to death of rehashed versions of the life of Princess Diana.Whatever the reasons, The Crown now feels slightly jaded, re-running familiar themes and recycling whiffs of various historic scandals with yet another different cast. As ever, Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
This is not a play for the squeamish: here be blood and cum and unsavoury descriptions of genitalia, male and female, that make you wonder why humans relish sex so much. And it’s all played out in the close quarters of the small in-the-round space of the Orange Tree.The set is dominated by a large Tracey Emin-ish unmade bed, on which the two actors play out their past and present. Above the seating, on all four sides, are long panels where a graphic display shows a pulse line that suddenly flatlines. When the dialogue starts, the text is projected here too.Not that we spend that much Read more ...
Tom Carr
Last year, Brightonian metal outfit Architects were propelled into new territory with For Those That Wish to Exist, achieving their first UK number one album. In all measures a roaring success, they sonically edged into the uncharted too. Their first album recorded entirely without Tom Searle’s influence since his passing, with For Those… Architects bridged their metalcore style into something cinematic and larger-than-life.Freed of covid restrictions they return already with their 10th effort: The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit. For Those… saw the band turn their gaze to existential Read more ...
Kathryn Reilly
They've been away for a long time, not just due to that virus. Sisters Rachel and Becky have been busy with other projects including a score for Mackenzie Crook's Worzel Gummidge and works inspired by Emily Bronte and Molly Drake. So this album feels overdue. There are many who will revel in this delicious scoop of accessible and enjoyable folk. There is no fustiness here, no shanties or jigs. But the anticipated harmonies are as moving as ever – cutting through 2022's nonsense to deliver something achingly pure. Opener "The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry" is an old song from Orkney Read more ...