England
Matt Wolf
A film once touted as surefire Oscar bait instead looks set to clean up at the Golden Raspberry awards (or Razzies) if this preposterously inept biopic of the world's best-known woman finds the fate it deserves. Cloth-eared, cynical, and not even blessed with a persuasive star turn to show itself off, Diana seems destined to become the stuff of camp: the sort of thing the Prince Charles Cinema might be screening before too long to gleeful hordes chiming in on cue with the script's multiple howlers.It needn't have been this way, of course, given just how much dramatically rich intrigue Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
It is a shock, in this succinct exhibition of two British colossi of the past century, Henry Moore (1898-1986) and Francis Bacon (1909-1992), to be reminded of just how colossal and original are their achievements. We are shown their curiously affecting affinities, in their adherence to the human figure at the core of their work, and reminded through the display of documents and catalogues of their truly international success, both critical and financial. The show is subtitled Flesh and Bone. Bacon is the purveyor of flesh in all kinds of livid and brilliant hues: greens, eerie pale rose Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It's a testament to how good an idea Who Do You Think You Are? is that well into its tenth series (and several others worldwide) it still provides great entertainment – and not a little emotion. Its secret, I suspect, lies in the fact that every family has its stories and dramas and last night's subject, comic Sarah Millican, uncovered some interesting tales buried several generations back, long lost from current family folklore.The comedian is, by her own description, a home bird (the title of her latest tour), deeply rooted in her working-class South Shields origins – so much so that she Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There’s something about the Arctic Monkeys that calls to mind the Rolling Stones. Not now, obviously - it might feel like it’s been forever since four messy hairdos and northern accents burst out of Sheffield, though in truth it’s only been about a decade - but the Stones that scandalised an America expecting another Beatles with their sleazy, bluesy rock. Recorded in California, if there’s one thing AM does not sound like it’s an album by a band whose name still sounds like a practical joke dreamed up in some spotty kid’s bedroom.Because AM is - despite a collection of song titles that come Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Boldly not going anywhere near things like Grange Hill or Teachers, Big School is more like a throwback to the St Trinian's of the 1950s. Co-writer and star David Walliams plays a man known only as Mr Church, Deputy Head of Chemistry at Greybridge School (the nod to Billy Bunter's Greyfriars presumably being the whole point). He's repressed, uptight and sexually inept, and more than a tiny bit reminiscent of Rowan Atkinson playing the title role in Simon Gray's Quartermaine's Terms.A few grudging scraps have been thrown to the prevailing -isms of 21st century education, like a pupil Read more ...
emma.simmonds
In the 1997 TV sitcom I'm Alan Partridge, Alan's nemesis, BBC commissioner Tony Hayers (David Schneider), describes his methodology as "evolution not revolution" before smugly axing Alan's chat show. It would pain Alan to hear those words again, but "evolution not revolution" perfectly describes the approach of the small screen icon’s first cinematic outing and the reason for its success. Directed by TV veteran Declan Lowney (Father Ted), Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa sees Alan at the centre of a local radio station siege.Though he grumbles early on that he's started wearing his chubby clothes Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The last time I noticed Sean Harris he was playing Micheletto Corella, the merciless assassin and enforcer for Pope Jeremy Irons and his Borgia clan. Unpleasantly good at it he was too.Perhaps it would be unfair to describe his appearance in Southcliffe as typecasting, but you can hardly fail to spot some similarities. As Stephen Morton, whose robotic killing spree with his private collection of automatic weapons is the driver behind a group of interlocking stories set in the coastal town of Southcliffe, Harris projects a similar suppressed intensity and inner turmoil, as well as a staring- Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Buying a used car is not for the squeamish at the best of times, but the notion of buying one from something called the Essex Car Company freezes the blood. Yet the idea of making a slice-of-life, fly on the wall, reality-tv-style doc about the aforesaid jalopy-shifting outfit radiates an unmistakeable allure.The introductory voice-over laid out the floor plan: "Two hundred used motors, a team of fast-talking salesmen, and car-buying customers from all walks of life." Perfect. We were introduced to James, the most successful of the Essex boys when it comes to getting those lumps of car-flesh Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Reviewing last night’s Prom of British Light Music feels a bit like getting all AA Gill on your granny’s Victoria sponge. The collage of musical morsels from Bantock, Arnold, Coates and Elgar is music made with love, for pleasure, by composers who rated enjoyment over admiration. It’s music that smothers critical appraisal gently but firmly in its tweed-clad bosom, killing you with musical kindness. It’s also music that needs Xenakis-like precision if it is to come off, and more pep even than that.It’s a combination we’ve come to expect from the John Wilson Orchestra who batter their way into Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Does it always have to be so flipping grim up north? In Channel 4's new four-parter, the Mill in question is at Quarry Bank in Cheshire. The date: 1833, during the Industrial Revolution. Villains du jour: the Greg family, industrialists and merciless exploiters of child labour.As the first episode opened with the tolling of the wake-up bell calling the poor, struggling young workers to another dismal day on the factory floor, it all felt terribly familar. We were back at Lowood school with Jane Eyre, enmeshed in the proles-versus-fatcats class struggle of South Riding, reliving the grinding Read more ...
graham.rickson
Most of us could compile soundtracks to our lives. We’d probably save our favourite songs and pieces for the worst bits. Pianist James Rhodes was sectioned in his twenties and maintains that a visitor who smuggled in an iPod stuffed with classical music helped to save his life. He’s refreshingly candid though, admitting slyly that “listening to a piece of Bach isn’t going to fix everything". Look at Rhodes’s garish website or listen to the banter on his latest live CD and you might be tempted to switch off. You'd be wrong; here, he’s an articulate host – humble, modest and engaging. Rhodes’s Read more ...
David Nice
As good old Catullus put it, I hate and love, you may ask why. No doubt it's my job as a critic to probe such difficult responses to Britten's Canticles. Why am I so repelled by the sickly-sweet lullaby Isaac sings just before daddy's about to put him to the sword in Canticle II, then so haunted by the sombre war requiem of Britten's Edith Sitwell setting, Canticle III? Ambivalence about Ian Bostridge's weird dominating presence and Neil Bartlett's marshalling of five responses to the five very different narratives doesn't make it any easier. Then again, there's no reason why anything should Read more ...