humour
Barber Shop Chronicles, Roundhouse review - riotous theatre at its bestThursday, 25 July 2019
Emmanuel (Anthony Ofoegbu) runs Three Kings Barbers in London. His assistant, Samuel (Mohammed Mansaray), is the son of his erstwhile business partner, who is currently in jail. Emmanuel is boss, surrogate father and — occasionally — verbal punching... Read more... |
Stranger Things 3, Netflix review - bigger, dumber, betterTuesday, 09 July 2019
It sometimes feels like an age between Stranger Things seasons. Blame Netflix. The binge-watching trend that it helped solidify means that most people consume all eight hours of content in a single weekend. It comes and goes in a flash. But don’t... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe – blazing-coloured, kick-ass carnivalThursday, 04 July 2019
Welcome to A Midsummer Night’s Dream as carnival – a blazing-coloured, hot-rhythmed, kick-ass take in which Oberon appears at one point as a blinged-up Elizabeth I and Puck exerts his powers as a flash-mob. Last month the glitter-ball hedonism of... Read more... |
Spiderman: Far from Home review - a pleasant, if clichéd, tourTuesday, 02 July 2019
There’s no rest for the webbed wonder in Spiderman: Far from Home. It’s just a few months since Marvel wiped out Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame and his protégé Peter Parker is being hounded to fill Tony Stark’s place. Iron Man didn’t... Read more... |
Support the Girls review - working class dramedy misses edgeSaturday, 29 June 2019
A rambling portrait of 24 hours in the life of Double Whammies, an American sports bar where the waitresses entertain their TV-watching patrons by dressing in skimpy tops and tiny shorts. Apparently this is categorised as a ‘breastaurant’ (my... Read more... |
Yesterday review - Beatlemania in a parallel universeThursday, 27 June 2019
The price of fame and the value of artistic truth are among the topics probed in Danny Boyle’s irresistible comedy, a beguiling magical mystery tour of an upside-down world where The Beatles suddenly never existed. Richard Curtis’s screenplay... Read more... |
Late Night review - Emma Thompson star vehicle needs a serious rewriteThursday, 06 June 2019
“Get me rewrite!”: That’s likely to be a common reaction to Late Night, the well-meaning but surprisingly slipshod star vehicle for Emma Thompson set in and among the writing world of a New York late-night chat show that is hitting the skids.... Read more... |
Education, Education, Education, Trafalgar Studios review - politics and pupils, mayhem and musicThursday, 06 June 2019
It's the 2nd May 1997, the morning after the night that swept New Labour into power. We’re in the staffroom of a school somewhere in Britain and the teachers are jubilant. They've been glued to their TV sets for the results and have shagged and... Read more... |
My Left Right Foot: The Musical, Brighton Festival 2019 review - foul-mouthed comic brillianceThursday, 16 May 2019
My Left Right Foot tiptoes right to the precipice of massive offense. For some, it tumbles right in. During the interval audience members can be heard tutting at the amount of times “the c-word” is casually thrown around. But it’s not just the... Read more... |
Cannes 2019: The Dead Don't Die review - festival opens with rich zombie satireWednesday, 15 May 2019
“The world is perfect. Appreciate the details” says a WU-PS driver played by RZA, in Jim Jarmusch’s gleefully meta zombie-comedy that has just opened the Cannes Film Festival. It’s good advice. Jarmusch’s latest work is a finely tuned, deadpan... Read more... |
The Hustle review - rotten scoundrelsSaturday, 11 May 2019
This third version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ yarn of rival, class-warring con artists on the French Riviera is just something for Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson to do till a better gig comes along. The concept goes no higher than teaming them up,... Read more... |
Woman at War review – timely comedy-drama about an eco-warrior with a differenceSaturday, 04 May 2019
What is it about Nordic women and the environment? Hot on the heels of the London visit by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg – the most inspiring climate change campaigner since Al Gore – comes this timely, singular, enormously enjoyable comedy-... Read more... |
