actors
Oscars 2024: politics aplenty but few surprises as 'Oppenheimer' dominatesMonday, 11 March 2024Oppenheimer as expected dominated the 96th Academy Awards, winning seven trophies whilst runner-up Poor Things took four prizes, including Emma Stone in the hotly contested category of best actress.There was a pro forma feeling to the roll call of... Read more... |
Oh What A Lovely War, Southwark Playhouse review - 60 years on, the old warhorse can still bare its teethMonday, 27 November 2023In Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin wrote,"So life was never better than In nineteen sixty-three (Though just too late for me) – Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban And the Beatles' first LP."That might be the only point... Read more... |
Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius, BBC Two review - the Bard's soul bared in hybrid drama-documentaryWednesday, 15 November 2023Four centuries on from the publication of the First Folio, is there anything new to be said about William Shakespeare? Well, the fact that there is nothing old to be said about him (very little is known about the life of the glover’s son from... Read more... |
Imposter 22, Royal Court Theatre review - ace on representation, less so on structureWednesday, 04 October 2023The Royal Court’s collaboration with Access All Areas (AAA) may not be theatre’s first explicit embrace of the neurodiverse community on stage: Chickenshed has five decades of extraordinary inclusive work behind them and Jellyfish, starring Sarah... Read more... |
Unbelievable, Criterion Theatre review - Derren Brown-directed show misses his otherworldly dangerFriday, 29 September 2023Unbelievable is a strange title for a slightly strange show, the brainchild of Derren Brown, Andrew O’Connor and Andy Nyman, a trio with an impeccable pedigree in creating successful magic-based events. It’s a strange title because suspension... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Driver's SeatTuesday, 01 August 2023Liz Taylor’s blowsy late-period persona is finessed to its finest point in this 1974 Muriel Spark adaptation, boldly plugging into the mains of her fragile talent.Lise (Taylor) travels from Hamburg to Rome after a mental breakdown, sporting black... Read more... |
Magpie Murders, BBC One review - zinging TV adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's bestsellerSaturday, 08 April 2023Finding a fresh twist on the traditional detective mystery is virtually impossible, but Anthony Horowitz has made a bold stab at it with Magpie Murders. This TV adaptation (which appeared on the BritBox streaming platform last year) has been... Read more... |
A Little Life, Harold Pinter Theatre review - unrelenting traumaThursday, 06 April 2023Wow! James Norton naked! Wow! New play by Ivo van Hove. Wow! It’s four hours long. Wow! Wow! Wow! The much anticipated play of the year, an adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s 700-page bestselling novel of 2015, comes to the West End in a huge blaze of... Read more... |
Leslie Phillips: 'I can be recognised by my voice alone'Thursday, 10 November 2022Leslie Phillips would have known for half a century that at his death, which was announced yesterday, the obituaries would lead with one thing only. However much serious work he did in the theatre and on screen, he is forever handcuffed to the skirt... Read more... |
Walking with Ghosts, Apollo Theatre review - a beguiling Gabriel Byrne opens upMonday, 12 September 2022Gabriel Byrne is not a typical film star. From his breakthrough as the lustful and doomed Uther Pendragon in Excalibur, via his iconic Prohibition-era gangster in the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing and the wickedly twisty ... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The MenSunday, 17 July 2022“Arriving late at a performance… I looked up and saw what I thought was an actor having a seizure onstage,” the critic Pauline Kael wrote of watching Brando on Broadway in 1946. “I lowered my eyes, and it wasn’t until the young man who’d brought me... Read more... |
House of Ife, Bush Theatre review - an Ethiopian-British family struggle to decide where 'home' isMonday, 09 May 2022We are in a room in a simply decorated house in northwest London, where an Ethiopian-British family is gathering for a funeral “tea” for 28-year-old Ife, their first-born son and beloved twin brother of aspiring artist Aida. He has died of his crack... Read more... |