class system
'I’ve told everyone that it’s a comedy – but will anyone laugh?' Jonathan Dove on his new Marx operaWednesday, 05 December 2018
Marx is having a terrible day. He is supposed to be finishing volume two of Capital but he’s distracted by his lust for the maid, workmen are taking away the furniture, his daughter thinks she’s caught a spy.... and what will his wife say when she... Read more... |
Laurent Cantet: 'Young people have different preoccupations nowadays' – interviewThursday, 15 November 2018
Like Ken Loach and the Dardennes brothers, Laurent Cantet is a filmmaker with a keen interest in social issues and themes, often using non-professional actors and a naturalistic approach, but perfectly willing to inject a little plot contrivance to... Read more... |
Peterloo review - Mike Leigh's angry historical dramaThursday, 01 November 2018
Considering how the UK prides itself on having created the "Mother of Parliaments" and its citizens having once chopped off a king's head for thwarting its will, remarkably little is taught in our schools about one of the seminal events on the way... Read more... |
Elmgreen & Dragset, Whitechapel Gallery review – when is a door not a door ?Saturday, 06 October 2018
A whiff of chlorine hits you as you open the door of the Whitechapel Gallery. Its the smell of public baths, and inside is a derelict swimming pool with nothing in it but dead leaves and piles of brick dust. Damp walls, peeling paint and cracked... Read more... |
CD: Slaves - Acts of Fear And LoveMonday, 13 August 2018
When Kentish hardcore punk two-piece, Slaves emerged with their debut album, Are You Satisfied?, they caused quite a stir with lairy tunes of austerity Britain like “The Hunter”, “Sockets” and the magnificent “Hey”. Since the heady days of 2015,... Read more... |
Rachel Heng: Suicide Club review - skin-deep dystopiaSunday, 29 July 2018
When Lea is nervous she picks at the skin near the nail of her thumb. When she draws blood the wound repairs instantly because she is a member of the Second Wave endowed with SmartBlood™ and DiamondSkin™. Aside from this tic she is an otherwise... Read more... |
Sancho: An Act of Remembrance, Wilton's Music Hall review - pure entertainmentFriday, 08 June 2018
One space, one person, one story, one voice – the monologue is theatre distilled, the purest form of entertainment. On a stage of packing boxes and boards, over the course of just over an hour, Paterson Joseph relays and plays the life of... Read more... |
Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One, Tate Britain review - all in the mindTuesday, 05 June 2018
Not far into Aftermath, Tate Britain’s new exhibition looking at how the experience of World War One shaped artists working in its wake, hangs a group of photographs by Pierre Anthony-Thouret depicting the damage inflicted on Reims. Heavy censorship... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The PartyFriday, 23 February 2018
Take one of the strongest casts in British cinema and put them in a confined space; it was always going to be fun. Sally Potter’s The Party sets its sights on the duplicitous liberal elite, where venality hides behind paper-thin morals.Janet (... Read more... |
Iolanthe, English National Opera review - bright and beautiful G&S for allWednesday, 14 February 2018
Very well, so ENO's latest Gilbert and Sullivan spectacular was originally to have been The Gondoliers directed by Richard Jones and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. But that Venetian fantasia has already been seen at the Coliseum in recent years,... Read more... |
The Passing of the Third Floor Back, Finborough Theatre review - the better nature of Jerome K JeromeMonday, 04 December 2017
Even by the standards of theatrical archaeology that the Finborough has made its own, The Passing of the Third Floor Back is a curiosity. Jerome K Jerome’s 1908 play was a long-running hit in the West End – with Johnston Forbes-Robertson, one of the... Read more... |
Happy End review - grimly compelling but to what end?Friday, 01 December 2017
No movie that folds Toby Jones of all people into a Gallic entourage headed by Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant, the two as formidable as one might wish, is going to be without interest. Nor is it likely that the ever-severe Austrian... Read more... |
