England
Blu-ray: The Rebel / The Punch and Judy ManTuesday, 22 July 2025
Comedian Tony Hancock’s vertiginous rise and fall is neatly traced in the two films he completed in the early 1960s. The warning signs were already present when 1961’s The Rebel (★★★★) was released. Hancock’s BBC career had been enormously... Read more... |
Sir Brian Clarke (1953-2025) - a personal tributeWednesday, 16 July 2025
Brian Clarke died on 1 July 2025, after a long illness. He was one of the most original British artists of our time – wide-ranging, ground-breaking and influential. His painting was first-class, but it was in the field of architectural stained... Read more... |
Falstaff, Glyndebourne review - knockabout and nostalgia in postwar WindsorTuesday, 15 July 2025
From the animatronic cat on the bar of the Garter Inn to the rowers’ crew who haul their craft across the stage and the military ranks of “Dig for Victory” cabbages arrayed in Ford’s garden, all the period flourishes that helped make Richard Jones’s... Read more... |
Till the Stars Come Down, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - a family hilariously and tragically at warMonday, 14 July 2025
The 2024 play at the National Theatre that put writer Beth Steel squarely centre-stage has now received a West End transfer. Its title taken from an Auden poem urging people to dance till they drop, it’s probably the most passionate show in that... Read more... |
Too Much, Netflix - a romcom that's oversexed, and over hereMonday, 14 July 2025
A thirtysomething American woman with wavering self-confidence, a tendency to talk too much and a longing for married bliss with Mr Darcy at his gorgeous country pile tries to reset her life post-breakup with a grown-up new job in London. Welcome to... Read more... |
Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting, National Portrait Gallery review - a protégé losing her wayFriday, 04 July 2025
When in the 1990s, Jenny Saville’s peers shunned painting in favour of alternative media such as photography, video and installations, the artist stuck to her guns and, unapologetically, worked on canvases as large as seven feet tall. While still a... Read more... |
Quadrophenia, Sadler's Wells review - missed opportunity to give new stage life to a Who classicMonday, 30 June 2025
The red, white and blue bull’s-eye on the front curtain at Sadler’s Wells tells us we are in the familiar territory of Pete Townshend’s rock musical about teenage angst in 1960s Britain. What follows isn’t so easy to recognise.Quadrophenia started... Read more... |
Chicken Town review - sluggish rural comedy with few laughs (and one chicken)Friday, 27 June 2025
Fans of the character comedian Graham Fellows will possibly turn up for this British film starring the man who created the punk parody single “Jilted John” and Sheffield’s finest, the car-coated singer-songwriter John Shuttleworth. But they may... Read more... |
Outrageous, U&Drama review - skilfully-executed depiction of the notorious Mitford sistersMonday, 23 June 2025
If somebody submitted a treatment for a new costume drama series set in the 1930s in which not just one but two fictitious sisters from a fading aristocratic family pair off with leading fascists, while the cousin warning them off these liaisons is... Read more... |
28 Years Later review - an unsentimental, undead educationSaturday, 21 June 2025
The 23 years since 28 Days Later and especially those since Danny Boyle’s soulful encapsulation of Britain’s best spirit at the 2012 Olympics have offered rich material for a franchise about deserted cities, rampaging viruses, hard quarantines and... Read more... |
Edward Burra, Tate Britain review - watercolour made mainstreamWednesday, 18 June 2025
It’s unusual to leave an exhibition liking an artist’s work less than when you went in, but Tate Britain’s retrospective of Edward Burra manages to achieve just this. I’ve always loved Burra’s limpid late landscapes. Layers of filmy watercolour... Read more... |
Lollipop review - a family torn apartSaturday, 14 June 2025
On leaving prison, Lollipop’s thirtyish single mum Molly discovers that reclaiming her kids from social care is akin to doing lengths in a shark-infested swimming pool teeming with naval mines. Thanks to Posy Sterling’s technically astounding... Read more... |
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