family relationships
Mad House, Ambassadors Theatre review - David Harbour is magnificent in Theresa Rebeck's family dramaMonday, 27 June 2022![]() For sheer extremes of family dysfunction Theresa Rebeck’s Mad House must be aiming to set new records in American drama. The latest in a line that stretches back to Eugene O’Neill, the plentiful other contenders that have appeared over the decades... Read more... |
A Doll's House, Part 2, Donmar Warehouse review - Noma Dumezweni nails itWednesday, 22 June 2022![]() Slamming the door on experience comes with repercussions in A Doll's House, Part 2, the thrilling Broadway entry from American writer Lucas Hnath that has arrived at the Donmar as part of an America-friendly season at that address including Marys... Read more... |
The Wedding, Gecko Theatre, Barbican review - eccentric, ebullient exploration of our contract with societyFriday, 10 June 2022![]() You never forget your first Gecko production. I experienced mine almost 20 years ago at the Battersea Arts Centre, when the company performed Tailors’ Dummies, its ingenious surreal show about obsession. This had all the hallmarks that would make... Read more... |
Bergman Island review - Mia Hansen-Løve's joyful English-language debutFriday, 03 June 2022![]() French director Mia Hansen-Løve’s graceful, intriguingly open-ended seventh feature, and her English-language debut, is set on Fårö, the island that Ingmar Berman loved.“This is your landscape, Bergman. It corresponds to your innermost imaginings of... Read more... |
Girl on an Altar, Kiln Theatre review - machismo, murder and motherhood in mesmerising mythSaturday, 28 May 2022![]() Playwrights return to classical myths for two main reasons – to shine a light on how we live today and because they're bloody good yarns.Marina Carr's re-telling of Clytemnestra's story is boldly innovative in its conception and execution, but... Read more... |
Luzzu review - a Maltese fisherman struggles with modernityFriday, 27 May 2022![]() In Maltese-American Alex Camilleri’s debut feature, it’s a case of follow the swordfish. This terrifically atmospheric, almost documentary-like film – Camilleri cites Italian neo-realism, including Visconti’s La Terra Trema, as an influence – ... Read more... |
Kim Hye-jin: Concerning My Daughter review - room for complicationFriday, 27 May 2022![]() In this best-selling Korean novella, recently translated into English by Jamie Chang, Kim Hye-jin offers us the perspective of a Korean mother. It’s narrated entirely from the perspective of a woman of around 60 who has a daughter in her thirties... Read more... |
Bliss, Finborough Theatre review - bleak but tenderWednesday, 25 May 2022![]() When Bliss, a new play adapted from an Andrei Platonov short story by Fraser Grace, made its debut in Russia in early 2020, Cambridge-based company Menagerie were told that their production was “very Russian”.I’m no expert on Russian culture, but I... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Parallel MothersTuesday, 24 May 2022![]() Parallel Mothers unfolds at a daringly slow pace, and there are moments in the first half of Pedro Almodóvar’s 2021 drama when you wish that things would speed up. And then you’re wrong-footed by the unexpected shifts in tone and direction, and... Read more... |
The House of Shades, Almeida Theatre review - Anne-Marie Duff blazes in Beth Steel's excoriating new dramaWednesday, 18 May 2022![]() Anne-Marie Duff blazes across the stage like a meteorite in Beth Steel’s excoriating drama about the changes sweeping through a Northern mining town over the course of five decades. As Constance Webster, a frustrated miner’s wife, her angry energy... Read more... |
The Staircase, NOW review - addictive dramatisation of real-life murder investigationFriday, 13 May 2022![]() The real-life case of Michael Peterson and the death of his wife Kathleen in 2001 has generated a steady stream of TV documentaries, though this new series from HBO Max (showing on NOW) is the first time anybody has actually dramatised the story.... Read more... |
The Quiet Girl review - finding a home away from homeThursday, 12 May 2022![]() The Quiet Girl is adapted faithfully from Claire Keegan’s wonderful short story, Foster, first published in the New Yorker magazine in 2010 and then expanded into a novella.Much of the dialogue in Colm Bairéad’s beautiful, mainly Irish-language film... Read more... |
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