friendship
Mieko Kawakami: All the Lovers in the Night review - the raw relatability of lonelinessSaturday, 25 June 2022
Mieko Kawakami is the champion of the loner. Since achieving immense success in the UK with her translated works, she has become an indie fiction icon for her modern, visceral depictions of characters who exist on the fringes of Japanese society.... Read more... |
All My Friends Hate Me review - beware of the biliousFriday, 10 June 2022
A birthday weekend in Devon goes rather badly wrong in All My Friends Hate Me, the new film co-written by its leading man, Tom Stourton, that looks guaranteed to make shut-ins of us all.The antithesis of the warm-and-fuzzy gatherings proffered... Read more... |
Between Two Worlds review - Juliette Binoche, maid in FranceFriday, 27 May 2022
For die-hard Juliette Binoche fans – don’t cross us, we get angry – Between Two Worlds is heaven. The French star hardly ever leaves the screen during the film’s 106 minutes. It was her unwavering detemination that ensured the film came to be made... Read more... |
The Misfortune of the English, Orange Tree Theatre review - don't fret, boys, it's only deathFriday, 06 May 2022
“We all make history, one way or another.” But some of us make more history than others, and a group of 27 English schoolboys who got lost in Southern Germany in 1936 haven’t made much, unfortunately. Scottish playwright Pamela Carter has brushed... Read more... |
Steve, Seven Dials Playhouse review - everything’s charming, except the scriptTuesday, 01 March 2022
Steven (David Ames) is having a birthday party. He’s invited his closest friends – two of whom have recently started dating their personal trainer, Steve – and his partner, of course: Stephen (Joe Aaron Reid). Their eight-year-old son, Stevie, is... Read more... |
The Choir Of Man, Arts Theatre review - old school hits in an old school pubWednesday, 10 November 2021
Like a previous occupant of this venue, Six, The Choir Of Man started life as a quirky Edinburgh show and has gone on to be staged around the world to adoring audiences, tapping into a vibe that’s as much about participation as viewing, the show as... Read more... |
Album: James Blake - Friends That Break Your HeartSaturday, 09 October 2021
There I was, gleefully prepared to give this a good kick-in but, annoyingly, it’s defied my expectations. I’ve come to associate James Blake’s singing with the worst excesses of I’m-so-vulnerable-me, post-Jeff Buckley, falsetto-voice-breaking, and... Read more... |
How to Survive an Apocalypse, Finborough Theatre review - millenarian millennialsMonday, 04 October 2021
Despite its painfully relevant title, How To Survive An Apocalypse was written in 2016. If only Canadian playwright Jordan Hall knew, eh? The end times aren’t just creeping but hurtling towards us, these days. Luckily for those weary of Covid... Read more... |
Bagdad Café, Old Vic review - sweet but scattershotFriday, 30 July 2021
A gorgeous song exists in search of a show to match over at Bagdad Café, the 1987 film that gave the world the memorably plaintive "Calling You", which is threaded throughout Emma Rice's stage adaptation of the movie with understandable... Read more... |
Off the Rails review - go for the scenery, not the scriptSaturday, 24 July 2021
Mamma Mia! hovers unhelpfully over every frame of Off the Rails, a road movie of sorts in which three women make a music-fueled pilgrimage to Mallorca to honour the wishes of a fourth friend, who has died before time of cancer.The difference here is... Read more... |
Last Easter, Orange Tree Theatre review - over-performative and strangely off-puttingSaturday, 17 July 2021
Last Easter has become a lot more relatable since it was forced to postpone this run at the Orange Tree Theatre, originally scheduled for 2020. It’s about a group of theatre-makers – an actor, a drag performer, a prop-maker, and a lighting designer... Read more... |
Edward St Aubyn: Double Blind review - constructing 'cognition literature'Tuesday, 16 March 2021
If it weren’t for the warning on the blurb, the first chapter of Double Blind would have you wondering whether you’d ordered something from the science section by mistake. It's a novel that throws its reader in at the deep end, where that end is... Read more... |
