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Mary South: You Will Never Be Forgotten review - canny tales of uncanny techSunday, 02 August 2020“Never Let Me Go meets free, two-day shipping.” This is how Mary South describes “Keith Prime”, the first story in her debut collection. Undoubtedly, Kazuo Ishiguro springs to mind in the bizarrely personable world of the clinical organ farm, but... Read more... |
Colors performance stream on YouTube review - vocalists on lockdownTuesday, 07 April 2020The Colors studio in Berlin has quietly created one of the biggest new brands in music from filming back-to-basics performances with laser-focused branding. From international megastars (Billie Eilish, Mac DeMarco) to up-and-comers, singers and... Read more... |
I and You, Hampstead Theatre review - now streaming online, this YA play is oddly pertinentTuesday, 24 March 2020The way that theatres and other arts institutions have leapt into action over the past week, providing a wealth of material online and new ways to connect with audiences, has been truly inspirational. Yesterday, the Hampstead Theatre re-released on... Read more... |
The Haystack, Hampstead Theatre review - a chilling surveillance state thrillerFriday, 07 February 2020With counter-terrorism an urgent concern – and specifically how best to find, track and use the data of suspected threats, without sacrificing our privacy and civil liberties – it’s excellent timing for a meaty drama about the surveillance state.... Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2019 review: Rich Kids - A History of Shopping Malls in TehranTuesday, 06 August 2019You can’t question Javaad Alipoor’s ambition. Ancient Mesopotamian empires, geological layers of chicken bones, the half-life of polysterene cups, Thomas Gainsborough, Susan Sontag, Iranian political history, gold iPhones, mallwave – all that and... Read more... |
Niall Ferguson: The Square and the Tower review - of groups and powerSunday, 15 October 2017The controversial historian Niall Ferguson is the author of some dozen books, including substantial narratives of the Rothschild dynasty, a history of money, and a study of Henry Kissinger up to and including the Vietnam war. His new one has the... Read more... |
Artist Tyler Mallison: 'I don’t think about materials as being merely visible objects or things'Saturday, 25 March 2017Artist and curator Tyler Mallison has chosen the world’s most generic title for his current exhibition. It's called New Material, and the surprising thing one discovers is that the hackneyed "new" really can be quite fresh. Sculpture and painting... Read more... |
Zero DaysFriday, 06 January 2017A computer virus – even one as apparently malevolent and unstoppable as the infamous Stuxnet – would make an unlikely subject for a feature-length documentary, you might think. But New York documentary maker Alex Gibney’s Zero Days is a remarkable... Read more... |
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, NetflixTuesday, 13 December 2016Dirk Gently’s shtick as a detective is interconnectedness. Everything happens for an incalculable reason, there’s no such thing as chance, and all neural pathways lead randomly to the correct outcome. It's a philosophy paper gussied up as a... Read more... |
NerveMonday, 08 August 2016Coinciding with both Pokémon Go madness and a developing backlash against the insidious modern plague of mobile gadgets, Nerve is a moral fable for the social media era, and a Cinderella story that turns into The Hunger Games. Luckily, it's much... Read more... |
DVD: Steve JobsMonday, 14 March 2016If you saw The Social Network, for which Aaron Sorkin wrote the script, you will recognise the type also on display here – a hugely driven, arrogant genius who is emotionally illiterate. In The Social Network it was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg... Read more... |
We Want You To Watch, National TheatreTuesday, 16 June 2015“We’re completely pro sex.” Rashdash, who collaborated with Alice Birch on this anarchic challenge to pornography, are not objecting on prudish grounds – their concern is the corrosive impact of degrading, dehumanising material. We are all... Read more... |