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Director Alexandria Bombach: 'I feel like a completely different person'Wednesday, 23 January 2019Nadia Murad caught the world’s attention when she spoke at the United Nations Security Council. She spoke of living under ISIS, daily assaults, escaping, and the current plight of the Yazidi people, in refugee camps and still under ISIS control. It... Read more... |
RBG review - a compelling, restrained insightMonday, 07 January 2019Very few could have predicted Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg becoming a cultural icon, least of all herself. A quiet, studious, first-generation American girl who broke down boundaries, not with force, but with a reasoned reproach and a calm demeanour... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, BBC One review - this summer's watercooler dramaFriday, 13 July 2018How well do you know the person you love? Are they someone completely different when you’re not around? This is the central question Eve Myles (main picture) has to answer in the BBC’s latest mystery drama. Faced with the sudden disappearance of her... Read more... |
Sarah Langford: In Your Defence review - messy livesSunday, 24 June 2018When Sarah Langford goes to work, she puts on warpaint and wig and acts. But she is not an actor. She defends those who might or might not be guilty of the crimes with with they’ve been charged, or she acts on behalf of those bringing prosecutions... Read more... |
Consent, Harold Pinter Theatre review - exhilaratingWednesday, 30 May 2018Question: is Consent, transferred from the National to the West End, a sharp-tongued comedy or an acute reinvention of a revenge drama? There are more than enough smartly placed laughs throughout the tart, increasingly taut first act, to make you... Read more... |
DVD: QueeramaTuesday, 27 March 2018Last year, the BFI commemorated the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality with the release of Queerama, part of its Gross Indecency film season. Now available on DVD, the documentary from Daisy Asquith eschews standard... Read more... |
The Third Murder review - unpacking a crime enigmaFriday, 23 March 2018Japanese director Kore-eda Hirokazu offers up mystery aplenty in his new film The Third Murder, enigma and riddle too. He also moves away from the territory of family drama for which he is best known. There’s similar intensity in some of the... Read more... |
The Good Fight, Series 2, More4 review - the longer they do it, the better it getsFriday, 23 March 2018The mystery remains of why they keep tucking away The Good Fight on More4, as they did with its illustrious predecessor The Good Wife. No disrespect to 4’s ancillary channel – now seemingly the designated last resting place of Grand Designs – but it... Read more... |
Terror, Lyric Hammersmith review – more gimmick than dramaFriday, 23 June 2017Can the theatre be a courtroom? A good public place to debate morality and to arrive at profound decisions? You could answer this with a history lesson that ranges from the ancient Greeks to more recent tribunal plays in the 1960s and 1990s. But I’... Read more... |
Consent, National Theatre, review - thrilling revenge dramaWednesday, 05 April 2017Rape is such a serious social issue that it’s hardly surprising that several recent plays have tackled it. I’m thinking of Gary Owen’s Violence and Son, James Fritz’s Four Minutes Twelve Seconds and Evan Placey’s Consensual. All of these discuss,... Read more... |
Lady Anna: All At Sea, Park TheatreSaturday, 22 August 2015If you were expecting a fusty, formal adaptation of Anthony Trollope – and one of his least known novels, to boot – Lady Anna: All At Sea will come as a breath of fresh air. Colin Blumenau’s production of Craig Baxter’s play, based loosely around... Read more... |
Trial by Jury / The Zoo, King's Head TheatreTuesday, 28 April 2015Judge Judy meets The Only Way Is Essex: this endlessly resourceful production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s first (mini) masterpiece Trial by Jury is one that cries out to appear on TV. Which in a make-believe sense it does: we’re the audience in the... Read more... |