love
Romantic Comedy review - a not-so-guilty pleasureSaturday, 09 May 2020
Only those who really love you can deliver the hard truths, and for filmmaker Elizabeth Sankey, that one love is romantic comedies. Better known as one half of band Summer Camp, Sankey is a self-confessed romcom expert, having watched nearly every... Read more... |
Can You Keep A Secret? review - a bumpy rideFriday, 01 May 2020
Featherweight is one thing, brainless is another. Can You Keep A Secret?, the romcom adapted by screenwriter Peter Hutchings from the 2003 novel by Sophie Kinsella, uneasily straddles the two until a conclusion that goes off the rails... Read more... |
Run, Sky Comedy review - vicarious thrills for the self-isolation eraWednesday, 15 April 2020
Watching Run, HBO’s newest seven-part series, feels like off-the-rails escapism: it’s a fast-paced thriller about dropping everything, chasing intimacy and courting danger. It’s a vicarious adventure centred on a woman who has spent too long stuck... Read more... |
Jane Eyre, National Theatre at Home review - a fiery feminist adaptationFriday, 10 April 2020
The National Theatre’s online broadcasts got off to a storming start with One Man, Two Guvnors – watched by over 2.5 million people, either on the night or in the week since its live streaming, and raising around £66,000 in donations. Let’s hope... Read more... |
Gators, Tramp Productions online review - the glittering darkThursday, 09 April 2020
She’s an ordinary young woman, and she really doesn’t know what to think. After all, things are way out of control. She knows that the natural world is pretty fucked, and that nothing grows in the earth any more — well, at least not on her patch.... Read more... |
Rumpelstiltskin, Sadler's Wells Digital Stage review - spins an engaging yarn for young audiencesMonday, 06 April 2020
The latest in Sadler’s Wells’ Digital Stage programme – an impressively assembled online offering to keep audiences entertained during the shutdown – is balletLORENT’s family-friendly dance-theatre production Rumpelstiltskin. It was... Read more... |
The Last Five Years, Southwark Playhouse review - an inspired actor-musician take on a cult classicThursday, 05 March 2020
There’s concept on top of concept in this revival of Jason Robert Brown’s beloved 2001 musical, which charts the ebb and flow of a relationship by juggling timelines: aspiring actress Cathy’s story is told in reverse chronological order, while... Read more... |
Portrait of a Lady on Fire review – love unshackledFriday, 28 February 2020
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is windblown, spare, taut, and sensual – a haunted seaside romantic drama, set in the 18th century, that makes most recent films and series dressed in period costumes seem like party-line effusions of empty style and... Read more... |
First Love review - Miike delivers thrills and spillsSaturday, 15 February 2020
He's one of Japan's foremost directors, and if you’ve witnessed one of his films before, you know what to expect from a Takashi Miike yakuza film. High-octane, boundary pushing fun from first frame to last. And that’s exactly what First Love is.The... Read more... |
Plus One review - charm, yes, but irritation tooWednesday, 05 February 2020
The fast-rising young actor Jack Quaid comes naturally by the ease with which he takes to Plus One, a modern-day inheritor of the sorts of romcoms his mum, Meg Ryan, used to do alongside Tom Hanks. Playing a damagingly choosy singleton called Ben... Read more... |
The Boy Friend, Menier Chocolate Factory review - fun but featherweightWednesday, 04 December 2019
There’s slight (White Christmas, to name but one) and then there’s The Boy Friend, a period musical so unabashedly vaporous that if you sneeze, it might blow away. All credit then to the Menier Chocolate Factory for anchoring Sandy Wilson’s... Read more... |
Ophelia review - tragic no moreSaturday, 23 November 2019
Ophelia is one of Shakespeare’s most iconic yet underdeveloped dramatic roles. A sweet and naïve girl, she’s driven mad by Hamlet’s wavering affections and her father’s death. She was often the subject of paintings, yet rarely of novels until the... Read more... |
