sex
Banging Denmark, Finborough Theatre review - lively but confusing comedy of modern mannersMonday, 22 April 2024
What would happen if a notorious misogynist actually fell in love? With a glacial Danish librarian? And decided his best means of getting this woman’s attention was to ask his worst enemy, a leading feminist academic, for help?These probably aren’t... Read more... |
Foam, Finborough Theatre review - fascism and f*cking in a Gentlemen's Lavatory that proves short of gentlemenThursday, 28 March 2024
In a too brightly tiled Gentlemen’s public convenience (Nitin Parmar’s beautifully realised set is as much a character as any of the men we meet), a lad is shaving his head. He’s halfway to the skinhead look of the early Seventies, but he hasn’t... Read more... |
Cruel Intentions, The Other Palace review - uneasy vibes, hit tunes and sparkling stagingFriday, 01 March 2024
Transgression was so deliciously enticing. Back in the Eighties when I saw Les Liaisons Dangereuses in the West End on three occasions, life was simpler – or so us straight white men flattered ourselves to believe. Consent was for unproblematic... Read more... |
Così fan tutte, Welsh National Opera review - relevance reduced to irrelevanceTuesday, 27 February 2024
We can’t do without Così fan tutte; it’s an irresistible masterpiece. But it’s a thorn in the flesh of modern directors, who struggle to find the "relevance" they seem to need in order to get the wretched piece on to the stage.In his new production... Read more... |
Album: Jennifer Lopez - This is Me... NowThursday, 15 February 2024
Whitney Houston once sang that “the greatest love of all is happening to me-ee-eee.” In 2024, however, the greatest love of all, at least in terms of sheer, outward-expanding volume, is happening to Jennifer Lopez (and, one must presume, Ben Affleck... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Frightened WomanTuesday, 30 January 2024
Piero Schivazappa’s 1969 debut The Frightened Woman toys with living up to its title, suggesting a sadistic test of endurance. Its Italian title, Femina Ridens, though, translates as The Laughing Woman, and this is really an ironically extreme... Read more... |
Poor Things review - other-worldly adaptation of Alasdair Gray's novelThursday, 11 January 2024
Following their award-scooping collaboration on 2018’s The Favourite, Emma Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos return with this mind-bending adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s eponymous novel. Also on board is screenwriter Tony McNamara, who wrote (with... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2023: Janelle Monáe - The Age of PleasureMonday, 18 December 2023
It was a year of bleak and brutal conflict, ugly and stupid imposition of power, overt Fascism in the mainstream public sphere, decay of infrastructure and apocalyptic weather. So what better than a record of total pleasure? And Janelle Monáe’s... Read more... |
£1 Thursdays, Finborough Theatre review - dazzling new play is as funny and smart as its two heroinesMonday, 04 December 2023
It’s 2012 and the London Olympics might as well be happening on the Moon for Jen and Stacey. In fact, you could say the same for everyone else scrabbling a living in Bradford – or anywhere north of Watford – and we know what those left-behind places... Read more... |
Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen, Bush Theatre review - charismatic stand-up routineFriday, 17 November 2023
The Comedian runs, bounces even, onto the stage. The audience immediately applauds. He seizes the mic and makes self-deprecatory gestures. Then he rubs the mic stand suggestively. We laugh. When he turns around we can see a laughing mouth printed on... Read more... |
Saltburn review - an uneven gothic rompFriday, 17 November 2023
This seems to be a season for films majoring on bisexuality, with the awards round encompassing Ira Sachs’s Passages, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, a story of high-class high jinks in a modern twist on Evelyn’s Waugh’s... Read more... |
Backstairs Billy, Duke of York's Theatre review - starry and gently subversive, tooWednesday, 08 November 2023
Rarely has a play's opening been so opportune. Just when it looked as if the West End was slipping into decline, along comes the smart, shrewd Backstairs Billy to allay mounting fears of late that the commercial theatre had lost all sense of quality... Read more... |
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