family relationships
Mosquitoes, National Theatre review - Olivias Colman and Williams dazzle amid dramatic excessThursday, 27 July 2017
There's enough plot for a dozen plays buzzing its way through Mosquitoes, Lucy Kirkwood's play that uses the backdrop of the Large Hadron Collidor (LHC) to chronicle the multiple collisions within a family. Veering off now and then into discussion... Read more... |
The Last Word film review - Shirley MacLaine's spit and vinegar remain intactFriday, 07 July 2017
If you're going to cobble together an entirely pro forma film, it's not a bad idea to give Shirley MacLaine pride of place. At 83, this redoubtable pro is no more capable of falsehood now than she ever was. It means that, although individual moments... Read more... |
Hir, Bush Theatre review – transgender home is sub-primeWednesday, 21 June 2017
Donald Trump’s electoral success was, we have been told, fuelled by the anger of the American working class. But how do you show that kind of anger on stage, and how do you criticise its basis in traditional masculinity? One way, and this is the... Read more... |
Gifted review - genius in the family genesFriday, 16 June 2017
There’s quite an appealing mini-genre that concerns genius, usually involving mathematics and an outsider who struggles to cope for reasons that include social adaptation (Good Will Hunting), sexuality (The Imitation Game) and mental health (A... Read more... |
After the Storm review - quietly nuanced and moving Japanese family drama impressesFriday, 02 June 2017
Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda is a master of family drama, carrying on the traditions of his illustrious predecessors Yasujiro Ozu and Mikio Naruse. But these are not films of raised voices or open conflict, rather highly nuanced studies of... Read more... |
Inversion review - acutely observed drama of Tehran family strifeSaturday, 20 May 2017
Inversion may not be the catchiest of titles, but in the case of Iranian director Behnam Behzadi’s film its associations are multifarious. On the immediate level it refers to the “thermal inversion” that generates the smogs that engulf his location... Read more... |
Y Tŵr, MTW, Sherman Theatre, CardiffSaturday, 20 May 2017
Until yesterday my only experience of the Welsh language in the opera house was a few isolated passages in Iain Bell’s In Parenthesis last year and the surtitles WNO routinely put up alongside the English in the Millennium Centre. Now Guto Puw, a 46... Read more... |
Heal the Living review - 'lots of emotion, not enough life'Thursday, 27 April 2017
Three teenage boys meet at dawn. One of them, blonde and beautiful Simon (Gabin Verdet), jumps out of his girlfriend’s window and rides his bike through the dark Lyon streets to meet the others in their van. They drive almost silently to the beach,... Read more... |
Unforgettable review - forgettable filmFriday, 21 April 2017
Within seconds – literally seconds – of Unforgettable it becomes apparent that this is the kind of film that in the late Eighties and Nineties used to be referred to as “straight to video”, a label that covered a plethora of trashy, sexist, by-the-... Read more... |
The Winter's Tale, Barbican review - Cheek by Jowl's latest wavers in toneMonday, 10 April 2017
This is a well-travelled Winter’s Tale. Declan Donnellan has long been a director who's as much at home abroad as he is in the UK, and with co-production support here coming pronouncedly from Europe (there's American backing, too), Cheek by Jowl... Read more... |
A Quiet Passion, review - 'Cynthia Nixon is an indrawn Emily Dickinson'Friday, 07 April 2017
Is there something about the recessive life of Emily Dickinson that defies dramatisation? I'm beginning to think so after A Quiet Passion. The Terence Davies film may attempt a more authentic take on the unrelievedly bleak, and also great, 19th-... Read more... |
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - 'Damian Lewis devastates'Thursday, 06 April 2017
Asked in an interview if there remained any taboos in the theatre, Edward Albee answered, “Yes. I don’t think you should be allowed to bore an intelligent, responsive, sober audience”. An experienced interviewee, he pokes mischievous fun at a... Read more... |
