medical
Imposter 22, Royal Court Theatre review - ace on representation, less so on structureWednesday, 04 October 2023
The Royal Court’s collaboration with Access All Areas (AAA) may not be theatre’s first explicit embrace of the neurodiverse community on stage: Chickenshed has five decades of extraordinary inclusive work behind them and Jellyfish, starring Sarah... Read more... |
Best Interests, BBC One review - a family feels the unbearable strain of terminal illnessTuesday, 13 June 2023
This is possibly not ideal viewing for a spell of sunny weather in June, but Jack Thorne’s drama about a family trying to cope with a terminally ill child is as compelling as it’s painful. Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen star as parents Andrew and... Read more... |
A Brief List of Everyone Who Died, Finborough Theatre review - 86 years, punctuated by fun and funeralsSaturday, 20 May 2023
The family pet dies. It’s a problem many parents face, and when Gracie learns from her evasive father that her dog isn’t just gone, but gone forever, her five-year-old brain cannot process it and so begins a lifelong relationship with deaths,... Read more... |
Malpractice, ITV1 review - she got into a mess on the NHSMonday, 24 April 2023
This skilfully-woven drama about an NHS doctor being battered by professional and personal pressures is undoubtedly timely, and benefits greatly from being written by Grace Ofori-Attah, a former NHS doctor herself. Her inside knowledge lends weight... Read more... |
The Wonderful World of Dissocia, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - wild trip gets a welcome revivalSaturday, 24 September 2022
Lisa has lost an hour in a (somewhat contrived) temporal glitch. As a consequence, her world is always sliding off-kilter, not quite making sense, things floating in and out of memory. A watchmaker (himself somewhat loosely tethered to reality)... Read more... |
Marys Seacole, Donmar Warehouse review - frustrating yet unflinchingMonday, 25 April 2022
Inspiration jostles irritation in Marys Seacole, Jackie Sibblies Drury's Off Broadway hit from 2019 that has arrived at the Donmar as part of a banner season of late for Black American writing in the capital (cf. "Daddy": A Melodrama at the Almeida... Read more... |
The Night Doctor review - down and out in ParisTuesday, 08 February 2022
Elie Wajeman’s moodily lit film noir is, among other things, a great advertisement for the French healthcare system. Doctors in Paris do home visits! Even at night, and even for minor troubles such as a painful leg or stomach upset. It costs... Read more... |
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life review - a complex portrait of a complex manMonday, 27 September 2021
It’s well worth tracking down one of the September 29 special cinema screenings of Ric Burns' lovingly made documentary portrait of the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, or seeking it out online. Famous for his vivid, insightful descriptions of... Read more... |
Victoria Mas: The Mad Women's Ball review - compelling plot meets disquieting historyTuesday, 15 June 2021
To this day, if you take a stroll down Paris’ Boulevard de l’Hôpital, you’ll come across an imposing building: the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière. It’s one of Europe’s foremost hospitals. It’s the place where 20th-century icons Josephine Baker and Michel... Read more... |
Elinor Cleghorn: Unwell Women review – misunderstanding and misdiagnosisMonday, 14 June 2021
I’m one of the women in the pages of Elinor Cleghorn’s new history of the female body, Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World. I’ve dealt with strange chronic pain throughout my early twenties. Still, I’ve always felt... Read more... |
Kate Lebo: The Book of Difficult Fruit review - a rich, juicy delightTuesday, 27 April 2021
Two years ago, I became preoccupied with beetroot. I didn’t want to eat it, particularly, or learn new ways to cook this crimson-purple veg. Instead I hunted down stories of the “beet-rave”, as it was once called (from the French la betterave), from... Read more... |
To Olivia review - Keeley Hawes rises above brainless biopicFriday, 19 February 2021
Sure, Roald Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but is that any excuse for a film quite so saccharine? He of all challenging and complex men, with a temperament to match, seems an odd subject for the sort of weightless, paint-by-numbers... Read more... |
