New York
ExposedThursday, 25 February 2016
Exposed is a film suffering from blunt force trauma to the head. Director Gee Malik Linton’s name only remains as screenwriter after his largely Spanish-language film – more meaningfully called Daughter of God and centring on... Read more... |
Vinyl, Sky AtlanticTuesday, 16 February 2016
You can almost hear the words ringing out in the dramatic pauses. “We should call it Vinyl. Like, y’know... when you could hold music in your hand... touch it... FEEL it. When it was really WORTH something. The Seventies – that was when music had... Read more... |
Rock History Revisited in HBO's VinylWednesday, 10 February 2016
It was 20 years ago that Mick Jagger suggested to Martin Scorsese that they should make a film "that spanned four decades of the world of music in New York City". The idea has finally come to fruition as Vinyl, HBO's new 10-part series that kicks... Read more... |
CD: Wendy James - The Price of the TicketMonday, 08 February 2016
In the latter half of the 1980s, Wendy James’s band Transvision Vamp created quite a stir. Their music, including a chart-topping second album, was fizzing, bright-coloured, punky power pop and James was a pouting, hissy-fit of a frontwoman,... Read more... |
CD: Lion Babe - BeginTuesday, 26 January 2016
Lion Babe’s lion babe, Jillian Hervey, does, indeed, have a mane to match the title. The daughter of the actor, soul-pop star and dethroned Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams, she also has a voice that lives up to the moniker, running from the... Read more... |
The Big ShortFriday, 22 January 2016
Although terms like "collateralised debt obligations" and "credit default swaps" were much bandied-about after the banking crash of 2008, they still make sense to almost nobody except bond traders and arbitragers. However, director Adam McKay has... Read more... |
Grey Gardens, Southwark PlayhouseSunday, 10 January 2016
One of the more unusual Broadway offerings of recent times crosses the Atlantic with considerable style in an Off West End premiere of 2006 New York entry Grey Gardens that punches well above its weight. As luxuriantly cast as it is elaborately (and... Read more... |
Guys and Dolls, Savoy TheatreThursday, 07 January 2016
The seemingly eternal British love affair with Guys and Dolls continues apace with the (somewhat recast) transfer to London of the Chichester production from two summers ago, and a more buoyant way to inaugurate the new theatrical year is hard to... Read more... |
The Dazzle, FOUND111Wednesday, 16 December 2015
The proverbial pond that separates the New York and London theatres has had a seismic effect on The Dazzle, Richard Greenberg's ironically titled play from 2002 that in every way seems darker, stranger, and more compelling in its British premiere... Read more... |
Peggy Guggenheim: Art AddictTuesday, 08 December 2015
The New Yorker Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) was the classic poor little rich girl: insecure, a woman with scores, perhaps hundreds of lovers, longing for love, the writer of tell-all memoirs. What sets her apart is that she was also the creator of... Read more... |
Evening at The Talk House, National TheatreWednesday, 25 November 2015
A lot of people are going to be enraged, frustrated, or confused by Evening at The Talk House, and in the authorial world of Wallace Shawn, wasn't it ever thus? This is the playwright who gave pride of place to a softly-spoken fascist in Aunt Dan... Read more... |
Elf, Dominion TheatreFriday, 06 November 2015
This new family musical, based on the popular 2003 Will Ferrell film, has rightly been censured for its extortionate seating prices, hosting the West End’s most expensive top-end tickets at £267.50 a pop – and that’s without the drinks, ice cream... Read more... |
