1950s
DVD: Beat Girl, Expresso BongoFriday, 15 April 2016
“All over the world, young people between the ages of 14 and 20 gradually spend more and more of their time away from the good influences of their homes and schools. What sort of people are they growing up to be?” Although the stuffed-shirt narrator... Read more... |
Arnold Wesker: His Life and Career in 10 ScenesWednesday, 13 April 2016
Of all the dramas with the name Arnold Wesker attached to them, the most absorbing ran as long as The Mousetrap, but offstage rather than on. It was in the style of a remorselessly black farce, in which the little man as hero suffers an endless... Read more... |
Sunset Boulevard, London ColiseumTuesday, 05 April 2016
Could the fascination of Glenn Close's Norma Desmond transcend the frequent bathos of Lloyd Webber? Would they have sorted out the miking which wrecked last year's first choice of semi-ENO musical, the infinitely superior Sweeney Todd? Yes, to... Read more... |
Maigret, ITVTuesday, 29 March 2016
If you were expecting Rowan Atkinson to say "bibble" or make those Mr Bean gurgling noises, you came to the wrong classic detective drama. To play George Simenon's timeless French detective in a story subtitled "Maigret Sets a Trap", a melancholy,... Read more... |
DVD: CarolTuesday, 22 March 2016
I hope Todd Haynes isn't consumed with bitterness about the way Carol was ignored at the Oscars – mind you, a world where the dreary Spotlight can get Best Film probably isn't one he misses much – but the discerning filmgoer can be in little doubt... Read more... |
Churchill's Secret, ITVMonday, 29 February 2016
When it comes to losing power, and powers failing, Michael Gambon has once again proved himself the ruler of choice. The actor who gave us his Lear when he was only just hitting his forties has had three decades of gurning and grouching to ready... Read more... |
10 Questions for Choreographer Matthew BourneMonday, 29 February 2016
Choreographers are not generally household names, but Matthew Bourne must come close. Not only does his company tour frequently and widely, with a Christmas run at Sadler’s Wells that many families regard as an essential fixture of their seasonal... Read more... |
Bon voyage, Jean Anouilh!Sunday, 21 February 2016
In the icy early hours of 1 February 1918 a bizarre figure was seen wandering aimlessly along the platform of a railway station in Lyon. A solider. Lost. When asked his name he answered, “Anthelme Mangin”. Other than that he had no memory of who he... Read more... |
DVD: BrooklynFriday, 19 February 2016
Colm Tóibín’s work has always eluded the attention of filmmakers. It took Nick Hornby, a writer who knows his way along the obstacle-strewn pathway between page and screen, to effect a beautifully smooth transition of his 2009 novel Brooklyn. The... Read more... |
We Made It: 'Carol' Costume Designer Sandy PowellTuesday, 16 February 2016
If there is a successor to the great Hollywood costume designer Edith Head, it is Sandy Powell, the British designer of six films directed by Martin Scorsese, three each by Todd Haynes and Neil Jordan, and others by the likes of Derek Jarman, Sally... Read more... |
Generation Painting 1955-65, Heong Gallery, CambridgeTuesday, 09 February 2016
The individual colleges of the University of Cambridge can call, when needed, on an astonishing international network of alumni for expert advice, consultation and financial support. Such is the backing for an exquisite new public gallery on the... Read more... |
TrumboSaturday, 06 February 2016
Trumbo depicts the 13-year struggle by the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) to break the blacklist imposed on him and the other members of the Hollywood Ten in 1947. By continuing to get his scripts produced throughout the Fifties, Trumbo... Read more... |
