adaptation
An Octoroon review - slavery reprised as melodrama in a vibrantly theatrical showSaturday, 27 May 2017
Make no mistake about it, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a playwright to watch. London receives its first opportunity to appraise his vibrant, quizzical talent with this production of An Octoroon, for which he received an OBIE in 2014 (jointly with his... Read more... |
Woyzeck, Old Vic review - John Boyega’s thrillingly powerful triumphWednesday, 24 May 2017
Welcome back, John Boyega. Less than a decade ago, he was an unknown budding British stage actor, then he took off as a global film star thanks to his role as Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens after his debut in Attack the Block, the comedy sci-... Read more... |
The Secret Scripture review - Jim Sheridan's turgid homecomingTuesday, 16 May 2017
It's the church wot done it! That's the unexceptional takeaway proffered by Jim Sheridan's first Irish film in 20 years, which is to say ever since the director of My Left Foot and The Boxer hit the big time. But despite a starry and often glamorous... Read more... |
City of Glass, Lyric Hammersmith review - ‘thrilling and enthralling Paul Auster adaptation’Thursday, 27 April 2017
Playwright Duncan Macmillan has had a good couple of years. In 2015, his play People, Places and Things was a big hit at the National Theatre, winning awards and transferring to the West End. His other plays, often produced by new-writing company... Read more... |
Lady Macbeth review - memorably nastyThursday, 27 April 2017
The Scottish play’s traces are faint in this bloody, steamy tale of feminist psychosis. Based on Nikolai Leskov’s Dostoevsky-commissioned novel Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, its 1865 setting is transferred from Tsarist Russia to Northumberland.... 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... |
Obsession, Barbican review - Jude Law on serious form in Ivo van Hove's latestWednesday, 26 April 2017
There is a distinctive look, feel, even sound to a stage production directed by Ivo van Hove, which is becoming rather familiar to London theatregoers after two cult hits, A View From the Bridge and Hedda Gabler. You know you’re in van Hovenland as... Read more... |
The Handmaiden review - opulently luridFriday, 14 April 2017
Park Chan-wook is a Korean decadent and moralist who’d have plenty to say to Aubrey Beardsley. The lesbian pulp Victoriana of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith proves equally amenable in this opulently lurid mash-up with a novelist he adores so much (the... Read more... |
DVD: Slaughterhouse-FiveTuesday, 11 April 2017
“I never saw anything like it,” declares Billy Pilgrim in wonderment. “It’s the Land of Oz.” He has just seen Dresden’s splendour from the train carriage into which he and other American prisoners of war are crammed en route to the city. They’ve... Read more... |
The Lottery of Love, Orange Tree Theatre review - the fragile charm of artificeTuesday, 04 April 2017
The social permutations of love are beguilingly explored in the 90-minute stage traffic of Marivaux’s The Lottery of Love, with Paul Miller’s production at the Orange Tree Theatre making the most of the venue’s unencumbered in-the-round space to... Read more... |
There's more to Karen Blixen than Meryl StreepMonday, 03 April 2017
Karen Blixen (1885-1962), the prolific Danish storyteller, is perhaps most immediately recognised for the portrayal of her and her works on the big screen, above all by Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. But her own story, and her place in the literary... Read more... |
Decline and Fall review - 'a riotously successful adaptation'Saturday, 01 April 2017
Like many first novels, Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall has a strong whiff of autobiography. It is a revenge comedy in which Waugh – like Kingsley Amis after him in Lucky Jim – transmutes his miserable experiences of teaching in Wales into savage... Read more... |
