America
Sunnyside, Sky Comedy review - the immigrant experience and the American dreamTuesday, 17 March 2020The multi-talented Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar, Designated Survivor, House) took a two-year acting sabbatical in 2009 to work for the Obama administration. So he is, in theory, ideally placed to co-create, with Matt Murray, a semi-political TV sitcom... Read more... |
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am review - a fitting tribute to a masterful storytellerFriday, 13 March 2020![]() When the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison died last year, it was a chance to celebrate the remarkable life of a storyteller who shook the literary establishment. Her work, including her debut novel The Bluest Eye, broke radical new... Read more... |
RuPaul's Drag Race, Season 12, Netflix review - 13 queens up the gameMonday, 09 March 2020![]() As RuPaul's best squirrel friend Michelle Visage, co-doyenne of the amused and amusing judges, put it, "that was some next-level shit". She was referring to a high point in the contest's weekly lip sync-ing finales, right at the end of the new... Read more... |
Onward review - do you believe in magic?Friday, 06 March 2020![]() Welcome to New Mushroomton: a fantasy land that’s forgotten itself. This is how we’re introduced to Pixar’s Onward, which is set in a Dungeons & Dragons daydream of suburbia. Director Dan Scanlon’s film is a tribute to his late father, but it... Read more... |
The Photograph review - star-powered romance mostly simmers, sometimes soarsFriday, 06 March 2020![]() The Photograph, from writer-director Stella Meghie, tells twin tales. The first is all flashback and follows Christine (Chanté Adams, pictured below with Y'lan Noel), a young photographer balancing love and ambition. The second follows... Read more... |
The Last Five Years, Southwark Playhouse review - an inspired actor-musician take on a cult classicThursday, 05 March 2020![]() There’s concept on top of concept in this revival of Jason Robert Brown’s beloved 2001 musical, which charts the ebb and flow of a relationship by juggling timelines: aspiring actress Cathy’s story is told in reverse chronological order, while... Read more... |
Beauty Laid Bare, BBC One review - a facial peel for the cosmetics businessWednesday, 04 March 2020![]() In this aptly-titled series (BBC One), four British 20-somethings visit the USA to investigate the inner workings of the beauty industry. Perhaps not surprisingly, they discover that it’s a hotbed of greed and exploitation.Their first stop was the... Read more... |
Pretty Woman: The Musical, Piccadilly Theatre review - not so pretty, actuallyTuesday, 03 March 2020![]() It’s not so much that Pretty Woman: The Musical isn’t much good, which it isn’t. More to the point is that this West End replica of the recent Broadway musical of the 1990 film feels utterly superfluous: a gloss on a popular romcom that... Read more... |
Dark Waters review - an ominous drama with plenty of backbone, but not enough fleshFriday, 28 February 2020![]() Watching Dark Waters, the latest film from director Todd Haynes (Carol, Far from Heaven), I kept thinking — what’s the opposite of a love letter? The film is based on the work of Rob Bilott, a real-life lawyer who uncovered a corruption scandal so... Read more... |
CD: James Taylor, American Standard - a trip down memory laneFriday, 28 February 2020![]() “Fire and Rain”. Who doesn’t recall James Taylor’s first number one 50 years ago! Born in Carolina and a “graduate” of the 1960s Greenwich Village music scene, Sweet Baby James has given the world some enduring songs and been part of some of music’s... Read more... |
First Person: Hassan Abdulrazzak on the real-life drama behind American deportation to the UKWednesday, 26 February 2020![]() You are at a party having a good time when someone gives you a glass of champagne. You take one and then another and soon the party is over. You get in the car to go home and are driving along when you see a police car in the rearview mirror: how... Read more... |
Be More Chill, The Other Palace review - more exhausting than enlighteningMonday, 24 February 2020![]() This latest musical theatre exercise in “geek chic” has been an American phenomenon: a show propelled by social media that developed a rabid fan base taking it all the way to Broadway last year. And here Be More Chill now is in London at The Other... Read more... |
