drama
DVD: FoxcatcherFriday, 15 May 2015
As he died in 2010, we can never know what John du Pont was like in person, but if Steve Carell’s rendering of the maniacal American multi-millionaire with a wrestling fixation is even close to the real thing, the experience must have been... Read more... |
The Affair, Sky AtlanticThursday, 14 May 2015
Already a couple of Golden Globes to the good after debuting in the States last year, The Affair effortlessly hit its stride as it landed in Blighty. This opening double episode began generating a subtle miasma of intrigue and vague menace from the... Read more... |
Hay Fever, Duke of York's TheatreTuesday, 12 May 2015
"I sometimes wish we were more normal," sighs one of the adult Bliss children in Noel Coward’s country-house comedy. But it’s her family’s self-dramatising abnormality that provides both the froth and the substance of this early play, written in a... Read more... |
No Offence, Channel 4Tuesday, 05 May 2015
There’s been much hullabaloo surrounding the new series from Paul Abbott – and with good reason. It’s a decade since we’ve seen any TV from the creator of State of Play and Clocking Off and, given the impact and lasting legacy of Shameless,... Read more... |
Empire, E4Wednesday, 29 April 2015
What Nashville did for country music, Empire may very well be about to do for the lurid world of hip hop. If not more so. Created by Lee Daniels (director of Precious) and written by Danny Hunger Games Strong, it's about ailing music mogul Lucious... Read more... |
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on ExistenceThursday, 23 April 2015
If A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence induces reflections on the nature of existence, the resultant mood could initially be very glum indeed. Swedish director Roy Andersson’s meditation is the self-declared “final part of a... Read more... |
The FallingWednesday, 22 April 2015
The pupils at a girl’s school are afflicted by fainting. It’s spreading. A teacher is affected too. The epidemic began after Lydia and Abbie's friendship has irrevocably ended. Lydia became the first to faint. The school’s headmistress, Miss Alvaro... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A Special: The FallingWednesday, 22 April 2015
The Falling, released in cinemas this week, charts the events surrounding an epidemic of fainting among pupils of a girls' school in the late 1960s. The trigger appears to be the end of the friendship between the intense Lydia and the outgoing Abbie... Read more... |
DVD: Still LifeTuesday, 21 April 2015
Although understated, Still Life asks some profound questions. What happens to those who are alone after they die? How should they be treated? Do their memories matter? Once life ends, is it OK to throw common decency out of the window?To any right-... Read more... |
Safe House, ITVTuesday, 21 April 2015
The title is, of course, ironic. The house in question is a rambling refurbished dwelling deep in the Lake District, reached by driving through lonely wind-blasted valleys and across rain-thrashed hillsides. It's where a former policeman, known only... Read more... |
GlasslandMonday, 13 April 2015
The burden of responsibility weighs heavily on a young man struggling to deal with his mother’s alcoholism, in Gerard Barrett’s powerful and poignant second feature. Jack Reynor, who so impressed in Lenny Abrahamson’s What Richard Did, turns in a... Read more... |
Lost RiverWednesday, 08 April 2015
Ryan Gosling throws a lot at his first film as director but Lost River is a sign he has found a single discipline which can accommodate many of his scattershot tendencies. He does not, though, find a place for his own musical output in the avowedly... Read more... |
