LGBT+
DVD/Blu-ray: Are We Lost ForeverTuesday, 05 January 2021
The title of Swedish director David Färdmar’s feature debut gains a degree of helpful context from one of its opening lines, “But there’s no more we”. One partner, Hampus (Jonathan Andersson), is telling the other, Adrian (Björn Elgerd), that... Read more... |
Overflow, Bush Theatre review – fear, fury and funSaturday, 12 December 2020
Travis Alabanza is black, trans, queer and proud. And they’ve got a lot to be proud about. In 2016, they were the youngest recipient of the artist in residence post on the Tate workshop programme, and two years later starred in Chris Goode’s wildly... Read more... |
Album: Dolly Parton - A Dolly Holly ChristmasFriday, 11 December 2020
Think hard. How much schmaltz do you think there is in this album? OK, double that. Now double it again. Nope, you’re still nowhere close. This is the world schmaltz lake with the entire EU cheese mountain forming an island in the middle, all... Read more... |
GHBoy, Charing Cross Theatre review - drugs and sex but no rock 'n' rollTuesday, 08 December 2020
A 35-year-old gay man has to figure out which way to turn in GHBoy, the Paul Harvard play whose connection to the chemsex world is embedded in its title. Will Robert (Jimmy Essex) settle into a relationship with Catalan university student Sergi (... Read more... |
Zaina Arafat: You Exist Too Much review - second-generation love addictionMonday, 30 November 2020
Zaina Arafat’s debut details the trials and tribulations of its first generation American-Palestinian narrator, desperately seeking love, but unable to stand its stifling reciprocation. Her struggles are all tied up with her inability to admit her... Read more... |
Uncle Frank review - well-acted but painfully contrivedSaturday, 28 November 2020
A top-rank cast swims against the tide in Uncle Frank, writer-director Alan Ball's well-intentioned but fatally contrived film that presumably contains more than a trace of the Oscar-winning filmmaker's own past. Telling of a gay southerner called... Read more... |
Extract: 'On Loneliness' by Fatimah Asghar, from 'The Good Immigrant USA'Tuesday, 24 November 2020
The infamous border wall. Prolonged detention. Children in cages. Even as Biden's election promises a sea change in Trump's devastatingly hardline immigration policy, immigrants, both first- and second-generation, face a spectrum of prejudice,... Read more... |
Harlots, BBC Two review – sublime, ridiculous, and always entertainingThursday, 05 November 2020
Back to Georgian brothels, now – at least, for those of us who don’t have a Hulu subscription. The BBC’s airing of the second series of Harlots over the summer felt strangely timely. Barely an episode in and an angry crowd was hammering at the local... Read more... |
Nine Lives, Bridge Theatre review - engaging if slim finale to ambitious solo seasonMonday, 26 October 2020
Call him Ishmael, and the Zimbabwe-born, UK-based writer Zodwa Nyoni has done just that. That's the name of the solo character in Nyoni's slight but undeniably affecting 50-minute solo play Nine Lives, which caps a season of monologues at the Bridge... Read more... |
Summer of 85 review - a tender, tragic coming-of-ageFriday, 23 October 2020
Intriguingly, Summer of 85 could have been François Ozon’s very first film. Back in the mid-Eighties the French director was much taken by Dance on My Grave, the YA novel by Aidan Chambers on which it’s based, its youth-romance, coming-of-age story... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Beau TravailTuesday, 29 September 2020
This fifth feature from Claire Denis must surely be the director’s most sheerly concentrated film. Scaling back narrative and dialogue alike – story elucidation relies mainly on intermittent retrospective voice-over narration – Beau Travail engages... Read more... |
Sunnymead Court, Tristan Bates Theatre review - a lovely lockdown romanceSaturday, 26 September 2020
The first words of Sunnymead Court, a new play at the Tristan Bates Theatre, are ominous. “We are transitioning from human experiences to digital experiences.” Oof. Thankfully, this isn’t another gloomy lockdown drama about the evils of Zoom quizzes... Read more... |
