Category: Film

Honourable members, football hooligans

FILM REVIEW: THIS HOUSE. YOU DO NOT need to be an expert in the shenaginans of British political history to be swept away on the current of caustic cynicism and dead pan humour that sutures together this beautiful piece of theatre. James Graham’s contemporary work aligns Tory values […]

Heroic bravado of a paper lantern

FILM REVIEW: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. THE ROLE OF Blanche du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire has, since 1947 when Tennessee Williams first penned it, become iconic as a reflection of the tawdry vulnerability and bravado of a character losing her moorings, while she pretends to be […]

Paean to an African hairdo

FILM REVIEW: THE BARBERSHOP CHRONICLES. WHERE IS IT that African men get to kick back, let their hair down and loosen their tongues? The communal urinal? The local bar? Under the pen of Inua Ellams, it’s the barbershop; South African writers of the ilk of Tony Miyambo, Sue […]

Bloody glasses for sweet milk

FILM REVIEW: MACBETH. OTHERWISE KNOWN AS ‘The Scottish Play’ Shakespeare’s Macbeth is the one tragedy most filled with special effects to make it sizzle with audience accessibility. From witches and ghosts to murderers and phantoms, the work in anyone’s hands has the frisson of sensationalism of any good […]

Eternity: In their lips, their eyes

FILM REVIEW: ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. IF YOU FEEL you deserve something so rich and evolved, something so sophisticated and delicious on the senses, this evening or any time until Wednesday 13 May, don’t lean toward the fridge or the online hot food delivery business. Don’t get despondent that […]

Two fair gourds of equal sweetness

FILM REVIEW: THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, FILMED AT THE GLOBE. FRANCESCA MILLS TAKES the soul of this production of The Two Noble Kinsmen, one of Shakespeare’s lesser known works and rolls it between her fingers, thunderously like a god. This performer, who has dwarfism, takes on the whole […]

Original sin; utter hubris

FILM REVIEW: FRANKENSTEIN. This review is premised on the version of the work with Jonny Lee Miller as the creature. A man makes a living creature by pulling together alchemical possibilities and graveyard detritus sewn together with a crude hand. And thus starts one of the western world’s […]

A tale of monsters and broken men

FILM REVIEW: FRANKENSTEIN. This review is premised on the version of the work with Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature. What is it that gives us humanity? Nay, that gives us life? The stuff that distinguishes life from death is the substance of the 1817 prototype gothic horror novel […]