Skyscraper review: Dwayne Johnson jumping around on top of a tall building is precisely as entertaining as that sounds July 12, 2018 Having recently fought a malevolent board game in Jumanji: Return to the Jungle, and wrestled giant mutant monsters in Rampage, Hollywood’s busiest stack of sentient beef Dwayne Johnson is back to face off against his largest foe yet, the world’s tallest skyscraper. Mountains and small moons must now be shaking in their enormous boots, [...]
Pressure review: David Haig’s geeky play highlights one of World War Two’s most interesting footnotes June 22, 2018 If there’s one thing the British enjoy more than talking about the weather, it’s making the glib observation that the British enjoy talking about the weather. But David Haig’s high-stakes play about cold fronts is anything but banal weather chat. Pressure is a love letter to the country’s uniquely capricious skies, telling the true [...]
Freak Show review: A coming of age queer comedy undermined by an unlikeable hero June 22, 2018 A coming-of-age high-school comedy-drama about a queer teenager alienated for his fabulous and gender-smashing fashion sense, Freak Show casts rising star Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game) as the camp-as-tits Billy Bloom. He idolises his cackling diva mother (Bette Midler), but when she up and vanishes he’s forced to move to his father’s sprawling stately [...]
Machinal at the Almeida review: Sophie Treadwell’s play is a wild, expressionistic ride through the Kafkaesque production-line of life June 15, 2018 Machinal opens in a loud and lairy 1920s office. Overlapping conversations about sex and romance are given a staccato rhythm by the clack and ding of a dozen typewriters. The question on everyone’s lips is: who’s sleeping with who? The juiciest gossip focuses on the girl who’s missing, her empty desk made all the [...]
Here are the nine biggest new game announcements from E3 2018 June 13, 2018 This year's E3 conference in Los Angeles ushered in some fresh announcements alongside a raft of previously revealed games. As the show draws to a close, here's a selection of the biggest trailers from E3 2018. CyberPunk 2077 Release date: 2019 on PS4, XBO and PC Polish studio CD Projekt Red is best known [...]
Translations at the National Theatre review – a smart look at British imperialism on the island of Ireland June 8, 2018 Calling on the fearsome technical resources of the National Theatre, Ian Rickson’s new production of Brian Friel’s Translations is accomplished if not revolutionary. Set in Ireland’s County Donegal in 1833, it deals with the overwriting of landscapes by empire and the entwining of language with identity. It’s the tale of a “hedge-school” in the community [...]
Irvine Welsh interview: Growing old disgracefully May 3, 2018 The image of a former enfant terrible growing up, moving to a big house by the ocean and living a life of manicured leisure is hardly novel. Even so, hearing Irvine Welsh – former heroin addict, guitarist with punk band The Pubic Lice, and author of Trainspotting – talk about his Miami pilates regime is [...]
Peter Rabbit review: Highly irritating bunnies ruin a charming rom-com loosely based on Beatrix Potter’s book March 16, 2018 From Paddington to the Big Friendly Giant, British children’s literature is killing it at the box office. It was only a matter of time, then, before someone snapped up the film rights to Beatrix Potter and her merry band of trouserless critters. It’s attracted some big stars, too; Sam Neill as the ultimate nimby Farmer [...]
Macbeth at the National Theatre: Rufus Norris’ stars fail to shine in this cautious production March 9, 2018 Rufus Norris, the artistic director at the National Theatre, isn’t having a great time right now. While his predecessor Nicholas Hytner is having a ball at the helm of the new Bridge Theatre down the riverbank, Norris has suffered a string of flops in the Olivier, from a sand-blasted Salome to the bafflingly coarse Common. [...]
Summer and Smoke at the Almeida: Tennessee Williams’ complex play is brought to heart-rending life in this fantastic production March 9, 2018 Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke is about opposing forces: the microscopic and the infinite, the physical and the spiritual, anarchy and order, sanity and madness, and the thankless task we humans have trying to work out where exactly we fit into all this. It tackles these swooping metaphysical questions through the prism of unrequited [...]
