Medea, Almeida Theatre review: This tragedy will hit home, even if Euripides is all Greek to you October 8, 2015 The Almeida has saved the fiercest play in its ambitious Greek season for last. Medea – widely considered a proto-feminist text – was never going to be the hardest tragedy to drag into the 21st century. Even so, playwright Rachel Cusk’s modern re-telling is uncomfortably familiar. Her version of the titular Medea is a playwright [...]
Sicario movie review: Emily Blunt is embroiled in a brutally violent cartel drug war in this cloak and dagger thriller October 8, 2015 Cert 15 | ★★★★☆ Benicio Del Toro rocks some seriously distracting camel-toe in one harrowing scene, but that’s only the third or fourth most visceral image in Sicario. It’s a violent drug cartel thriller in which Emily Blunt plays Kate Macer, a steely FBI door-kicker who finds herself drafted into a highly secretive, off-the-books government [...]
Mix it up: Why you need to try a goat’s cheese cocktail October 6, 2015 Shoreditch’s Worship Street Whistling Shop has undergone a face-lift and has a new cocktail list to boot. I popped down to check out its new drinks, and though the paint wasn’t yet dry the cocktails were perfectly polished. Its new menu is based around the elements – earth, wind, fire and water – and the [...]
Lessons in wine: Your plonk smells off? Don’t blame the cork October 6, 2015 "This wine is corked" is a statement I hear a lot, used pejoratively to describe any wine with a fault. It’s usually an unfounded accusation. There are several innocent non-faults that are considered signs of corkage, including: • Cloudy wine, generally found in mature wine once sediment has been disrupted. • Bubbles in red wines, [...]
Restaurant review: Sauterelle is elaborate, confident and fun October 6, 2015 Sauterelle Royal Exchange, EC3V 3LR FOOD ★★★★☆ VALUE ★★★☆☆ ATMOSPHERE ★★★☆☆ Cost for two with wine: £180 October is the month that most of us turn our central heating back on. I heard this on a news bulletin last week and thought: good on you for squeezing such a banal piece of information onto a national radio broadcast. [...]
Coffee psychology: how everything from the colour of the cup to the sounds of the café can affect how your coffee tastes October 6, 2015 Want a better tasting coffee? Just whip the lid off, stick your beak in and have a smell. Because whether you’re drinking in Costa Rica or in Costa Coffee, you’re tasting your coffee long before it ever touches your lips. Everything from smells, colours, shapes and sounds can affect how you perceive what’s sloshing around [...]
The social climber: Range Rover Evoque review October 5, 2015 Every so often, a car comes along that captures the zeitgeist – appealing to fashionistas and forward-thinking petrolheads alike. In 2011, that car was the Range Rover Evoque: a compact 4×4 with space-age styling and an interior designed by Posh Spice. A long waiting list followed its launch, and more than 450,000 have been sold [...]
No.1 Fitness London: How working with a personal trainer can transform your body in just 12 weeks October 5, 2015 “Transform your body in just 12 weeks” sounds like an impossible task, the kind of thing you read in the classified section of old newspapers. City gym No.1 Fitness is out to show that it really can be done. The gym, run by Ben Camara and Harry Thomas, is by-appointment-only and combines multiple weekly sessions [...]
The Walk movie review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt flies high in this vertigo-inducing IMAX 3D spectacle October 2, 2015 Cert PG | ★★★★☆ Joseph Gordon-Levitt puts on a wig and smiles enigmatically in this film about Phillipe Petit, the Frenchman who stunned onlookers and the world by walking a wire between New York’s Twin Towers in 1974. Director Robert Zemeckis tells the story of Petit’s training, and the plan that saw him and a [...]
The Birds theatre review: Avoid this play like you would avian flu October 1, 2015 The Birds Leicester Square Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ The first thought that goes through one's head before a stage version of The Birds is: I wonder how they're going to make the birds happen. Notoriously difficult to work with, birds – all beak and feathers and malevolent intent. Wicked little pseudo dinosaurs. But after sitting through this painfully [...]
