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'Fruitvale Station' (2013) directed by Ryan Coogler
In grainy iPhone footage we watch cops wrestle a handcuffed man to the ground and shoot him in the back. The camera wobbles as the crowd lets out a collective gasp of disbelief. This is the murder of...
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'Jimmy's Hall' (2014) directed by Ken Loach
"Ken Loach doesn’t think very much of me. In a broadside against critics, he described us as “the kind of people who live in darkened rooms” and who don’t “engage in political struggle in the real...
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'Hamlet' at Riverside Studios, 31st May 2014
For a play about an indecisive loser whose half-baked plans get everyone killed, William Shakespeare's Hamletis actually pretty good. It's my favourite Shakespeare - which is perhaps a bit of a...
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'Cheap Thrills' (2013) directed by E. L. Katz
We may want to be luminous beings but we're in the end we're just greedy beasts with simple needs. To fill these needs; be they food, shelter or the latest fancy piece of consumer electronics...
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CEREBELLUM at The Macbeth, 3rd June 2014
Lately I've been on the outs with performance art. The thrill of experiencing someone translating meaning into movement, sound and interaction has been deadened due to overexposure. All too often...
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'A Catered Affair' at The Eel Brook, 5th June 2014
A Catered Affair is an odd duck of a musical. For one it's fiercely claustrophobic; the action taking place almost entirely within a run-down Bronx tenement inhabited by a small cast grappling with...
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'Futures: Art and Design Show 2014' at The Old Truman Brewery, 6th June 2014
Where on earth do you even begin? Sprawled over the gargantuan interior of the old brewery is so much art it makes your head spin (and that's even before I indulged in the complementary beers). It'd...
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'Saturday Circus' at The Aeronaut, 7th June 2014
The Aeronaut is what happens when a circus crashes headlong into a pub. It's the kind of place you'd expect to find on The Reeperbahn or perhaps nestled down a modishly raffish Parisian side street....
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'The Diary of a Nobody' at the White Bear Theatre, 8th June 2014
First published in 1888as a serial in Punch magazine, The Diary of a Nobody show us the humdrum domestic life of Charles Pooter, clerk in a non-descript, vaguely Dickensian finance firm. Orbiting him...
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The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013) directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Can you feel nostalgic for an myth? Jean-Pierre Jeunet seems to think so. The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet is an amusement park ride through a dreamland Americana – a fantasy of gleaming silver...
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'Chinese Puzzle' (Casse-tête chinois) (2014) directed by Cédric Klapisch
Capturing human interaction on film isn't as easy as it sounds. Too often screenwriters and directors retreat into cliched dialogue and stock characters to the point where the people running around...
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'Ellas' by Maripaz Jaramillo at Gallery Petit, 10th June 2014
The London summer is finally here. How long it's going to stick around nobody knows, so let's enjoy it while we can This onset of light, heat and happiness casts the city in a fresh light - makes for...
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'Punching Jane' at The Courtyard Theatre, 11th June 2014
Punching Jane is a play about brawling 18th Century prostitutes. It is awful. Sat in the front row I watched proceedings with a rictus grimace, quietly amazed at how damn bad it was. Eventually my...
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The Fault in Our Stars (2014) directed by Josh Boone
The Fault in Our Stars opens with a big promise: this isn't going to be one of those syrupy, schmaltzy Hollywood films about cancer. No, this film is, according to our protagonist and narrator,...
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'Jersey Boys' (2014) directed by Clint Eastwood
When I sat down to watch Jersey Boys I couldn't have given less of a toss about Frankie Valli or The Four Seasons. 134 minutes later I still didn't. It's not that I don't like the music, but I find...
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'Cosi fan tutte' by Pop-up Opera, 18th June 2014
Up to now I've had a fractious relationship with opera. I've always appreciated it, looked forward to it and on the whole just about enjoyed just about everything I've seen, but at the same time I've...
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'Chef' (2014) directed by Jon Favreau
In 2010 Jon Favreau had the world at his feet. With the rapturously received Iron Man having kicked off the gargantuan Marvel movie franchise he was Hollywood's new blocksbuster golden boy. As they...
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Walking on Sunshine (2014) directed by Max Giwa & Dania Pasquini
Films like Walking on Sunshine make you think al-Qaeda might have a point after all. Like anybody else, I’ve got serious problems with the basic tenets of Islamic Fundamentalism, but it’s got to be...
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'Deux Chevaux: A Performance by William Mackrell', 21st June 2014
It's Saturday in London and the sun beats down on a grateful city. In Hyde Park the crowds lobster themselves red, sucking down cider and munching expensive crisps. Swans slide serenely across the...
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Screen Robot Podcast Episode 9
My appearance on the Screen Robot Filmcast with Dominic Mills & Liam Dunn reviewing The Fault in Our Stars, Jersey Boys, Walking On Sunshine and others.Hear me sing Don't You Want Me Baby!
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