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Whitecross Street Party 2014
There are few finer feelings than skipping out of your front door right into a street party. Now in its fifth year, the Whitecross Street Party is one of the highlights of my calendar and cements why...
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'Lilting' (2014) directed by Hong Khaou
Set in a perpetually overcast Hackney, Lilting is a delicately painted argument that the most fundamental human emotions exist somewhere beyond language. In this case it's grief, loss and depression...
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'Hercules' (2014) directed by Brett Ratner
"There aren’t many things less likely to inspire passion than the words “directed by Brett Ratner.” Say what you want about crowd pleasing blockbuster factories like Michael Bay, Zack Snyder or Justin...
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'Boyhood' (2014) directed by Richard Linklater
Summarising Boyhood is a fool's errand. How can you fit a film like this into a couple of paragraphs? Individual superlatives spring to mind; wonderful, touching, amazing, beautiful and so on, but...
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'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' (2014) directed by Matt Reeves
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is indisputably the smartest film in cinema history that features a chimpanzee wielding two assault rifles (while jumping a horse over a burning car in slow motion)....
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'Drag King Richard III' at Riverside Studios, 29th July 2014
It's with a sneaking sense of shame that I confess I'd assumed this was going to be an adaptation of Richard III by men in drag. The clue as to what it is actually about is in the title 'Drag King'...
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'Guardians of the Galaxy' (2014) directed by James Gunn
In James Gunn's excellent Guardians of the Galaxy the human race gets to be the coolest kid in the playground. Set in a universe populated by the moronic, the pompous and the self important (all with...
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The Tea and Crumpet Filmcast Episode I
My latest appearance on the Screen Robot Tea and Crumpets Filmcast (please know that I actively fought against this name). We're now on We Got This Covered - so have extended our audience to a whole...
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'Dessa Rose' at Trafalgar Studios, 31st July 2014
A West End musical about slavery is a risky proposition. The notion of an all-singing depiction of Southern States brings to mind Song of the South, the Disney film they'd rather we forgot. That...
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'Profile Picture' by Mark Farid at Arebyte Gallery, 3rd August 2014
Reader Access AgreementThis copy of London City Nights "the Website" and accompanying article are licensed and not sold. This material is protected by copyright laws and treaties, as well as laws and...
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'Soulmate' (2013) directed by Axelle Carolyn
Soulmate is the feature film debut of Axelle Carolyn, best known as the star of 2008's highly underrated, absolutely bonkers Doomsday. That film was a cage match between about ten different genres,...
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'The Picture of John Gray' at the Old Red Lion Theatre, 8th August 2014
In C.J. Wilmann's The Picture of John Gray Oscar Wilde is the sun. Shining high in the sky his presence illuminates every corner of this dramatic world. Yet like the sun you can't look at him...
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'The Congress' (2013) directed by Ari Folman
How on earth do films like this made? The Congress is an aggressively confusing, utterly idiosyncratic cocktail of a thousand different influences in which meaning, motivation and even the bare bones...
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'All Is by My Side' (2014) directed by John Ridley
A music biopic that's not allowed to use one solitary note of the subject's music is a tricky proposition. If we're not here for the music, then what are we here for? The musician's sparkling...
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'Alleluia' (2014) directed by Fabrice Du Welz
Bloody hell. Grinding industrial electronic music blasts over the end credits of Alleluia. I look around the screening to see a roomful of people exhaling in relief, some grinning at what they'd just...
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'The Apple Tree' at Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre, 15th August 2014
At times the theatre scene feels a bit myopic, companies spinning around the same old dramatic and musical standards ad infinitum. Quality aside, it gets a little tiring when you learn that perennials...
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'Night Moves' (2013) directed by Kelly Reichardt
The best films make you feel. Whether it's exhilaration as a grimacing hero explodes a helicopter, romantic squishiness as star-crossed lovers finally realise they're perfect for each other or...
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St Vincent at The Cambridge Junction, 19th August 2014
“Gotta make way for the homo superior”. Amidst a din of clattering guitars, maniacal whoops and digital noise, Bowie's words ran laps around my head. Why? Because I'm pretty damn sure Annie Clark is...
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'Next Brave New World' at Arebyte Gallery, 20th August 2014
Futurology is a mug's game. History is riddled with people making idiots of themselves when predicting the future, from Victorian underwater cities to the famously dumb 1977 assertion "there is no...
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