At certain times of year or at a certain age we have perhaps all felt a little like the Ebenezer Scrooge of Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. As shake and stir theatre company’s adaptation reminds us, however, the cold-hearted elderly miser that we meet at the outset of the story is still capable…
The comedic horror story Yoga Hosers is the second of what writer and director Kevin Smith has called the True North Trilogy. The first, Tusk (released in 2014), was based upon Smith’s weekly podcast in which he and his long-time producing partner Scott Mosier discuss current events and other random topics in a humorous way….
Queen Victoria formed an attachment late in life that brought the royal household to the point of apoplexy. That true story is given poetic licence in Victoria & Abdul. In 1887, Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal) – a 24-year-old clerk – travelled from India to the UK to present a ceremonial medal as part of the…
Sometimes a show is so unique that review words can do little to aptly describe the reality of its shared experience. From the first moments of entry into the Metro Arts Sue Brenner Theatre via its alongside carriageway of welcoming performance artists, Cargo Club presents an enriched multi-artform celebration of culture and tradition in its…
The atmosphere of the era is set the moment one enters The Chapel at Chapel Off Chapel, which has been transformed into a den of iniquity. The band is playing and the mood is raucous and raunchy, with gamblers, showgirls and puritans mixing freely with the audience. Particular attention is paid to those seated at the two…
Michael Pearce’s feature film debut Beast explores the line between evil and misunderstanding. Moll Huntford (Jessie Buckley) was home-schooled by her domineering mother, Hilary (Geraldine James) after an incident at school more than a decade earlier. Now a tour guide on the Channel Island of Jersey, she can’t stand the constraints placed on her at…
It’s lively. It’s cheery. It upends political correctness. In fact, it is the perfect holiday treat. I speak of School of Rock The Musical, featuring the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Glenn Slater and book by Julian Fellowes. Based on the 2003 film, which was a hit for Jack Black, who played…
What’s the truism? Behind every great man there is a woman. There would be few arguments that the greatest writer of all time was William Shakespeare. But what if Shakespeare, who is credited with writing at least 37 plays (and collaborated on several more), didn’t actually do so? I mean, what if it wasn’t Shakespeare who wrote them,…
Geostorm has to be one of the most ridiculous disaster movies in a pantheon of clunkers in the genre. Even the special effects are severely underwhelming. After an unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world’s leaders came together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep…
A slow-burning Iranian movie, Wednesday, May 9 lifts the lid on the role of women and the subjugation of them in a repressed society. It takes a while to unravel the threads, because the story is presented as a puzzle with the pieces being fitted together over time. We first meet a woman with a…
