When British author E.J. James released his erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey in 2011, it titillated an excited throng of readers. The frenzy returned four years later with the release of the Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Hollywood film, starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan. The subject was, of course, the unusual relationship between a young…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 15 January 2021. Pearl Charles has been playing music since she was 5 years old. At 18, she formed country duo The Driftwood Singers with Christian Lee Hutson, singing and playing guitar and autoharp. At 22, she joined garage…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 13 January 2023. Yo-Yo Ma’s new album with Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos, Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5, is available now on Sony Classical. The album presents two of Beethoven’s iconic symphonies in intimate arrangements that…
It is timely, of course, reading a novel about an airborne illness that necessitates changes in human behaviours in order to reduce its deadly impact upon a population. The Pull of the Stars is set over a three day period, sharply focused on one woman’s battle to keep her head about water as she cares…
There have been many great films that have depicted teachers as caring individuals who have moulded young minds and shaped their charges for the better – from To Sir With Love through to Lean on Me, Dangerous Minds, and Dead Poet’s Society – and there have also been a few that have depicted the jaded…
Comic Russell Brand has always enjoyed a bit of social activism. Now he teams up with prolific director Michael Winterbottom (The Trip) for this polemic on the evils of corporate greed and the growing disparity between the rich and the poor in the modern world. The rich keep getting richer while the poor continue to…
Lots of great speculative fiction books involve steam trains. Some highlights of this China Mieville’s Iron Council, Terry Pratchett’s Raising Steam to Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Express. And of course, being steam driven, trains often feature in pretty much anything written in the steampunk sub-genre. Sarah Brooks’ debut draws on some of this but also on…
After a three-year break, David Fincher is back with a very un-Fincher-like film with The Killer. This finely crafted film sees the director subverting just about every convention of the hitman sub-genre in a way I found both inventive and a little perplexing at the same time. Fincher is of course known for the directorial…
The Plant, by Kit Brookman, is the winner of the Ensemble Theatre’s 2016 New Writing Commission. Sue (Sandy Gore) and her three children, Erin (Helen Dallimore), Daniel (Garth Holcombe) and Naomi (Briallen Clarke) are packing up the family home not long after the death of the husband/father from, what one of them describe as: ‘in-built…
A charming victory against-the-odds story set in France, Ballerina concerns a couple of orphan kids. Félicie (voiced by Elle Fanning) is a wannabe dancer. That is her great passion in life. Victor (Dane DeHaan) wants to become a great inventor. The problem is he is basically a klutz. The pair has also long wanted to…
