In director by Richard Eyre’s Allelujah, the Bethlehem is a small geriatric hospital in Yorkshire and its various wards are named after celebrities who have donated money. But the hospital is now being threatened with closure due to budget cuts by the Minister of Health as the politician wants to focus the health system on…
Hindsight, they say, is 20-20. But the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia can distort the lens. In Belfast, director Kenneth Branagh delivers a love letter to his childhood hometown. But I couldn’t shake the feeling his memory might have taken the hard edges off a tumultuous time in Northern Ireland. That’s understandable – after all, the…
Set on the eve of WWII, Six Minutes to Midnight is a moderately engaging spy thriller. The film is set mainly in the Augusta-Victoria College, situated in a sprawling old mansion in Bexhill On Sea, near Brighton. It’s an upmarket British finishing school for the daughters and goddaughters of high-ranking Nazis. The girls are learning…
In the days before the pandemic (remember them?), hype swirled around Disney’s adaptation of Artemis Fowl, the much-loved YA novel by Eoin Colfer. Originally slated for a (northern) summer release, COVID-19 torpedoed those plans and Disney moved it straight to its new streaming platform, Disney +. In hindsight, that could have been a wise move….
By the end I was bawling like a baby. CATS, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical as a Tom Hooper-directed and co-written (with Lee Hall) film, is a triumph of theatrics – costuming, make-up, choreography, colour and emotion. In the original 1980s stage musical, CATS takes place on the night of the annual Jellicle Ball, when…
Sleeper agents hold a weird fascination. When one is uncovered, the media seem intrigued. But of course the reality of someone playing a “long game” of espionage is often far more prosaic than sensational headlines would suggest. That reality fuels Trevor Nunn’s stagy drama, Red Joan. Lindsay Shapero wrote the original screenplay, basing it loosely…
In 1613 William Shakespeare (played in All is True by Kenneth Branagh) was the most famous writer in England. But then his beloved Globe Theatre burned to the ground during a performance of his final play Henry VIII after a prop misfired. Shakespeare retired following that disaster and returned home to Stratford-upon-Avon. There he pottered…
Tea with the Dames provides a fly-on-the-wall look at four grand dames of British theatre. This quartet have been friends for ages. They get together periodically and now, for the first time, they have let the cameras record their interplay. At the same time, we take a look back at their careers through clips of…
What should you do when making a film of a world-famous book by Agatha Christie and a large part of the audience knows the ending already? Well, the best thing you do is to gather a star cast and using the necessary digital magic tricks to ensure a wow effect. Whether this is enough in…
– Tea with the Dames – Only in cinemas from 7 June 2018 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to Transmission Films. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE TEA WITH THE DAMES is a unique celebration of the lives and careers of four of our most iconic actresses; Dame Eileen Atkins,…
