3rd March 2023
A prolific movie director from Hollywood’s Golden Age appeals to modern viewers. Over 100 years after the premiere of his first feature film, the voice of Alfred Hitchcock (via the brilliant impressionist Alistair McGowan) calls to us modern people with our 5G phones. Already renowned as “the Master of Suspense” with his cinematography dissected by ...
3rd March 2023
The writers show off their ability to walk the line of tension and warmth with exemplary care. Before the series adaptation, I was unaware of the prominence of The Last of Us among the gaming community. In all honesty, it was the announcement of Pedro Pascal in a leading role that initially perked my ears ...
3rd March 2023
Best described as a damp squib. The sequel to 2009’s grand epic, Avatar: The Way of Water, is a predictable and tired narrative packaged in a breath-taking piece of cinematography. Pandora is the epitome of natural beauty but with a delightful sci-fi twist, and the expensive but worth it technology involved makes this world feel ...
3rd March 2023
An emotional journey into the depths of self-destruction. Darren Aronofsky has done it again. The master of evoking discomfort and emotional terror has produced yet another film drenched in melancholy and uncomfortable situations. However, in this instance, things are much more toned down. There’s no frantic psychosexual paranoia as in Black Swan, or the manic ...
28th February 2023
An exploration of the small-scale issues with BCNR’s Live at Bush Hall. “Look at what we did together, BCNR, friends forever.” Black Country New Road’s Live at Bush Hall has all the hallmarks of a final goodbye. The performance is framed like a prom, with its protagonists dressed in decaying school-dance garb, as if stumbling ...
21st February 2023
A fantasy novel about the British Empire, Babel should be taught in Universities. The recently published Babel by R.F. Kuang, author of the notorious The Poppy War trilogy, is an absolute gem. Set in a fictitious, early 1800s Oxford, Babel is the name for the Royal Institute of Translation, a building which towers above the ...
21st February 2023
In a mixing pot of influences, veterans Paramore escape their storied past through brevity and quality. In the six years since the Nashville band’s previous critically acclaimed effort, After Laughter, much has changed, both for the three members (this is the first time Paramore has retained a band line-up for successive records) and for the ...
21st February 2023
The band give back to the city that flourished them with a formidable jazz fusion show. Swapping Radnor fizz for Red Stripe, seeing Femi and T.J. Keleoso of Ezra Collective grace the stage at SWG3 was a far cry from their performance at our school jazz night ten years ago. Yet the same emphatic energy ...
18th February 2023
“Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and a Spare”. Prince Harry pulls back the curtain on the Royal family. Spare – Prince Harry’s new memoir, ghostwritten by the Pulitzer-winning J.R. Moehringer – is a story of rift, first a tragic one between Harry and his mother, and now one between himself and the Royal ...
13th February 2023
A stripped back celebration of Verdi’s extensive career. The Verdi Collection is not, says conductor Stuart Stratford, a “superior range of M&S chocolates”. It acts, instead, as a series of highlights from Verdi’s exhaustive career (27 operas in total), a kind of Verdiad. The setting at City Halls is caught halfway between concert hall and ...
