Articles by:
An adaptation is always going to differ from its source material. A play can’t be the book, and neither can a movie; what’s necessary is to capture the mood and essence of the story and transplant it to a different medium. Jonathan Glazer’s remarkable film Under the Skin, for example, is such an abstracted adaptation … >
How do you even begin staging one of the most oft-performed plays of all time? Oscar Wilde’s 1895 masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest has been done with an all-male cast, all-black cast, all-nude cast, with puppets, as an opera, as a musical, and been adapted for film and TV. Well, Adrian Noble’s new production … >
While Morecambe & Wise, EastEnders and Doctor Who have become bywords for Christmas television, there’s something about Victoria Wood that, despite her scarce appearances, inextricably ties her to the holiday season. Perhaps it’s her warmth, her joviality, her focus on ordinary folk just muddling through and being good to their fellow man. The point is, … >
While the audience might guess the setting of Enda Walsh’s Ballyturk to be a fictional village in Ireland sometime in the late ‘60s / early ‘70s, the programme specifies that it takes place in “No time. No place.” Very well. Its characters are numbered rather than named. 1 (Cillian Murphy) and 2 (Mikel Murfi) spend … >
Two hipsters meet at a party. Both are a bit awkward but in an appealingly cutesy, rather than “bust-stop weirdo”, way. They have an instant connection. She already has a boyfriend. Indie soundtrack and twee animations ensue. It’s so easy to be dismissive of What If, a movie that tries incredibly hard to present itself … >
John Carney’s Once became the sort of Cinderella story Hollywood would jump on in a heartbeat. Costing less than the average London flat, the Irish underdog went on to win acclaim from audiences and critics alike (and an Oscar for Best Song), before transmogrifying into one of the hottest tickets in the West End musical … >
However you look at it, the very existence of this film is a stroke of genius. What with Disney’s animation department having seen a Lion King-sized resurgence with Frozen, it seems tipping a hat to traditional Mouse House fairytales whilst gently pushing them down subversive new avenues might be the key to the company’s future … >
A lonely climbing frame sits amongst a host of birches in the darkness. Characters walk through the woods in the glow of a street lamp, their boots kicking up snow as they cross the scene. It seems only a few members of the audience have noticed what’s happening on stage, before the lights have dimmed; … >
What with our politicians recently posing for photos in wellies and pointing at rising water levels, it seems now is a good time for a screen adaptation of the Bible’s most eco-conscious tale. Russell Crowe fulfils his usual duty of squinting and grunting as the titular Noah, a man in a time before BBC Weather … >
Poor Divergent. No matter what it did, it would be compared to The Hunger Games. Perhaps with good reason, seeing as the film adaptation of Veronica Roth’s dystopian Young Adult trilogy was apparently greenlit the minute the credits started rolling on The Jennifer Lawrence Franchise. However, the similarities pretty much end at ‘dystopian Young Adult … >